Tag Archives: pimmsandneedles

One Suitcase, A Village festival, Pimms and Needles

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One Suitcase

One Suitcase – What would you put in yours?

I’d like to introduce you to my new project …

Anyone who knows me well knows that I’m really interested in genealogy, partly because I wanted to know how and why my Maternal Grandmother was born in Middlesbrough, and how I came to also be born there. It’ll be no surprise to people who live around Middlesbrough when I say my relatives came to the town from Ireland, in my case via Liverpool.

My great grandad Henry Healy worked all over the UK wherever there was unskilled work, from Middlesbrough and Sunderland to Kent, but the last place he lived with his children was Lower East Street in what is known as St Hilda’s, but I always knew as ’Over The Border’ in the area between Middlesbrough Station and the river Tees. This was where the original Middlesbrough grew in the early 1800s from a simple fam to the ’Ironopolis’ – the centre of UK iron production needed to build the world’s bridges and railways as the Industrial Revolution changed industry forever.

I was more surprised to find my Great great grandad on my Dad’s side had lived in Lower Gosford Street, across the road from my previous employer, and recently that my Husband’s 4 times Great Grandad lived in Middlesbrough after running a Jet Ornament business in Whitby, with 8 employees and a shop on Church Street ( this shop still exists although as a different business).Bearing in mind he was rural Kent born and bred, this was quite a surprise.

So I think if you know anything about Teesside, you know it’s an area built on Immigration. After the Industrial Revolution the next big influx of immigration came after WW2 when we were desperate for workers so sent out the call far and wide to all the ex ’Empire” (by this time, rebranded as Commonwealth) countries to extend the hand of welcome. It wasn’t really like that when people arrived unfortunately, and for some, whatever welcome there was didn’t last very long.

More recently, Middlesbrough and Teesside have become a dispersal area for Asylum seekers, this time because there is an abundance of cheap housing which the companies given the contracts from the government make much use of. Needless to say this is a story on repeat.

I’ve always found it strange, then that anyone in Middlesbrough would be anti immigration. The town simply wouldn’t exist without Immigrants, and to tie in with what was happening in London between 1950 and 1970 which we know more about, including the Windrush arrival, and subsequent more recent scandal of people being sent back to places they’ve hardly, or never lived, I really wanted to get my teeth into what happened here., and be the artist again. Taking inspiration from what I discover to create works for Middlesbrough Art weekender in 2023 and an installation in Kirkleatham Museum in June next year, as well as activity at this year’s Middlesbrough Mela and Festival of Thrift.

SO here’s some info about the project… if you know anyone who might like to be involved, do message me.

I’m looking to speak to and record the discussion with people about either their experiences of leaving their mother country and landing in England / Teesside.
This project concentrates on people who came / whose parents came here 1950 and 1970
Also I’d like to chat to people whose heritage is more local about how they would feel if they had to leave for another place.
Our discussion will be mostly about what people brought to remind them of home, what they would bring if they had to leave for a place with a different culture that they could fit in one suitcase – but also including less tangible items such as sounds and smells.
We’ll be looking at expectations and realities of migration, and what people feel the welcome would be in in new place .
The discussions will be saved and documented, and I will use excerpts as a piece of art I am making for Middlesbrough Art weekender, and an exhibition in Kirkleatham museum, both next year.
All discussions can be as private / anonymous as required and interviewees will have the option of having their photograph taken.
I am also looking for people interested in being further involved in influencing the project.

FURTHER INFORMATION:
Miki Rogers is an artist and community worker who was born in Middlesbrough working in community led arts for the last 15 years
She brought up her family on Teesside, though her heritage is from Irish immigration into Middlesbrough in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
The towns of Stockton and Middlesbrough have a long story of immigration due to access from the River Tees which originally welcomed ships to both towns, and the industries around Teesside expanding at a rate which local workers could not fill. Teesside more recently has become a dispersal area for people seeking asylum.
The project investigates what happened here on Teesside at the same time the Windrush and further transport was bringing in Jamaican workers to London, between the 1950s and 1970s and we’re interested in people who came to Teesside from abroad during this time or whose parents did, especially where the culture here differed noticeably from their homeland.
We know people came to fill our need for workers for the Shipbuilding, Steel and Chemical industries, with the promise that their inclusion as part of the Commonwealth would allow a welcome here.
More recently we have seen the mass exodus of people from Ukraine, and this has brought Immigration, asylum and migration into sharp focus for many people.
Interviews will form part of a work which will be exhibited as part of Middlesbrough Art weekender, and at Kirkleatham Museum through the Festival of Thrift, and there will be an element of creative response to the interviews by local young creatives, as well as a piece of sound art using the Oral History recordings which will play during the Kirkleatham and old suitcases, exploring what people did, and would put in that suitcase…

