Island 2000 Trust Blog

Twenty-five years after her disappearance in a mysterious canoeing accident, Jo walked into East Cowes police station, apparently unaware that she had ever been missing.

missing image

The Arts Team asked local basket maker and artist Tim Johnson to give I2k staff an expert guide round the fabulous ‘East Weaves West’ exhibition at Quay Arts last week. This was an incredibly inspiring and rich exhibition showcasing Basketry from Japan and Britain and it has been received with great enthusiasm from gallery goers on the Island. A whole spectrum of basketry was on show, from the strong and functional to the decorative and fragile and all things in between. We wanted to look at the show in relation to the variety of work we do at the Trust. In particular we realised that the natural materials that are cleared in some of our conservation work could be channeled back into arts and making projects and that our fledgling ’scrapstore’ we are developing should have a ‘natural scrap’ section too.

The picture to the left shows Danny and Ian modeling (Chinese and Dutch respectively) woven shoes. Warm, comfy and good for sliding across galleries apparently but very creaky.

Whilst out checking a fairly remote spot for its likely reptile habitats I came across this wonderful hat. It seemed to have been there for a long time. It has ‘Happy Birthday’ written across it and some candles on top and since it is nearly my birthday I took it as a sign to pick it up wear it.
I believe it may have been left there quite deliberately by a reptile community grateful for the time and effort we spend on their behalf. After all (and with apologies to Eddie Izzard) if bees can make honey why shouldn’t slow worms make hats?
If I look quite emotional it’s at the thought of animals with no hands struggling to make hats.

Dan is on a creative trip to Sweden, and has just emailed in some pictures. I was particularly taken with this one, where he has decided to turn himself into an art installation, carrying the simple title “warmth”.

Is it art? This question is now faced by Island 2000 tea drinkers on a daily basis. Opinion is divided. If only we had that Nicholas Serota automaton to resolve the matter.

http://www.timhunkin.com/76_isitartcollecting_box.htm

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).

This remarkable photograph was taken at 14.51 on Tuesday 11th September. The complete and unpredicted solar eclipse was visible only from within the lift at Venture Quays, East Cowes.

Inspired by the fabulous and very recent find of Pterosaur bones on the beach at Compton by a family on holiday here, we’ve made something of a discovery of our own.
Painstakingly bought from Dinosaur Isle ( a real fossil hot-spot by the way) and expertly restored back in our laboratory, it seems to be some kind of dwarf flying reptile not yet described in the standard texts on the Jurassic fauna.
We have heard whispers that others have found, from the same rich deposits on the middle and lower shelves in the north-east corner of the gift shop, dinosaur remains containing what seems to be a rudimentary Squeek Mechanism - amazing!

We have a truly magnificent new blue chair. It’s made from corrugated cardboard and papier-mache but is really strong and very comfortable. It was made by a student from Ryde High School and now has pride of place in tea-break-corner. We’re thinking of it as a slick management incentive: if you’re really good (i.e don’t lose the digital camera, wash up the cups, secure £1Million contract etc) then you get to sit in the Blue Sky Chair. If you’ve been really bad you have to sit in the bin. If you’re really really good you get to wear the Magic Squirrel Head and sit in Blue Sky Chair. This is likely to be an extremely rare event however.The person opposite has been used purely for display purposes. He is actually not much good at all.