How did you spend your Tuesday?  At ArtSpace we’ve been jazzing up 300 plastic ducks for the Windyway Duck Race on Bank holiday Monday.

They were all yellow and a bit boring

First they all got numbers on the bottom:

Then the team were challenged to make each duck individual!  Everyone got joined in, Rossendale Canalsiders, duty volunteers and regular ArtSpacers, we even managed to snag a passing Windyway person!

We thought it would take all week, however it turns out that decorating ducks is curiously addictive.  Apart from a little bit of touching up and the addition of numbers to the tops of the ducks we’re all done on the first afternoon.  Great fun was had by all.

Hi Folks

We moved into our Heapy street premises in September 2013 and this will be our 5th AGM.  We couldn’t have got here without our lovely ArtSpacers.

Meetings can be a bit boring and some of us are having to go to a lot of them while we work together to make Artspace better and continue to achieve more.  So we intend to try and make the business side of meeting for the AGM short and sweet, and then get stuck into celebrating our 5^th birthday and exploring the magnificent ideas and activities that will take us towards a great future.

Please come and join us on Tuesday 18^th September at 7pm at ArtSpace.  As part of the evening it is planned to have a “brainstorming” to look at the future development of ArtSpace and The Print Mill.  So we invite you all to come along with your ideas for exciting possibilities of what we could be doing.

All welcome, more details to follow, however there will definitely be cake!!

The March Of The Artists arrives in Macclesfield

Monday 30th July

 

Macclesfield Event: evening/night-time walk through Macclesfield

followed by post-walk gathering at ArtSpace.

 

The March Of The Artists is about visibility:

Unveiling the artists behind the art.

 

Join The Artists on a night-time walk visiting locations of significance around Macclesfield Town Centre. Come and share your stories about art, walking, photography, Macclesfield! Be a part of this month-long artwork.

Meet at 8pm in the Market Place

 

The Project:  In 1817 around 5,000 Lancashire spinners and weavers set off walking from Manchester to London with petitions for the Prince Regent about the desperate economic hardship faced by the textile industry in Lancashire. Approximately 500 made it to Macclesfield and it is thought that only one made it to London. This became known as the March of the Blanketeers.

Inspired by this march, and driven by the current movement of artists out of the city and a concern that this will reduce visibility, a core group of three artists will be walking from Manchester to London in August.

Lauren Sagar (visual Artist), Eve Robertson (theatre-maker) and John-Paul Brown (photographer) will follow the 250 mile route intended by The Blanketeers, making their first stop in Macclesfield.

Instead of petitions they bring stories and testimonies gathered from interviews and debates. During a night-time walk through the town and a hot-chocolate fuelled post-walk gathering at ArtSpace, the discussion will continue with those who choose to join them.

“Like The Blanketeers, artists are in a moment of evolution. The displacement of the city’s artists due to intense property development is stimulating a number of artist led projects to become autonomous and sustainable. This is our way to create some change.”

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/marchoftheartists/

http://laurensagar.com/portfolio_page/the-march-of-the-artists-2018/

Twitter: @CallForCloth

 

Well we’re nearly there folks, 19 sleeps till the parade, if you haven’t already told us you’re coming, don’t despair! there’s still time to sign up 🙂

The Parade team would love to help you join in the fun and are asking:

“Have you signed up yet for this year’s Barnaby Carnival Parade? 

 

You can also get in touch with John, our creative director on  sambajohn1@yahoo.com

For this post, in the header we’ve gone back to our 2010 roots, we’ve come a long way since then! Building bigger and better floats each year to accompany the most important part of the Parade, you lovely Macclesfield people!  This year sees our tallest float yet!  come along and see what it is.

 

Here are some ideas for you:

BARNABY FESTIVAL PARADE BRIEF 2018

Saturday 16^th  June 2018 @  12 noon

Macclesfield Town Centre

Theme:   ROOTS/ROUTES

Through the roots of the town springing from the forest to the route of the Silk Road

Enquiries:  Creative Director John Hartshorn  mobile  07522 019454   sambajohn1@yahoo.com

Registration and enquiries (form at bottom of this brief downloadable version Barnaby Parade 2018 Registration Form )

Parade Coordinator Louise Lewis barnabyparade@me.com

 

Workshops every Tuesday from 12 noon – 9pm and daily (just check with John that we are there)from 4th June till the Parade at Macclesfield Community Artspace, 2^nd Floor, The Arsenal, Sutton Mill,  Heapy Street, Macclesfield , Cheshire SK11 7JB (Lift available; Parking at rear)

It’s Parade time again and this year’s theme is Roots or Routes. We had some amazing entries in 2016 and some 800 people taking part when our theme was Space and we want this Parade to be even bigger and better.

