So here we are, over a week on from the Alrewas Arts Fest. When you walked around the village in the couple of days that proceeeded it, you felt this sense of shell-shock, almost eery peace and tranquility throughout the village. The positivity that was left by it, the sense of unity and community spirit was incredibly noticeable.
So right from the build up to the festival there was a great energy that embraced village. This was even evident on the internet with various emails and excited tweets from Paula and the team. The festival was set to be the best and most exciting yet, embracing more of the village than ever before.
One thing I did learn from the festival was about it's origins. This being the 4th Festival, held every 2 years (I am told for the reason that it is unbelievably hard work to put together bi-annually, let alone annually, which I can very much believe and sympathise with) it was spawned out of an arts committee idea in 2006 and has grown and grown every year to become what it is now.
I have fond memories of the event on past occasions. I remember doing a film workshop with Pete Ralley with my Grandad, whereby we drove around in his Ford Mondeo (coincidently held together with masking tape at the time) filming the village, before returning back to the village hall to add effects like blowing people up and creating fireworks in the church. I can also remember past Party In The Parks, where we took our camping chairs, ate burgers and enjoyed some of the fantastic music produced by the wonderful local musicians that really are an asset to the village.
However I feel this festival has been the most involving for me, not least because it has been the most recent, but because I feel like I have played more of a role in the activities, workshops and projects which have gone on. I suppose this all started back in March some time when I bumped into Paula outside the shops. I was asked if I would like to take some pictures of some oddfellows, and in my usual way, agreed without really knowing what I was letting myself in for. It turns out, after attending are really interesting training day with Paula, Jim and a lady called Alison who is a photographer for Kerrang, where we ate lots of chips, drank lots of tea and most importantly learned how to take a decent portrait photograph, that we would be attempting to photograph 101 people of different ages from the village of Alrewas.
Well to say 101 is an understatement. In the end we took 214 different people's photographs, each sent on their way with a very fetching badge stating "I Gave My Face To 101 Oddfellows" on it, as well as the promise of their face being projected big style onto the side of the church. I have to say at this point, while we had completely exhausted ourselves over the 2 days we took the photos, we still didn't really know exactly what would be happening to them.
No more than 2 months later, cycling back from my paper round one day, there was the front of the village hall (named Oddfellows Hall, just so you can make that link) covered from top to bottom with the faces of the village. I have to say it did give a little bit of a fright, not least because it was still only 7 in the morning and my eyes were still a little blurry.
So that was it until the Saturday of the festival, when the protective tarporline was ripped off, and the project was revealed to the whole of the village which seemed to have gathered itself outside of the hall, blocking the road, footpaths, and anything else which tried to spoil the fun of that opening day of the festival. Jim, however, in his usual way, didn't think this was quite enough. And also, Jim, being Jim, decided he wanted to get out his prized Macbook and iPad and show off his fancy tech. So on the Tuesday night, it was to the church, where we were treated to a fantastic display of lights, eerie music from Maya Whatton, and Jim's fancy projection mapping thingy-ma-bob which I still don't fully understand! I have to say it was absolutely brilliant!
Getting involved with this project was great fun. It gave us an opportunity to learn new skills (when I say us, I should probably mention Katie Greensmith at this point who probably has more to claim than I do for the actually photos themselves) and put them into practice to be part of an incredibly awe-inspiring project which we have a lot to thank Paula, Jim and everybody else who helped with that.
Thanks for reading!
To find out what else happened in this years festival, please read on to the next few posts!
Follow me on twitter: @peachy146!
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