Step into the world of The Giant’s Blankets — a heartwarming 25-minute storytelling performance brought to life with swirling clouds, stormy skies, and a kind-hearted giant who helps her neighbours with nothing but her soft blue blankets.
Created and performed by artist and storyteller Claire Weetman, this soothing, imaginative tale transforms everyday fabric into hammocks, tents, baby slings — and even a giant picnic space for a joyful celebration of friendship. Come and stomp around the libraries of Lancashire, two GIANT steps at a time.
Performances will take place at Skelmersdale and Ormskirk Libraries in West Lancashire on Tuesday 27th October 2026, before travelling to Ribbleton and Savick Libraries on Wednesday 28th October 2026.
After the story, families are invited to stay and play with the Giant’s blankets — inventing their own stories, characters, and worlds in this creative, open-ended play session. Described by audiences as “magical,” “soothing,” and “inventive”, this show is perfect for curious little minds and grown-ups alike.
Lancashire Libraries are proud to be a partner of The National Year of Reading 2026, inspiring people to Go All In and read more. Whatever your passion, Lancashire’s libraries have something for it. From early years storytimes to activities for teens and families, our libraries are a friendly community space for reading, creativity and connection. Explore, discover and read into what you love at your library.
Twenty-four six and seven year olds at Longton Lane Primary school in Rainhill have spent three wonderful days listening to stories and making music inspired by the Liverpool to Manchester railway as part of a project by Sensory Creative Lab CIC.
Using their playground equipment and following a pictorial map, they have traced the route of the line, solving the same engineering problems that George Stephenson faced; creating tunnels from tyres; bridges from blocks; finding out why Rainhill was chosen as the location for a fair competition; and stomping past the bog monsters of Chat Moss. Combining storytelling, imaginative play and sensory activities has given this Year 2 class an understanding of an important part of their local and nationally significant history.
With this understanding, they have created a range of artworks. David Bixter guided them to experiment with the creation of sounds inspired by the railway. Working with accessible technologies, they used the school iPads to make sound loops that are inspired by the story of Rocket and the railway. These are paired up with digital motion drawings that flash past like a landscape reflected in a train window in a short film.
Building on their physical exploration of the route, the children have printed pictorial maps, filled with shapes, words and sounds. When everyone in the class unfolded them, their maps opened out to make a drawing nearly as long as the railway.
The children have thoroughly enjoyed being involved in the project. It has been well structured and engaging and the aspects covered by both Claire and Dave have inspired the children, with some even going home and continuing what they have learned. They have been so proud of what they have produced and some of our most reluctant learners have spoken in great detail about the exciting activities that they have taken part in. We are really happy to have been involved and would like to thank Claire and Dave for providing the children with such an enjoyable couple of days.
Helen Brougham, Y2 teacher
Longton Lane is a new school building and grounds, so the school asked if there was anything permanent that could go into their grounds. We’ve donated the two pairs of bog-stompers (wooden plank-skis) inspired by the navvies who built the line across Chat Moss to their play equipment, and on day 3 the children used all their creative skills and knowledge to make a series of clay tiles, that when fired, will return to school after the summer. The tiles feature imprints of textures they discovered in their explorations, station names and railway sounds, creating a tactile storytelling trail for the school to install in the grounds.
We’ve had a fun and imaginative time at Longton Lane Primary exploring the Liverpool to Manchester railway. We’ve read stories, created music inspired by the rhythms of the railway, unfolded maps to guide us past the Chat Moss bog monsters and created artworks along the way. The children have enjoyed exercising their imaginations and experimenting with creative processes and it’s been a joy to support them to create this wonderful work.
Claire Weetman, Sensory Creative Lab CIC
‘We built a railway’ was commissioned by Manchester Histories as part of their Rocket All Aboard programme. Made possible by Heritage Lottery Fund, supported by National Lottery Players.
Absence, curated by sociologists Laura Harris and Maike Pötschulat, is a new group exhibition that brings together the photography of seven visual sociologists, alongside finalists from an open call for photography of absences in the Liverpool City Region.
I’m really pleased that the two photographs that I submitted to the open call have been included in the show. Finding Solitude: Meadow, a photograph of my installation on Hilbre Island in 2025, features on the digital screen alongside 100 other images taken by photographers highlighting notions of absence – absence of people, absence of care or an absence of a physical presence such as spaces where buildings and homes once stood.
