It's been a while since I've written anything here but its about time I did. So I'm not going to go over past ground I shall just kick off with recent activities.
I've just had the pleasure of working with Shoscombe and Wellow Schools. Day one working with Shoscombe school was spent inside, thankfully. All the children made the lovely spiral bird feeders. Some of them made fish, which is a new addition to the selection. Using my beautiful coloured willow recently bought from Dick Willows near Bath, they created some colourful works of art!
The next day was outside making a 14 metre living willow fedge to border their forest school area. 6 hours later, lots of rain, loads of mud we finished and every child in the school had some kind of input, even if it had just been to help each other push a withy into the ground. They loved it so much they've asked me to go back and do a dome after half term!
The following week was a similar programme at Wellow school. Interestingly the weaving workshops were run using a different format as Shoscombe School. Both worked well and both had pros and cons. On the second day we built a 3 metre dome and there I had a small group of pupils to help, which actually was easier and they really got a lot out of being so involved. We even encountered some snow that morning but with some hot chocolate and biscuits waiting for us at half time we soldiered on!
The workshops had been funded by the Comenius Project where together with schools from across Europe they are looking at and sharing idea around the very broad theme of 100! I was asked to incorporate '100' somehow into my workshops. I give a short talk about willow before a workshop so thought I could incorporate it into that somehow. However nothing was particularly forthcoming when I looked online. Then a friend turned up with a beautiful book she had found in a charity shop called 'Willow'. The author is an artist called Kate Lynch who whilst painting people at their work, mainly willow weavers and workers she had recorded their conversations and some of these have been used alongside her paintings to create a wonderful fabric of history and experiences in the withy beds of the Somerset Levels. One of these conversations had been about willows uses in the First World War. This information had been perfect to pass onto the pupils, they were fascinated by the fact that huge wicker baskets had been used to drop supplies down to the troops, they'd bend out of shape but not break, ammunition was carried in baskets also the carrier pigeons that played such a major role in the war were carried around in wicker baskets. It was so important that if you were a willow grower you may have been lucky enough to not even have to go to war!
I've just had the pleasure of working with Shoscombe and Wellow Schools. Day one working with Shoscombe school was spent inside, thankfully. All the children made the lovely spiral bird feeders. Some of them made fish, which is a new addition to the selection. Using my beautiful coloured willow recently bought from Dick Willows near Bath, they created some colourful works of art!
The next day was outside making a 14 metre living willow fedge to border their forest school area. 6 hours later, lots of rain, loads of mud we finished and every child in the school had some kind of input, even if it had just been to help each other push a withy into the ground. They loved it so much they've asked me to go back and do a dome after half term!
The following week was a similar programme at Wellow school. Interestingly the weaving workshops were run using a different format as Shoscombe School. Both worked well and both had pros and cons. On the second day we built a 3 metre dome and there I had a small group of pupils to help, which actually was easier and they really got a lot out of being so involved. We even encountered some snow that morning but with some hot chocolate and biscuits waiting for us at half time we soldiered on!
The workshops had been funded by the Comenius Project where together with schools from across Europe they are looking at and sharing idea around the very broad theme of 100! I was asked to incorporate '100' somehow into my workshops. I give a short talk about willow before a workshop so thought I could incorporate it into that somehow. However nothing was particularly forthcoming when I looked online. Then a friend turned up with a beautiful book she had found in a charity shop called 'Willow'. The author is an artist called Kate Lynch who whilst painting people at their work, mainly willow weavers and workers she had recorded their conversations and some of these have been used alongside her paintings to create a wonderful fabric of history and experiences in the withy beds of the Somerset Levels. One of these conversations had been about willows uses in the First World War. This information had been perfect to pass onto the pupils, they were fascinated by the fact that huge wicker baskets had been used to drop supplies down to the troops, they'd bend out of shape but not break, ammunition was carried in baskets also the carrier pigeons that played such a major role in the war were carried around in wicker baskets. It was so important that if you were a willow grower you may have been lucky enough to not even have to go to war!
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