PeripheralVision

We would like to thank the following tutors, admin staff and volunteers for all their hard work and enthusiasm for the project: Carmen, Dani, David, Dawn, Ed, Hannah, Ian, Jamie, Jennie, Jillian, Karen, Kim, Matt, Michelle, Rachael, Richard, Shenna.

We would also like to extend our appreciation to the film-makers: Phil, Matt, Ben, John and Colin; and all of the freelance artists who provided wonderful, interactive workshops at the cultural venues.

And of course without you, our learners, Peripheral Vision would not have been such a whirlwind of fabulous creativity and fun!

Thank you

Published by WEA NW

http://nw.wea.org.uk/

Designed by Richard Weltman

http://www.picturesforpress.co.uk/

Edited by Kate Elaine Hutchings

http://www.weacreative.org.uk/peripheralvision/

Peripheral Vision Project Manager: Kate Elaine Hutchings

Printed by Sharman & Company Limited, Peterborough

http://www.sharmanandco.co.uk/

All artworks © The Artists, 2012.

Peripheral Vision

Peripheral Vision is a project aimed at everyone, especially those on the edge of society. Through the innovative use of new digital media and visits to cultural venues in Greater Manchester and beyond, learners have had the opportunity to take part in film, art, creative writing, photography, and textiles courses within their communities. Culminating in a celebratory event and the launch of this magazine, Peripheral Vision has encouraged those on the periphery to challenge others’ vision of society today.

This project has also contributed towards Manchester City’s Cultural Strategy to “Provide a wide range of opportunities for creative expression and active participation thereby spreading the benefit of the city’s cultural facilities.”

Over 180 adults have taken part in the project with 55 course visits to cultural venues.

Peripheral Vision is funded by the Skills Funding Agency.

Cultural venuesWhitworth Art GalleryPeople’s History MuseumYorkshire Sculpture ParkManchester Art GalleryRoyal Exchange TheatreManchester Library TheatreThe Hepworth WakefieldMadLabMuseum of Science and IndustryHat WorksThe John Rylands University LibraryLyme Park, House and GardenBury MetCornerhouseQuarry Bank Mill and Styal EstateIWM NorthJodrell Bank Discovery CentreTate LiverpoolIrwell Sculpture TrailThe Manchester WheelThe Lowry

Community partnersADAB, Bury; Adactus Housing, Manchester; The Angel Healthy Living Centre, Salford; Bolton at Home; The Booth Centre, Manchester; City South Manchester Housing Trust, Manchester; Fatima Women’s Association, Oldham; LDRC, Stockport; REACHE NW, Hope Hospital, Salford; REAL, Rossendale; Southway Housing Trust, Manchester; Valuing Older People, Manchester

My Learning Journey

I have been on a journey of learning all my life. Sometimes you go on a course to learn a skill like sewing and you end up learning so much more. This is my journey, I don’t want to tell you what I have learnt as you will learn it too as you go on your own journey. I want to hold your hand and let you be whatever you want to be because you can.

At the start there are so many thorns in my way. Sometimes it’s myself. Sometimes it’s my life or the motivation to change my situation. I look around and want to change but I do not know how so I start on my journey of learning something new: culture, counselling or just a course to feel better.

Then I see what I need to do, to get where I want to be. This is my mountain that I need to climb: the path is straight but steep. I sometimes fall, stumble and lose hope. Then I look up at the sky and see what I want to do. I feel nervous but happy and determined, as I deserve to reach the top because this mountain is mine and no one else’s. I need to reach my goal for myself. I get help from people but that’s ok, that’s why God put them there.

I somehow reach the top and when I look down I feel good looking back. I am always amazed to find the most difficult part was the part when I learnt the most, or changed for the better. I begin to understand that these trials make me grow and become a better me. Wisdom is what I gain and understanding of myself and others.

I am in a good place and feel happy and relaxed. I have achieved what I wanted to. Sometimes I do not realise it but it changes me. I have new knowledge in which to view the world, myself and others.

Then something changes and I need to search for a new answer or change a new thing and my journey starts again…

Shanela Chaudary

Shanela ChaudaryShanela enrolled on Being Me: the best I can be.

John AbbotJohn enrolled on In the Frame.

David DennehyDavid enrolled on Power and Performance, Get

into Shape and The Apprentice.

Tuesday

5.30am Knocking on the door, tapping on the window woke me up. Then the doorbell went and not just mine everyone’s. Drugged up zombies after borrowing Rizla papers I guessed. The woman upstairs buzzed them in. Lots of shuffling feet and bumping into things until they get bored and go away.

