By Frances Trainor
Thank you for stopping by to read this blog, I confess I haven’t written one for quite some time and really must shape up! I submitted a project to the Creative West End group for a collage style wall hanging called “The Community Tree” or as it’s been affectionately nicknamed “ The Communitree”
Now, this isn’t my original idea, it was inspired by a banner I saw a couple of years ago when I was in Edinburgh taking part in the Suffragette Walk. I was surrounded by literally thousands of women, music, food, dancing, it was quite amazing, a huge number were from collective groups, and these groups had designed and stitched the most incredible banners to carry as we paraded around the streets of Edinburgh. One in particular struck me; it was a tree, a tree that represented a community.
I had forgotten about it until chatting to a friend, and suddenly thought, what a great idea that would be for West End Residents? A tree full of leaves representing families who live here. The idea being to hang the banner in different locations in the West End, so for example, West End Impact, More Music, even the local church.
But mainly the idea was to hold workshops and invite families, singles, young and old, to design and make their own “Leaf/Leaves” in fabric with embroidery, paint, beads, anything they wanted, representing them and their family and attach them to a great tree with many, many branches. A team of local stitchers would help to make the whole thing come together.
Sadly due to the thing we cannot name, the idea has been postponed till next year. My intention is for this to be a community project, with people getting together and having fun. I imagine lots of coffee, cake and biscuits will be consumed!
If you like the sound of this, please keep it in mind, and as soon as we can, we will have dates and locations for the start of this lovely project.
Blog By FRANCES TRAINOR
Frances is a West End resident and textile artist. She is a member of the Creative West End partnership volunteering her time to the project and helping shape and develop the project from the very beginning. She is involved in a number of community projects and initiatives including the ReStore, Sustainability Morecambe and The Exchange - helping make great things happen in our area.