A-wassailing..

I am beginning to learn that it isn't the precise realisation of my dreams that is important - it is the perseverance to take that dream forwards even if all doesn't go to plan, and dreams are warped by an endless rangle of potential problems. Finding new ways to just "carry on", to quote from the Crosby Stills and Nash song, leads to possibilities which previously never occurred to me.

On Saturday 9th October my toy theatre tree was back in action, as the centrepiece of an Apple Day at the Cecil Sharp Folk Institute in North London. Amongst traditional Apple Day songs, dances, games and storytelling children (and their parents, who, once they understood that the craft session operated without precise age restrictions settled down to some incredibly concentrated apple-crafting) spent the afternoon decorating their own apples to hang on the tree. I helped to run the workshop with Matthew Cowen, Cecil Sharp's 2009 artist in residence and, wonderfully, a fellow enthusiast of strange archaic folk traditions such as toy theatre, mummers costumes etc. By mid-afternoon our studio was a frenzy of parents tripping over their children trying to grab the paints and glitter needed to finish their apples (the children made some too) and by the end of the session the tree really had become a thing of beauty - adorned with glittering, multicoloured orbs and looking very much like some sort of pagan shrine...

At this point the tree was transported to the main hall, where some frenetic barn dancing came to an end and we all gathered around the tree to sing a traditional Wassailing song.

The strange and wonderful thing is that my original intentions for this 'transforming', hand-animated toy theatre scenery carried on into this event, but came about through completely unforeseen ways.
Throughout the afternoon, in the buzzing creative hub of the workshop room, children made their very own elements to add to the tree - elements which oozed their own unique creative choices and individuality. This process brought the tree to life in a way which was unpredictable and, for me, really exciting to watch.
But the most wonderful thing was that, after this workshop, the collective imagination, love and creative pleasure that children and adults alike had given to the tree formed one unified sculpture which a large audience was able to gather around and celebrate. By the end of it the tree had become a storyteller, and provided the visual aid to the final song of the event.

I had never previously considered that pictures could be formed to tell a visual story in this organic, collaborative and ritualistic way, and it has left my mind racing with possibilities...