This is a video of me reading The Little Book of Festive Poetry which I wrote a few years ago as part of the PiBoIdMo challenge. I was asked to read at The Brewery Cheltenham as part of a fund raiser for Winstons' Wish organised by Cheltenham Poetry Festival.
In the video Jean is inching her way towards me to join me on the stage - as were several other children The coughing is because Alaric is recovering from having fluid on his lungs - not sure he should have been outside but he was bored of resting!
It be that time of year again when all the nut balls come out of hiding! That's right it's NaNoWriMo time again - at the witching hour on this All Hallows Eve a bizar and eclectic ritual will take place - writers will begin typing, scrawling or dictating in ernest in the hope that this year they will make that word goal. That they will be the Nanoer of the finished first draft - I put it to all fellow nanofanatics new and old - lets get writing the madness has begun.
For those of you who are interested I'm 5affy on the forum (that's Saffy but with a five instead of the ess). Or @TheMonsterBlogs on Twitter and the blog I will be blogging upon is Purple Monster - and of course I'll be doing the picture book ideas as well which can be found on Orange Monster.
Jeany is also joining me in this this year! (She has the last two years - first with dictating stuff to me and then last year with her Nano note book in which she stuck stickers, wrote stuff, drew pictures and made collages from mags.)
There are some really cool things there for you to touch and feel and an interactive braille table to boot!
Here are a few sneak peaks but you can not know the majesty of these pieces without actually going and feeling them!
The exhibition has been put together with the blind and visually impaired in mind and as such bright vibrant and therefore easier to see colours have been used in some of the pieces and there is also a bueatiful light sculpture.
Then we come to my piece - the giant coral I have been working on for what seems like forever!
Which I set up last night Complete with beads for the molecular sand! There are also MP3s of some of my poems that I felt where a good counter point to the visual/textural piece there to listen too
September has snuck up on me and sees me papier mache-ing like a mad thing - my aim? To create a piece of textural science art for the visually impaired and the blind.
This piece of art work does not just involve papier mache though - it involves knitting, sewing, clay sculpting, sugru, polymer clay, wire work, metal casting, wood carving, stone carving, geology and acrylic paints not too mention lots of recycled pots and tubs and our mountain of graze boxes.
This all needs to be ready for the 24th of September for the Centre Arts Exhibition in Braille. And yes I am panicking - it is a play on the tree of life but I have gone for a more coral/byozoan feel and hope to have life in various forms sitting in the polyp tubes (what I have instead of branches). A relief of the scientific creation of life will hopefully be feelable along the base along with an audio poem/story of life.
Apart from that I am researching stuff for my Punk in Pink series and generally trying to take the musical me forward.
Saturday ie tomorrow I will be doing a quick poetry reading in the Waterstones in Cheltenham with some fantastic other poets (it's a quick one as I'm running away to a family wedding!). This event is organised by the Cheltenham Poetry Festival who have been putting on some fantastic events through out the year. The readings in the Waterstones are going to be the first Saturday of each month 11-2pm.
Another event that they are running is Poetree in the Park - the last one got in the news paper along with a cute picture of Jean holding up a poetry dragon
I'm going to be running an number of workshops and courses mainly for kids for the Festival and the new Center Arts in Cheltenham on top of the craft workshops I do for festivals anyway They are also holding an Exhibition in Braille in September which I hope to have a textural art piece in (made of papier mache of course!).
On top of that I hope to have the poetry book sorted soon and also take the Monster Writing Game to the next level. I do however need more outlets for my art work - I may get an exhibition soon but I need to be in shops and stuff more than doing craft fairs each Sunday. The trouble with that I've been finding is that you have to spend money out in the first place to buy shelf space very few places do it on commission. I would also love as I think I mentioned about three years ago now :/ to become a member of the Gloucester Guild of Craftsmen but again it takes money and I am still only braking even as I am still building up my equipement and stocks at the moment.
I will confess to having gotten carried away with making educational games and designing crafts to help the kids engage in writing workshops but I finially feel I am heading in the right direction here
Oh and also some of my local kids poetry is going to be on display at the village Flower Festival this weekend which is well just lovely
The coughing is because Alaric is recovering from having fluid on his lungs - not sure he should have been outside but he was bored of resting!
Events and Outings, Music, Poems, Sarah, Work | sarah | 
Sun 18th Dec 2011 10:34 am | 
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