Wednesday

6am The zombies are back. Better prepared this time with anti stab vests and personal communicators. She let them in again, some people will never learn. She started off talking to them, then shouting at them. Now it is time for tears. The wet stairs make it difficult for them to get close to her. I know what they are thinking. I can see their cold dead eyes. They are thinking ‘Brains’.

Thursday

7am Hardly slept with the worry and all that. Protection is what I need. That is it! A stake and hammer.

Friday

4pm Do not believe the adverts. Older staff who know their products. Not at B&Q they don’t.

Saturday

Note to do – get God on your side.

Sunday

8am St. Patrick’s

9am St. Peter’s

10am St. Paul’s

11am St. Andrew’s

12pm St. Joseph’s

1pm St. Chad’s

2pm St. Sebastian’s

3pm St. Mary’s Hospital A&E. Tripped and broke a toe. They accused me of being drunk.

This will slow me down. How to keep one step ahead? Think Home Alone 1. Think the siege of Stalingrad.

David Dennehy

DIARY

Jason Turner Jason enrolled on My Favourite Things.

Christine CrookChristine enrolled on In Stitches.

Redundant Buttons My first thoughts on hearing the words ‘peripheral vision’ were: Oh gosh what does that mean? Quickly followed by how an earth am I going to achieve putting my view of the words into an art form in the textile context? This was so far out of my comfort zone. I hadn’t done any proper needlework for over thirty years, and the little I knew certainly wasn’t up to much; I even avoided (and may I say hated) sewing a button on a skirt! Having gone to my sewing cupboard I looked inside to find a few scraps of left over material, a jar of the dreaded buttons, and a jar of broken necklaces and bracelets I’d kept ‘to one day use’ and sat and stared at them in dismay. What on earth was I going to do? As I sat and stared at the jar of buttons every one of them was indi- vidual, unique and different in some way, just like humans. Also they were just sitting in a jar doing nothing with no prospects of being used as they didn’t match any others in the jar. Some were dull and others were really bright and jolly when you took them out and looked at them; they were useful, but overlooked. It took a few moments for me to realise we had a lot in common, that they were redundant... just like me.  For the first time in years they were not wanted and were seemingly of no use to anyone, but they could still be useful and fun, just in a different way. So my idea was born, to once again use those cast away buttons and make them useful and fun!  I even learned to enjoy sewing on buttons again, what a bonus. Having just been made redundant, after a lifetime of wear, I may not be the brightest, prettiest, trendiest button in the jar, but I can still be useful and fun to know.

Christine Crook

Chris WorswickChris enrolled on In Stitches.

Listening Through Dyslexic SoundMy title `Listening Through Dyslexic Sound’ came from the textile pieces I created at the ‘In Stitches’ mono print and tie-dying workshops. A friend remarked how they reminded her of Dyslexia, and I realised they visually described the continuous noise in and around my head from tinnitus - the feeling of imaginary antennae or horns distorting sounds, so making the spoken word difficult to decipher.

Chris Worswick

Clare WebsterClare enrolled on Watch This Space.

December

He likes to watch the lunchtime amblersOffice worker wanderers with iPod sound-scapes for looking at the landscapesSurreptitious sandwich eatersBored, reluctant Year 3 sketchersAnd once a week He watches Nana chase her children’s childrenWho stomp on the clackety polished parquetAnd run giddy ‘cross expansive polished floors though echoey hallsWith not so much as a glance at the wallsWhere a world’s worth of love, hate, fear and beauty is hung for all to see

And then there are the sittersHeads inclined, soft shouldered, reverential and oblivious to all footfalls that pass

He saw her that first time, when with a parting glance she hesitated and turnedDrawn to pause, to sit and look upon this snow covered valley set in a simple frameLike an open windowAnd as expected and anticipated, here She is

Once a week, for seven todayHer route takes her through each gallery in turnAnd as She passes, she feels obliged to view and appreciate each artistic nuance But her heartbeat only quickens when, from this doorwayThere before her is an unobstructed view of her destinationAnd seeking enlightenment, She sits and looks and waits to know why she is here

She has come to feel the chill of the snow cov-ered valley beyondWhere an unseen winter sun still shinesAs a smudge of cadmium orange on a distant ridgeWarming the gable end of the burnt umber toned farmhouse nestled in the valley

