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.

Me, Science, Geekery and Art (by sarah)

I have two thirds of the funding I need for phase on of Science-Art for all. It would be great to get that last bit of money in the pot so I start work on the project.

Also I am working hard on getting Ballads of the Scientifica in all of its forms ready. In case I haven't mentioned it before I have my Science-Art website and I also have Astronomy@Geology.

I am very happy about my science-art at the moment and where it is going. I feel that art is probably the best way in which to get the general public to engage with science and communication of the ideas and concepts to EVERYBODY is of upmost importance.

Science permeates every aspect of our lives and I do not just mean medicine and technology. Food, water, our clothing - all of it relies on science. But understanding that science is important - that it is the cure rather than the disease is still being lost.

Science is still seen as a dead boring subject - but it really isn't. It uses creativity as much as any art. The wonder of everything around us - this we need to show people. There has been some wonderful popular science programmes over the last few year which are helping to instill the awe of everything in people but we are a long way off.

I use art to try and communicate emotions and concepts. And am very pleased to have had some of my work likened to Carl Sagan.

I started the Ballads of the Scientifica to help me put all of my spoken and sung science-art in one place but have found it is linked to my visual art very much.

Here it is though it is still being worked on:

But my work is still infantile compared with the group I found yesterday called Symphony of Science. Mary and Jean both love the songs - that are made out of snippets of documentaries and the like.

And then just as I was thinking about it all I turned around to find the baby now 15 months had been selecting books off the bookshelf. She had a maths book, another on electrical experiments and the last was 40 More Gadgets For the Evil Genius - the geek in me found this halarious 🙂

I do still miss the lab - though and the deeper into art I sink the more keenly I feel the lose. I want to blast rocks with military grade lasers to see what they are made of - to make element maps and to piece together the evolution of systems be they life or rock.

But this isn't doable for me - not at the moment and I am over whelmed by the wonder of the naked ape infants I have in this house ie Jean and Mary. My main hope is that I am showing them the beauty of it all and how to think for themselves.

And I do actually feel very hopeful at the moment - I have a meeting about my science-art this afternoon then tomorrow I'm performing in Gloucester.

Cheltenham Poetry Festival 2012 (by sarah)

Last week saw the Cheltenham Poetry Festival.

I started off by going to see Domestic Cherry - so funny. It was Michael Scott and Hilda Sheechan in the personas of a Swidon Chav and a hyper kitch Housewife.

The I headed out to dinner with one of the stewards and then onto Slak Bar to see Mab Jones and her Welsh Rare Bits - these guys are amazing! Laughter until tears stream down your face. Unfortunatly I had to leave this event early due to illness.

The next morning saw me up bright and early and sitting in The Muffin Man sipping tea awaiting to share my poetry. I was part of the Poetry Cafe Showcase.

I then stayed on to watch The Stroud Pamphlet Poets.

Then I headed over to Waterstones to watch various poets there

Leeum did like a 20 minute show from memory that had the audience reeling (or in one case wanting to give him a hug).

The next day I had a workshop to run - the Monster Writing Game - it was supposed to be at The Brewery but the weather was just too bad so it was moved to Waterstones.

We stuck around for a Jean to take part in Joy-Amy Wigman's childrens workshop - also on monster 🙂

We stayed on for the Childrens Poetry showcase with Francis Axon - Jeany loves her poetry which she had heard at Christmas in the Brewery. The other poet unfortunatly couldn't attend so I ended up performing some of my childrens poems.

The next day saw me back out early for more childrens workshops - this time it was The Poetry Bees and Their Story Tree. My poor Dad had to walk through Cheltenham with a giant papier mache purple tree - only happens to people who know me 🙂

I then got ready for Occupy Poetry - the last night poetry party bonanza.

Alaric was once more forced to listen to poetry - but this time he had company 🙂

I took arty shots

Then the comedy started with Julie Psycho Jones and Josh plus the performance Poet Ash.

It was a brilliant but exhusting week and I wish I'd gotten to see more.

Monster Creation (by sarah)

I have made a short film about the creation of the Muse Monsters from my Monster Writing Game - they turn out to have a complex belief system - some of which is portrayed in this video. Also I like the effect I got with a bamboo flute I picked up a few years ago.

Video is up under Creative Commons Attribution which means as long as you say where you got the material from you can use it in your own creations 🙂

Communion Book Launch (by sarah)

Monday saw me and Alaric in a Chapel within the Campus of the University of Gloucestershire. We were going to the book launch of Communion a beautiful work of stark images and deeply bleak words.

My friend Anna Saunders had written those words and as always her work was hard hitting and brought forth those sirens of the id. The chapel was atmospheric set out with candles.

We watched a short film of the images and word with haunting music permeating the wonderful acoustics of the building. Then Anna read some of the poems from the book plus some new ones from a work in progress with the same artist.

The Artist Suze Adams images were the perfect accompaniment to Anna's words.

Here is my very poor photography of Anna reading

This was all followed by wine and a piano accordian player who's name I sadly can't remember.

Alaric as always sat stoically through the whole thing.

You can see larger images by clicking on the photos - I apologies the light levels were obviously very low and I'm still running with a cheap happy snappy!