14/04/12: Guerrilla Knitted Cottage Garden Intervention Day!

All photos by Glen Stoker

On Saturday 14th the day had finally arrived to install my Guerrilla Knitted Cottage Garden intervention in the Stoke-on-Trent National Garden Festival Park. We had a great team of people from Red Nile, Airspace Gallery and volunteers from the uni working alongside Stu and I and the installation of the giant blooms was quick, stress-free and really fun.














We were all really chuffed with the finished results! The flowers had the desired effect and could be seen from way down the retail park and from houses on the other side of the allotments. I was very happy with the forms of the flowers and how the structures worked out. With only getting the scaffold poles on the day a lot was left up to chance but it all went according to plan.



In a little glade of trees over the hill into the park we set up the mini flower interventions that had been made at the workshop the day before. This formed a way for people to go further into the park and see for themselves what a beautiful tranquil place it is. The mini intervention worked a treat; it was very subtle and if you weren't looking closely you would probably have thought the flowers were real not woolly! It was great to have a part of the event that so many other people had contributed to.





The weather was very kind to us and despite rain being forecast we had blue skies and sunshine for most of the day.



Red Nile and the volunteers handed out maps of the park and talked to people about the history of the site, the park now and the commissions that would be taking place.



Many people came up over the day. Some had been to the workshop, some had read about the event, some were friends and fellow artists of Airspace and Red Nile, some happened to pass by the site and wanted to see what was happening, some saw the flowers from the retail park, one lady even saw us putting up the flowers from her house on the other side of the allotments and wanted to find out what was going on. She was from Sri Lanka and said that there they erect huge brightly coloured flags and sculptures when there is a big sports event so thought maybe there was a sports event on in the park. She seemed happy enough with pompom making though instead!




A walking group who meet monthly in the park came by on a tour of the site.



Visitors were encouraged to make a crochet or pompom flower and add it to the flower glade or elsewhere on the site.




All round it was an amazing day. People really engaged with the work and in turn with the park. We had lots of opportunities for discussion about the park, it's history and it's future. We met lovely people. Red Nile and the Airspace artists were a pleasure to work with. Even the epic hailstorm at ten to four did little to dampen our spirits!