Exhibition/Festival of Thrift
Contact miki rogers : hello@mikirogers.co.uk
Naaila Shabir (Borderlands) N.Shabir@tees.ac.uk


A Village Festival

What did you do over the Jubilee weekend? I have to admit to not being particularly royalist, especially as I’ve been married to an old punk musician for the last 27 yrs…but I knew that the Platinum Jubilee weekend or ’Platty Jubes’ as I heard some people jokingly call it was, in fact going to create a great opportunity for communities to get together and work on their ’community-ness’, and there was some money being made available for this very thing!

With this in mind, I was so happy to be asked to be part of the team working on the East Cleveland Big Jubilee festival, particularly as it’s based in my corner of the world.

I worked with the wonderful Jo and a group of committed community champions who had set out a vision of village togetherness across East Cleveland, plus a dance spectacular on the Jetty at Skinningrove.
We got the funding 7 weeks before the event so we had A LOT to do, but we made it! 8 village halls decorated and providing exhibitions and activity, an oral history element, a bus tour and the promised dance on the jetty!

What a joy!

Here’s a little snapshot of some of the activity …

Thanks to all the villages, Arts Council England, Big Local, County Durham community


Pimms and Needles

In between all this flurry of activity, I’ve been doing workshops for the fabulous women’s befriending and creative group Pimms and Needles.

Founders Donna and Charlotte set up the first group in and around Darlington, when they realised there was a space for women to find friendship and fun and new experiences which had traditionally been taken by the WI and other organisations, but where they could share tea, cake and the odd glass of wine!

Pimms and needles now run 20+ groups across the Tees Valley, Co Durham and N Yorkshire, as well as free ’Silvers’ groups for women experiencing isolation and those over retirement age.

I got involved at the beginning of 2022, doing tea workshops with just about every group, and now i’m hist of the Redcar group !

See their website below to join and see some of the amazing activity which includes Life Drawing, mosaic and watercolours, and even Burlesque!

www.Pimmsandneedles.Co.uk

For more about workshops click here

The Dreaded CV , Going it Alone, International Women’s Day

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The Dreaded CV – sometimes you just have to rest

‘Sometimes you just have to rest’ by Miki Rogers Digital illustration using watery colours and pencil sets of naked plus size woman by a stream with her hand in the water
‘Sometimes you just have to rest’ digital illustration Miki Rogers

In October 2021 Mr R and I finally succumbed to CoronaVirus. Officially we’d both managed to avoid it, even though at the very beginning of the pandemic I’d been ill enough to need paramedics, with all the symptoms of CV except a temperature. At that time your temp was a main test criteria, before the heady days of Lateral flow tests and PCRs.

I’d dreaded getting Covid after my lovely friend, Zetland Radio presenter and star of The Mighty Redcar Julie Donaldson succumbed, and sadly died on Halloween 2020. I’d messaged her everyday after she went into ICU, and it was, and still is a huge shock and loss that she’s no longer with us, her wicked sense of humour, boundless support for local communities and fab taste in music though will remain.

We had the jabs. Having an Autoimmune illness, I was first at the gate, and I truly believe, bearing in mind how ill we both were, I wouldn’t have survived. I was beginning to think, I definitely had it early doors so had some kind of natural immunity. ….Nope.

I’d recently gone it alone after leaving my job of 8+ years (more of that in a bit) and – feeling a renewed sense of independence, when a dear friend had a close family member die , I decided support her at the funeral – driving alone to Kent and booking a last-minute AirBNB. The funeral was a sad and celebratory affair, and my friend – a bar owner, battled through the wake which they’d held at the bar, but was clearly ill. From the stresses of her dog having had a terrible accident, her Mum dying and a car crash in quick succession, we thought.

In reality she’d contracted Corona Virus – from her brother’s Girlfriend who was supporting her before the funeral, and so I and all my friends who were at the funeral got it too, then my husband, and I managed to pass it onto my daughter’s partner’s parents, a source of shame for me at the time as they’d been totally isolating up to the point we all had dinner together.

Luckily we all got through it, after a good 10 days of both being really ill, a couple of takeaways and a doorstop delivery from Morrisons, Chris now totally over it, me left with a very odd sense of taste and recovering from chronic fatigue on top of my normal chronic fatigue. I think we had a close call. As I write, what seems like the end of an unsavoury and sad period of time overshadowed by the terrible atrocities in Ukraine.

