Windrush Live Virtual Open Mic 19th June 2020

What Talent!!

Walsall Creative Factory worked together with Kiani IsMe and The Windrush Generations Project.  Part of the project was to celebrate talent that has emerged from Windrush generations.  These live video performances celebrate community, unity and cohesion between diverse cultures within our community.

Here are all the video's from the nights performances for you to enjoy again and again.  Thank you so much to all those involved.  It was really great to work with you all in creating something quite wonderful.

https://www.facebook.com/walsall.live.stayin/posts/

Introduction and Vocal Set from Kiani IsMe

Drama performance from Aunty Gene

Poetry from Ian Henery

Dance Performance from Nonso Ogidih

Spoken word from Kiesha Sadler

Drum Solo from The Letman Family

Vocal Performance from Zara Sykes

https://www.facebook.com/walsall.live.stayin/videos/1175434156142743/

Sean Flood & Dr Teeth montage: Drum, Vocal and Acoustic Guitar

(click the link to view their performance).  As their set was prerecorded and edited together, the size of the video is too large to upload here, but can be viewed via Walsall Creative Factory.

Studio Performance from The Letman Family

Poetry from Chris Fawson

Cometh The Hour

Chris Fawson

Corona Virus Blues

Chris Fawson

Subcorona Lockdown Blues

Chris Fawson

In Minneapolis

Vocal Performance from Margot McClane

Vocal Performance from Margot McClane

https://www.facebook.com/walsall.live.stayin/videos/623150968408219/

Alex Fawson Vocal & Acoustic Guitar Performance

Giving Thanks

Kiani IsMe

Vocal and Piano Performance from Hope Hardy

Sally Hares, Butts, Walsall

Sally Hares

Lockdown 2020

My house was built in the 1890’s so this was the second pandemic it had seen, but there was no record of it anywhere – we wished that ‘the walls could speak’.

As an artist, I’d been wanting to capture what Lockdown meant to me but like a lot of people, my creative mo-jo vanished during lockdown.

While I was sitting in the garden one day during the amazing early Summer that we had, I thought about how I could make my walls tell the tale of our Lockdown. After taking a short one day mosaic course to make a trivet three years previously, I’d been collecting tiles and broken crockery in order to do something with them one day. I decided that day had finally arrived!

Under the heading ‘Lockdown 2020’ which is surrounded in ‘PPE blue’ tiles, is  a parade of farm animals that I cut from a plate – this is to represent the ‘Herd Immunity’ that was suggested right at the beginning.

Under that is the ‘Broken Hearts’ section – this is a collection of broken hearts and of things and people we missed the most, which I spelled out with Scrabble tiles: ‘Hugs’, ‘Our Mums’ (in their 90’s and shielding), our Grandchildren’s names and our son living in China. 

Underneath that, the name of the book I’d also been keeping to read ‘one day’ which seemed appropriate to read now – Love in the Time of Cholera. I changed it on the mosaic to read ‘Love in the Time of Corona’ because although the family was apart, we all knew that we were loved.

Under that is the ‘Mrs Hare’ section. Our family name is Hares, so she represents me leaping into Lockdown with her PPE blue face mask on. She’s jumping over hills and a meadow of Italian glass tesserae ‘flowers’. We were hoping to go to Italy on holiday this year, so that’s Mrs Hare, leaping away from her holiday. I had great fun doing the blazing hot sunshine and blue sky that represents the amazing weather we seemed to have every day during Lockdown.

Under that is ‘Daisy Chains’ - the daisies had just started coming out when I began the mosaic and it reminded me of the daisy chains that I’ve loved to make since I was small. The middle of some of the daisies are bottle tops from our favourite beer that was an essential part of Lockdown!!

Under that is ‘The Garden’ which was a bit overgrown before Lockdown, but all of the Spring flowers were coming out to remind us that life was carrying on everywhere.

The other side of the double doors represent all of the flowers that came out in force during Lockdown – immortalised for ever!

Just as I set the last piece, we had bout of rainy weather which has prevented me from grouting it yet.

I’d only ever done the mosaic trivet before this, so there are a lot of things that went wrong, or that I couldn’t go out and buy, but I felt that the mistakes were all part of it. It gave me a focus and helped when, like everyone else, I was struggling with Lockdown. I’ve learned so much about mosaic and want to carry on doing it, now that I know what I should and shouldn’t do! 

I’m glad that I gave my walls a voice.

Made from: reclaimed/gifted ceramic tiles, gifted glass mosaic tiles, gifted/second hand broken crockery, glass nuggets, second hand mirror, Italian glass tesserae, Scrabble tiles.

Wonderful!... More photos to follow from Sally when it's completed.

Butts Community Thank Postman Ken

Postal worker Ken has been busy working throughout lockdown, bringing us all our parcels and letters here in the Butts, Walsall.

Ken goes that extra mile during his postal round, always smiling and friendly. 

Sally Hares from Borneo Street came to Creative Factory with the wonderful idea of making a thank you tribute for Ken.

Ruth Radcliffe decorated our shop window and today the rest of the Butts community thanked Ken by putting signs, drawings and pictures in their windows to show their appreciation to him.

He was very surprised, if not a little overwhelmed, when he was presented with a beautiful homemade thank you cake made by one of Creative Factory's volunteers, Karen Myatt.

Well done everyone... and once again, THANK YOU KEN!

Harriet Habberfield, Walsall

Keeping the little one happy

Making different sounds with pots and pans

Steve Pottinger

Poets, Prattlers and Pandemonialists

Stay Up Your Own End

Stay Up Your Own End - Walsall

Over the next two months, Poets, Prattlers, and Pandemonialists will be running a series of online poetry activities across the Black Country. ‘Stay Up Your Own End’ will take place on Monday evenings, on Facebook, with the Walsall event happening on Monday 8th June. 

