Bringing people together to think and talk and create.

I had a great time co-facilitating a workshop with Laura Page last month. We've known each other for a while, but it was the first time we'd co-created a session together - a philosophical photography workshop with A-level students from Longley Park.

This was part of a commission from the National Circus and Fairground Archive, who do amazing work in creating opportunities for the community to engage with the collections they hold. In this case, students were able to actually incorporate duplicate materials - programmes and flyers - as part of their photo collages.

Bringing people together to think and talk and create

- it's what I love to do.

And it's fun to to do the prep! I made this printed map bag for a workshop with Ignite Imaginations as part of their celebration event at the end of the Sheffield Community Makers project.

This has been a project to build more connections between people and organisations in the city, increasing the range of opportunities for creative volunteering.

Participants chose a word to reflect what the programme had meant to them and cut their own print stamp to make their own lantern bag. Like people, maps are amazing resilient and can be re-created into many different beautiful forms.

I was also away from Sheffield during the month, and stayed in a hotel in Bristol for one night. The corridors were full of these clusters of different artworks - each with a photo of Bristol street art juxtaposed with other more traditional forms. I loved the effect it created, connecting expresssions of beauty and thinking across space and time. The connections made me look at the individual pieces more closely.

In my Write from the Art online writing workshops I focus attention on one painting per session, with different exercises to build a range of creative responses. In a one-and-a-hour online session that feels right, but now I'm wondering how I might incorporate the experience of 'connected looking' into this practice.

I'm always open to ideas and opportunities for making connections with people who want to think and talk and create together - get in touch if you think that might be you!