Island 2000 Trust Blog

Multi sensory artwork hits East Cowes

Have you seen the painted Alphabet on Castle Street, East Cowes as part of Island 2000 Trust’s No Barriers project? Not only is this a colourful visual treat, passers by can now get their ears tickled too. Artists Aaron Fletcher and Nathan Holt, who painted the alphabet and all the alliterative words to go along with it, are also part of Ventnor based ‘Blank Beats’. They created their very own ‘Alpharap’ rapping the words that are part of the alphabet they’ve created.

Island 2000 have set up a system whereby you can now call free phone 0800 959 6400 and listen to the ‘Alpharap’ down the phone and on the move.

The Island 2000 Arts team said, “We love the idea of this artwork and we don’t think there’s anything else like this on the Island. It’s a temporary multi-sensory public artwork, but more excitingly, it’s street karaoke!”

The track is available to listen to until the end of August 2008. To listen to more Blank Beat tracks log onto: www.myspace.com/blankbeats

I had the great privilege of joining in with Professor Boffin’s walking festival walk around Cowes and East Cowes “The Queen’s Bloomers” on Sunday. What a great walk! If he manages the trip across the Solent to present it again next year I would heartily recommend it. The YouTube video below gives a small taste of the days fun.

The wonderful mosaic on the wall of the East Cowes Floating Bridge waiting room has finally received the recognition it deserves. For months people have admired this mysterious work and wondered who had created it and how it came into being. Now a plaque produced on Ryde High School’s high-tech laser-cutting equipment has been fixed up beside it explaining all.

The artwork has been dedicated to Lizzie King, one of the young artists who helped make it and who has sadly died.

East Cowes Primary students braved the cold January weather to make their contribution to the East Cowes Alphabet on Castle Street under the artistic guidance of artists Nathan Holt and Aaron Fletcher. Reception and Year 1 children got stuck in with paint, sponges and stencils to add to the Alphabet. A is for Apple, H is for Helicopter, S is for Spectacles, Sunglasses and Shades and Z, well Z is for Zombies of course.

The alphabet is part of the ‘No Barriers’ project for East Cowes supported by SEEDA. Look out for more additions to the alphabet and more art on the hoardings in the coming months.

What would you do if over 60 people turned up and spontaneously started drawing all over your walls? You probably wouldn’t be very happy would you! Well, on Saturday 6th October we invited people to do just that, celebrating the Big Draw on the hoardings in East Cowes.

Artists, Scribblers and Doodlers of all ages spent the day creating a Fantasy Town and before long a weird and wonderful land and its inhabitants appeared - fairy castles, tree houses, houses supported by hot air balloons, space ships, a fantasy football stadium and our very own Cloud Town!

Artist Birgitte Haar Lund was on hand to help participants realise their fantasy dwellings, providing stencils, pencils, marker pens, crayons and chalks to draw directly onto the wooden hoardings, a huge roll of paper and onto the pavement itself. The finished piece can be seen near St James’ Church in Church Lane.

The Big Draw is part of the Campaign for Drawing which has one simple aim: to get everyone drawing. The Big Draw is an annual October showpiece, proving that drawing can be a public activity as well as a private passion. 1000 venues across the UK, from great national institutions to village halls, regularly join in to offer people of all ages the chance to discover that drawing is enjoyable, liberating and at everyone’s fingertips.

The Campaign was inspired by the great Victorian writer and visionary, John Ruskin. His mission was not to teach people to draw, but how to see. Each Big Draw season brings fresh opportunities to discover how drawing can connect us to our environment and heritage.

The event was free and organised in partnership by Island 2000 Trust and Quay Arts. The Trust would like to thank everyone who took part and made this event such a great success.

While many of you may believe that the New Forest is part of Hampshire, Island 2000 can now reveal that it now resides in East Cowes on the Isle of Wight! Please DO NOT feed the ponies !

‘New Forest’ is a new painting project that you won’t be able to miss on the blue hoardings of Well Road in East Cowes. Working with Cowes based artist Tim Johnson this project is one of a series co-ordinated and commissioned by Island 2000 to soften the environmental impact of the long-term installation of blue hoardings around the town’s development areas.

Of the project Tim explains :
“ I was really excited to work on a large painting project like this – my brief to make something eye-catching, colourful and relevant to the location.

During the work I am doing on another No Barrier’s project - photographically documenting inside the barriers, I discovered a lovely selection of derelict gardens and non native garden trees such as Eucalyptus, Cordaline and Blue Spruces.

New Forest imaginatively depicts these hidden treasures whilst also referring to the new developments to come. Architects and designers frequently use graphic icons representing idealised trees in their models and plans. Similarly my trees – colourful and perhaps native to children’s books and textile lands, express a desire for a greener future”

Above: Spider helps out

Above: Tim’s feet at work

Of the project…………

Ian Boyd of Island 2000 says………….”it’s lovely”
Jo Johnson of Island 2000 says………..”it’s lovely”
Hannah Birks of Island 2000 says……..”it’s really lovely”.

Meanwhile during the initial stages of planting up the New Forest public responses have been overwhelming – drive-by shoutings, men on bicycles stopping to chat, buses diverting their scheduled routes and even children pausing to say “it’s nice”.

Over the coming days the trees will grow trunks and settle in with a bit of Island 2000 nurture - take a wander and see for yourself!

If you would like to see more pictures as this project unfolds check out Tim’s flickr page at www.flickr.com/photos/timstring/

Proof, if needed, that nature can survive in the most urban of settings as two magnificent bushes have blossomed on a roundabout in East Cowes.

What’s this? A demonstration of how life in East Cowes could be if polar ice-caps continue to melt? A budget reproduction of ‘Titanic’? No - it’s the next stage in the East Cowes
No Barriers project taking shape. Look out for these forms fixed to the blue hoardings in coming weeks (possibly not Jo and Hannah).

As part of the ‘No Barriers’ project we’ve commissioned artist and photographer Tim Johnson to take a look ‘behind the barriers’. Over the past couple of months Tim has been exploring the special qualities of a ‘no go zone’, a large plot of land left behind for nature to re-colonise, before the re-development of East Cowes claims it back.

Tim comments:
“I’m fascinated by the way nature is creeping back over the relics and remains of human habitation and industry. Although I’m a resident of Cowes I don’t know the area contained before its transformation - so I’m coming with fresh eyes wondering what the rubble and remains once were. Garden steps up to missing conservatories, park benches with no one to sit and car parks empty of vehicles forever.

Scrambling native brambles collaborate with escaping garden roses against a backdrop of crushed rubble and cracked paving. Wild Carrot and Lamb’s Ears decorate a miniature roundabout - the floral combinations presenting a curious botanical landscape speaking of its own history.”

After working digitally for several years Tim has returned to using film for this project. Using a recently acquired medium format camera Tim is enjoying the slowness of the activitiy and the concentration and focus required.

Tim’s photographs will be presented to the public on the Barriers revealing the hidden contained landscapes. To find out more about Tim Johnson’s work visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/timstring/collections/