Finding Solitude: Island, which is a photograph of the chair I adapted during many visits to Hilbre, sitting alone on top of a rock stack in the bay, was wonderfully selected to be one of five finalists, with those photographs being printed and displayed as part of the exhibition. It sits alongside works by Paradise Made (I particularly enjoyed this photo that was included on the screen from within the recently demolished Hardshaw Centre in St Helens), Daniel Frost, Alisha Iqbal and Dan Murphy
The rest of the exhibition is a wonderful collection of visual documents of how life leaves traces behind, and a theme that I really identify with in my own work. Terence Heng and Gesche Würfel’s works document changing landscapes. A highway is routed through a Singapore cemetery in Heng’s work where he connects with the rituals that connect those present with the spirits and memories of absent ancestors, whilst Würfel cycles along the route of the Berlin wall, documenting six, fixed viewpoints at each 2.8Km stop, creating richly textured layered photo-composites of this once-political divide.
I recommend a look at Kyler Seleny’s Found Polaroid archive – a number of photographs are displayed that have been found at car boot and yard sales, and now members of the public are invited to contribute Flash Fiction stories to accompany the images. A layering of memory, documentary fact and the fictions that we read into other people’s lives. David Schalliol’s Isolated buildings are a series of beautiful images, documents of buildings that stand alone in their space – the ‘nail houses’ in their area that somehow defy the destruction of their neighbours. Similarly to the found polaroids, you can find yourself wondering who still lives in that building and what the story is. David spoke about the process behind his work at an enlightening panel discussion and shared how he had been invited to dinner with some of the residents of the buildings that feature – a reminder that as artists who observe other people’s lives, that we should do this with great care and attention to the ethics of this work.
Image credit: Paweł Starzec – Heliodrom, Mostar, 2017, from Makeshift series
The final room in the show features three photographers who all document absence in the context of conflict. Setareh Kazemi’s photojournalistic work in Iran highlights wonderful images of women and their daughters who want to feel seen by a female photographer when the world around them feels increasingly precarious. Manal Massalha’s Standing Tall series looks at Palestinian life and hardship in the Occupied Territories in the West Bank – saplings broken by vandalism that will no longer bear fruit sit with photographs of families who have suffered a similar fate. Makeshift, by Paweł Starzec features the sites that were places where atrocities happened during the Bosnian War – the current landscape now sculpted by the victors with the photographs of picturesque landscapes and banal urban spaces living at odds with the text accompanying each image that documents what evil humans are capable of.
The exhibition continues until 11th July at the Stable Gallery, St George’s Hall, Liverpool, and a tour by the curators will run on 13th June 1-2pm.
On a hot May morning, I doubted the sensibility of my past decisions to create a storytelling performance where I cover myself in 11 blankets and headed to Sefton Park Palm House to perform The Giants Blankets. Thankfully I was able to complete the performance in a very large greenhouse without passing out and I also now know that I can perform this with amplification as I channelled my inner Britney and used a headset mic.
Part of a line up of three storytellers for WoWFEST’26, the Giant’s Blankets story of kindness, and community in the face of punishing storms and loneliness fitted the festival theme ‘New World Disorder’. Jude Lennon gave a masterclass in storytelling with her recounting of both classic tales and her own ‘Lamby and the Liver Bird‘, and following my performance, Patrick Graham brought the audience onto the stage where he shared the secrets of his magic book of storytelling – if you couldn’t see the stories on the (blank) pages at the start, Patrick’s tales exercised everyone’s imagination to see the stories of a tortoise called everybody and an excerpt from his own tale, The Golden Water and the Enchanted Forest.
There’s plans for the Giant to head out on another adventure in October this year, if you’d like her to come and visit your community, library or school, get in touch and keep an eye on my socials for where she will take TWO GIANT STEPS to next.
Carving out time: Making art work in small moments
Recently, (M)other collective inhabited Hilbre island – a tidal island in Wirral, Merseyside, that is cut off from the mainland at every tide – as part of their research for “(M)other Wild” a series of new works, exhibited outdoors, that explored instinctual knowledge about the balance of natural life cycles that are endangered by modern society. This text is adapted from Instagram posts made by Claire Weetman.
