SAW 5 Achieve Their Arts Award


It gives me great pleasure to announce that all 5 SAW Arts Award candidates, achieved their Bronze Arts Award on Saturday 11th February. Very well down to Aidan, Charlie, Jack, John and Oliver for completing the challenge and producing such unusual, exciting and individual portfolios!

Wednesday 25th October 2011 My trip to Aylesbury, and the Samurai exhibition.

I went to Aylesbury on the 25th of October 2011, we went because of the Samurai exhibition, as I thought it would be useful, as for my project, I am studying medieval Japan and Leather working, and as the Samurai incorporated both into their armour it was a win-win.
I found the Samurai exhibition very interesting, as although we could not take photographs, II drew many of the exhibits. They had a great deal of Japanese artefacts, Including full sets of Samurai armour, Katanas (swords), Kabutos (Helmets), and many more.
The displays were very well laid out, allowing almost unrestricted vision to the cases and their artefacts, and this was good as it allowed me to see all of the artefacts and exhibits.

I liked all of the exhibits, but my favourite was the Katanas, as they had quite a lot of these, and some of them were in pieces, which allowed us to see how they were made up, which I found fascinating. I also learnt a lot about leather armour, and how samurai armour was the first ever example of bullet-proof armour, as it contained a “sandwich” effect of leather-steel-leather.
I also purchased a book, which told me all about the exhibits as well as giving me lots of information on Ancient Japan. This also proved useful, as it had some good information of how the Japanese tanned their leather, as well as how they made it into armour.

Veni, vidi, Pompeii!

Oliver's review of his visit to the historic Bay of Naples, in October.

 

Frozen in time.

Last half-term I had a holiday to the Amalfi coast, or the bay of Naples where Pompeii and Herculaneum is. On the first day I visited the very famous Pompeii and was amazed at the quality and quantity of what remained. I thought that, compared to British archaeology was very impressive. The highlight of Pompeii was the incredible bathhouse which was brilliant to see how a bathhouse really looked.

Pompeiian street with Mt. Vesuvius in the background.

On the second day we went to the National Museum of Archaeology in Naples. Naples was not a very nice place to say the least ! When we finnaly got to the museum I was a little disappointed. Many of the things I wanted to see, I could not because the Italian way of keeping a museum is very different to a British way. If they want to they just close off a gallery which is really annoying when you have gone there to see specific things.



Naples Museum



But on the third day was the highlight, when we went to Herculaneum. I thought that Herculaneum was alot better than Pompeii because the level of preservation was so much better. The wood was still all there. A olive press, rope and a pair of partition doors still remained from 2000 years ago. It was not as big as Pompeii because they have only excavated less than a quarter of the town.

I really enjoyed my holiday to Pompeii and would suggest it to anyone who wanted to go, but I would not suggest the National Museum of Naples because of the city and the Italian atitude to keeping a museum.

Oliver

Now Yule Be Ready For Christmas

...If you came to SAW last Saturday!

We did some practical cultural and historical background research - in other words we did lots of Christmassy things!
Wiebke explained what Advent really means and how it's celebrated in some European countries. We made and decorated stockings, pomanders, straw stars and woven paper sweetie bags and then eveyone had a hot Chrismas drink and celebratory food.

Thanks to all Santa's little helpers and a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.

See you in 2012 - new season dates to follow soon. In the meantime, you might like to look at a few pictures from 2011.

Gallery

All best wishes,
Susannah

Knots and Pongs!

Dyeing and Weaving session at Priory Coutry Park Visitor Centre, led by Chris Dobson.

It's no wonder dyers and tanners used to live on the outskirts of the town! At SAW in November we took a whiff of some of the pongs created by natural dyestuffs and the 'mordants' - natural salts, such as alum, that were used to make the colour permanent - to me, wool soaking in a weld solution smelt a bit like drains and old socks combined!

Chris showed us all the colours you can make from a small number of plants: Weld, a plant with little yellow flowers produces striking yellows through to mild greens; the root of the Madder plant makes deep reds to red-browns; onion skins create a range of warm browns and tans; but what is most magical, is watching as wool which has been soaking in woad solution, is lifted out of the water and turns from a murky green into strong blue.

We all helped Chris to prepare the woad plants by ripping up the leaves by hand

 which left us all 'green-fingered'!

Everyone got the chance to create their own dye pot to take home - the longer it's left the stronger the colour - we wait to see who leaves their pot the longest!

Then we got weaving!

Chris showed us examples of different hand looms and 'heads' which twist the threads to make more complicated patterns - some heads are made of wood and some of leather and they come in different shapes with varying numbers of holes.

Most people got themselves in a bit of a tangle trying to understand the deceptively simple craft of 'stick-weaving' - that is using a stick to hold the ends of two colours of wool, in order to hand-weave a braid. It's not as easy as Chris made it look!

On top of all this activity Aidan was filming the session , finding out how everyone was getting on - so we can't wait to see his results.

Despite the knots and pongs, everyone seemed to have a good time, so we say a big 'Thank You' to Chris for all her superb information and for passing on her skills and 'thank you' to Jane and everyone at Priory Country Park for letting us use your facilities and to all the helpers, including 'Jim-the-Camera'.

Next session Saturday, see you there!

Wrapped-up in Paper

Charlie's Frogmore Paper Mill visit Review.

My visit to Frogmore Paper Mill was a very enjoyable and interesting one. I found out lots of information including how they make handmade paper, how old the mill is and what they put in the paper.

In the 1200's the mill was a corn mill called Covent Mill and they only know this from written records. In the 1700's the mill started making paper by hand and then by machine in 1803. They still make handmade paper and this weighs up to 600grams. Paper made by machine weighs 110 - 350 gsm. An approximate calculation shows that they make about 250,000,000 sheets of A4 paper a year.

On our tour we got to see and make handmade paper. First of all they mix minced paper with water and then drain the water away. This mixture is known as 'crumble'. They then get a big tub and add the crumble into it the mixture is then made complete by adding  90% of water. They then get frames that are made out of wire and wood and sift the solution onto them till the whole of the frame is covered. They then sponge the water out and tip the paper mixture onto the mat which is made out of felt. The mat then gets put onto a heater and turns white paper into even whiter paper. You then have to get another mat and leave it there to dry. Your paper is now finished.

Sometimes the mill adds Banana skins, wild flower seeds, denim jeans, petals, Elephant dung and sometimes bank notes that are shredded up into the paper mixture.

LAARC - 2

Aidan's Review

We recently visited the LAARC in London. I found this trip very good and informative as I had never looked in the stores of a museum before. We saw lots of things such as where they store all their finds and the glass and pottery store. Edward and Sian took us round and explained how they deal with the finds and what records they keep. I was amazed to see a bottle of castor oil from the early 1900s still full of cstor oil! Later in the day we went to the London Museum where we saw many awesome things such as the Savoy elevator from the 1950s and the first Apple computer which was massive compared to their ipad! I really enjoyed the day and hope we can do more visits like this.