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The second book in a series aimed at helping children and young people with disabilities travel independently around the island has been illustrated by Jersey Mencap’s arts and crafts students.
Every Friday, Express presents a selection of online and offline exhibitions, performances, workshops, events and other historic and creative content to help islanders get their weekly dose of culture.
Here's this week's offering...
The second book in the 'Liberty the Cow' children's storybook series focused on travel training has been published.
'Liberty & Victor Take the School Bus' sees Liberty the cow taking her little brother Victor on the school bus for the first time and teaching him how to use it.
As for the first instalment in the series, all illustrations have been created as part of 'Taking Part Making Art', a long-established project by Jersey Mencap which aims to help participants to not only develop art skills, but also try something new and most of all, have fun in the art room.
"Our art project offers six art and craft sessions per week to adults with a learning disability and we enjoy having new projects to work on such as this," Alex Wiles, Jersey Mencap's Manager, said.
Pictured: 'Liberty and Victor' is the second book in the series.
"The art project offers our members a great outlet to develop art skills, try something new and we hope, reap all the benefits of being creative can bring. We regularly have exhibitions and sell some of our artwork with all the proceeds going back into the project.
"During the pandemic we have adapted our sessions and during the summer we offered alfresco art in the parks and on the beach. During winter we are offering zoom art sessions which has been really popular and proven to be a great way stay in touch and be creative."
The book collaboration is part of LibertyBus' close relationship with the charity to ensure people with a learning disability can gain confidence in using public transport. The partnership has helped develop LibertyBus’ disability awareness training as part of their ongoing community engagement.
All profits from the sale of the book - which is available from Liberation Station and on MadeinJersey.je - will go towards Jersey Mencap.
Martha MacDonald from ArtHouse Jersey on Vimeo.
Martha MacDonald is on a mission to make nonsense of the world around her, one poem at a time. Working as a freelance writer and playwright, her writings take a wry look at current affairs, popular culture and just the day-to-day struggle of being a full-time plant mum and permanently anxious millennial.
Her latest poem 'Hindsight's 20/20' looks back onto the first year of the new decade and its "multiple lockdowns".
"I was thinking about that weird feeling of living through an historic moment," Martha said. "After last year, I finally understood why my grandma would tell me so many stories about her childhood of ration cards and living with evacuees; I could now relate to the indelible mark that these major world events have on us.
"When ArtHouse Jersey commissioned me to write a topical poem that addressed the state of the world right now, I thought it would be fun to look at 2020 from the eyes of people in the future, looking back on decisions we made (or more importantly, those we didn’t)."
Local knitters and crocheters are being invited to put their needles and hooks to good use for an eggs-traordinary fundraising project.
Jersey Action Against Rape (JAAR) is looking for knitted covers for Cadbury Creme Eggs which they will sell over Easter.
Different patterns are available and can be customised or adapted to make them easier to complete. JAAR will provide the creme eggs.
Anyone wishing to take part is invited to contact admin@jaar.je.
Pictured: Jersey Heritage will be focusing on the history of St. Helier for this year's ‘What’s Your Town’s Story?’ talks.
Jersey Heritage is launching a new series of monthly talks focusing on the history of St Helier. ‘What’s Your Town’s Story?’ will look into well-known streets in the centre of town to reveal the stories behind them. The series will cover areas such as King Street, Queen Street, the Royal Square, Town Church and its surroundings, Broad Street and New Street.
The series will be entirely online, with listeners able to sign up to hear the talks live, or catch up later on Jersey Heritage website.
The first talk will take place online on Wednesday (20 January). Led by Director of Archives and Collections Linda Romeril, it will focus on stories from records which have recently been opened to the public.
Pictured: Jersey Archive will be offering a series of workshops aimed at assisting people with their historical research.
“We’re really excited to focus on central St. Helier this year,” Jersey Heritage’s Senior Archivist Stuart Nicolle said. “We walk through these streets so often but perhaps without looking around and thinking about the people and stories of the past.
“The ‘What’s Your Town’s Story?’ programme will give us an opportunity to talk about the development of St Helier and tell some of the well-known and lesser-known stories that came to light when we studied the records at Jersey Archive.”
Although the ‘What’s Your Town’s Story?’ talks will be online this year, Mr Nicolle said the team was looking forward to opening the Archive’s doors to people for a new series of workshops aimed at assisting people with their historical research.
These will be run in person on the third Saturday of the month, starting this weekend (16 January), and subjects will include family history, house history and conservation, giving people a better idea of where to start with their studies.
Spaces are limited for the workshops and must be booked in advance.
“They are an ideal starting point for people wanting to undertake research, and to get tips about different records to use or how to look after your own documents,” Mr Nicolle said.
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Local illustrator Will Bertram was due to show a series of new drawings at the Link Gallery next week, along with fellow creatives Ben Robertson (Bokra) and James Carter (Midnight Industries).
While the show has now been postponed indefinitely as a result of the covid-19 restrictions, Will has been sharing the drawings on his Instagram page. The collection was created last year and includes images from Will’s Isolation Creation and Shaketember drawing challenges.
“I had an artistically quiet year in 2020 (for many reasons), and I’m not going to lie it was pretty nice,” he wrote on his profile.
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