Found Treasures from the Gawthorpe Hall grounds

Session 8: Making River Books

Session 7: Gawthorpe Hall, Flicker and Frogs!

Another lovely day out today. We travelled to Padiham to visit the gorgeous historical home of the Kay-Shuttleworth family at Gawthorpe Hall. 

It was the first time for all of us so it was great to experience the Hall and the grounds together. We looked around the Hall first and enjoyed Mid Pennine Arts' Flicker exhibition by artist Catherine Bertola. The textile collection was particularly wonderful and gave the group lots of ideas for how they could create their own embroidery inspired work.
Here's a (sneaky) picture of the group at the bottom of the grand staircase...

After a quick snack break in the cafe we spent the rest of our day exploring the garden and surrounding grounds of Gawthorpe. Inspired by Flicker, I set the group the task of taking photographs that could be layered on top of one another, so encouraging them to think about foreground, middle ground and background, contrasting colours and shapes, focussed detail versus blurred suggestion. I like this picture that Shannon took, the blurry boy with yellow T Shirt looks like he's running out of the yellow flowers..

While wandering around trying to find the best spot to get down to the river bank, we suddenly realised that the grass beneath our feet was moving...it was covered in teeny tiny baby frogs! After some initial trepidation by some (very proud of you Shona!) we couldn't help but gently pick up the cute little hoppers and capture some close up shots. This photo was captured by Danielle...

And this rather grumpy frog captured by Shona-Mae...

We didn't quite find the perfect spot to walk along the river as the bank was quite steep and overgrown but we managed to capture some great shots of the riverside wildlife. These shots were taken by Caitlin...

Shona-Mae captured a very romantic one of me coming out of the daisies...looks like I've just washed my hair in Timotei!

And I love this one that highlights the contrast between man-made and natural...

I captured a few shots too...

And here we are heading off into the undergrowth in search of the river bank...

The river was so peaceful, like a painting...

Sheltering from the showers at the end of the day...a lovely one of Shannon...

On location

Love this pic I took of the group last week.

Wonder what they got up to today...
Rachel

New sessions for the Autumn

We're really excited to announce that we'll have new sessions in the autumn on Saturday afternoons that anyone can come and take part in.  Artist Lucy Bergman will be leading the workshops, plus there'll be a guest artist who will join us for 2-3 sessions.

Here's the info you need:

Free Workshops:

• Filmmaking
• Photography
• Creative Writing
• Visual Arts

For ages 13 to 19 years

Saturdays 2 – 4pm

21^st Sept to 26^th Oct

Drop in or come every week!

In The Crib

Burnley Central Library

For more information contact Rachel Hawthorn

Email: rhawthorn@burnley.gov.uk

Telephone: 01282 425011 ext.3218

facebook.com/cribcreative

Session 5 - River Brun walk

The sun came out for us again on Wednesday and accompanied us on our second river walk. Again led by the lovely Vic we drove to where the River Don meets the Brun and started our walk from there. It was interesting getting an understanding of just how much work goes into altering the flow of the rivers. At many points along the river, 'steps' have been built to quicken the water's pace and it was fascinating how the water had so many different speeds in one small area. The changing flows help keep the water fresh and oxygenated which keeps it healthy for the fish and other wildlife.

I was also struck by how many different types of plant life grow by the river, all jostling for space and light. Some of these plants need to be removed ie Balsam and Knot Weed as they starve and suffocate all the other plants and trees but it was great to see such a wild and thriving habitat, so many colours and fragrances. I couldn't help imagine the tiny world going on under the huge Butter Burr leaves, hidden from our huge clumsy human feet.

It was great for us all to have time to meander along the river, capturing little snippets of film, learning new things and just taking in the atmosphere. As we walked we gradually tuned out the man-made world and everyone in the group became more and more adept at noticing interesting little details.

We ended our walk in Thompson Park and walked down to where the river starts to barrel under the town, such a different 'feel' to the earlier part of the walk, more concrete and metal, mud and rubbish. But there was still a strange kind of beauty in the clean lines and industrial elements and the river seems to flow with more intensity and purpose here as it is pushed into and under the town.

I don;t think we realised how far we'd walked until we made our way through town back to the Library, we all had achey legs and were ready for snacks!

Later today we'll be looking through all the film footage we captured, so watch this space...