Please Touch Gallery at Center Arts (by sarah)

Today has been hectic with far to much crammed in but we are very glad we managed it all. One of the highlights was going to the Please Touch exhibit at Center Arts in Cheltenham.

This contains two pieces of my own science art - the Life Coral which has been displayed before and Sweet a textural visualisation of sugar specifically sucrose (though only as I ran out of time to knit more molecules!).

The concept of this exhibition is to allow those who are visually impaired to enjoy the art, to raise awareness and to experience art primarily through the sense of touch rather than sight.

I really liked this fabric piece

This history of art in smiley faces done by Zaphira was Mary's favorite piece :)

The children especially loved the art, Jean and Mary both go much happiness out of the gallery. Mary just because she could interact with the art work and Jean as she could explore it and no one shouted at her for touching it! (though she did get into trouble for trying to convert one of them into an archeological dig).

Jean loved the glass sculptures especially - there was a magnifier with a light for those who have some vision but not much.

My favourite was this landscape and it piece as a whole along with the science festival has led me and Alaric to want to resurrect a resin casting project we have.

Molecular Knitting (by sarah)

This is my knitted sucrose molecule still missing some of it's hydrogens. It has worked out both better and worse than I expected - as a first attempt I think it's great personally. My long term plan is to knit molecular assembles so groups of molecules as say found in tea, comet tails and chocolate... you get the idea :)

The finished knit is part of the work I will have on display at Centre Arts Cheltenham as part of their charity Exhibition Please Touch. The idea behind my knitted molecule is to give a tactile visualisation as it were of what how a molecule fits together - it is basically a model.

They have also asked for The Tree of Life Coral to be there which makes me very excited - I would have loved to have the sound cave up and running for this but it took too long to get the basic funding so that is going to appear later in the year and at a few things next year. There is still time to fund the Sound/Sensory Cave though not much! I have reached target but the excess money will go towards a science-art exhibition next year in March.

Stroud Water Festival 40 yrs Party (by sarah)

Last weekend we went to the Stroud On Water Festival for me to read my poetry - it was on our wanting to do list anyway so I was very happy to be asked and in some ways wish we had been able to spend the whole weekend there but obviously I had originally been booked for another festival which had to be canceled due to flooding. (Today we are off to another wet looking festival!).

It was a lovely festival with victorians wondering in to listen to poetry.

I got fed coffee, eton mess and other goodies whilst listening to the other poetry - Alaric and girls missed my performances which was a shame.

After the poetry we wondered about and bought plants and things and looked mainly at bees!

It was the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the restoration of the canals - so here are some photos of work on the canals :)

They had a steam roller!

But for me I think the highlight of the day was that as Alaric and the girls left a tent I heard '....good to see the Gotye impersonator has bought his children along...' I missed the rest of the conversation so am not sure it was Alaric that was ment but I think it must have been :) On top of that random people he meets are now saying the same to him :/

Festival Sheep for Wychwood :) (by sarah)

This is Ianto and Yori who are really looking forward to Wychwood at the weekend - they are hoping that all the festival goers will make them lovely multicoloured fleeces to wear just incase of the rain.

Party in the Park (by sarah)

Today we went to the Party in the Park in Gloucester - we weren't sure of the weather and we wanted to walk in to see how my pelvis held up so we did not pack a picnic something we did regret. But it was a great day (bar the goldfish which I shall cover in another post).

We arrived and the first thing that struck me was that there is actually alot of grander in Gloucester that I just haven't noticed before probably as the last time I took a camera in to take photos specifically of Gloucester I was doing it twinned with visits to Bristol, London and Swindon to take photos of derilict buildings for a comic book/RPG project.

The first thing in the park we came to was the Museum folk who had a giant pie they were filling with messages for the Queen which will be presented to her in September. So Jeany wrote a message and bored people by asking questions on how the pie crust was made and rabbiting on about my papier mache :)

Then Jean found a lovely simplistic game of using balls to knock over knights which she spent ages on!

Jean then made a crown of crowns of crowns of crowns of... well I lost count but I loved the concept :) She said it made it infinitly more crowny :) We tried to include the baby but she was happy just shredding the tissue paper flowers I made her!

Jean then bought a flag followed and we walked onto another stool "oh no! purple Daddy - Mummy will be here for ages". Though she changed her mind a bit when I bought her a knitted cupcake bracelet (pin cushion!) - I've been promising to knit her and Mary a plate of cakes since February. Anyway it turned out the stall was run by a local crafting/knitting etc... group. They are called The Wild Cherries of Gloucester and look interesting. My only issue is that it does say it's a women's social group and I dislike that on equality grounds but on the other hand recently I have discovered that alot of things that call themselves that are really pleased and suprised when Alaric produces his crotchett.

I shall be having a nose around anyway - I really miss the London Geeky Crafters.

Then we went to the fun fair and Jean had a set limit of £5 which ment she got to go on two things one of which has resulted in us now owning a goldfish (Goldy).

Because it was a party Jean insisted we play party games when we got home. So we played pass the parcel were the baby got fed up of the package being given too her and taken away again and so ran off with it! Musical bumps which Jean won as Daddy has further to flop, Musical Statues which I won (against Mary), Musical Chairs which Mary won by Jean being complacent, but it's ok cos daddy won pass the parcel - a fine pipe cleaner bracelet Jean had made in neon colours :)

We were then going to go and watch the beacon lighting after dinner and a skype call with Al's family but alas the baby fell asleep and I was emmersed in LitChat, our timing had been thrown out by an emergency goldfish accomadation search. I went upstairs to my studio in dispondance only to see by pure chance the beacon being lit on top of Robin Hoods Hill from my window!