13/11/2024
Today was a very good day… it was confirmed that the care home would be delighted if I could teach some weaving workshops to all areas of the home. With the aim to create a large collaborative art piece to be displayed within the space.
Activities, Lee approached me in the morning at work and said how wonderful the idea would be.
Now I need to start collecting materials! Typical, I always see yams in charity shops etc. as soon as you need it… NOTHING!
Later when I was on my lunch break I received a call from one of the nurses saying that the manager would like me to join in on the residents meeting to explain what I shall be doing. I was really nervous, felt like I blanked out and said a load of waffle. Apparently I did get the point across well thank god!
I am super excited for this! This is just me all over, working with those living with dementia to try and better their quality of life while using textiles, weaving to do so.
29/01//2025
Tutorial with Lisa
Discussed SIPs, suggested I needed to think of a way to credit all of the people collaborating in the piece. I had assumed I was just going to write ‘Collaboration between all staff and residents at Westergate House’, however, after we this meeting I was made aware, not everyone was credited. I do have concerns listing everyone’s name. It will be very long as we have a lot of staff and residents. Could look too cluttered and also, how do we know who did what?
Another comment I made, was data protection… would everyone want their name on the wall?
03/01/2025
I decided to ask An Sutton and Rebecca who also works at Gallery 57. They both have slot of experience in terms of crediting and presenting your work. At first they agreed with me, saying a comment at the bottom of the woven piece would be enough as it’s within the care home and isn’t going to be sold etc.
I explained from my tutorial what my tutor had reminded me. They suggested creating a graph of the final piece and putting a number within the graph and then listing each persons name. They said, continue with the short credit including everyone at Westergate House… but then add, ask as reception for a list names of the people that collaborated within this project.
They agreed writing everyone’s names under the work would look cluttered and unprofessional.
Notes from DPS session on SIPs
These workshops have been doing really well. I have these images either posted on facebook by Westergate House, or images taken by me of the set up. I have found that sometimes people become confused with the idea of twisting the headle so have now warped two of the looms without this. Then people that have a better understanding of it can use it. In the beginning I found it quite difficult to explain it as residents would forget. I have decided that the most important thing is that people feel as though they can be playful and have a go. Some people in the house would worry too much about getting it wrong.
I also found that when completing sessions in the house members were less enthusiastic about completing the sessions. I preffered working in Memory lane as everyone was up for trying something new.
I have also been thinking about framing the pieces. I quite like the idea of a simple frame with 10x10cm squares to showcase each woven piece. I have taken an image of some of the pieces together and think it looks a bit messy joining them all. I really want it to look really proffesional.
Another issue I have found is having 4 people at the sessions is sometimes a bit overwhelming. Depending on how adventerous the residents are some just wait until you are sat next to them to carry on. To have that extra bit of reasurrance. It’s been useful having carers and activities sometimes sitting there also as an extra pair of hands. I had thought 4 people was very managable, so have been a little surprised by this.