29 April Last time I was on Hilbre was at the start of my mothering, accompanied by my (now 10-year old) child who I carried across the sands in a sling. Today’s initial visit got me thinking about communication and how the telegraph house on the island is isolated but connected.
9 May I’m adapting 3 chairs that I will place in the landscape. I’ve worked in my wild flower patch this afternoon to try and capture the feeling of the chair being surrounded by leaves and grasses. The other two chairs will be based on the tree canopy, and the strand line of the beach.
16 May In between visits to Hilbre, I took myself off to sit among the tree tops in an arts space in St Helens, after crashing my phone to the floor this afternoon. An hour spent working on this ‘chair to sit in a tree’ has relieved the annoyance of my butter fingers and passed some time before I collect the big child from her club.
7 June The isolation of Hilbre and the lack of power is forcing a different approach. The chair I found here is worn with rot and woodworm and it feels like the layered grooves of sandstone of the island. The battery engraver wasn’t doing what I needed, so I’ve tried making my own tools from the island: A piece of sandstone that fits the hand and scours the wood The edge of a mussel shell scrapes away the surface.
13 June After a three day weekend on Hilbre I found myself mentally and physically exhausted. Six, 2-mile walks across the sands, meeting artists, exploring, helping to haul the trolley from island to mainland and physically changing the form of a chair with hand tools and rocks. I’ve made drawings as I studied the forms, shapes and colours of the weathered sandstone. I don’t feel like I’ve drawn this freely for a while. Being permanently outside I think contributed to a feeling of freedom. Immersing myself in between the rocky cliffs drawing outdoors really helped the carving of the chair.
7 July Carved out some time to head over to Hilbre today where I spent time carving and shaping the chair. Today I’ve been thinking how being part of (M)other collective is a way that we carve out and create time for our creative practice and how that connects with the eroded sandstone of the island itself.
31 July How to set up a (M)other collective exhibition on a tidal island: Hugs, with an early lunch Kids eat free Smell the roses with a pre walk wee Unload the car. Artwork, exhibition signage, food for three for 7 hours Ice cream at the meeting point Walk and talk across the sands Carry an elaborately decorated dining chair across the beach for 2 miles Sandy barefoot piggy backs to the compost toilets Measure some walls and improvise a spirit level Find better display solutions that the ones you’d planned Follow the trolley tracks back across the sand Family team photos in the setting sun Dust off sandy toes Take in the sunset before the snoozy drive home. Balancing the needs of a family and the needs for ourselves as artists has been a core exploration of our residency on Hilbre. Sometimes we come with the kids, sometimes we escape from that responsibility, sometimes it’s somewhere in between when we help each other out. The art making doesn’t happen in isolation, it happens alongside ice cream eating, wee stops, long walks with heavy loads, giggles at windswept hair and long shadows at sunset.
6 August Tools to carve out time Sandstone pebbles were used to shape the chair ‘Finding Solitude: Island’. Each pebble wore down to a more solid core and Claire kept each one. They are exhibited as relics of the time spent working as an artist – each stone, worn down, marks a visit to Hilbre. Time that has been considered with and around her family, fitted in alongside work commitments and shared with the other artists in residence.
Time, carved out with tools / Fashioned from the habitats / We explore together
EPILOGUE: 9 October
Finding ‘Finding Solitude’*
Headlong into headwind
Extend the school run
from front door
to island shore.
Skeins break threads across the sky.
On the last journey of the season,
the final forked swallow’s tail flashes
south over the cliff.
The meadow. Empty.
Finding Solitude is missing.
Walk the perimeter, unfurl the gate
and feel how I have missed solitude.
Did someone steal my solitude?
Is solitude abandoned under bracken?
Or has a storm swept away solitude
and smashed it into pieces against the cliff?
But wait.
Through the aperture.
Yes! Back there in the dark.
Right at the back.
Just sticking out from an abandoned cabinet.
The silhouette of solitude.
DO NOT ENTER.
I’d recognise the turn of that leg anywhere
DANGEROUS BUILDING
like the cheek of a child whose tears I’ve wiped away.
STAY OUT
The delicate limb pokes out, the hours of attention in creation are familiarity.
