Over the past four months I’ve been working at Bluecoat Arts Centre with a group of volunteers on their Growing Creativity Project, which is helping people with learning difficulties and disabilities to reshape the Bluecoat Garden and create some unique artwork for the outdoors space.
The Bluecoat Arts Centre is situated in the heart of Liverpool in an 18th Century Unesco World Heritage and Grade One listed building. The walled garden is a haven within the bustle of the city and I am fortunate to have been asked to take a lead on the growing creativity project. The aims of the project are to help volunteers to stay active, to contribute, to learn, to connect and to take notice – The Five Ways to Wellbeing.
With this in mind we’ve been working on developing the garden into a more native place, with native plants replacing ones which were put in following redevelopment in 2008.
At the same time we’ve developed some artwork which incorporates designs from the volunteers with people’s memories of the garden – there are people who have been coming here for over 30 years, so the garden sparks a lot of emotion in the heart of Liverpudlians. The artwork is now being created and will be installed towards the end of October when we hope to hold an open event for you to come and see it. If you have a memory of the Bluecoat, there’s still time for it to become part of our artwork – just pop into the Bluecoat and ask reception for a Growing Creativity Postcard to fill in.
Drop it in the box on reception and wait for the magic to happen. All will be revealed soon…….
