Sheets in the house The next Pop Up

Annie Harrison is installing the next Pop Up,  and should be finishing it today.

See more of Annie's Art work and installations on 
http://www.annieharrison.co.uk/annie_harrison_.html
 

Artist Annie and Bob, balancing many sheets

Grace and Hannah, thank you for Volunteering to help!

Spring clean in the Yard

Cleaning up day at the summer house, suitably attired in overalls, the house has been spruced up for spring and next Pop Up. And on view as ever,  I asked myself how we must look, 'Mrs Mops' with mops and bucket, hose and weird bean pole with cloth attached to end, so we could reach the top of roof!?

So it was interesting during an informal chat with a member of staff, to find staff are curious and keep asking each other 'what are they doing', but not quite comfortable to ask as. Kindly the staff member we were chatting to encouraged them that we were just ordinary people doing our job,  and they should just ask us what we were up to. Which, of course we'd be more than happy to do, so next time we'll go 'walk about' and chat to any staff we find who have a moment. And maybe we'll add a quote or two to our blog, from our chats!

Culture Shots - Art bites

The Glass Summer house, in St Marys Hospital, the women's courtyard, is to be part of the 'Art Bites', mini tours led by a Manchester Art Gallery guide around the hospitals art, during the Culture Shots  "Museums and Galleries Week" 6th Feb - 12th Feb 2012.

Very exciting, and will coincides with the new Pop Up!

(words below taken from web site)

CULTURE SHOTS

How does culture make a difference?
Cultural experiences can help improve health and well being, and can result in benefits that range from the physiological to the emotional."

 +Culture Shots is a week-long series of taster events run by museums and galleries that are designed specifically for health professionals. Planned to fit around the busy working day, these short sessions (some are ‘drop-in’ – just stay for a minute or two; others are twenty or thirty minutes long) take place at all five hospitals sites: Manchester Royal Infirmary, The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, Saint Mary’s Hospital, Manchester Royal Eye Hospital and University Dental Hospital of Manchester."

To read more and for a programme of events click here    http://www.healthandculture.org.uk/about/

Coming soon.......more pop up art......but who, what and when

A new Art installation will appear shortly by another artist, who has gamely taken on the challenge to  put up an art work within one day, which responds to the Summer house site!

Think I will keep the artists name quiet until the exhibition is here, a lovely surprise to look forward too.

An orange Christmas ribbon extravaganza

 Happy New Year.......this is a belated January posting (the New Year cogs in my brain are now turning, and I'm back with everyone into a routine, yes even artists like routine, well this one does) of the pre-Christmas fun and games we had 'dressing the tree' or rather the Summer House.

This was exciting because the staff in department had started the process by putting in a lovely white Christmas tree and using the structure from the previous installation, to hang baubles freely around the inside of the 'house'. Exciting because our purpose was for the art to engage people, particularly the hospital community, who would then feel an ownership of it. 
So we planned around what they had done with the resources we had to hand, (there isn't a materials budget for these Pop ups, so resourceful is our middle name) to make sure we could create a 'decorated house'.

I'd like to point out the 'fun and games' of untangling 10 lots of ribbon that is 10 metres in length, here untangling rope skills from climbing came into there own!

Summer house featured on radio show Artbeat Allfm

On a wintry cold day at the Glass Summer House in early December 2011 Myself and Lauren were interviewed for radio by Andrew Edwards who then did a fabulous job of turning our chatter into a radio broadcast for ALLfm  'Artbeat' and Gaydio. It was quite something to be put on the spot and answer questions about our art work, and I think we managed to make some sense??

Listen to 'Artbeat' here and let us know!


A picture of Andrew in action talking to Sharon.
An enjoyable experience, and now have a taste for it.
Many thanks Andrew.

A house of Origami cranes

The Birds gently fluttered into the the summer house, on an updraft of air, white, with glimpses of green and pink winking through the glass.

On July 27th we put large, (28x23cm, so they would be seen) white origami paper cranes in the house.
They seem to fly and swoop all around us!
The look soft and yet slightly surprising, paper cranes flying?


The idea of paper and glass,

working harmoniously together, is an intriguing concept. Both materials can be ambiguous; glass, fragile, breaks yet very strong, used to build with and paper, soft easily torn, yet a paper cuts hurts, and pa-pier mac-he used for armour, both here worked delicately together.

The themes associated with origami cranes, peace, good wishes and well being seemed appropriate to the woman's hospital courtyard, it just had to be done.