Feb 22 - 24 TIPPING POINT CONFERENCE Newcastle upon Tyne
' What am I doing about the future?' Short provocation/ reflection from John Fox
'Thank you so much for your contribution. It combined a masterful precis of some of the event with an even more powerful call to arms. Precisely what was needed - and more'. Peter Gingold, Director.
Jan 27 - 29th 2012
DEATH: Southbank Centre's Festival for the Living
Sue Gill and John Fox lead a public workshop DESIGN Your Own DEAD GOOD FUNERAL
in St.Paul's Pavilion, Level 6, Royal Festival Hall.
The workshop set out to dispel common myths, to demonstrate the nuts and bolts of planning a funeral, to inspire
and to give confidence. 70 people squished into the room where we were expecting 30, yet managed to follow the guided process, committing their funeral wishes and requests onto a document to take home and discuss with those nearest to them.
'Your workshop was by far the most insightful and interesting talk/workshop we attended. You presented a really great insight into the logistics of planning a funeral, as well as demonstrating how amazingly creative you can be!' Antonia Beck
Dec 7th 2011 NATIONAL THEATRE WALES 'Making Ideas Concrete'
Sue Gill and John Fox lead a 1 day workshop for newly appointed Freelance Facilitators for NTW's Assembly Programme.
Nov 24th 2011 SAGE GATESHEAD: BA in Community Music course.
John Fox gave a couple of lectures to students.
Gifts, gatherings, feasts and celebration
Nov 12 - 15th 2011 FOUR DAY Rites of Passage AUTUMN SCHOOL
at East Woodlands village hall, Frome, Somerset. Following the success of FIELD of VISION in Scotland in May this year, we offered a similar workshop in the West Country in the autumn.The venue in East Woodlands is on the edge of the Longleat Estate and has a very particular, rural character which informed the nature of the course. There were 12 places available at a range of fees. As food is integral to celebration and eating together is an important part of our process we asked fellow artist/cook Anna Ledgard to provide meals for us throughout the course. These were Dorset sourced where possible and home cooked at the venue every day. A few budget rooms were available in Frome with friendly local households.
Nov 19th LUMIERE 2011 Durham: the UK's largest light festival.
Artichoke brought John Fox to put his cat amongthe Tracy Emins, as a panel member for the platform discussion ' But is it Art?'
October 23rd CELEBRATORY ARTS WORKSHOP
for the HOME in FROME GROUP to devise a community celebration. Ideas and plans emerged by the end of the day
for a celebratory event for the River Frome and a new publication.
Sept 10th FRAGMENTS FROM THE WEATHER STATION
an exhibition lasting 5 weeks at Brantwood, Coniston of 3 years research in collaboration with scientist, artists and secular celebrants. Paintings, etchings, short films, enamels, whirlygigs, biodegradable funeral urns, documentary photography, poetry for occasions. Closed 16th October. Three linked Thursday evening events took place at Brantwood – 29 Sept live music, 6 Oct poetry, 13 Oct art/science discussion.
WEATHER STATION
is John Fox and Sue Gill's 3 year project at the Beach House. An artist/ scientist collaboration looking at what is on and under their doorstep and trying to reconcile the paradoxes of the local and the global through paintings and etchings, poetry, music, short films of microscopic sea life, photographic documentation of plants, beetles, birds, stories, artist books, recipes, flotsam and jetsam - where the material meets the spiritual .....
Punch Oystercatcher 1 Ballroom in the Sky Ladder Ark
FRAGMENTS from the WEATHER STATION exhibition
in the stately home of BRANTWOOD on the east shore of Coniston Water
in the Lake District - home of John Ruskin
VISITOR INTRODUCTION
The characteristic most often remarked-upon about John Ruskin is the sheer variety of his interests. Visitors to John Fox’s exhibition will readily observe the same phenomenon: an artist whose reach spreads in all directions, connecting social, spiritual and scientific dimensions – or as Ruskin would have it, ‘poetry, prophecy and religion – all in one’.
In the 1960’s John Fox and his partner Sue Gill embarked on an experiment in a new form of socio-political expression. Drawing on the ancient arts of travelling players, itinerant poets, troubadours and the like, they pioneered a dramatic new language of community arts, edgy and celebratory in the same breath. With Welfare State International, as their company in Ulverston was called, John and Sue’s engineers of the imagination achieved international recognition. Now in his seventies, John is discovering a whole new creative territory after an already long and distinguished career in the arts.
John’s art, like his career, very much pursues its own path, with no interest in relating to any given trends in style or approach. You will find everything from paintings and prints to film and poetry; sculpture and model-making to microscopy and specimens. John is also an instinctively collaborative artist, as many of the works in this show and their associated events, attest.
But what is the Weather Station? Literally, it is John and Sue’s eco-house, built on stilts on the shores of Morecambe Bay. From here, in the creative crucible of his studio, John records the ‘climate’ of the world, measured in everything from the heaviness or lightness of his heart, to the delicate balance of life among the critters in the sands of the bay. The Weather Station is more than the sum of its parts; it is at once a diagnostic tool for gauging the health of the world and a sort of metaphor for the state of mankind.
Brantwood was Ruskin’s ‘weather station’, a creative laboratory through which he held up a mirror to society. From here he looked at nature afresh, recapturing our ancient mythic knowledge, wrestling with our growing scientific understanding. In works like Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century he uttered words of ringing prophecy about pollution, climate change and injustice. I am delighted to welcome John Fox to show his fragments of the same difficult journey. It is a journey that cannot be made with the benefits of foresight or hindsight alone, but must be made, in Ruskin’s wonderful word, with “heartsight”.
