Just Jo!

We had a group activity doodah at the museum today. Since Olivia stayed at Lisa’s last night, she took all four girls to the museum for 10:30, then I strolled in leisurely an hour later. I had a lie-in, a very nice lie-in. Thank you Lisa!
The morning’s activity was poetry. A poet called Phil (didn’t catch his full name, I will find out and fill in the blanks), led them all in a poetry workshop. Him being a poet made that much easier than him trying to lead a plumbing workshop I suppose.
They had already finished one poem by the time I’d got there. They’d all had the same 5 words to incorporate (shadow, mountain, glass, light and plain). Olivia was excessively pleased with hers, she’ll blog it on hers tomorrow. It’s quite good actually, but I’m obviously banned from blogging it myself.
Then Phil recited another poem (The Sun Says Yes by Somebody Mitchell) and they all did a variation using their own words based around the same idea. Olivia was excessively pleased with that one two. She hasn’t finished it yet, but she’s so excited because they’re the first two ‘real’ poems she’s ever written.
Phil was a very poety (you know what I mean?!) kind of poet….
“Why does he keep closing his eyes?”
“Because he’s a poet and he’s thinking poetical things.”
After lunch, it was a collage making workshop. With a real, proper artist! Oh wow!! Anthony Frost. He was lovely, very enthusiastically showing the kids what to do. Showing them how to stick loads of bits and pieces onto card to make a non-representational abstract collage. It most definitely could not look like anything at all. That was very important.

After I’d taken that last photo, I was holding down the background for Olivia because it wasn’t sticking. Anthony (I’m on first name terms with a real, proper artist!) said any adults could have a go if they wanted. Well….I needed no more encouragement than that!!
I abandoned Olivia to grab my own bit of card and got going with mine. I had so much fun!! I had paint all up my sleeve! But it meant that I had no time to take photos of our creative process.
The finished, unbelievably arty, products were all left to dry and we have to go back to pick them up from the museum in the next few days.
Then, because Anthony has an exhibition on at the museum, he took us all up to see that. Don’t think it was actuallyon the agenda, but he took us anyway.
He explained how he’d achieved different effects, the different materials used, what was going on while he was painting different pieces, the music he listened to while painting. Lots of anecdotes, how one piece ended up the way it did because the door bell rang in the middle of painting and when he got back to it, some of the paint had run down the canvas….
It was a fantastic afternoon! I think we all enjoyed it so much. I know the two of us did at any rate.
We said goodbye to him in the gallery and thanked him. There were a couple of ordinary people (not artists like us lot!) in the gallery who’d been listening to him. After he’d gone, they asked each other, “Was that really Anthony Frost?”
“Oh yes!” we said, “We’ve just been having a workshop with him!”
They looked suitably impressed!

We got home and googled him, found some of his prints. Olivia was all agog…. “We’ve seen that! And that! And that! They’re at the museum!”

And then we opened the post. I’d got two more DVD’s from LoveFilm, “This is a bit bulky for two DVD’s,” I thought to myself. Lo and behold, there was a bar of Green & Black’s! And a 50p off voucher as well!
A very lovely day, and chocolate too!!

Olivia is at this moment writing reams of poetry, and wanting to organise a poetry session for Wednesday group. Not quite sure how that’s going to work, or if any of the other kids will want to do it…. I would say it’s keeping her quiet….but it’s not.
She’s recited every poem she’s written so far (about four of ‘em) ten times at least. Accompanied by the usual, “D’you like it? D’you think it’s good?….”

And an arty joke….because I’m feeling all arty still….

A new artist walks in to the art store where he has been trying to sell his paintings and ask the store owner if any paintings have been sold.

The owner then said, “I have good news and bad news. A man came in and asked if your paintings would increase in value once you were dead. I said, ‘Yes!’ So the man bought all 15 of your paintings.”

“That’s great! What’s the bad news?”, said the artist.

The owner then said, “The bad news is that this guy is your doctor.”