outdoor creativity & collaborations

Last autumn, I joined my allotment’s committee to help organise events and raise funds for the site.
As you might have seen in some of my more recent posts, I am very invested in growing my own produce and flowers. I’ve also been painting our shed now it’s been dry enough!

I’m always looking to work and volunteer creatively, and with the help of Engage, I am leading an open day and creative community engagement fundraiser to help raise funds for our site’s self sufficiency and bring the local community together to explore creative art experiences.

East Member Representative Molly Cawthorn, invites you to come along to the Nuffield Road Allotment Open Day in Cambridge.

We will have a number of creative activities and refreshments suitable for all ages and ideal for families in the local community to show the benefits of allotment gardening with an interdisciplinary focus on creative engagement.

We will be providing:

• tours of the allotment

• refreshments including site grown teas, coffee & cakes for low low prices

• seed and plant sale

• book sale

• Creative activities include:

  • printing with flowers and natural ink

  • "my favourite thing in the allotment" painting/drawing recording guided by a local artist (me!)

  • face painting

  • bug house/bird box building

  • activity sheets (including a map of the site)

Donations are welcome. All of the funds raised go towards the costs of running the site managed by elected volunteer committee with the principal aim to make our site self-sustainable by plumbing in a new rainwater system on our site's shop building, filtering the rainwater to multiple site dip tanks.

Engage Meet Up

Please note this is a public event, however Engage members and non-members are invited to meet at 1pm to connect and explore the activities together. Attendees with children are also welcome.

If you intend to join this meet up, please book your free place via Eventbrite.

Accessibility

If you have any access requirements please let us know on the booking form how we can help you participate in this event.

All on flat concrete/tarmac outside no stairs. No hearing aid loops onsite.
Parking not available onsite, but local parking at Nuffield Road GP and on Nuffield road.

Getting here by public transport:

• Busway B: departs from Cambridge City Centre/Huntingdon - stops at Cambridge North station (east of the site, about 5 min walk).

• Bus 2: departs from Addenbrookes/Milton - stops at Frank's Lane (west of the site, about 5 min walk) and Cambridge North station (east of the site, about a 5 min walk)

• Voi: voi parking zones on Nuffield Road and Frank's Lane.

• Bike: Nuffield Road Medical Centre bike racks, Cambridge North station bike racks. There are no bike racks on site.

Don’t forget to follow our brand new allotment instagram @nuffieldroadallotments !

I look forward to seeing you all there!

I’ve been continuing to teach at paint nights with The Paint Club - here’s a shot of me in action! A few days ago I recently hit my 3rd anniversary with them, and I’m close to hitting 150 workshops delivered.

I also recently had my work shown in Gonville & Caius college, Cambridge, in a charity fundraiser exhibition on femininity for Clarissa's Campaign and Cambridge Uni's Pink Week.

Works exhibited were my summer.23 vaporscapes, 50 x 50 cm, £725 each.

If you want a quick intro to my process click here or take a look at one of the posts below to get up to date.

and finally but certainly not least … I helped deliver a diverse exhibition of a local schools’ art and creations in GALLERIE V !

Over the past few months I worked closely with the head of art to help curate an exhibition over four floors of the students’ work. I also had the chance to discuss with each of the current students about how we could use curating and hanging as a tool to further direct the viewer to understand their work’s meaning and how this may effect the interpretation.

… so that’s why I haven’t managed to get too much time to make progress on my vaporscapes project! It’s been a blast, and I plan to work more on my personal work the next few months.

• Swallow — 5th April, probably due to the warm weather!

• House Martins — 19th April

• Blackcap song — 19th April

+ bonus: tiger moth caterpillar in our allotment strawberry patch!

Thank you so much for reading.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for how my projects evolve,

M.C.