A good Parade tells a story through costume and activity – we want to encourage groups to include sound and movement in their Parade entries and to show everyone how to have a great time! We’ll happily help you find ways to do this so get in touch if you would like to talk anything through.

You can register your group using the form below which is also on our website https://macclesfieldcommunityartspace.com/

 

Ideas for Parade Sections

 

The Forest

Based on the roots of Macclesfield Town springing from the forest and reflecting some of the history in the times of John De Macclesfield. This section will feature giant puppets, trees and plant growth with their roots symbolizing the town’s origins. We are looking for trees, forest growth, animal floats, puppets and costumes, foresters, woodcutters, wood nymphs Entertain us with folk music, singing and dancing!

Dissent

 Celebrating Macclesfield’s record of independent thinking and dissent, this section will feature historic and modern day protest. Here’s some idea’s but do feel free to get creative with your own ideas.

Celebrate the riot of 1812. You can find out more about the riot itself as www.macclesfieldpotatoriot.bigcartel.com. Show us some rich and poor folk in Regency costume, market barrows laden with local produce. There will be local militia and cavalry, the local magistrate along with shopkeepers, mill owners and riot leaders. We will be running some costume making sessions and street theatre workshops to bring the riot alive as the Parade passes through the town.

Celebrating 100 years since (some) women got the vote (not all, that wasn’t until 1928), we might see some Suffragettes, like Emilie Pankhurst or her daughters Sylvia and Christabel, dressed in their early 20th centry long skirts and full blouses, with their Votes for Women banners flying high. From 1908 the Women’s Suffrage movement adopted the colours violet, white and green – violet symbolised dignity, white purity and green, hope. You might want to use these colours too.

 

The Silk Road

 This section celebrates both route and roots. The Silk Road began at its eastern end in Xi’an in China and finished at its western end in Macclesfield. Show us what we might have seen

along the Silk Road through thousands of years of history! We would like to see ancient China, camel trains, silk, of course, spices, goods, Arts, religion and ideas represented.

Macclesfield’s Historical Characters

 For this section we will be creating giant puppets to represent characters from Macclesfield’s past. Reminiscent of out Parade in 2011 you might see St Barnabas, Charles Roe, Joan the Anchoress, James Chadwick, Charles Tunnicliffe, Ian Curtis, Lizzie the Barmaid and Maggoty Johnson. You can google these characters and find out more! We’d like to see you dressed as supporters and followers of these giant effigies. Feel free to come up with your own character from Macclesfield’s history or join with one of ours from Artspace.

Open Section

 Here is your chance to show us your own creative ideas! This section is for all the abstract and individual ideas that you can come up with. You might even find your creations fitting between other sections of the Parade .

Route of Parade: Assemble in the Car Park behind the Town Hall, turn left into Unicorn Gateway, left into Market Place, straight on down Mill St, right into Roe St, across Churchill Way, right into Bridge St, across Great King St, right into Chestergate, across Churchill Way, left into Market Place, then onto Unicorn Gateway returning to Town Hall Car Park. Tbc

 Parade Assembly from  09.00. Parade departs 12 noon and lasts approx. 1 hour.

Several stops en route for groups to do static performances.

 

 Barnaby Parade 2018 Registration Form.

Group Name	Main contact name and email	Main contact MOBILE number	Number in group and age range
A brief description of your parade entry

For further info on joining the Parade or to register your group by mail please contact:

 

Louise Lewis         barnabyparade@me.com

John Hartshorn     07522 019454

 

Please note – no live animals or motorised vehicles in the Parade without prior written approval. Disability buggies and guide dogs permitted.

 

Continue reading Never mind the Bee’s Knees, could you be the Dragon’s legs? →

Look behind you St George!!

Dilys the ArtSpace Dragon will be reprising her 2017 role and fighting St George around the middle of town as part of the Town Council’s Community Event.

Sunday 22nd April 2018 from 11am, more details to follow

Many thanks to Greg and Anna for the photos 🙂