Going it Alone – back to Freelance

The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed this website having had an overhaul and name change from Ruby & Blue to mikirogers.co.uk. – I’ve gone back to working freelance …

I’d left community curator job in September, and felt unsure of the future but was dedicated to making it alone. My disabilities had deteriorated, and I’d been diagnosed with Hypermobile Joint Syndrome – an aspect of Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, a confirmation of Fibromyalgia connected to the illness and widespread Osteoarthritis. Clearly all of these illnesses had been there all along, and I’d started having treatment and odd diagnoses aged 8, but the combo of CV on me both physically and mentally, with the added treat of menopause had sent my illnesses into the stratosphere.

When I returned to work in Spring 2020 after being furloughed, my place of work and work conditions had changed, and even my job was about to change.

I’d been working for the previous few of years mainly just getting on with my own projects and reporting in. It was an exciting time full of possibilities, and I had a great oral history / music project to work on with the amazingly talented Patrick Dineen, funded by Great Place. and with images by my fabulously talented photographer friend Kev Howard taken at the very doorsteps I was dropping off recording equipment for interviewees. I found myself working in the project between my home and these doorsteps, Md online, which I found suited me well.

Through these oral history interviews about their experiences of living in and around the formerly thriving Steel town of Redcar, Patrick produced ‘Not in a room of our own’ a soaring piece punctuated by these voices. Listen here:

’https://soundcloud.com/patric123/not-in-a-room-on-our-own-the-social-life-of-steel

From there, the changes brought my mental health and neurodivergence into sharp focus. The lack of directly supporting communities I had taken hard and what was on offer was neither a replacement for this, nor something I could work with. My working relationship deteriorated, and after being encouraged to do so by many supportive friends and colleagues, I called it a day on the job I had previously adored and had much pride in.

Around this time I met the wonderful Catherine ’Katnipp’ Kay, an illustration superstar with her fabulous Katnipp illustration, online vlogging and digital empire, all run from a couple of floors above my former place of work on the Seafront in Redcar.

I introduced her to illustrator and educator friend Frances Moffatt, who was in the process of setting up the inspiringly wonderful School of Illustration with partner Nick Moffatt, and I’ve been reaping the benefits of our support and friendship together as well as attending workshops set up by the SoI. Fran and Cat have helped me to work on my own Illustration practice and supported me in the changes I needed to make to go freelance with my work.

I was also contacted by the creative and community powerhouse that is Donna Freeney of Pimms and Needles, and have been providing tea blending workshop with the fabulous women who attend, plus there’s been work on a couple of top secret projects.
One I was asked to help put a bid in for and project manage, the other my own project working with some of our bigger cultural powerhouses and our communities here in Teesside. What an exciting time!

International Women’s Day – my take

International Women’s Day 2022 is Tuesday 8th March here in the UK, so I thought I’d start with some of my illustrations of women and nonbinary people I know or admire, starting with the fabulous three at the top:

Edith- my dear friend and sister, owner of refill shop and eco hub The Cut Back and eco warrior woman in her own right, alongside Edith’s eco sidekick, my very own singing squirrel Sadie Joan, and my co-director supporting Edith, Saltburn Solidarity Foodbank Doyenne, and my other sister from another mister, Lynn JP.

Closely following are Dolly, Greta and Frida … not much needed to say about these three, but if you don’t know about Dolly Parton’s work for communities, go have a look at the Dolly Parton Foundation.

Row three is all about those wonderful people I’ve met online, and now consider friends….

Fantastic body positive maker, beauty practitioner and designer Lou Worrell to the left : https://instagram.com/_loulala and queen of all things colour and pattern, Siobhan Murphy to the right who, alongside the whole crew kept me entertained and enthralled during lockdown on Interior Design masters. I’ve loved watching these two go from strength to strength. https://instagram.com/interiorcurve

They flank an image straight out of my brainbox which I’ve now attributed to glorious body positive LGBTQ+ skater Courtney Shove aka @fat_girl_has_moxy on Insta.

You’ll see I’ve included non binary people, and my approach to Femimism is an inclusive one. The issues we face are the same for cis women, trans women and non binary people who either present as fem or deal with women’s health issues, and I’ve run the Community Craftivism group Women of The Resistance Teesside For the past few years on this premise.

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is #BreakTheBias supporting equal pay for women across the world. I’ll be joining by doing some work for Break The Bias, but also wanted to support Ukraine, so you’ll see me illustrate my take on work by Ukranian Folk Artist Maria Prymachenko. The museum dedicated to her work in Ukraine was, in the last few days destroyed by Russian forces.