No one else would have found my solitude.
I had to return and retrieve it for myself.
By myself.
And so, as the tide crashes in to surround me
I can wait.
With my solitude.
Ready for the next season
of observation and creation.
See you when the swallows return.
*My pyrography engraved chair, titled Finding Solitude had not been seen in its exhibition location in the meadow on Hilbre for over a month. This epilogue records my final visit to track it down as Drawing out Hilbre comes to an end.
As part of Festival 31, Kirushan Sivagnanam and Claire Weetman are collaborating through an artists in residence research and development period.
The 7 days of creative collaboration started with the artists exploring Birkenhead park and Kirushan’s studio, has visited Claire’s studio and some of the arts and community venues in St Helens and shared an initial performance piece at the Artist-Led St Helens Unfinished Projects evening.
The work is being informed by our conversations about power, systems, colonialism and the idea of deleting the borders that separate and divide us as humans. Performance and art that can be worn are processes that connect our practices and food has been shared, and cooked and baked throughout the journey.
On 12th August, Kirushan and Claire’s collaboration continues with a scratch performance of the work in Huyton Village. The collaborative soft-sculpture has been created by binding and connecting items of clothing into an inter-connected web. The act of tightly binding and transforming these items of human identity is slow and deliberate. The artists will invite the passing public to take part in the action of binding these items of human identity tightly, into lines that spread like a web through the space and to consider how people from all backgrounds can struggle with feeling confined, controlled, or having their identity hidden by the lines and systems of power.
The audience will be invited to take part in the unbinding of the clothes as the performance ends – a collective action that is representative of how a community can work together to make each person feel freedom. As part of this scratch performance we are exploring how the work can be developed into a future project, working with communities longer term.
Festival31 Artists in Residency programme 2025 Project is commissioned by SOLA Arts.
An event by (M)other Collective as part of Drawing Out Hilbre with BADA at Hilbre Archipelago Artists: Jo Eyles, Lydia O’Hara, Lucy Jones, Lena and the Sea, Emma Thackham, Claire Weetman.
The six members of (M)other Collective, all artist-parents from across the North West, are researching how women can consider their “wild nature” and find their natural “home” whatever that may look like for each individual, without being distracted from their creative energy by domestic/commercial life. This direction of research stems from the text ‘Women who run with wolves: Contacting the Power of the Wild Woman’ (Clarissa Pinkola Estés 1992). By inhabiting Hilbre island and experiencing its ecosystems, (M)other artists have connected with animalistic characteristics and attuned to the aspects of the natural environment that nurture and inspire creativity.
Our explorations of mothering and practices of care in this remote location have informed our collective creative practice where we aim to respect the ebbs and flows of creativity within (m)otherhood – connecting to the central research themes of Drawing out Hilbre that explore Sustainability and Self Sufficiency, Time and Tides and Engagement with Nature.
On the 2nd and 3rd August 2025 you’re invited to join (M)other Collective on Hilbre Island where they will share some of the outcomes of their research on Hilbre, through exhibition of works in the buildings, installation of works around the island and opportunities to join the artists in acts of movement, rest, connection and wildness.
If you are coming to Hilbre Island please wear appropriate clothing and footwear for the weather and walking across rocks. We do not recommend that you bring pushchairs. Please bring your own drinking water and refreshments. Two compost toilets are available on the main island.
Saturday 2nd August 2025 11am: Meet at the Ice Cream Stall at West Kirby to join (M)other Collective on the 1-hour low tide walk to Hilbre Island 11am-2pm: Visit installations and exhibited work across the island and within the Buoy Master’s Buildings. 12:30pm “I Become the Island” an interactive site specific performance with Lydia O’Hara. Join a tour of the island, performance and an invitation to participate in her Hilbre Island inspired yoga. Visitors will be given a keepsake to take away from their experience. 2:00-2:30pm Last chance to leave Hilbre for the mainland if you don’t want to stay overtide. 3pm – 8pm Experience being stranded on Hilbre over-tide. Visit installations and exhibited work across the island and within the Buoy Master’s Buildings. Share your picnic alongside creative conversations about (M)other Wild 3pm Finding Solitude, an invitation to view Claire Weetman’s sculptural chairs installed around the island and to find a seat for creative reflection as the tide comes in. 5pm Beachcombing at High Tide with Lena and the Sea as a creative act of rest. 8pm-9pm Join (M)other Collective for a sunset walk back to the mainland
You can come and go to the island between 9am – 2pm on Saturday 2nd August whilst the tide is out. If you decide to stay past 2:30pm then you will need to wait on the island until 8pm when the tide has gone back out. Please follow the advised walking route from West Kirby via Little Eye and Middle Eye.
