Tag: Sue Bailey

Lift the Lid Project

Lift the Lid takes a Leap…

Sarah Girling

On Saturday 29 February 2020, Quay Arts hosted a fun day of FREE workshops and performances. We were very grateful for all participants, workshop leaders, volunteers and artists/performers:

  • Lift the Lid artist, Ian Whitmore
  • Lift the Lid artist and storyteller, Sue Bailey
  • Independent Arts
  • The New Carnival Company: workshop leader Sharon Poole
  • Volunteer, Sheila Lucas
  • Isle of Wight College students: Daisy, Izzie and Daisy

Photographs by Alice Armfield

  • This is IW Culture. Is this IW Culture?
  • Where are we?
  • What inspires creativity?
  • Clay modeling
  • The natural world
  • Capturing moments
  • Aim high
  • What inspires you?
  • Dance in the West Gallery
  • Dance in the West Gallery again
  • Audience
  • Singing in the West Gallery
  • Shadows in the gallery
  • Clay giants
  • Sue Bailey
  • Stories with Sue Bailey
  • Audience in the West Gallery
  • More ideas…

Film by Sassy Productions IoW which gives a feel for the day:

Sassy Productions also made a short film capturing the thoughts of young people about culture and creativity on the Isle of Wight. View that film on this blog post, #LetsCreateIW.

Lift the Lid - The Ventnor Giant - Ventnor, Lift the Lid - We that Breathe - Newport, Lift the Lid Project

Hullabaloo 2019

Sarah Girling

Were you at Hullabaloo in Sandown on the weekend of 11th and 12th May? Hullabaloo is the annual arts, environment and science discovery event led by Shademakers, Artecology and others near Browns Golf Course and Dinosaur Isle Museum. If you were there, you might have seen Sue Bailey from But that’s another Story in the red and yellow children’s activity tent or perhaps you might have met the Three Medina Sisters? Actually, they were from BearFace Theatre, testing out public reaction to their community theatre ideas for Newport.

The Medina Sisters on the walkabout at Hullabaloo 2019 (BearFace Theatre)

BearFace Theatre will be presenting their work to residents and visitors at Mountbatten and at the Isobel Centre in Pan (next door to Barton Primary School) on Monday 16 September. It is one of the four commissioned artworks for Lift the Lid.

Sue Bailey was using Phlegm’s Ventnor Giant mural (the first of our commissioned artworks) to inspire clay work and stories with children and young people. You can see some of their work here:

Schools can still benefit from involvement in Lift the Lid, especially if they take up our offers linked with registering for Artsmark.

The general public can be involved in Lift the Lid at events this year including a special family picnic during Ventnor Fringe Festival 2019. Come and join us at Ventnor Park on Friday 26 July at 12noon until 2pm, for a picnic with a twist. Our arts and heritage partners will be asking you to ‘Lift the Lid’ on their very special boxes to discover what is inside and how it connects with the Island’s cultural heritage. And you can take away your own box to fill with your own important momento…

Lift the Lid - The Ventnor Giant - Ventnor, Lift the Lid Project

Phlegm’s Ventnor Giant inspires Island children

Sarah Girling

Since the Project’s first art commission was complete in August 2018, during the Ventnor Fringe Festival, school children have had the opportunity to respond creatively to the Ventnor Giant mural.

The children’s work was temporarily stuck on the wall under the mural.

Having trained as an Arts Award advisor through Lift the Lid, teacher Clare Wright has been working with a group of Year 6 pupils from Oakfield Primary School in Ryde, using the artist Phlegm as inspiration for their own work.

“Year 6 has been researching a world famous street artist, who has created the Island’s largest mural in  Ventnor.  It depicts one of the artist’s famous characters holding the town of Ventnor on it’s back or letting it fall into the sea.  The inspiration for the mural was the architecture, geography and people of the town. As part of ArtsMark, Oakfield Primary is working with Lift The Lid, a new island wide campaign which aims to foster a sense of pride and passion in Island towns and their cultural heritage. The students’ artwork was temporarily stuck to the wall, under the mural,  in Ventnor, before being transferred to our gallery in the school’s Creation Station”

Meanwhile, schools near Ventnor have been working with storyteller Sue Bailey on developing stories about the Ventnor Giant. We hope to share some of these with you in the next few weeks.

If you want to join in the creative fun, then join us at Sandown’s Hullabaloo event on 11 and 12 May, where you can take part in a storytelling workshop with Sue Bailey, or go and watch BearFace Theatre to see what they have developed so far as part of the Newport art commission, with Mountbatten, Barton Primary School and WOW Women’s Centre, based on a story told to them by Sacred Isle‘s Paul Wilson.