Crafting Community was formed by local artist and creative producer Scylla Magda together with local practitioner & community gardener Eleanor Hoad,to develop folk arts & craft based activities in our local community. A not for profit organisation, Crafting-Community has developed out of regular activities we have been delivering in Handsworth Park since 2015, including lantern parades, crafts workshops & temporary & permanent public artworks. We currently run Forest School sessions in the park for home educated families, deliver the crafts tent for Simmer Down Festival , & in 2020 we established Handsworth Park Illuminations, which we are developing as an annual community event. As part of this we have written Handsworth Park Song to be sung at future events
We have recently been commissioned to deliver a Birchfield Light festival in Autumn 2021
Below: Handsworth Park Illuminations 2020
Lighting, ultraviolet flowers & butterflies by Scylla Magda, Lunar moths and draggon fly by Sophie Handy, lanterns by members of the Handsworth Park Forest School
Below: the beginings of the Circle of The Year a permant artwork on the lakeside plinth. After Scylla’s Big Hoot Owl flew away to raise money for the Birmingham Children’s Hospital, the concrete base was left behind & together with other members of Crafting Community she created a mosaic around the sides based on the grasses and leaves found around the lake. This become know as ‘The Lakeside Plinth. Commissioned by the Handsworth Park Arts Trail, over the next three years she created and curated a series of temporary artworks on the plinth . In 2020, commissioned by Crafting Community, she designed a permanent artwork fro the plinth, ‘Circle of The Year’, an engraved design on a slate slab showing the seasons, equinoxes and solstices, with the center left open for chalk drawings and nature art by members of the public.
Below: Temporary artworks :Autumn Reflections & Winter Snowman mosiac by Scylla Magda, ‘Handsworth Park Beautifull All Year Round” vinyl print by Karoline Rerrie.
Above: Willow owl by Ildiko Wu Wei Nagy , nest by Alex
Dr Zeus Flower + reading / drawing workshops by Scylla Magda
Simmer Down Festival Craft Tent 2018 -19
Workshops delivered by Crafting-Community recycled tin can shakers/drums, harmonograph drawing, mask making and jangles& bangles , +s Hattie (flag making) , & Claudette & Alex (potato printed bags), &face painting by Sarah’s Parlour.