Sunday 3rd August 11am: Meet at the Ice Cream Stall at West Kirby to join (M)other Collective on the low tide walk to Hilbre Island. 11am-3pm Visit installations and exhibited work across the island and within the Buoy Master’s Buildings. 12:30pm Emma Thackham hosts a shared lunch and conversation connected to her research ‘The Islands Beneath Our Skin’ 1:30pm Jo Eyles invites you to join her on a short walk to gather natural materials for a mark-making workshop. 3pm-3:45pm Last chance to leave Hilbre for the mainland before the tide comes in.
You can come and go to the island between 9:30am – 3:45pm on Sunday 3rd August whilst the tide is out. Please follow the advised walking route from West Kirby via Little Eye and Middle Eye.
About the artists
Emma Thackham @onelifeartists
Emma is an interdisciplinary artist and art psychotherapist. Her research explores topics such as social action, performativity, embodied knowledge, cultural heritage and art therapy.
The Islands Beneath Our Skin is the working title of a new research project exploring creative practices and connections between communities in the UK and The Caribbean.
Her performative pilgrimage, bearing the Flag of Dominica, to the liminal tidal Hilbre Archipelago imagines the land as a portal between islands, and in quiet reflection she summons and honours ancestors within.
Her sculptural work is currently exploring the realm of the seven feminine archetypes, (the Mother, the Maiden, the Huntress, the Mystic, the Sage, the Queen and the Lover).
Claire Weetman @claireweetman
Claire Weetman is crafting three chairs – self portraits of a search for solitude in wild outdoor spaces – woodlands, meadows and beaches. Places that are familiar and everyday when explored with others but luxurious and wild when explored alone.
In the text Camera Obscura, Roland Barthes compares familiar landscapes to the maternal body “There is no other place of which one can say with such certainty that one has already been there.” The wild locations where Claire has sought creative solitude from motherhood inspire the laborious processes used to camouflage the recognisable, familiar form of the chairs. Natural, elemental processes of fire, earth, air and water have slowly and meditatively altered these domestic objects so that they can exist in the wild – an attempt to turn a place where the maternal body may be able to sit into the landscape itself. Installed around Hilbre Island, this collection of re-crafted chairs aims to capture the tension between a desire for connection and a need for space for ourselves.
Claire’s work informs an activity on Saturday 2nd August when visitors to (M)other Wild are invited to experience a period of solitude in the remote location of Hilbre island.
Lydia O’Hara @lydiaoharaartist
Lydia is a multidisciplinary artist and art therapist whose approach allows the concept for each work to dictate its most appropriate medium. To date this has included video, performance, painting, music, and more. Lydia’s practice takes an interest in embodied cognition and unconscious processes, exploring this from various perspectives including womanhood, lived experiences, collective consciousness, and motherhood. Whilst on Hilbre Island Lydia is interested in developing her work exploring “wild nature” in women, connecting with pre-evolutionary animal aspects that remain in human nature. Through observing life on the island: creatures, plants, and elements, Lydia will find ways to internalise a piece of this wild place to return to whenever she needs. This will feed into a larger piece of work looking to share this process with others, and complement her series of free hanging outdoor paintings depicting the isolating experiences of mothers and babies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I Become the Island” will be an interactive site specific performance on Hilbre Island on the Saturday of (M)other’s sharing event. Lydia O’Hara will invite visitors to join her on a tour of the island, followed by a performance, and finally to participate in her Hilbre Island yoga. Visitors will be given a keepsake to take away from their experience.
Lena and the Sea @lenaandthesea
During the residency I sank into solitude, really felt rest, my mind had time to wander, taking time to beach comb was a simple joy. I slept on the sand. I watched seals. Taking this time for myself always makes me a better mother. When I return they get a mother that feels nurtured and so can nurture them.
