Earrings Collection and the press

Last weekend Lauren and myself were at the Victoria Baths Manchester Heritage Open Day, letting people know about the Chandelier and collecting earrings.
Had a good response, chatted to lots of interested people and collected some lovely lost ones, also meet a Rogue studio artists, (that is where our base is) who had collected Hats and there stories for a project.

Then this Thursday we hit the papers, the MEN (manchester evening news) with an appeal for earrings and a big hooray we have Arts Council England funding.

And the result.......
thank you.....and for some reason will only load side ways, so all those viewing with a i-pad will be ok

The Best most Fabulous News!

The Chandelier of Lost Earrings.......

won its Arts Council England Funding!

To say both myself and Lauren are excited would be an understatement. This will fund its design, materials creating it and installation.

I know this isn't a Grammy award.....but....without the mass support we have received with, lost earrings sent in and financial donations, this project would not have been possible,  

THANK YOU 

OK better get busy we have a chandelier to make... back to business..

Next Collection of Lost Earrings will be at Victoria Baths Manchester Heritage open day, Sunday 9th September.

Bring your lost earrings and stories along, be part of the Chandelier!

Read previous posts for the history of the project and lovely pictures and check out
FB Chandelier of Lost Earrings

Lost Earring stories arrive with an International theme

The Chandelier has received lost earrings from my relatives in the USA, thank you Beth and Auntie Maureen, a great supporter of the arts. And international reaching story is the 'lost' bracelet' from Korea, sent by Ruthie, Lauren's niece. An international and supportive family theme!

Earrings arriving from Cousin and in Florida

Attached story of the lost earring and bracelet

a lovely earring sent from friend Jules.

Museum of Science and Industry - Makers Faire weekend

the famous earring that got a mention on BBC radio manchester Heather Stotts 

Both Lauren and myself had a great weekend collecting earrings and meeting the people who donated them and hearing their stories, Thank you!
 The response to the 'Chandelier of lost Earrings' project was fabulous, confirming our believe that public art at its most successful should be participative, and that people should 'get it'.

A BIG thank you to MOSI and all the people who organised the event.

Here are some of the pictures taken during the weekend, tweeted, and then appearing on our Twitter wall.
We are embracing social media, well Lauren already has and did a grand job on the twitter wall, I am relative beginner.

setting up, with the screen for the twitter wall

these earrings arrived wrapped in this newspaper - love it

(Please note that the display board for showing the earrings as they were donated, is purely for display and not how the final Chandelier was appear.)

BBC radio manchester - live

Very exciting, live interview on HEATHER STOTT show yesterday morning at 10.15am, in the new Media city.
You have no idea what you might say and just hope to get across all the information and sound coherent!

This link will be live for about 5 days, fast forward into show one hour and 10mins.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00vp2mb/Heather_Stott_24_07_2012/

Now for the promised pictures of lost earrings, arriving, being sorted and displayed, trials to see how we can best show them off in the chandelier

Chandelier background story

A little back ground story;

The hospital staff at St. Mary’s have a view of the Summerhouse artwork we made in their courtyard, and  watched us going  in and out putting artwork installations up inside the structure. We quite often felt like we were in a gold fish bowl being watched.
Over time, we started to chat and generally make ourselves know to staff and hopefully seem less 'odd'. 
The Chandelier is the our response to chatting with them over a period of time and asking what they liked to see in the yard, which was a combination of colour, movement and light.

The Chandelier of Lost Earrings, will be made from all those earrings left after it's pair is lost. We have nearly 1000 earrings donated, it will need up to 5000 gathered together to make this glittering and sparkling mass participation artwork.
 

The Chandelier will be a visual manifestation of lots of individual stories (favourite earrings have seen the story of many days and nights out!) integrated into one inclusive beautiful piece. Without these contributions the Chandelier cannot exist. 

Many earrings have been donated  by staff, patients and mothers, from the hospital, friends and friends of friends, and people who read the newspaper article in the South Manchester reporter (thank you),  often an earring has arrived in the post with its own background story! 

The completed artwork will tell a story in celebration of women, mothers and care givers. 
It’s first home will be inside the Summerhouse and be dedicated to the staff.

The collection events: gifts from people are at the core of the project; without these we have no story. Watch out for when they are on, the first one being on 21st  and 22nd at the Museum of Science and Industry, the mini maker faire.

Chandelier Lost Earrings @ MOSI

Blogging briefly taken a back stage....But now the
Chandelier of Lost Earrings is back on track.

Our first official earring collection date is on the 28th/29th July at Museum of Science and Industry www.mosi.org.uk, the Maker Faire. If you can't come in person tweet us on the day and we'll retweet. @summerhouseart

More information of where we are up to and all the amazing earrings donated, with lots of lovely photos to follow soon
keep posted on the Chandeliers Face book page - befriend it

http://www.facebook.com/TheChandelierOfLostEarrings