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BIG ART FOR
LITTLE ARTISTS
A dedicated children’s
gallery at the Walker Art Gallery opens
31 March 2006.
THE Walker Art Gallery, in
Liverpool, launched a new gallery dedicated to its younger visitors.
Big Art for Little Artists is a magical experience for your own
little artists where they can discover art through looking,
touching, listening and doing and provides a launch pad for
discovering the rest of the gallery’s world-famous collections.
The gallery appeals to children of all ages but has been
specifically designed for those children up to age eight. This safe,
friendly and accessible gallery features a whole host of different
activities to keep mini-visitors occupied.
Featuring a variety of objects from the Walker’s own collection,
including paintings, sculptures, toys, ceramics and costume, Big Art
will encourage learning through play and consists of a series of
zones...
The Doing Zone is a busy space with lots of things to see and do.
Focusing on themes such as nature, the area provides the opportunity
to look, touch, draw and make. It features a special mini gallery,
the Little Art Gallery, for children to display the results of their
creativity. This area also includes a Mood Room, a quieter, more
relaxing space featuring changing lights and nature sounds.
The Dressing Up Zone is themed around historic and contemporary
clothes and accessories and will include a selection of fancy dress
costumes themed around the characters from some of the Walker’s most
famous paintings, such as Henry VIII. The centrepiece to this zone
is an enormous, elaborate throne with room enough for a child and an
adult to sit on to act the part. Behind some special doors children
can discover dolls from the Walker’s collection.
The Story Zone features a mini-amphitheatre seating up to 32 people,
a puppet theatre and displays including paintings, toy trains, Dinky
Toys and dolls house furniture. There is a regular programme of
storytelling, events and activities. Here, children are treated to
stories told by real actors in regular film presentations, bringing
to life objects from the Walker’s collections. The 4 minute stories
feature the Walker’s famous painting And When Did you Last See your
Father?, a Patrick Hughes painting and a work by LS Lowry. In a very
special feature, famous children’s author Shirley Hughes has
recorded some of her poems that children can listen to at an audio
point.
A key element of the gallery is the Silly Sums display, a fun way of
teaching children numbers 1 to 10 with items from the collection.
Ann Bukantas, Curator of Fine Art says:- "Visitors to the
Walker Art Gallery will be surprised by and delighted with the new
Big Art children's gallery. We welcome thousands of children through
our doors every year, but this is the first time we have created a
space that is dedicated towards their enjoyment of the gallery and
its collections. It will show what great fun it can be to look at
and make art. We are looking forward to seeing even more children at
the Walker, whether with families or schools and hopefully many of
them will be coming here for the first time. And if some of those
children go on to become regular visitors - and even grow up to be
artists! - then it will have been truly worthwhile."
The approach to interpretation in the gallery has been developed
with the Little Artists, a couple of mischievous characters created
by young British artists John Cake and Darren Neave. The Little
Artists help visitors with activities, create trails around the
gallery as well as providing some exclusive merchandise.
The Little Artists are excited about the project:- "We value
creativity, inspiration and fun. Our cartoon characters are being
used to guide children round the gallery. We hope they will be an
inspiration, a spark that will enthuse them to create. For us, our
involvement in 'Big Art' is also an artwork in its own right, and
part of our investigation into the language of branding and cultural
values and how people respond to them”.
The gallery features newly commissioned work from craft makers Fiona
Clark, who has created the large throne, and Wirral-based Amanda
Notarianni and Charlie Macpherson, who have produced a glass artwork
inspired by rainbow colours.
Address:- Walker Art Gallery William Brown Street, Liverpool
Admission:- FREE
Opening hours:- 10am to 5pm daily
Information Line:- 0151 478 4199
Website:-
thewalker.org.uk |
Unison members set to lobby Phil Woolas office...
UNISON members are set to lobby
the Oldham constituency office of Phil Woolas, Local Government
Minister, as part of the largest industrial action seen in this
country. Rod Lawson, a Unison member in CAFCASS and a constituent of
Woolas, said:- "I have written to Phil Woolas on five
occasions now making my feelings known on the injustice the
government are showing towards us on our pensions. He (Woolas) has
not had the decency to reply and this dismissiveness saddens me as a
life long Labour Party supporter. At the last General Election we
were urged that if one in ten Labour voters didn't vote then the
Tories would be in. Woolas needs to be reminded that many of his
constituents are Unison members and will not forgot the governments
betrayal of committed public sector workers at the ballot box"
Mr Lawson added:- "Not so long ago Phil Woolas was also
proposing free bus passes for all over the age of sixty. No doubt
then that all public sector workers who will be forced to work until
the age of 65 will feel gladdened by this. Perhaps we'll take to
catching the bus for all our public and statutory duties -
ludicrous."
A
LOAD OF OLD PANTS SAYS LIVERPOOL
IT BRINGS a whole new meaning to airing your dirty laundry…
People in Liverpool are a little lacks when it comes to their pants
research revealed this week. According to a survey by
sensitive skin washing detergent company Surcare, 40% of
Liverpudlians own pants which are 5 or more years old and 10% admit
to wearing their pants inside out to get an extra day's wear.
But it’s not just people in Liverpool that need to pull up their
pant habits. More than 1 in 10 filthy Brits have confessed to
wearing the same pair of pants for more than 3 days according to the
survey. And a foul 4% of blokes reckon they have gone a WEEK
without changing their undies. An inventive 1 in 20 frequently
wear their dirty underwear inside out to get an extra day of wear
out of them.
But to conquer any whiffs, 37% of canny girls put ‘smelly’
things in their knicker drawer to keep their lingerie smelling
sweet. And 19% of crafty fellas even spray their underwear
with their favourite aftershave to mask any odours according to the
poll of 3000 Brits.
An optimistic 3% of Brits carry a spare pair of pants with them in
case they get lucky on a night out but a more practical 18% claim
they have a spare pair in the event of an ‘emergency’.
1 in 20 of us have left our underwear in an incriminating place with
the sofa and the in-laws bed among the top places. Another
common pant faux pas is when a dirty pair of knickers falls out the
leg of a pair of trousers or jeans.
David Briscoe, spokesperson for Surcare, said:- "These results
are shocking, wearing dirty underwear simply isn’t healthy and,
importantly, likely to cause irritation. With the annual spring
clean upon us; let’s hope the nation doesn’t forget to spruce up its
underwear draw. After all, it seems that whilst today we spend a lot
of money on designer clothes, we sometimes seem to seriously neglect
our smalls.”
When it comes to washing our smalls 40% would let their other half
do it but a prudish 26% said they wouldn’t let anybody else see
their dirty laundry and would insist on doing it themselves.
And the problems don’t end there – 1 in 10 of us cringe at the
thought of neighbours seeing our underwear drying on the washing
line. A more liberal 47% said they couldn’t care less who sees
their pants, but 21% said it can be a little embarrassing especially
if it’s not your best underwear blowing on the washing line.
1 in 5 blokes gets their wives or girlfriends to buy their
underwear, but 6% leave the job to good old Mum. A racy 48% of
Brits have ventured on a night out wearing no underwear and 13% own
a lucky pair of pants. Almost three quarters of girls said
they would make sure they wore respectable underwear if they went on
a shopping trip with mates – just in case someone spotted their
underwear whilst in a changing room - but only 28% of blokes would
bother.
Those in the East Midlands are the worst pant ‘offenders’,
with 4% claiming to have worn the same pair of pants for 7 days or
more. Whilst, only 1/2% of people in the South East would consider
going 7 days or more without a change.
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