Baxter Gardens Story Chair
Current Art Projects
Baxter Gardens
In September 2005, our Arts Development Officer started working
with staff from St George's 1st School in Kidderminster to devise a
brief for a community arts project. The school had secured
funding of £5,000 from Arts for All, a Lottery funder, they had
their idea, but needed to create a brief and recruit an
artist.
The idea was to create a functional piece of artwork for Baxter
Gardens, which backs onto St. George's School, and to involve as
many people as possible from the diverse community that live around
the gardens. The artwork was to reflect this diverse
community and be a celebration of their different cultural
backgrounds.
Artist Kate Wrigglesworth, and wood carver Amanda Evans worked with
families linked with the school, St. George's Church and the
Bangladeshi community to come up with the idea of a story chair,
decorated with symbols and images that depict nature and cultural
harmony. Workshops were held each Wednesday and Thursday
evening in St. George's School hall throughout the winter and
spring to design the chair.
ARTIST'S ORIGINAL DESIGNS
ARTIST'S MODELS
It was decided that the chair would be made from oak and that dyes
would be used to colour the wood. Local mum, artist and wood
carver Amanda Evans, volunteered her skills to carve the designs
onto the chair.
WOOD CARVING
The story chair was finally completed and an event with story
teller Lenny Alsop welcomed the chair to it's new location on the
15th of July. The chair happily resided in the gardens and
was well received by local children and the school who regularly
use it for story telling sessions during the summer months.
Sadly in November the chair was attacked by vandals and
suffered serious damage when it was set alight. After a
lot of work to reassemble the original team and locate more
wood the chair has now been repaired and is back in
action. We hope this time it will remain undamaged for
everyone to enjoy.