Anyone can submit a poem. First-time writers, regular scribblers, and all those in between. On Monday 25th May we’ll post a prompt by Walsall poet Richard Archer in this group. This will, hopefully, stimulate your own ideas for a piece about some aspect of life in your area of Walsall. You’ll have two weeks to work on it..

All the poems we receive will be posted by us on our Facebook page on 8th June. One poem will be chosen as ‘judge’s favourite’ and secure a £25 prize for the author, plus the opportunity to work with us on creating a video of the piece for our grand finale event on July 20th.

We want to hear from as many different Walsall voices as possible, and – of course – everyone’s welcome to take part in the event on June 8th, either as contributors or audience.

All events will be hosted on our Facebook page, which you will find here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1293834050753852/ (we generally respond to requests to join the group the same day)

Blow are details from PPP's blog page

https://www.pandemonialists.co.uk/up-your-end/

The last few years have seen a huge increase in the number of regular poetry events in the Black Country, but with the introduction of lockdown in response to Covid-19 all of them are now cancelled for the foreseeable future. We wanted to do something to address that, and we’re delighted to announce that we’ve been commissioned by Creative Black Country to run a series of online poetry activities across our region.

‘Stay Up Your Own End’ will be a series of six online events, each providing a platform for poets of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities to share their work. They’ll be held on Monday evenings on our Facebook page, and for each one we’ll be encouraging people to write about some aspect of life in their part of the Black Country.

We’re starting with an event focussed on Walsall, and following on with evenings centred on Dudley, Sandwell, Wolverhampton, Stourbridge, before culminating in a grand finale on 20th July. At each event a ‘judge’s favourite’ will be chosen and will secure a £25 prize for the author, plus the opportunity to work with us on creating a video of their piece for our sixth and final event, which will feature the five winning poems as well as videos from each of our five judges.
The poetry prompt for Walsall went live on Monday 25th May and was created for us by local poet Richard Archer. Over the next five weeks other established regional poets will provide prompts for their part of the Black Country, and we’re grateful to Rick Sanders, Roy McFarlane, Kuli Kohli, and Heather Wastie for working with us on the events for Dudley, Sandwell, Wolverhampton, and Stourbridge respectively.

Anyone can submit a poem to these events. First-time writers, regular scribblers, and all those in between. Whether you’re a keen poet or just fancy dipping your toes in the poetry water, this is for you. And – of course – everyone’s welcome to take part in the events, either as contributors or audience. They’ll all be hosted on our Facebook page, which you will find here.

Richard’s prompt for the Walsall event is below. If you want to take part, email your finished poem to us at poetsprattlerspandemonialists@gmail.com by midday on Sunday June 7th for the chance to win a £25 prize. Our thanks to those people who’ve already sent their poems in – the rest of you, get yer skates on!

“Impressions about a place can be formed from any contact, long or short. What is your take on Walsall? Good or bad? How has living in, discovering, or visiting Walsall had an impact on your outlook? What impression has Walsall made on you during these times of lockdown and isolation?

The UK has many impressions of Walsall, some good:
The Art Gallery , The beautiful Arboretum

some bad:
Walsall obesity crisis, Gang violence in Walsall

and some odd:
The Giant Walsall Sinkhole, The Walsall Anarchists Bomb Plot

What is your impression of our borough?”

Jacky Fenton, Butts, Walsall

Feel Good Felting

Jacky Fenton

This beautiful felted cushion was made by Jacky during lockdown, using Marino wool and silk.

Karen & Paul Myatt, Butts, Walsall

Creative Cooking in the Butts

Passing the lockdown boredom away with some creative cooking by Paul Myatt.... wonderful, looks too good to eat!

Kathryn Grace, Brownhills, Walsall

#BeTheChange.

In order to become a community we need to reach out, see a need and be the change.

Don't expect anyone else to do it, just go for it.

There's so much joy in spreading some love, especially through this crisis. Xx

Kathryn Grace & Family... and The Chalk Fairy

Amanda Woods

Alison Fisher

Ian Henery, Walsall

Video Poem

Ian Henery

I Learned to Swim

Dedicated to his daughter, Laura Henery, on her birthday during lockdown.

https://www.facebook.com/ian.henery.3/videos/151936749657751/

Welcome to Walsall Creative Factory's Community Journal

Hello and welcome to our Community Journal blog, brought to you by Walsall Creative Factory and commissioned by Creative Black Country.

We would like you to share your lockdown journey creatively with us, building a journal that records our journey through the Covid 19 experience.

Some of you will have enjoyed family time, begun new projects, completed tasks you didn't have the time to do before, had time to re-connect with yourself and your family.

Some of you will have felt isolated, worried and anxious about the future.

Some of you will be key workers, working hard to keep us all going whilst trying to keep yourself and those around you safe and well.

Some of you will have experienced very difficult and challenging times.

How have you been expressing yourself?

How would you like to express yourself?

We can support you to share this journey creatively.  Share your drawings, videos, poems, adventurous projects with us... anything that has helped you express yourself during this period of isolation.

We can offer resources and ideas for children's activities.  Together we can inspire each other, building a stronger community, enabling self expression, supporting each other and celebrating creativity.

Please get involved in any way you feel comfortable with, send us your images and videos... or become a collaborative author here on blogger and share you journey with us directly, make new social connections, get messy and creative with your kids and help one another to feel grounded and able to express creatively with how we've been feeling.

To get in touch you get in touch with us on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/Walsall-Creative-Factory-121518191691778/

or email Maxine directly here: moodlesmind@gmail.com