The Residencies

Periodic updates from the journals of the artists involved in this project. Back to residencies

St Catherine's PS, Falls Road, Belfast- PART ONE, with Sharon Kelly, worked on the first part of this residency.

Meabh's Granny visits

Written by artist Sharon on 20 November 2003

We had a very special visitor at St Catherine’s today - Meabh - a girl from P5’s granny came to tell the children about her life when she worked in the mill.

The children were really excited and had prepared alot of questions to ask. Meabh’s Granny was happy to tell us all about the long hours and hard work that she and her friends did at the mill. We heard about inside the mill, what she ate and what she did in her free time. Meabh’s Granny left school at 14 to work in the mill; she even remembered some things about her mother who also worked in the mill in her day.
Meabh’s Granny was very cheery and remembered her life there very fondly. She told us that there were great friendships made and even though life was hard, they still had good times together.
By the end of the session, she was very tired, she had talked so much and with great enthusiasm. This was a really wonderful thing for the children to hear real stories and I think Meabh’s granny enjoyed herself too.

signing for work

Written by artist Sharon on 13 November 2003

Sign the Time

Shadow Thread

Class P5 have been finding out all about life in the wet spinning rooms of the mills. They told me that there was so much noise made by the big machines, that the women and children communicated with each other by making signs and lip reading. It seems they have been practising these signs……

It was a long day in the mill - a worker started at 6 o’clock in the morning (later moved to 8 o’clock) and had an hour’s lunch break and worked through to 6 in the evening - children did the same hours as adults. Even though it was a long day there would be no time for day dreaming. The time of day was passed on by hand and finger signals - the appearance of the foreman was marked by a quick hand sign to the cap, so’s not to be caught out!

The children have taken it in turns to make shadow hand signals using an overhead projector as the light source and another child took the photograph. The children now are familiar with taking pictures with the digital camera and know how to frame the shot, crop in by moving or by using the zoom button on the camera, and how to review the photograph they have taken.

The children soon made up signs of their own and began to play with objects laid onto the projector’s screen. For example, whistles, thread, scissors and cloth. They tried some different size projections - large scissors, small hands, the look of a washing line using thread and placing some cut out shapes as if suspended from this line.

As usual we ran out of time, but will continue looking at signs and how these were used.

barefoot in the playground

Written by artist Sharon on 6 November 2003

Fleeting Feet

Today was a fine day for bare feet - this morning class p5 took turns to use the digital camera to photograph each other’s bare feet outside in the playground. This took place after a discussion remembering the visit to the linen mill and the stories we heard about the young mill workers going to work in their bare feet.
We wondered what it would be like to walk from the cold outside into the wet spinning room of the mill where there was warm water on the floor.

The children grumbled about the hard ground and the cold and shrieked and jumped, but took their photos carefully, keeping a regular backgound (the brick wall of the school and the playground surface). They took time to frame the shot and hold the camera steady.

Inside the warm of the classroom the rest of the children drew their feet and then their friend’s feet in charcoal. These have been joined together to create a foot frieze around the classroom.

retracing footsteps

Written by artist Sharon on 24 October 2003

Projecting at the Mill

Drawing at the Mill

On thursday all of us took a trip to Conway (Kennedy’s) mill, in West Belfast - its a 5 minute walk from the school and the mill chimneys are within view as you pass a couple of streets on. We met with Moya Hynds who spoke to us about the history of the mill.
Two of the girls grannies worked in the very mill.

We saw the wet spinning room at the top of the mill and it is now empty of equipment but its features are all still intact - there are tiled walls, gutters into which the water drained, the many pillars and three footbaths where the women and girls would have washed their feet at the end of the day. It was very atmospheric.
I asked the girls to make drawings of some of the features of the room and to make rubbings of floor and wall and some digital photos were taken of the girls activity and of the mill itself.

The next day acetates were made from some of the photo and projected as a backdrop for the girls to overlay their own images - cut out figures and features.

We also looked at reprductions of William Conor paintings of mill girls and talked about how it would have felt to go to work in the mills. We have learned that the women and girls, called the doffers, would go to work in the bare feet - walking to work through the streets, in the bare feet and in the winter too and when they got to the wet spinning room, the warm water was welcome on their feet. However many suffered terrible foot conditions related to having their feet in damp conditions all day…..

The remaing drawings, that were made on site at the mill, being very fragile, since they were made in charcoal, will be joined together to make collaborative piece to display in class.

We hope to follow this up by finding out more about the conditions in the mill by asking one of the grannies to come and talk to us in school. We would like to record some voices of the mill workers and will explore the bare feet further.

Negative shape stories

Written by artist Sharon on 21 October 2003

Fridays class, p5 girls, made similar discoveries with pattern pieces, tissue and cut outs. As with p4 class, the work involved individual girls working to pin and draw round shapes and cut out and also collaborative work by creating a whole new picture from the negative shapes left over. The girls in p5 made up stories and each group recited their story to the rest of the class. There were fishes, ducks, houses, mermaids……

positive, negative

Written by artist Sharon on 17 October 2003

The Space within

Positive shape on floor

thursdays class with p4 girls, was a lively look at patterns, templates, layout and cut outs. The girls looked at patterns for clothing, most for the first time.
They cut the tissue pattern pieces out and pinned them to thick felt-like fabric. They drew round them and cut them out. This was confusing but concentrated work then all of a sudden it made sense when the girls opened their shapes out to reveal a dress-like shape! This was a cause of great excitement!

We talked about the dress shape being the positive shape and the empty hole it left, by being cut out - a negative shape. We discussed the fact that artists must consider both entities when creating works!

The girls held up their negative shapes. In their excitement the positive shapes fell to the floor…..

Charcoal Drawings

Written by artist Sharon on 14 October 2003

Ariadne, P5, worked with charcoal to make this drawing. She worked looking at
old baby clothing. She rubbed in the charcoal, smudged it with her hands,
drew again, rubbed it out with an eraser, cancelled it out, restated lines
many many times. I had to stop her there!! I think its a great drawing.
Thank you Ariadne!

thread bear

Written by artist Sharon on 9 October 2003

These are a few from a wonderful selection of drawings made by p4 class. After talking to the children about ideas and motivations for my work and showing some examples, the children had a go at drawing from life the things that they had brought into the class. There were christening dresses, old bears, baby clothes… Each child said a few words about the objects they had brought in and why they were special…..

unpicking stitches

Written by artist Sharon on 5 October 2003

Our first day began with a trip to Linen Museum, Lisburn. As one group of the children toured the museum, I took the remaining group for a wee bit of hands on activity... I asked the children to take a look at their hands, to make a drawing of it in pencil/charcoal. We talked about all the things we did with our hands..... drawing, cooking, washing, shaking hands and making... so our thoughts came to how our clothes were made and were they made by machine or hand made?
I asked the children to look inside their pullovers, to look at the labels, which may mean they were machine made. We looked at where the pullover was made and what it was made of. The children drew a picture of their clothes and a small detail, perhapps of buttons, edges, cuffs.
Finally I asked if anyone could sew. Since to many, sewing was a completely new thing, We had a go at joining two pieces of linen together. I gave two small squares of fabric to each child and asked them to join the pieces together.
We talked of seams and the best way of making a strong join. We used pins to tack it together and then we sewed! We made some amazing stitches... some could sew a letter shape, some sewed themselves into a tangle and we tried to unpick the stitches.
At least we realized that drawing was easier to do than sewing!!