We’re thrilled to be running the Jellybrella creative workshop in a fortnight as part of Wandsworth Arts Fringe.
Free and for all ages: all welcome to join us!
We’re holding the Jellybrella workshop from 10:00 to 4:00 on Saturday May 11 in Furzedown at Sprout Community Arts.
Bring an umbrella or two if you can – perhaps you can re-make a neglected one or celebrate your favourite loved brolly.
We’ll get straight into making led by Nikki and Chuck, and at intervals our storyteller David will move us with tales of lost & found umbrellas & living with less waste. He’ll be helping us be imaginative and thoughtful about the links between being artists for the day and taking care of the health and wellbeing of our neighbours, community and city.
We’ll finish with a parade right outside Sprout – and if it rains, there’s no problem as we’ll have Jellybrellas.
To book workshop places – don’t hesitate to bring the family – please visit Transition Town Tooting & Jellybrella event pages on Facebook here and send us a message.
A bucket of donated brollies – each of them waiting to be transformed by you into a Jellybrella.
Come on May 11th to our creative workshop and find out the difference!
We’re very grateful to Wandsworth Grants Fund and the Wandsworth Arts Fringe team for supporting Jellybrella.
That’s all the May 11th workshop details; please read on for more of what we have learned so far while doing the Jellybrella project.
Why transform umbrellas into Jellybrellas?
When we developed this idea in November last year we felt that re-purposing umbrellas would strike a chord. Umbrellas are practical and give us shelter, make us beautiful and fashionable, play roles in literature, style, faith and celebration, can make us private and isolated when we navigate a busy pavement in the rain. They are often discarded (look around in pubs and cafes – you are never far from a lost umbrella) – or maybe they are kept in a cupboard at home, perhaps neglected or superseded. We love them when they do their job…what value could they have at other times? All these values and relationships are rewarding to explore.
Linking with local and global waste
In the workshop we make the link with waste, plastics pollution in the oceans and the circular economy. Creating a Jellybrella makes those big challenges real as choices right here in Tooting.
The similarity with a wonderful ocean jellyfish is obvious when our creations are in motion. Every item we use in the workshops is re-purposed – from many sources, from participant donations and in particular from two community partners, Wandsworth Oasis and Work & Play Scrapstore. Thank you so much for the support!
Creativity and adventure
Making a Jellybrella is adventurous – maybe you like to have a plan and have a vision for what you want to create, or maybe you add materials until the right moment emerges to call it finished. Maybe you work solo or in a group…maybe adding to someone else’s creation. Experiencing them as sculptures, they can be static, folded up and rolled loosely or tightly; when opened they invite movement and expansive gestures. Take a look at a broken umbrella – simple and ingenious construction…what does it remind you of now?
Wellbeing
Making together – ‘thinking with your hands’ – is beneficial and positive as a small group or community experience – and solo. Sometimes we need an opportunity like this workshop to encourage us…
Think of all the links between being creative together and the Five Ways to Wellbeing:
Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Learn, Give.
There’s a good description on the Mind website here.
Come and explore all of the features of making a Jellybrella!
Jellybrella workshops we have done so far with adult and family groups have revealed many fascinating aspects of the umbrellas we take for granted. We’ll share more on the adult workshops carried out with seniors and with people experiencing sight loss or dementia.
“People don’t know that we need Jellybrella but
afterwards we’ll wonder how we lived without!”
The Jellybrellas were created last week by local adults with sight loss from Thomas Pocklington Trust Balham Resource Centre nearby: these two photos are from that workshop. 
