Thank you for walking with us Owen Lowery (1968 - 2021)

 

A photo sent by Owen for A Walk with Shrines. Our thoughts are with his wife Jayne at this sad time.

It is with great sadness that I share this piece made with Owen for A Refracted View. Owen has contributed through Thread and Word to our film A Walk with Shrines, the soundscapes Are You Listening and The Listening Post for The  Margate Bookie and Let’s Take a Moment the soundscape for Arts and Minds with Sound Uk and the  LV21. He sent me some wonderful poetry recordings for our latest project @a_refracted_view_ and we made this video. You will be sorely missed Owen but we will continue to love and share your work. Thank you for making our lives a little brighter. 

This publication is made out of public concerns, expressions of grieves, and sympathy. ”We’re saddened to hear of the death of much-loved poet Owen Lowery on Friday 14th May 2021. We’ve published two of Owen’s collections: Otherwise Unchanged in 2010 and Rego Retold in 2015. A third, The Crash Wake Poems, is forthcoming in Autumn 2021…....” @Carcanet  announced the passing of Lowery on social media on 17th, May 2021.

A screen grab from twitter

Walking Weaves: Digitalising the Quipu

The Wandsworth Arts Fringe started last week , In Your Living Room. 

The arts listings and interactive element of this years fringe opens up the range of possibilities to create hybrid events which are both "live'" and digital. 

This has created a wonderful platform illustrating the possibilities for artists and community in which to develop events . 

I have four events which you can access below through Thread and Word at WAF 2020. 

Make a Quipu : Are you Listening

Make a Quipu:  Let's Take a Moment

The two pieces below are also digital stories containing  work made through walking and weaving in collaboration with artists and inviting community participation through making quipus.

a 14 minute film - A Walk with Shrines , with quipus attached to varas

13 short stories each three minutes long at The Listening Post

And ,of course you are my community now!

I'd love it if you could checkout the events at WAF,  listen to the soundscapes and email a photo of your quipu knotted rope . I have attached a sample of the ones I have received so far.

Each quipu has a particular story which you can see if you visitThread and Word Facebook Page .

I really hope you have time to listen, make and  email me your quipu : 

elspethpenfold@yahoo.co.uk

A short description of each of thes events listed can be found below

Are You Listening?

Are You Listening?  is a binaural soundscape of a performative walk. This walk took took place in Battersea Park as part of the Chelsea Fringe in 2019. The walk was supported by The Work and Play Scrapstore in Wandsworth. The recording shares sounds from the local area, poetry and performances which respond to particular sites during the walk. These draw your attention to our interconnectedness and environmental sustainability.  It has an accompanying slideshow. You are invited to join the walk, wear headphones, if you can. Take a rope ( ( not compulsory, but could be fun) and knot as you join in the poetry readings and actions. You are invited to make a quipu (meditatively knotted rope) of your experience and send the photo  to elspethpenfold@yahoo.co.uk . Your quipu and its story will be posted on The Thread and Word facebook page with your permission.

A Thread and Word Production by the artist Elspeth Penfold and invited artis

A Walk with Shrines  (a film)

14 mins

 Celebrating our love of books and what they mean to us. Artists and authors join together in a walk building shrines to selected books and poems at chosen sites during the Margate Bookie 2018. This film takes you on their journey through the making of the ‘ofrendas’ or offerings and the ritual of building temporary shrines at chosen sites during a walk in Margate. The film was made with funding support from Arts Council England , Turner Contemporary, Margate Bookie, Kent County Council and Margate Festival Now.

A Thread and Word Production by the artist Elspeth Penfold and invited artists

Let’s Take a Moment  

Let’s Take a Moment

 ‘ Let’sTake a Moment’,  is a soundscape of a performative walk in Gravesend led by the artist Elspeth Penfold . This was part of REFLECT: Arts and Minds, 2019 a project commissioned by LV21 and Sounduk art. Artists were invited to create work which connected with this stretch of the Kent coastline in Gravesend. 

Local community, visitors and artists were invited to walk with us through Thread and Word and take part in the celebration of a mindful walking event through the knotting of ropes.

As you listen to the soundscape and watch the slideshow you are invited to knot a rope as a mindful interaction with the sounds you are listening to.

The walking event and soundscape were made with funding support from The Welcome Foundation and Arts Council England.

A Thread and Word Production by the artist Elspeth Penfold and invited artists

 The Listening Post

 Join us at The listening Post. A curated aural exhibition of short stories. Thirteen short stories (3 minutes approximately) read in the authors own voices set to sounds by the composer and musician Lucy Claire.

The authors include :Jess Kidd ,Christina Lovey,  Owen Lowery,  Sonia Overall , Peggy Riley , and Philip Whiteley, Helen Atkinson, Susan Emm , Amanda Jones, Sue McClymont,  Elizabeth Scrase

A curated aural exhibition of short stories. Join us at WAF in your Living Room. If you can, listen with headphones and be transported through sounds and words.

A Thread and Word Production by the artist Elspeth Penfold and Lucy Claire. 

Florilegium, A Gathering of Flowers 

Walking and creating stories with GOLD project group members .

A window installation at 215 217 Northdown Rd . Margate for POW Thanet 2020.

The installation will be in place for the whole of March.

1. 
   
2. This project takes its inspiration from Foreligium, a diary shared between communities that are interested in flowers. Floreligium can be translated literally as "a gathering of flowers". It contains scraps of writing, drawing and collage that have been shared amongst the community and those who are new to it. They discuss the discovery of new specimens, the best spots to see a rarity and other fanatical stories.

Our project began with a walk at the Garden Gate in Margate in January led through Thread and Word.

 Unravelling a ribbon with a line from the poem Thread and Word written by Cecilia Vicuña. 

