Creative destructive construction

If you feel like knocking the guts out of something and being creative all at the same time, then mosey on down to the Swan Boating Lake this weekend. Lauris Morgan-Griffths, HOT reporter and self-confessed cack-hander in all things DIY and art, went down to try her hand at the latest Coastal Currents interactive event.

When I turned up at the Worktable installation in the dark blue shipping containers, it was not exactly a hive of activity. This was evidently a slow start or an activity a little daunting to some. However, I braved my timidity in all things creative and, after signing a safety document taking all responsibility for any accidents to life or limb, was directed to the first container.

On the shelves was a motley selection of  things – a typewriter, camera, pink high-heeled shoe, coat-hanger, a slipper bed pan, a Billy Eckstine and Sarah Vaughan LP and a teddy bear – from which I was to choose one object.

I was surprisingly moved by the teddy. It gave me a strange feeling in my stomach to think of dismantling this vulnerable, hopefully once loved, bear. I walked along the shelves a few times and finally picked the teddy. Because, if he was going to be destroyed, maybe I could do it kindly and carefully. And then put it back together again.

However, I soon realised it would not be me doing the rehabilitation.

I took him into the next shipping container, Room 2, where there is a veritable surgeon’s bench, a table laid out with all sorts of hammers and saws, goggles and visors for dismantling hard and soft objects.

And I looked at the teddy.  And after smoothing the fur from around his eyes, the teddy looked at me. And I simply couldn’t set to and disembowel  him.

So I returned the bear for someone more realistic, hard-hearted or whatever to do their worst.  And picked a pink teapot. A few thwacks of the hammer on the lid split it into many parts. Just one mighty thump on its bottom and the rest of it was a workable thing of the past.

I then took this to the next room, picked up someone else’s broken object and went off to Room 3 where there were tables laid out with mending materials – string, sellotape, glue, cottons and sewing materials.

I had chosen a ripped-up pack of cards.  Now this part was going to be a bit of a challenge for me. I started sorting the cards, the jokers, the royal cards – and then the rest, while I tried to find something to do with the raggedy mess.

I began wrapping the cards in cotton and string. A haphazard construction was appearing, then my eyes rested on the sellotape. A bit like the way someone unused to drawing reverts to stick men and women, I  chose sellotape, a familiar and manageable, childhood material.

In the end I created a precarious house of cards, the king, queen and knave forming the roof with the joker on top. A few pins were inserted for good luck – an old family superstition, a way of locating lost things.  And a transparent disc, which had found itself into the box with the cards, was inserted as the jewel in the heart of the house.

This  ‘creation’  – an odd view of an uncertain life – was wobbled into Room 4 to be exhibited.

I really enjoyed my solitary, meditative hour in the containers. I didn’t make anything that would shake the world – certainly my little house would not survive a shaking – but it was definitely fun. It is something for all ages, destructive and creative, and there is an exhibit as part of Coastal Currents at the end of it. How great it is to be an artist for a few hours.  Do go, have fun and realise your creativity.

Worktable, produced by Kate McIntosh. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 27, 28 and 29 September, 11am–6pm in the shipping containers near the Swan Boating Lake, Hastings Old Town.

See HOT’s Coastal Currents  preview.

Coastal Currents website.

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