The Garden Fence Gallery has been on tour to Byker! I’ve been working with families living in the famous ‘Byker Wall’ helping them create their own garden fence art. This was part of the Pocket Full of Sunshine project run by Byker Children and Young People Partnership, supported by the Community Lottery Fund.
Alongside the Garden Fence Gallery, participatory artist Betty Hill helped residents create ‘Windows of Wow’ with collages of spirit animals so between us, I think we brought a lot of colour and fun to Byker!
First task was to source some plywood – got some great offcuts from a company that line out vans and lorries – they even cut them to fit in my little car! I was also donated a great piece of MDF (thanks Jane next door:)) and the talented team at Northern Stage cut that into heart and easter egg shapes. My associate artist, David then did a grand job of whitewashing everything read for painting on.
I wanted families to work BIG and use acrylic paints but not everyone is familiar with that , so to start off all participants were given a heart, some drawing paper and an acrylic painting kit. The were asked to draw something they love on the heart and then to paint it in bright colours – something to eat, a favourite place, favourite hobby…anything.
This was one of mine – kept by a resident after the project to give to his mum! 
Lots to love here! 
More ideas on things to love 
A friendly cat 
colour and fun!
The idea being that they would get comfortable with using the paints before tackling something a bit bigger! The next task was to draw an animal onto the paper provided – this could be a ‘Spirit’ animal – one with the characteristics the participant has or wants to have. Or it could be a favourite animal – real or imaginary- anything from the family pet to a Unicorn!
I took the drawings to my temporary workshop at the Youth Centre in Byker and scaled them up on to the plywood. Initially this was done, old school – gridding up and scaling up the grids – took….for…..ever!
Then my lovely fellow artist Betty lent me a proper old school OHP so I could just transfer the drawings to acetate (actually cut up old poly pockets!) and then project them onto the plywood…so much quicker! (Will have to find one for my toolkit)
I worked with quite a few children who enjoy the activities at Kids Kabin – thanks to Angela for introducing me to them and letting me use the Hobby Room as a pick up and drop off location! The animals started to appear – first was this gorgeous panda
Closely followed by these cats, painted by two sisters – I love the bright bold colours they’ve used
Next thing I knew it was nearly Easter and I was asked to help with an Easter Egg trail for residents at the South end of the estate. I designed some egg ideas to get them started and painted a couple of images, then the residents were given MDF eggs, paints and brushes so they could paint their own eggs. Here’s some of the eggs on the trail – beautiful, bright and bonny!
During the Easter Holidays, lunches and activities were offered to families from the conmmunity building on Gordon Road, to make the street look jolly, we asked people to exhibit their artworks along the street – having got permission from residents to use their garden fences and bin stores as the gallery space – everyone agreed and it made the street look very bright and cheerful – despite the cold weather.
At the end of the holidays, the paintings were taken down and returned to the people who had made them – although the Highland cow and teapot heart that I painted got ‘adopted’ by Gordon Rd residents – so I guess they liked them!
We worked with dozens of families across the Byker Wall and heard from other residents how much they enjoyed seeing the art as they went about the streets of Byker. Now the project is complete, the art materials are packed away, but hopefully we can be back in Byker soon to help residents build on their creativite skills.
Donna Cheshire Textiles 