At Hilbre I took my canvas sheets on an adventure, bathing with me in a rock pool, laying out covered in moss and seaweed and stones and the salt and sand of the island. I worked into them with charcoal and water. I lay them to dry on the flagstones of the Buoymasters house.
I will take the canvas sheets back to the studio and work on two Hilbre abstracts: dark green, grey, the blue of the mussels, sandstone and clay before returning them to exhibit in the Buoy Master’s house in August.
Join Lena and the Sea on Saturday 2nd August for beachcombing at high tide with Lena and the Sea as a creative act of rest.
Lucy Elizabeth Jones @cestrianpedestrian
Drawing out Hilbre: ‘Accumulate’
Much like tumbleweed attracts and accumulates material, so do I as an artist, Accumulate experiences, techniques, influences and understanding of the world. In this globe shaped structure they merge and fuse together into an ever evolving entity.
A warp and a weft is made up of freshly harvested willow, organically interlaced through the found metal structure. Into which I start to weave a variety of found and created materials through the uneven grid. The strips of fabric are extracts from my experiences as an artist, not just of being on Hilbre, but the events leading up to and what I will eventually take away or leave behind.
I often keep any selvedges or offcuts of fabric from various projects as well as the edges of paintings. They are intriguing to me because what deems them worthy of discarding, is what makes them worthy of keeping and using in a different way. They are not bound by intention. Their arbitrariness translates as honesty, and the stories they tell are not polluted by self consciousness. I secure them to the structure by hand stitching. The imperfect nature of each stitch akin to a person’s handwriting or of an artist’s gesture or touch.
As I sat in the Buoymaster’s house on the island watching for seals out of the window, I wondered about all the women that had sewn in that room before, they might have sewn fishing nets, work clothes or even a family tree, with far greater dexterity than myself.
The slithers of fabric and photos interwoven, form a rapidly solidifying sphere. A shape that is important to me particularly in this setting embodying the circularity of nature most pertinently in the ebb and flow of the tides and waves, their endless movement and change, each the opposite of another, interdependent and uncontrollable.
Jo Eyles @the_joy_perspective
Jo is a visual artist, DJ and educator based in Liverpool. As a keen advocate for both the arts and social justice, she enjoys engaging with and empowering communities through her practice. Her mixed media approach embraces drawing and painting, photography, print, collage, textiles, and sculpture. She combines expressive use of pattern, form and colour with experiments in a diverse range of materials, endeavouring to limit the environmental impact of her work by using sustainable and recycled materials wherever possible, including recycled cardboard boxes, fabric remnants, and household waste.
Much of Jo’s recent work centres around humanity’s place within the universe and its impact upon Earth’s ecosystems. She has given her series of environmentally-conscious artworks titles with double meanings that examine the connection between humans and the natural world, and ask us to question how we can develop a more symbiotic relationship with our surroundings and the planet as a whole.
Jo currently juggles the various strands of her creative practice with being a full-time educator and busy parent. Work on Hilbre has enabled her to connect with nature and enjoy solitude, to sink into the natural rhythms of light and tide that govern the archipelago, and to work in harmony with the landscape, developing an understanding of the inherent qualities of the natural materials found there.
Her new work examines the spaces in between: spaces found between layers of rock or across the sands that connect each of the islands, spaces in time between the cycle of tides, and the spaces for reflection that allow Jo to balance her role as a working mother with that of an artist. She explores themes that relate to both motherhood and the nature found on Hilbre: fertility, growth, nurture, protection, vulnerability, erosion, strength and resilience.
Jo invites you to join her on Sunday 3rd August for a short walk to gather natural materials for a mark-making workshop.
This February half term I’m performing The Giant’s Blankets at the St Helens StoryFest. The work has previously been shared at Barnsley Libraries, The Turnpike Gallery and in schools and this time comes to Eccleston Library in St Helens on 20th February 2025.
The Giant’s Blankets is a 25 minute storytelling performance for families with children aged 4-8yrs, brought to life using a collection of blue blankets which transform into crashing clouds and twisting tornadoes. The giant uses her blankets to make a hammock that rescues a cyclist, a tent to protect an engineer and a sling for a baby; and the blankets make a space for a wonderful community picnic when everyone returns to thank the helpful giant who has made some new friends.
