All About Me! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Talk at Rook Lane Chapel, Frome

Rook Lane Chapel, Coleridge Way works, plus my shells tells tales books.

Last week I found myself in the fortuitous (and honoured) position of talking about my own artistic practice at Rook Lane Chapel in Frome.

Over the past year I have been stockpiling images across my different projects including The Coleridge Way, Westcott Farm Labyrinth, Tell Tales Story Cards, Teasing Tags, Storywalks, Reading Den, and now Poetry Pin as well; phew there is just too much stuff!

So when I was asked, I was a little unsure where to start, how to sequence or thread these different elements together, and how to segway naturally between the projects. Thankfully they all have a playful literary core but in other ways each project has a different journey and though they may share the same root, the branches are reaching for a different sun.

Claire Vowell (left) lead teacher with
Norton St Philip StoryWalk Project

The project was organised by Break3 with the initial exhibition titled 'Words in the Woods' which morphed naturally into 'Free the Words' with a sub heading of 'Outdoor Adventures in Literature.'

These are all great umbrella titles, giving me scope to talk about everything, which ironically was the problem, I needed to throw something away. But what? Which parts didn't fit the story. I knew there would be feeder schools coming who were very interested in my Storywalks work with Norton St Philip school (just north of Frome) so that part was essential, but what about the other pieces, somehow they are all part of the jigsaw and all inform each other.

Exploration of old iron workings near Pen Elm, Frome

Recently I attended a presentation by the excellent Guy Mannes-Abbott at Contains Art in Watchet. Guy talked about his work and book Running in Ramallah with a slide show of images taken from the book itself. Guy read and spoke eloquently about his work and the artists with which he collaborated as a handful of slides rolled continuously behind throughout. But there were not enough, I wanted more, more, more!

Why are Y shaped sticks lucky - teasing tag question

So I thought, why don't I throw key images from the last 12 months work into a slideshow, pop it on random and let it roll. After pruning there would be about 200 images in all (some pictured,) making a brilliant texture to the talk and adding an unpredictable cross pollination to the script.

Whilst talking segments would then naturally link together, and over the course of the session make a full and rounded picture of my works, but as it transpired the talk didn't come together quite like this at all. The first section was graced with 'the A team' (their words) from Norton St Philip's school, and they did a stunning presentation of the storywalks experience from their perspective.

Both Claire Vowell (Norton Teacher) and I dipped in to fill out the content where needed, and then I followed with my back up selection of a more traditional slide show and script. All in all it was well received, especially the earlier session, so many thanks to all at Rook Lane, especially Jo Plimmer, Lucia Harley and Claire Carroll.

The exhibition is on until 22nd February at Rook Lane Chapel, so if you catch this blog today you've just got time to swing by. But there will be more, as the 'literacy den' is being nurtured as we speak, and will be roaming over the next six months or so, touring the local schools plus Frome Festival if all goes to plan.