Queen Victoria as Buddha

I was showing my portfolio of photographs to residents in a Nursing home today and no less than three of the women commented (independently of one another) that there was something about the face of the Buddha that put them in mind of Queen Victoria! I totally get it. And her white lacy headgear only adds to her resemblance to this Buddha-in-snow!

 

 

 

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2529294

new header for the blog!

A year ago I started freelance work providing creative reminiscence sessions for older people in different settings. Mainly these sessions involved rag rug making, but things have evolved during the last twelve months, and since I now offer lots more creative activities, tailoring sessions to the interests and needs of specific groups, it seemed time to dust down the header and change the wording! Yes I still offer rag rug workshops and rag rug reminiscence sessions (more news on the workshop front coming soon) but also a lot more besides. Contact me if you would like details!

So, 'home is where the heart is' - an empty platitude? I don't think so. In the context of Care Homes, how can we expect a person to feel 'at home' in any sense, if we don't know something of what's in their heart? I see creative activity enable people who live in Care Homes to express what's in their hearts, to themselves and each other. 'Home' may be experienced as the sense of feeling at home with oneself. Or it can be experienced as a tight physical sense of loss, that eases a little when shared. Home may be cherished from the distance of time and space, and become a comforting place when someone else helps by listening it into being...and crossing its threshold when invited.

Once, while being driven along a busy road, I suddenly recognized a resident's former home through remembering her drawing of it. To be honest, it wasn't so much the likeness that helped me recognize it, as the feeling in her drawing; of the relationship between her house and the garden. Difficult to describe, but only she could have drawn it.

stories from behind the lens and beyond the frame

ice and snow at Langford Common     ( photo by Sally Light)

 

 Very excited to receive the enlargements of my photographs through the post today and have already taken them to the framers to be mounted. This portfolio is for my next project working with older people and has been funded by a local charity. I've noted before, how looking at photographs can have an enlivening effect on the viewer, and is often particularly enjoyed by those whose physical mobility is challenged. I've noted too, how older generations relish opportunities to air critical opinions, and conjecture about the stories that might lie behind photographs. And that is what this project is going to be about: helping individuals to record their creative responses to this selection of visual images. I'm so looking forward to seeing what they see!

knitted bathing costumes in January

http://www.fab40s.co.uk/Ladiesswimwear.html

God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.

James M. Barrie

 

(or knitted bathing costumes in January)!

 

Knitted bathing costumes, a ball dress turned into christening gowns, gravy painted legs and a dress fashioned from sock wool, were just some of the amazing images that sprang to peoples' minds when I visited members of the Honiton Memory Café today to talk about Making Do and Mending.

 

My sewing basket, actually a re-purposed picnic basket (and yes I did get some funny looks as I scurried down Honiton High Street on this cold and rainy January afternoon with a picnic hamper on my arm!) was full to the brim with sewing notions and samples of all kinds of stitching that I have collected from the 1930s, 40s and up to the present day. One woman likened it to a Mary Poppins bag, for it does seem bottomless, especially, I notice, when each item prompts so much recall and shared conversation. Today I didn't manage to reach the bottom of the basket, but that's a good thing!