But here, where the viewer sits, the sun has left and a dusk cooling beginsShe sees the cart track as it bends away and

follows the meander of the stream, On whose snow covered banks sheep feed and lie on madder yellow coloured straw And sees her life lived in parallel, her love loved in parallel, alongside but not withBut surely somewhere around that bend, the track must meet and cross the streamAnd head off, up and over the sun tinted ridge and beyondNot painted or captured, only hinted at

If onlyIf only She could step onto the track And walk from the cooling shade into the sun sparkled snow of that valleySquinting into the light of a million-million flakes of snowAnd hear the squeak and crunch As an avalanche in miniature crumbles into each footstep

But not on her own

Today is the day she realises and decidesThis will be the last time she stands in the shadeShe is readyReady to step into the cerulean blue gap between snow-pinked clouds of a painted sky

And He is somehow braver today than he has ever been, so stands close byAnd as She turns, she sees his pinned on black plastic badge says ‘Ask me!’So she does

Clare Webster

Jackie KendallJackie enrolled on In the Frame.

Jacob HowardJacob enrolled on In the Frame.

David DennehyDavid enrolled on Power and Performance, Get

into Shape and The Apprentice.

Yukio Mishima was short listed for the Nobel prize for literature three times.

He is portrayed in this image. He led a hopelessly futile right wing coup in

1970 that ended in his committing seppuku. The extended text is a descrip-

tion of that event taken from Mishima’s Sword by Christopher Ross, which

makes clear that Mishima’s final performance was not glorious but horrible.

This seems to fit with the Power and Performance theme of the course. The

bolder type is a kind of Haiku pulled out of the text of a standard creative writ-

ing technique. Finally, the overlaying of images of some of the pictures at the

Whitworth was the visual spur. [facing page]

A Child of Our Time

Michael Tippett’s A Child of our Time oratorio was inspired

by events in 1938: Herschel Grynszpan, a Jewish refugee

teenager in Paris, murdered the German diplomat Ernst vom

Rath. This was a catalyst for the Nazi’s attacks against Jews

in Germany on Kristallnacht, and was one of the events por-

trayed in the performance of Good at the Royal Exchange.

Discipline and Punish

Majid Kavousifar waves to his nephew.

The main text is by Foucault on eighteenth century crime

and punishment.

A wave and a smile undoes this judicial performance.

Nephew and uncle both hang.

James AidenJames enrolled on In the Frame.

Corinne LawrenceCorinne enrolled on Watch This Space.

Falling In Love Again

He stoodrooted to the spot,longing desperatelyto let loose the tight curls,bury his face in the promised cascade of her hair.What was it, he wondered,about 18th Century women,with pursed smiles and enigmatic eyes,flaunting tantalising tastes of voluptuous flesh right in your face,invitinghis hands to wander, unrestrained,where they would,through rivers of streaming silk,beneath cultivated acres of satin or under broad fields of brocade.How he longed to liftthe lissom lace,press his lips toher alabaster arms,kiss the fingers of her refined,white hands, delicate, like fragile porcelain,to be used but rarely,then put away for safety,against another time.

Corinne Lawrence

On Portrait of a Lady [Mrs Margaret Ainslie circa 1764] by George Romney at Manchester Art Gallery.

Martin FisherMartin enrolled on Get into Shape and The Apprentice.

[photos taken at the Jaume Plensa exhibition at YSP]

Ian CampbellIan enrolled on Moving Pictures.

Lawrence WinebergLawrence enrolled on My Favourite Things.

Michael ShepherdMichael enrolled on My Favourite Things.

Philip LudlaimPhilip enrolled on Art Attack.

Barbara AlexanderBarbara enrolled on Art Attack.

“I came because I wanted to see all the photos. I wanted to see that one like Jesus on the cross.I worked on this piece on the iPad. On the iPad I liked to see the photos. I did drawings. It was easy.I used pink, green, red, yellow and the glittery one. I like all colours. I don’t have a favourite.The best bit about today was going around to see all the pictures. There was a waterfall one with Jesus and another one for Easter. I liked both of them.I liked drawing the pictures.”

“I like the crown because of the Queen. When you’re 100 she gives you a cheque. She gives you a lot of money.”

Joseph O’NeillJoe enrolled on Watch This Space.