We walked around the garden and  read lines from the  poem Hilo y Palabra by Cecilia Vicuña and through walking reading and talking we gathered our ideas.

We made rope.

             

We created

This was followed by fortnightly workshops at GOLD led by local artists. The members of GOLD projects experimented with techniques and  materials.

Fab display boxes made by George Harding and Georgia May Jaeckle

Some careful curation in March

A celebration  

We hope you have time to visit!

A project delivered through Well Projects and GOLD Project  in Margate supported by POW Thanet 

Welcome to the LV21

Let's Take a Moment : A Walk for Reflect; Arts and Minds, Gravesend, Kent.

produced through Thread and Word

October 11th , 12th and 13th

 3pm meet @LV21, an arts and performance venue on a Light Ship, moored  at St Andrew quay, Gravesend.

This is a walk involving benches, the coast, memory and ritual .

The walk will take approximately one hour and is mostly on flat terrain.

Introduction


Those of you who have visited my studio looking out at the sea over Tankerton slopes near Whitstable know that there are many benches along the slopes above the beach  huts looking out to the sea. These give people the opportunity to create memorials for loved ones and also a place to take time to sit and stare at the sea. I have always been fascinated by these benches placed at regular intervals along the slope. So, when the call out came to take part in Reflect:Arts and Minds in Gravesend I jumped at the chance to be able to  create a temporary installation on a bench as a shrine or memorial in response to this event .

A vara

We will be walking from the LV21 to the bench I have been allocated in Promenade Gardens. The installation of the bench will take place on Friday October 11th. We then invite you to walk with us on Saturday October 12th and Sunday October 13th at 3 pm. to celebrate coastal living and what the sea means to you through  Reflect: arts and minds in Gravesham.

 I will be delivering this walk through the arts group Thread and Word which I set up in 2014 . This group invites artists to collaborate in walking performative events. These walks also give participants the opportunity to record their feelings as they walk  through a meditative knotting of ropes which are attached to a pole called a Vara at the end of the walk, to record the event.

We will be walking, with Thread and Word to celebrate all thing coastal in Gravesend, reflecting on what the sea means to us.

Anna Bowman

The artists joining this walk and offering poetry, performance and their own response to Let's Take a Moment are:

 A. Bowman, L. Claire, V. Fitch J. Mckay, S. McClymont, C. Lovey,  O. Lowery, S. Overall,  E. Penfold, J. Riddiough, L. Shawyer. 

Anna Bowman is sharing a personal anecdote of trips to the seaside as a child. She is also a talented film maker and photographer and will be photographing the event.

Anna Bowman

A plaque for our bench 

Lucy Claire is a composer and musician who works with soundscapes and will be collaborating with the group to create a  soundscape of the walk. This will be available to download . The piece will commemorate our walk through a plaque on the bench in Promenade Gardenswith a qr code linking it to the soundscape.

 "Soundscapes can transport the listener from one environment to another. Listening to a soundscape can calm the mind and encourage time for reflection. Let’s Take A Moment is a sound world reflection of a collection of poetry by Owen Lowery that focuses specifically on the coast and shoreline from With the fisherwomen of Nairn to the Mediterranean horizon of Pathos Sunset. I worked with sounds from the shore, the harbour, the hissing and sucking of the shore, the heady buzz of insects and the rhythmical sploshes of oars moving in and out of the water to bring another dimension to Owen’s words and help transport the listener from one place to another. "

Lucy Claire










Virginia Fitch will be reading a well know poem by Shelley to help us on our way.



Julia Riddiough is sharing two pieces, 'Windmills of my Mind' connecting with the story of the area with links to Don Quixote and his own inner daemons . Laura Shawyer will be enacting her second piece 'A Gesture of Harmony' a ritual devised by Julia using Palo Santo oil connected with well being, meditation and enacted through the holding of the knotted ropes as we end our walk.

Julia Riddiough

site specific work with James McKay

James McKay has created three interventions using poetry, place and string. It might even involve some costume changes. Looking forward to a few surprises.

James McKay

a mosaic by Susan Mc Clymont

Susan McClymont will share her poem "Pocahontas and me" She has also created a fab mosaic for our bench.  The design of the mosaic that accompanies the poem, is of an oak leaf overlaid by fern koru floating on the river. (Reflecting the oak trees of Pocahontas's Jamestown in America and the fern that emblematic of her native New Zealand).

Christina prep at Contemporary Art and Ritual

Christina Lovey is offering a personal reading of the knots in the ropes through tap dancing. Looking forward to some Flamenco rhythms . 


Owen Lowery has shared several of his poems read in his own voice for the soundscape. He has also helped with selecting the sounds he associates with the poems and the coast. We are delighted to take Owen's voice on this walk with us.

Owen Lowery

If you scan the qr code you can be transported to Owen's reading with a soundscape by Lucy Claire.

Sonia Overall  is joining us with pause/play

What is the quality of a moment? What do different pauses feel like? We will carry a bag of pauses with us as we walk, select one at random and enact it. Pause, play, repeat.  

Sonia Overall

Elspeth (Billie)  Penfold is inviting you to knot ropes to record the experience as we walk. These ropes have been made by hand by Elspeth for this event in her studio.The ropes will be attached to a Vara or pole at the end of the walk to create a document of the walk.
Elspeth (Billie) Penfold

I am always amazed by the creativity and generosity of all artists who collaborate with me in these walks with Thread and Word. I hope you are able to join us on the day and do feel free to share any readings/ memories or rituals with us as we walk.

although free, the walks are ticketed :Eventbrite and numbers will be limited .


The bench installation, soundscape and the walks have been delivered thanks to Funding from Arts Council England with seed funding from Sound Uk and the Welcome foundation.