The View From Here - Celebrating Our Time Together

Everything changes and life is punctuated by beginnings and endings

We have had a wonderful two years working on the Grange Estate and at The Green Patch

The View From Here was funded by the HealthBelief which is a Community Interest Company committed to raising money to address health inequalities in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. 

51 Community Interest Companies raising money to address health inequalities across England, Scotland and Wales through The Health Lottery.

Through this funding we have been able to bring high quality arts / crafts workshops to members of the community in a deprived area of Kettering, We have strengthened our links with The Green Patch and have made public artworks that have brought life, colour and joy to this wonderful community growing space. 

Everyone felt proud and happy to see what they had achieved

We had a fantastic celebratory picnic and we know that project participants from the Grange have made a great connection with staff and volunteers at The Green Patch. Rick, Jenny, Michelle, Bekka and all the children will be visiting, volunteering and taking in community events at The Green Patch in the future which feels like a lovely legacy to leave, apart from all the artwork! 

Back To Books would like to thank Sue, Nigel, Kate, Becky, Lucy from the Groundworks team who have made us so welcome at The Green Patch, Rik and Jen who have been our stalwarts at Grange Place, Michelle who has been our Pied Piper bringing our participants from Kettering Buccleuch Academy, but most of all we would like to thank our artists Carole Miles and Phiona Richards who have made this project so special.

Although our funding comes to an end in mid 

August the relationships we have forged will continue 

and we will be actively looking for funding 

to continue delivering exciting community based projects. 

If you like our work you can make a donation 

towards future projects via our Local Giving Page

You can revisit all the seasons and activities we have travelled through here  

Fresh Prints, Fabulous Fruit

We have been inspired by summer's

fruits and flowers

and have been printing our responses 

with artist Carole Miles

These prints will also be on display at 

The Green Patch

During Kettfest

Fish Flags for Kettfest

The Green Patch are taking part in Kettfest 

so Carole decided that the it would be a wonderful 

opportunity for The View From Here Groups

to show off their creative skills

so participants at Grange Place and The green Patch

got busy decorating fish flags

we had many different patterns

and they look wonderful catching the breeze

See more here

Horsing Around at Grange Place

A lovely up-cycling / recycling project at Grange Place,these plywood hobby horse heads came from the local scrap recycling store. They provided a great support for pattern making and paint. They were going to become planter markers at The Green Patch but everyone was so proud of their work they wanted to put them in their own gardens! You can see more here

The Green Patch Open Day

The Green Patch Open day was a wonderful opportunity to meet friends, View From Here participants, volunteers and members of the community. We decided that we would also link with another project and another growing space by making clay birds for the British Ceramics Biennial  Spode Rose Garden in Stoke-on-Trent. We felt this was a great way of increasing skills, creativity and boosting self-confidence for the group to have work in another public community growing space as well as on The Green Patch. It was also important to our resident artist Carole who has family in Stoke and is crazy about ceramics!

Grange Place participant and our right 

hand woman Michelle Brightwell

had her wonderful crochet / applique bunting 

on display above the plant sale trailer 

Using a simple paper template

and stamps, buttons etc designs were created

on the birds. This activity seemed even move fitting

as there was a wonderful display of owls

See more owls and images from the day here

There were reptiles and insects

Delicious cakes and teas

See more clay birds here

and just look at the fabulous bunting we made!

It was a wonderful day!

Bunting For The Green Patch Part 2

Phiona Richards lead a lovely outdoor session at The Green Patch to create more bunting, here are some of the fabulous designs made by the children.

You can see the full set here