BEAUTIFUL NEW CHAIR (WITH SQUIRREL FREAK)

We have a truly magnificent new blue chair. It's made from corrugated cardboard and papier-mache but is really strong and very comfortable. It was made by a student from Ryde High School and now has pride of place in tea-break-corner. We're thinking of it as a slick management incentive: if you're really good (i.e don't lose the digital camera, wash up the cups, secure £1Million contract etc) then you get to sit in the Blue Sky Chair. If you've been really bad you have to sit in the bin. If you're really really good you get to wear the Magic Squirrel Head and sit in Blue Sky Chair. This is likely to be an extremely rare event however.The person opposite has been used purely for display purposes. He is actually not much good at all.

'The Catch' of the Day!

On Friday 16th March we unveiled a new artwork by Island artist Michael Forrest. It's on the corner of Columbine Road, near to the Esplanade in East Cowes and we can actually see it from our office which is particularly lovely! The piece entitled 'The Catch' is an Arts and Business 'New Partners' collaborative commission between us and A J Wells & Sons Vitreous Enamellers. The partnership came as a direct result of our 'The ART of Business' sponsorship day (also supported by Arts & Business).

Lots of people turned up to celebrate the event with vast amounts of tea and cake - we even wheeled the piano out again so that Dan could do an official fanfare (if that's possible on a piano??). And after a few words by the artist himself, Michael peeled back the plastic covering to reveal his new artwork - everyone smiled and clapped, and Michael's Mum even shed a few tears... all together... AHH!

This piece was produced in enamelled steel at the AJ Wells studios based in Newport on the Isle of Wight. A combination of spraying, screen printing and hand painting was used to create the work. The medium of vitreous enamel allows the artwork to be displayed permanently outside as it has an exceptional resistance to the elements... good job if this week's weather is anything to go by!

During his residency, Michael further explored the qualities of vitreous enamel to create his commission. This process allows the layers of colour to be built up, while retaining the smooth finish of the surface so desired in his former paintings. This too allowed experimentation into the relief of the surface, working in texture to enhance the feel. The finished piece which is a triptych, features a large scale seabird in Micheal's customary bold, graphic style.

We are really excited by this project, and are very keen to foster further partnerships with Island businesses that support artists and result in innovative new artworks.

Social Morey's

Spring is making itself felt in East Cowes and the No Barriers team is now in engaged in a race with the trees and flowers to put on the most attractive show of colour and artistry. Most of the art panels put up on the blue hoardings last year are still looking bright and cheerful enough despite the elements, but a few have been ruined in a spate of vandalism. We decided to fix this damage as soon as possible by replacing the broken panels with pieces of plywood painted in bright colours. We had the paint, we had the volunteers, but we didn't have the wood. Happily, Ron Bowler of Morey's Timber Merchants in Newport offered to help us out. Not only did Morey's supply the wood, but they cut all the panels to size and delivered them the next day, all free of charge - so many thanks to them! We have already completed the first coats of paint and hope to have the boards put up in the next few days.

Not-the-end-of-the-Pier

We're working at present with the Yarmouth Harbour Commissioners, the Isle of Wight Estuaries project and other groups in the town, to save the pier. It's been eaten from below by The Gribble! These are truly minute crustaceans (to be more precise they're marine isopods of the family Limnoriidae) that just chew up driftwood, ships, sea-defences and piers. Yarmouth Pier is the longest wooden pier of its kind left in UK and there's a great deal of support for a major scheme to repair and renovate later this year if possible. Here's a really nice poster from Yarmouth Primary School on the subject.

And here's a rather splendid model of the Gribble itself made for the school by Island sculptor Nigel George. There's a certain amount of artistic licence gone into this representation ,they don't really have quite such unsettling grins. This one's been aptly named Nibbler by the children and we feel is set to become something of an iconic bete-noir for Yarmouth and perhaps for those rescuing Piers across the world, (there's actually a Gribble species that's resistant to creosote - somehow you can't help admiring their determination to eat wood come what may.)
And here's what the little munchkins really look like:

Hopefully we'll all be busy with a programme of engineering works and assorted community and educational projects celebrating the Pier and its story for the town and indeed for the Island.

Big Fat Orchids

It's a good time to look for Bee Orchids: lovely chunky glossy rosettes in the grass, like spring-greens (don't eat them, they're much nicer as flowers). Some will be 'blind' (i.e no flower) but many will put on the full display in a 2 or 3 months, tricking those gullible bees into pollinating them. Actually, that's not really true up in these northern climes - they're pretty much all self-pollinators. Mysterious things, like so many of the world's orchids; some years you might find none, the next hundreds: unpredictable and fickle, aloof and elegant, a bit pointlessly decorative - truly the supermodels of the plant kingdom. This one is in a patch of about 50 on a little roadside lawn in Freshwater.

World's worst bird photo

Looking out from our office window on this beautiful spring day there is a Black Redstart sitting in the Lime tree opposite. Here is a truly awful picture of it. It's been around since December (the Black Redstart, obviously, the Lime Tree's been there a lot longer than that,) and seems happy in East Cowes. There's a great deal of redevelopment work going on here at the moment as part of the Cowes Waterfront Project - the regeneration work led by our regional development agency (SEEDA) and maybe it's all this that appeals to our little friend.