I’m really grateful for the support I’ve had with this work, from Wonder Arts who have created opportunities to share it in its development stages, from Kevin Dyer from St Helens Arts in Libraries and Theatre Porto who has supported both the writing and dramaturgy of the piece, and from the funding received in the development stages in 2023.
I invited Angela Wilkinson, a fellow member of Platform Studios to come and photograph a recent rehearsal and some of those photographs are below.
The Eccleston Library performance of the work is currently sold out, but if you’re interested in The Giant’s Blankets coming to your venue, school or library, please get in touch.
Photography: Angela Wilkinson Dramaturgy and mentoring: Kevin Dyer Development funding: St Helens Borough of Culture 2023 open grants Development workshops with thanks to the participation of: Buzz Hub, Thatto Heath Primary Schools, St Thomas of Canterbury Primary School.
by Rebecca Ainsworth, Joao Coelho, Gee Collins, Lucy Davies, Jeff Gilgannon, Cate Glasson, North West Miners Heritage Association, Claire Weetman, Angela Wilkinson.
Event space 1, Haydock Street, St Helens, WA10 1DH Thursday 26th September 2024 18:30-22:00 VIP launch event Saturday 28th September 11:30-17:30 as part of the SUN STREET SOCIAL PARTY Other times by appointment.
What does a connected community of ideas look like? What are St Helens artists creating that could grow into thoughtful, beautiful work? “Emergences” showcases the work of nine artists who live and work in the town, highlighting their potential.
Brought together in the space of a fortnight, these artists represent the area’s existing infrastructure and networks. Rebecca Ainsworth, Gee Collins and Claire Weetman, all from Platform Studios, have previously worked with Kindred LCR on plans for a secure future for artists studios amid the Town Centre redevelopment. Angela Wilkinson, also a Platform Studios member, Jeff Gilgannon and Joao Coelho have received support through St Helens Arts in Libraries’ Artists Together programme. Lucy Davies is a recent graduate from the BA (hons) Graphic Design University Centre St Helens; Cate Glasson is a resident glassblower at the creative hub that is The World of Glass; and North West Miners Heritage Association are one of the many active community organisations who connect the arts to the people and stories of St Helens.
Each of the works in the show connect to the title, Emergences. The idea that creative work, like a germinating seed, begins in one form that contains the research, the processes and energy to grow into something bigger. Explore how the artists’ works connect to each other and how the town, its people and resources can create a nurturing environment for creative ideas like this to flourish.
About the venue: Kindred LCR in partnership with St Helens Borough Council have taken over the old Catapult building on Haydock Street (rounding the corner into Bickerstaffe Street) to create ‘Street and a Half’ (SnA). Event space 1 is a unit that shows the current space and its potential to be part of a new home to help socially-trading organisations (STOs) and makers grow.
Credits: Venue and funding support: Kindred LCR Projection mapping and equipment: Focal Studios Glass blowing facilities and production expertise: Marcin Czepiga and The World of Glass Exhibition producer: Claire Weetman Poster and marketing design: Gee Collins
For more information or to book an appointment to see the show, contact Claire.
About the artists:
Rebecca Ainsworth presents a large graphite rubbing taken from the floor of The World of Glass hot glass studio. The image is a trace of the creative process of the glass blowers and transforms a stage in Rebecca’s process of creating paintings into a large-scale drawing that marks the layers, echoes and human imprints on places.
Rebecca Ainsworth: The home of the green molten glass, Graphite rubbing on paper
Joao Coelho creates detailed dioramas that capture the rustic, weathered beauty of hidden nooks and the eerie charm of an abandoned alley. Every detail, from the cracked walls to the rusty shutters, tells a story of forgotten urban history in miniature form. Exhibited in this space that is between past and present uses, with its own marks of deterioration and potential Joao wants to connect with others as he develops his creative passion.
Joao Coelho: Echoes of the Inferno, Mixed Media
Gee Collins is an artist and artworker. They create art with other people, support creative activity, ask lots of questions and listen to people’s answers. With a bit of luck this means creating spaces for justice, challenging and expanding learned ideas of what the world is allowed to look like.
