The Tide Tables project was accompanied by a series of workshops. In the first instance we were keen to investigate within our professional peer group as to the resonance the subject matter of the piece might hold for them. We invited fifty midlife female artists and craftspeople from West Midlands and Wales to respond to the following questions.
1. Does your experience (on any level) of the life phase sometimes referred to as the ‘change of life’ affect how you feel about or carry out your own work as a creative practitioner? If so, how?
2. What picture or understanding do you have of the purely biological processes that are occurring within the body during this time?
The responses we received covered a fascinating range of ideas and experiences. Twelve of the responding artists then attended a further discussion workshop which culminated in a practical making session lead by Jane Meredith (wool/feltmaker)
Many of the participating artists from our first round of investigation stayed in touch with the project through to performance, contributing to a sense of shared experience that was repeatedly commented on in relation to this project.
Further workshops in Singing and Altered Book making were open to the general public. All workshops were fully attended.