Howard Hull Director
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY
'Fox oils amazing' J.Martin Guelph Ontario Canada
......' charming and inspirational'. Hilary and Jon Joule, educators
'After 10 years of visits to Brantwood, I cannot quite believe the lowering of the tone with the present artwork'. Anne Robinson Cumbria
JUNE 21st HANDFASTING CEREMONY
outdoor wedding ceremony on the Summer Solstice evening for two conservationists at Hay Bridge Nature Reserve in Cumbria; the bride arrived on horseback.
May 31st - June 4th RITES of PASSAGE SUMMER SCHOOL
at Falkland Centre for Stewardship: 'FIELD OF VISION' see below
.... ' I feel like my world has been opened up in many ways ..... This past week has not only given me more knowledge than I would have expected through shared wisdom and experiences but it has also given me the courage to act upon that knowledge where there is a need ..........how we can weave the many lessons of the week back into our day to day. A gift to have shared the experience ...... fuelled with a need to stay with the intuitive and determined to use the brains in my fingers more .... ' Selection of feedback from Bec, Helen, B, Anna .
March 30th ISAN gathering at Lanternhouse, Ulverston
of producers from the outdoor arts sector when Fox and Gill of Dead Good Guides orchestrated a wild walk and environmental workshop along part of the Cumbria Coastal Way at a mystery destination. '.... the day was inspiring in a very subtle, calming and serene way. As a group we are still talking about it, and it has raised many professional and personal issues for us - how we want to try and live and work, work/life balance, and how we look creatively at the next phase of our careers .....'
March 17th LEAVING CEREMONY
for staff at Tullie House, Carlisle, the county's museum and art gallery, facing redundancy and job losses. Old documents such as job reviews, assessments and reports were creatively recycled, thresholds were crossed, validations were read out and witnessed, fancy home-made certificates were distributed. To ensure we left traces behind, the afternoon ended with a bit of guerilla gardening, before we went to the pub, replenished with new directions.
March 2nd ACTIVATE PERFORMING ARTS Masterclass: 'EYEWITNESS'
- stories for our time - at Dorchester Arts on devising processional work, linked to Dorset's Jurassic Coast Arts Strategy.
Feb 28/ 1st March INDEPENDENT STREET ARTS NETWORK residency at Bore Place, Kent.
Hands- on facilitation for their Cultural Leadership programme. Rose Fenton, Creative Consultant wrote: 'How can I begin to say thank you for your wonderfully inspirational, creative and generous contribution to our week at Bore Place. You established the tone and spirit of our time together so beautifully and set us off into the next days with our hearts singing. There is no question but the time we spent with you - creating our installations, baking bread, hearing about your work, sharing, laughing, talking together... - enabled the residency to be the success it seems to have been'.
RITES OF PASSAGE - COURSES, ESSAYS AND ARTICLES
Annual rites of passage workshops. 
Led by Gilly Adams and Sue Gill
Ceremonies and Celebrations Workshops were in Brighton in 2009 and 2010 at the Friends Meeting House
FIELD OF VISION rites of passage Summer School in Scotland
led by GILLY ADAMS, JOHN FOX and SUE GILL
of Dead Good Guides
31st May – 4th June 2011 Falkland Centre for Stewardship
Most of us have a profound need to mark important events in our lives with some kind of ceremony. Frequently these are the occasions that our culture finds easiest to celebrate – for example, births, marriages and deaths, yet there are many other significant life experiences that demand attention. In our changing social and cultural environment where confidence in traditional religion has often diminished the challenge is to create appropriate, new rites of passage that can be witnessed by friends and family.
This challenge was the starting point for an intensive 5 day workshop which examined the Hows and Whys of ceremony and celebration in a practical and experiential way. Beginning with an exploration of the way that rites of passage have already featured in our own lives, we looked at what else might require special attention: - beginnings and endings; gains and losses; transitions. We examined how both positive and negative life events can be distilled into myth and poetry and created meaningful rituals to contain them. We looked at how music, visual art and carefully chosen words can be used to enhance ceremony.
Gilly Adams, John Fox and Sue Gill offered insights into the cognitively rich world of the secular celebrant, sharing their experience, offering theory, information, and – some say – inspiration. Most importantly the week was shaped to fulfill the needs and aspirations of participants. There was plenty of opportunity to learn and practise many aspects of the craft of creating ceremony – both public and private - in a safe environment. Listening, participating, pooling ideas, writing, hands on making and whatever else arose.
One full day was spent in the superb landscape of the Falkland Estate, with its stone, water, hills and forests – a place where people are learning how to live and work more sustainably. We spent time exploring both the woodland walks, the formal gardens of the Castle and other sites to assess and rig as potential outdoor ceremonial spaces.
Our working day was 10 – 6pm, finishing 2pm on the last day.
Gilly and Sue have been working together in this field for more than 20 years, first as part of Welfare State International and latterly under the banner of Dead Good Guides. Gilly is a director and workshop leader who specialises in the development of text for performance as well as in ceremonies and storytelling. Sue was a founder director of WSI, co-author of the Dead Good Funerals Book and also the Guide to Namings and Baby Welcoming Ceremonies. They both work as independent, secular celebrants, guiding families and individuals who wish to create their own distinctive ceremonies.
Slightly peripheral to the main field of vision this year was our artist in residence John Fox. Along with Sue Gill, John was the founder and artistic director of Welfare State International 1968 – 2006 www.welfare-state.org Since archiving WSI he has re-invented himself as a visual artist. Throughout the week he was around to offer simple making techniques. As a passionate believer in creativity John encouraged us to use the brains in our fingers and offered opportunities to discover, or re-discover our artistic aptitude, particularly through simple printmaking techniques and papercuts to enhance or transform spaces.