Watching Over You

Such a soft child. Yet I suppose that of all the things she might have chosen for my ninetieth birthday, a ticket to Puccini’s Turandot is the least frivolous. Once I loved the opera. And I have to admit the opera house is sumptuous – a symphony of gilt and red velvet, chandeliers as pure as a mezzo-sopra-no’s top C and the anticipation created by the scraping of the instruments clearing their throats. But she’s so stupid. How could I have fathered such an insipid creature? She doesn’t understand that I’m a man outside my time. I loathe these people and can’t bear their proximity. The tide of history has ebbed away, leaving me stranded with this detritus – like that creature in a wheelchair, at the end of the row: the after-image of a man, a concave chest, hollow face. Is he looking at me, peering with the eyes of a blind man trying to decode a noise? Does he sense my surprise at living to see February 2012?

Back in ’89 I thought they would dangle me from a lamp-post. And these here are the ones who would have done it, to keep their squalid secrets. Look at them, the new, free, democratic Germany. In what does their freedom consist? Is it in sticking their snouts into McDonald’s swill or in anaesthe-tising their minds reading newspapers full of fascist lies and being able to spend the annual wage of a worker on breast enlargement? In the golden days this place was full of workers and schoolchildren – now it is the exclusive domain of what passes for the intelligentsia. Like him.

Yes. It’s him. Three rows in front. That gangling fellow with the bewildered hair. It’s him alright. Does he recognise me? He wouldn’t dare say anything. Instead he smiles modestly, looking about, hoping someone will see him and say, ‘Look, there’s Rudolph Meisner, a leader of the opposition to the communist regime. What a courageous man.’ If only they knew! He wasn’t very courageous when we got him in the cellar of Normannenstrasse 22, Stasi HQ. Often that was all it took: walk them down those three flights of stairs into that concrete cavern, where the walls exhale the stench of fear, the reek of the sweat that weeps from your flesh when you are sitting in a cold room and turns your clothes into sod-den paper. That’s all it took. I simply said nothing – merely ushered him into a concrete box with nothing but a bleak bulb trapped in a wire cage. It didn’t take long – three maybe four hours. Then I walked him into the interrogation room in total silence. The silence had done its work. You didn’t have to threaten. All those rumours that we applied blow-lamps to men’s shoulders and used an elaborate cat’s cradle of pulleys and belts to drop them into alternate baths of boil-ing and freezing water is complete nonsense. What did they think we were – Nazis? That sort of thing was seldom neces-sary. Usually they couldn’t wait to talk. The cruellest thing was keeping them waiting.

Sitting across the table from them, filling in the WLB(1), like a doctor writing a prescription, while the lies they want to pour out choke off their breath. I listened in silence with a mild expression of disappointment. Then I looked at the file – quoted a few sentences from what he thought was a secret conversation. Mentioned a few of the undesirables he’d met clandestinely. Then he betrayed everyone – col-leagues, friends, lovers, parents. He knew there was no point in lying. He spewed it all out. His speeches to his noble com-rades – we had them all taped, of course – his courageous articles in the fascist western press, speaking of the need for courage in the face of oppression, suddenly evaporated. Or did they lie under his seat with the puddle he made when he wet himself? That was before I agreed to let him keep me informed. It was actually he who suggested it. He’d do anything, he said, if only we wouldn’t take his children away: two little girls – five and seven, angelic creatures, with halos of blonde hair. Who said anything about taking his children away? I certainly hadn’t mentioned it. Where do they get such ideas?

A few were different. They were the dangerous ones – not the likes of Meisner, who is a survivor. Paulus was a chal-lenge. Damn fool. Day after day, it was always the same thing. ‘God forbids it,’ he said. Imbecile! Why couldn’t he see that his god was nothing more than the invention of priests, the fascists’ lackeys? Where was his god when he lay naked in his own filth day after day? Even when the cell had sucked the colour from his flesh, bleached his hair and eyebrows bone white, turned his skeleton to sticks of chalk, he said the same thing over and over again: ‘God forbids it’. Could he not see the position I was in? The people upstairs wanted results – not excuses. Yes, I admit it, I lost control. When they’d finished with him, only his feet were undam-aged – white as verruca socks against the purple, black and puce of his body. I could hear the metatarsals snap under my heels, breaking like sticks of charcoal. But the swine still kept saying the same thing, through his broken teeth and with a tongue so swollen he couldn’t close his mouth, ‘God forbids it’.

