Lanterns, Storychairs and festive nibbles!
The end of the year is fast approaching, with Christmas just around the corner, which means that Suffolk Artlink’s Wild About Kirkley programme soon heads into its final few months. Recently we have been busy working with Willow Phoenix to produce some spectacular lanterns for the First Light Winter Fayre on Friday 2nd December.
Lead artists, The Third Person, have collaborated with Willow Phoenix to celebrate the programme’s overarching theme of Soil and Land. The artists have worked with local school, Red Oak Primary; Brave Art, Suffolk Artlink’s creative course for adults with learning disabilities; and members and volunteers of The Pantry; to create giant soil creatures and colourful individual lanterns for a magnificent parade.
Join us on the 2nd December 2022, for some tasty nibbles and mulled apple juice from 4pm at The Pantry Community Garden, before we parade with our lanterns and musical accompaniment to East Point Pavilion for First Light’s Winter Fayre. The parade will begin at 5pm, and will take approximately 20 minutes, finishing at the Pavilion, where there will be festive stalls and music to enjoy.
Alongside lantern making, Wild About Kirkley is delighted to announce that we have been successful in securing funding to install a Storychair for our community garden at The Pantry, which doubles up as an outdoor bookcase as well as an indoor bookcase and reading corner for families with young children who visit The Pantry. Both the Storychair and the indoor reading area have been secured through the Literacy Trust and generous funding has been made by Morrisons to make this possible. The special outdoor Storychair is one of 9 in Lowestoft. Our extraordinary chair will enable storytelling and the enjoyment of books in our lovely community garden. The other will be housed inside The Pantry, perfect for these chilly winter months. The Pantry is part of the Warm Room scheme, so why not pop down and enjoy cozying up with a lovely story! We will be hosting a grand opening for these chairs in the new year – details to follow soon.
Both chairs will be part of The Literacy Trust’s Storychair Trail that will be happening on Sunday 4th December 10am – 1pm, including many other Story Chairs located throughout Lowestoft. Details for the trail can be found here: https://www.suffolkartlink.org.uk/projects/wild-about-kirkley/
Download the Christmas Storytelling Trail map and leaflet.
Alongside our recent adventures, our new Sensory Route devised with participants and our forager, Jon Tyler is now live on our DIY section of the website. You can find our final session dates, the Sensory Route map and many more DIY activities to keep creative, here: https://www.suffolkartlink.org.uk/take-part/
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