somethings are happening

We have had a busy week working and next week will be much the same with half term break plus the Town Centre Day but you may have noticed something happening in town.

jelly 27/28

You can find out more about these pop-up galleries right here including the artists who are taking part. The work will only be exhibited until June 5 2009 but the images and artists information will remain on here.

The exhibitions are part of our Town Centre Day programme (previous info available here).

jelly, with the help of Reading artists, will be helping anyone and everyone who wants to become an Artist for the day. To celebrate 20 years of the Children’s Festival we want to create a town full of artists and artists in the making for the day. The event is free and will take place in Town Hall Square culminating in a mass art exhibition and changing the face of Reading for the day.

The exhibition of works created on the day will take place using the railings around Town Hall Square and the John Soane monument and through the Bristol and West Arcade complemented by window exhibitions of works by some of the artists who are helping us.

All this has been made possible by the generous help and support of Reading artists, Reading people and businesses, including picnic, Cream Design, Reading UK CIC, Reading Borough Council Voluntary Sector Support Unit, Sainsbury’s, Haslams, Fryer Holt, Brook Henderson, MUSE Developments and Hicks Development Ltd.

Come along and join us on the day and help us Change the face of Reading.

knitting vegetables

The Knitted Vegetable Workshop by Felix at jelly was a resounding success. Taking the idea of knitted vegetables to new levels, participants got to play with Felix’s gardening & cookery books and raid her vegetable-shades yarnpile for inspiration and materials. 1 pomegranate, 1 giant toadstool, 1 yellow pepper, 1 potato and 1 cucumber were cast on at the workshop and updates on their progress will be posted intermittently on Felix’s blog at The Domestic Soundscape

The idea behind the workshop was to pass on the maths, knowledge and personal experience of vegetable knitting gathered by Felix in the course of her knitting career. She is very enthusiastic about recreating ordinary objects in yarn and hopes that the principles of vegetable knitting will catch on and result in a bumper crop of knitted vegetables in 2008/9! Everyone at the workshop agreed that there isn’t enough sharing of basic knitting maths and went away with at least the numbers required to make a spherical or ovoid shape on double pointed needles and some tips on where to look for ideas.

Pumpkin knitted by Barbara, cake to be eaten by everybody else

Barbara’s knitted pumpkin (pictured here) which was mostly knit during the Jelly Knit Nights, imbued the evening with a festive feeling, and the ample cups of tea and gingery cake kept everyone’s spirits up in the face of complicated knitting maths!

Further veggie links
– toadstool reports here
– Felix’s knitted potato

workshops

One day in from the Affordable Art Fair and we are already doing art workshops.

Yesterday we were delivering a programme in Caversham, at Caversham Park Village Primary on the theme of *Challenges* as part of Family Learning Week. Each Family was asked to bring 3 items from their recycling bin and with the help of the jelly crew and our box of extra things, we helped them create sculptures and papier mache creatures amongst other delights. The workshop will run again this Thursday from 10.30-12.30 at The New Directions Centre, near Waitrose, Caversham. This is a family run activity supported by The Extended Learning Team and parents must stay with the children. Cost is 50p per family. No need too book, just turn up and we will be there.

Meanwhile in the jelly workshop we are running workshops on Wednesday and Thursday morning for children from the ages of 5 upwards. There are only a couple of spaces left on each at the point of writing this so please phone in advance to secure a space. Wednesday is a spooky castle workshop and Thursday we are making Papier mache spooky cats. The workshops run from 10.30-12.30 and further details can be found on the workshop page.