Originally, my reason for going to Manchester this past weekend was to take part in Chorlton Arts Festival. Our Kindness Tree event, which sort of morphed into a Hearts for Manchester event was part of the festival, but our biggest contribution was the display in the window of The Make It Shop. Many, many thanks to those of you who contributed – the window looked fabulous, although trying to photograph it effectively proved beyond my limited skills with a camera; all I could manage was a flavour of it:
Danielle, however, managed a much better shot:
Craft+Activism=Craftivism (c) Danielle Lowy
Many thanks to those who contributed – I hope you can spot your creations (they are all in there), which will now be going off to new homes.
Although the emphasis was heavily on the performing arts this year, the Chorlton Arts Festival did include several other visual art exhibitions and we managed to visit two.
First, opening its gate for the tenth and final year, Bob Nancollis’ Smallest Sculpture Park in the World:
And second, Creative Recycling, where they make art from all sorts of materials, including the glass off-cuts from their picture-framing:
Do you notice, that as well as the art, they also have a little free library out the front of the shop?
So, life goes on in the city of Manchester, if with a heavy heart. I do hope that everyone out and about over the weekend had their lives brightened a little by the creativity that was on display, whether tattoos, beauty from recycled materials, craftivism, sculpture, our decorated community garden, or the lovely bees sent by Helen of Crawcraft’s Beasties, long before we realised how significant they were going to be.
A bee for Manchester