That cripple is still looking at me. Now he’s doing it openly – his toothless mouth ajar, mucus glistening on his chin. The woman beside him is stroking his hands and then she takes his eggshell skull in her palms and seeks to turn his head away. But his neck is rigid and his mouth is working. People are looking and shuffling in embarrassment. What is he saying? Something about hitting it? Oh no, it’s him. I can hear him. He’s saying, ‘God forbids it.’ THE END

Joseph O’Neill

The Tutors

Carmen WaltonI’m a writer and creative writ-ing tutor. For me the heart of any story has to be people: the things that matter to them, their motives, desires and deeds. Power and the way it shifts is subtly woven into drama and stories and for this course (Power & Performance) I’ve been given the opportunity to look at overt examples of its use on the stage and in film.

Dani Gaines Dani studied a BA(Hons) in Embroidery and has an MA in Design Management. She works as a Visual Artist and her own creative practice uses a broad range of mark making and mixed media. Dani’s professional passion is facilitating other people’s creative processes. Dani works with all ages from babies to centenarians, to enable others to increase their well-being, confi-dence and abilities through creativity.

Dawn HaworthDawn is a UKCP Registered Psychotherapist, Life Coach, Teacher and Careers Guidance Officer. She has successfully worked with adults for over 25 years, influencing change and guiding them towards the life they would rather have. Practicing what she has preached, Dawn has reached out for the life she would rather have and now owns her own company Life Designs…and more Ltd.

Ed WattsEd is the Adult Programme Coordinator at Whitworth Art Gallery. He studied photog-raphy at university and is a photographic artist and edu-cator. Ed was the tutor on The Apprentice course where the participants curated the content for a new iPad app for people with dementia. Ed describes himself as being creative, easy going and fun!

Ian IrvineIan is an artist originally from Liverpool, now living in Salford and working out of the neoartists studio in Bolton. He transforms found images into artworks, using screen-print, etching and other print processes. “I love that bit in ‘The Rebel’ with Tony Hancock, where he’s playing a famous artist and a critic says ‘How do you mix your paints?’ and he says ‘In a bucket with a big stick.’ It’s the best job in the world — where’s my cravat?”

Jamie MoloneyTo understand history is to understand where we came from. It tells us about the struggles that have gone before, and about those peo-ple who fought for their right to political representation, equality, and for the free-doms which we enjoy today. With A Class Act, I wanted to communicate these ideas to our cultural champions in a way that would help them understand how society works and where it fails.

Jennie KeeganMy name is Jennie and I’m the photography tutor for In the Frame. I am a graduate of Visual Art and a time-served photogra-pher for a busy city centre portrait studio. Two years ago, I decided to pursue my ambition to join the teaching profession. I now work as a tutor and am studying for an MA in Creative Education, which allows me to continue with my own photography and further my educational career.

Jillian HarrisonI live and work as an art-ist in a small village in Saddleworth. I have been employed as an illustrator, a tutor and a community artist both locally and abroad. Art practice is not just about mixing colours and painting pictures, it can be a way of exploring and commenting on all the big issues of life... and we have fun too! Art opens up your eyes to the world around you.

Karen Dring Hi there. I’ve been work-ing for the WEA for eight years. It’s exciting to get back to my roots and do something creative again. I used to recycle old drawings and paintings and collage them to create different sur-faces and textures. My textile work took a similar line with fabric appliqué and free machining. I used the sew-ing machine like a pen and would draw over the top to give detail and texture.

Kim Irwin I am a self-employed vege-tarian chef based at Islington Mill in Salford. I provide relief chef cover, event catering, and run healthy eating work-shops with Cracking Good Food. Recipe for Success was thoroughly enjoyable. It was a pleasure to meet my learners and hear their stories, of which there were many! From lives spent at sea, to tales of Salford Quays in the war… these women had a wealth of experience to share and I was lucky enough to go on a small journey with them!

Rachael FieldRachael creates art for exhibition, performance and screening, and is now concentrating on develop-ing her teaching abilities. Rachael works with those who have been left behind by mainstream education, including young offenders, the homeless and adults with learning disabilities, and she has been a Workers’ Educational Association tutor since October 2009.

Shenna Swan MAI trained in knitted fabric design, and later knitwear design. I practised these exclusively for about 10 years, before branching out into the world of felt making.Five years ago I embarked on a Master’s degree in surface pattern. I have worked in education for over 20 years in various rolls and joined WEA in February this year. I enjoy combining the stimulation and social inter-action of teaching, with my own practice.

WEA NW

4th Floor

Crawford House

Oxford Road

Manchester

M13 9GH

The Workers’ Educational Association is a registered charity,

number 1112775 and a company registered in England and

Wales, number 2806910. This project has been funded by

the Skills Funding Agency.