Grove Community Project

We enjoyed our visit last Tuesday to the Grove Community Project in Handsworth to see how our joint project with the photographer Liz Hingley, Nadine Reid from the Cotton Patch and Grove Community Project through its Head Sarah Wood was going.

We've sponsored the use of fabric, pre-treated fabric for printing onto and thread as well as helped provide the link for the donation of other items including wadding and Steam a Seam 2 from Warm and Natural in the States.

Liz with the aid of funding for a photography project from Birmingham City Council has spent time with the children at the nursery getting them to use cameras to take photos of each other. The result has been a book of three sections of the body - head, body and legs which can be mixed and matched like a flip-book with fun results for the children. These photos were then printed out using a laser jet printer onto specially treated cotton poplin fabric. Large wall-hangings of the heads, bodies and legs are being made in sections which will be backed and quilted with wadding and backing fabric. Each section is separate and can be mixed with a different head or legs for example!

Photos have also be printed onto silk fabrics and these transluscent fabrics will be made into long wall-hangings with fine thread joining them. Liz Hingley has been collaborating with the Open University Library in Milton Keynes to produce an exhibition of the works in September 2011. Other venues for displaying the wall-hangings are also being planned.