Dear Iceni Post

It has been a great year for us and we hope you have had a great one too. The office will be closed from 5pm Thursday 17th Decemeber to 9am Monday 4th January.

Thank you for taking the time to keep up to date with what we are doing. We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

JumpstART

The JumpstART! Bury St Edmunds and Lowestoft previews of ‘Making Spaces’ were great successes! The students in Lowestoft  worked really hard in the morning to get everything ready for 1.30pm (a 7ft Iron Man proved particularly challenging). Everyone was on board to help including support workers and the two lead artists Carrie Phoenix and Kate Warner. Many thanks to Richard manager of the Coconut loft for his support and good humour!

Other installations on display were Iron Man, a Bedroom in a Suitcase, An Army of Super heroes, a Sensory Pod, Masks and ‘Alan’s Garden’ complete with Bird Box and tweeting birds!

The exhibition was well attended with friends, family, other social enterprises and visitors from the café. We had a visit from the Lowestoft Journal who took lots of photographs and many thanks to our own photographer Moggy who was with us for the afternoon.

The Making Spaces art trail around Bury involved the Jumpstart Students creating an amazing show across 4 locations. At the St Johns Centre there were drawings, a giant mobile and a performance of Abba’s Waterloo in a specially created space. At Moyses Hall there were films, drawings, drivable bumper cars, an alien puppet show and an installation about the NHS as well as Ruth Williams’ ‘Monsterland’ wall hanging. At the Apex, a film about a deaf/blind teddy and mobile nightclubs created in umbrellas. At Elsey’s Gallery and underwater installation with mermaids and sea creatures filled the window, and a live performance from a human drawing machine creating pictures with a specially modified drawing suit. Students have worked incredibly hard on their art pieces and it was a great end to the course.

Thank you to everyone that came to see the exhibitions.

Some of the work can still be seen at Moyses Hall in Bury St Edmunds up to and including the 21st December and in The Coconut Loft in Lowestoft up to and including the 17^th December.

We also have the films made for the art trail online. To see them go to vimeo.com/album/3585827

Space Factor from Suffolk Artlink on Vimeo.

We will be running tasters and explore days in Bury St Edmunds, Ipswich and Lowestoft in January and February plus Explore Days.

Clown Round

The Clown Doctors have been busy across Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk this November, kicking off with a ‘Takeover’ day at James Paget Hospital.

Staff on the children and young person’s ward at James Paget hosted a group of pupils from North Denes Primary School, Great Yarmouth, and students from East Norfolk Sixth Form College in Gorleston as part of the annual Children’s Commissioner’s Takeover Day. Pupils armed with video cameras and audio equipment, followed hospital staff as well as our very own Clown Doctors, to find out what it’s like to work at James Paget Hospital!

Dr Haystack and Dr Aubergine made sure the young filmmakers were able to observe the tricky tasks Clown Doctors have to face on a daily basis while on their rounds. On this particular day they were battling with an extraordinary bad case of ‘floor squeak’, however with the help of a rope chain involving some of the young patients, their parents and consultants, the Clown Doctors were able to locate and exterminate the terribly contagious squeak!

The excitement of Takeover day has geared all the Clowns up nicely for the oncoming festive season, with Christmas visits happening across the counties including a Christmas party at Norfolk Show ground for EACH Quidenham Hospice.

Everybody from the Clown Round team wish you all a very merry Christmas and a truly silly new year!!

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Rock Up

Ever since the summer Rock School, the Rock Up participants have been clamouring to play more as a band – and with Christmas round the corner, there was never any doubt about the sort of song they wanted to play.

We can’t tell you how proud we were of all of them as they sat there last week playing Last Christmas – it was a real achievement for everyone involved. They’ve practised and played and practised some more, and now it’s really paying dividends as they develop the skills and confidence to play together as a group. Congratulations to everyone, and here’s to another rocking Rock Up year in 2016.

Suffolk at Play

Our thanks to everyone who has taken part in and contributed to a wonderful Suffolk at Play time at Stradbroke High School.

Everyone at the School has been so welcoming and helpful – particularly as each week we fill up the teachers’ study room with our resource boxes and equipment – and the participants have been brilliant.

As ever, it’s the Suffolk Artlink artists and the volunteers who make these projects so fantastic – so our especial thanks are due to them, too.

Meanwhile, over in Lowestoft, the Suffolk at Play Cube has moved from the library to East Point Academy, where we hope the students and staff are enjoying the animations.

Next term, Suffolk at Play moves to Stowmarket – our final location and the venue for the end-of-project celebrations for all those involved since the project began back in December 2013. More news to follow in the Spring.

Where We Meet

We had a wonderful celebration event at Cedrus House, where the children and residents performed the songs and poems they’ve been making, and showing family and friends a beautiful array of objects they’ve made, from mobiles to place mats and crackers – each one filled with their very own mottos, dubious jokes and paper hats.

Among the many comments received from our visitors were: –

‘… Fantastic to see how the children have interacted and such a wonderful experience for them all. Thank you for a lovely afternoon.’

‘A wonderful afternoon – thoroughly enjoyable for everyone.’

So much has been achieved already and next term we will continue to work with students from Cedars Park Primary School and residents and their families at Cedrus House, as we will be running Suffolk at Play with them. Roll on 2016.

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Forget-me-not Visitors

The Forget-me-not Visitors have been visiting people with dementia in Ipswich Hospital’s Constable Suite since the start of November. Their visits continue into the festive period as the artists bring some seasonal cheer and raise patients’ spirits. No doubt there will be a Christmas song, or two, or three, some Christmas sparkle and a few cracker-worthy jokes to bring laughter and joy to the patients, family members and staff at this time of year.

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Creative Employment Program

Arts Development East Cambridgeshire have two opportunities open. These are for a Management Intern and a Marketing Assistant. These opportunities are across Brandon, Newmarket, Mildenhall and Ely.

For more information go to www.suffolkartlink.org.uk/cep

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The New Wolsey

Whilst this is not something Suffolk Artlink is involved in we thought some of you might be interested in this.

The New Wolsey have just had a fantastic new platform that allows wheelchair users to sit in any combination of wheelchair users and non wheelchair users.

Their Panto, Sword in the Stone, which has just been announced as one of the top five pantos in the country is on 20th January 10.30am specifically made as a relaxed performance. They have lots of wheelchair accessible seats that day available. Tickets are £10 each.

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