Gee Collins: And yours, Engraved mirror and glass
Lucy Davies produced a series of two-colour risograph and lino prints of shop buildings in and around the town centre of St Helens as part of her recent degree show. Some of these shops such as Burchall’s Bakery are well loved and still in use, others wait, frozen in time until they are demolished. Lucy’s printmaking helps us to remember the people and stories behind these locations and to appreciate the interesting features and architecture that surrounds us.
Lucy Davies: Flip in St Helens, Flip Book and Burchalls, Top Nails, Charity Shop, Jordan’s Employment Agency, Risograph prints.
Jeff Gilgannon and Angela Wilkinson are collaborating on a project called “Our Town”, creating amazing images which present the regeneration in a way which engages the local community and attempts to cultivate a positive view of the town, both now and in the future. They aim to showcase the town’s changing places and architecture and its changing population in unique perspectives which creates enthusiasm for the transformation and strengthens community bonds.
Cate Glasson is a glassblower at The World of Glass who was moved by the history of The Wood Pit Disaster in 1878 to create an installation of glass bells that can sound out for every man and boy that perished giving a light filled ringing voice to those whose lives ended prematurely in the dark and horror below ground that day. Each bell is engraved with a person’s name from the NMRS list of lives lost, connecting family names to people who live in the Borough today.
Cate Glasson with Marcin Czepiga: Wood Pit Bells, Hand blown and engraved glass
North West Miners Heritage Association and their resident artist Jim Housley create replica Pit Banners that celebrate the heritage and communities of former mining areas in St Helens. These banners are used in place of the, now delicate, originals that reside in archive collections to celebrate and remember the spirit and culture of St Helens past mining communities. NWMHA aspires to become a centre of excellence in the production of these banners.
North West Miners Heritage Association: Clock Face Colliery Banner, Textile.
Claire Weetman presents ‘Constellations of Kindness’ a geodesic dome, pin-pricked with illustrations from the adapted story of Hoshi and the Lucky Stars, about the power of a community working together. Works incorporating storytelling performances are a new avenue for Claire in her varied work as an artist, educator and producer of community-engaged projects.
Claire Weetman: Constellations of Kindness, Pin pricked card and audio.
I’ve been working on something a bit different lately. During the creation of The Many Uses of a Blanket project in 2021/2022 lots of beautiful exchanges happened between a wide range of people and the blankets – they were gifted to a cold baby at a charity football match, they comforted a member of the public who fell outside one of the exhibitions, we’ve had picnics on them and brought colour and comfort to lots of public arts events. As a result of this I decided that there was a story to tell. So with a lot of support I’ve written it, and worked out how to bring that story to life by using the blankets.
In The Giant’s Blankets, a lonely giant shelters from the storm under a mountain of blankets. Travelling two giant steps at a time, she secretly gifts her blankets of kindness and care to people and animals in the town, but nobody notices the giant. The audience travels with the giant through the storm to a place where she eventually feels part of a community. At the moment, I am the performer, bringing this story to life using the Giant’s Blankets which transform into crashing clouds and twisting tornadoes; the giant uses her blankets to make a hammock that rescues a cyclist, a tent to protect an engineer and a sling for a baby; and the blankets make a space for a wonderful community picnic when everyone returns to thank the helpful giant who has made some new friends.
On a beautifully sunny weekend in June, Barnsley Libraries invited me to come and share the story of the Giant’s Blankets to their family audiences as part of their programme of Refugee Week events. The two performances were followed by a stay and play activity where we built dens, created fuzzy felt blankets and enjoyed the colouring sheets.
Magical – it was a lovely performance, really creative and imaginative.
Really enjoyable. My daughter who is 3 was fully enjoying the story and loved the den building
The Giant’s Blankets has been developed so far with generous support from Wonder Arts in the form of rehearsal space, advice and arranging scratch performances; Kevin Dyer as mentor and dramaturg; R&D funding from St Helens Council Borough of Culture grants; Thatto Heath Primary School and Buzz Hub who took part in workshops to develop and test the story and St Thomas of Canterbury and St John Vianney Primary schools who have both hosted scratch performances of the work.
I’m hoping to develop the project further, if you’re interested in hosting a performance and activity, or can support the development of the work, please get in touch.
