Thanks to funding from the Heritage Lottery fund Cromford Mills was able to increase engagement with sustainability, celebrate the installation of the new Waterwheel and work more closely with some of its retail tenants.
We worked with two of our retail Tenants to deliver 5 days of arts workshops inspired by the waterwheel. We aimed to offer a high-quality arts activity that would see adults and children working side by side to create art inspired by the waterwheel.
During the school holidays, the workshops took place every Wednesday and explored different media from textiles to printing to mosaic art. Participants were invited both to create their own art to take home and to contribute to a cocreated piece which we can display on site and use for retail items.
Over the 5 days we had about 270 participants including adults and children. A local supported living group “fairplay” brought their young adults to participate for two consecutive weeks – they wrote to us later sayin
“Thank you for supporting our art group members at your ‘Making Spaces’ Mosaic Workshop. Laura, Michael and Elizabeth have really enjoyed themselves and have been enthusiastic to come back every week. It has been a brilliant Summer project and has helped them to gain confidence in social situations as well as getting on with each other. “
The art is now framed and displayed in the café and we have new artistic designs which we will use for some retail items in our shop.
We hope that this will be the beginning of a busy and successful informal learning programme.
With thanks to the teams at the The Mill Yard Studio Gallery and Weave Knit It for making this possible
