Hello across the darkness friends, where I am writing to you from a tiny shop full of twinkling lights, fluffy cushions, dreamy murals and story books…. Let me explain.
If you’ve been here long enough or know me in real life, you’ll already know of my utter fixation on the idea of creating spaces for storytelling. To date, I’ve co-created four short-term storytelling theatres in empty shops (two in Scotland, two in England) and this week we began a fifth, which you can see in the video! I also adore creating the same feeling with groups of children by using costumes and other forms of play sufficient to change the mood, both in schools and in community. It’s theatre in its most micro form! You can see a most recent example of how a magic hat can be a game-changer here.
These ideas are not plucked from thin air, but are based on years of research and learning from other organisations about play-based pedagogies, about literacy development and working with children. Like a stubborn wild-haired scientist, I tinker and tinker and ask endless curious questions of my surroundings, finding out what works for the place I’m in, while getting to know people. It’s not so different to how I am when I’m making a book. For me, this goes so hand in hand with being a picture book creator; to respect one’s audience is to know them intimately, and to do what you can to ensure more books reach more children is a worthy pursuit. But, more honestly, I just instinctively love this kind of thing- it lights me up inside, makes me talk with excitement and provokes such heart-stirring dreaming, and that’s as much information as I need to keep following this particular and very specific thread. I can’t really explain it but I don’t think I need to.
So, two weeks ago, Hidden Story (the arts organisation I run) was given the chance to inhabit an empty shop for a month or two in my village. We have opted for the theme ‘Light Play’, creating a sensory light experience in the dark months, experimenting with shadow puppetry and a number of other things that will unfold soon.
This time around was a bit different. I’ve recently been having to cut illustration work down a lot to focus on some health concerns so, if this was going to work, it would have to be possible that I did very little and didn’t overdo things. Would that be possible? I’m going to tell the next bit through screenshots of my instagram stories over the last couple of weeks, which is where I’ve been keeping track in small snippets to preserve my energy.
First, the guidelines I set for myself… this clearly had to be about making invitations…
I also decided it HAD to be about PLAY and about being open about that. No point in pretending we planned this whole thing for months in advance when it was spontaneous! So really, the invitation was ‘come and make something with us’. You know when you were a kid and you and your friends built a den, got all your good snacks and books in there and told stories? A bit like that! (Except coming equipped to improvise with 12 years of experience of this sort of thing).
So here I sit, admiring the most BEAUTIFUL space you see in the video, counting the TWENTY FIVE people who came together to make it happen over the last three days, marvelling over the skills and generosity of others, revelling in this act of community that has only just begun. I make no secret that I’d like to run a permanent place like this, but I also know that it’s only possible if the people align like they are starting to now. How thrilling that even I don’t know exactly what is about to happen, but I know that we have pretty much everything we need at our fingertips and I know that stories and the telling of them can change us.
Let me let the video and some instagram screenshots do the rest of the talking tonight, for it’s late and we have stories to tell tomorrow. So grateful for the wonderful people in my community.
With love, stories and stardust,
Gill
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