More pictures of my project from Light Night

Andy Cotterill
Andy Cotterill

Andy Cotterill

Andy Cotterill

Andy Cotterill


Liann Jones
Liann Jones
Liann Jones
Liann Jones
Liann Jones

End of song; start of story

So that's Light Night, all wrapped up. I'm getting together a gallery of all the pictures people have kindly given me of the installation, and I'll post a link as soon as that's up and running. If you do have any pictures, please email them to onethousandcranes@rocketmail.com with your details and I'll add them with full credit.

Was it worth it? Undoubtedly. It was hard work, long hours, I'm out of pocket, I got RSI (I kept that quiet) and I've still not caught up on my sleep. But I've made some of the best friends I've ever had, got involved in amazing things with amazing people, and challenged myself more than I ever thought I could. I'm fairly (not entirely, but fairly) happy to call myself an artist now, and I'm not going to give that up for the world.

So what's next? I don't really know. I'm going to carry on folding (in fact I'm sat here with a pile of origami paper next to me and my fingers are itching to get going), and I'll still be doing Foldageddon. I'll post up on here when they are, and also any events I'm doing. I'm hoping to get a Foldageddon website going, so look out for that. For now, I'm going to fold, just for the hell of it.

Thanks for sharing my journey. We're only just beginning.

kxxx

Morning has broken...

First thing on Friday morning, I went into the Town Hall tunnels. My mum had come along to help, and as we opened the door my heart leapt into my mouth. Would the nets have frayed and fallen? Had the few that had dropped been an omen and they'd all be lying on the floor? I took a step inside, and saw that around 100 had fallen off their strings, but nowhere near as bad as I'd imagined it to be. Quickly we scooped up the fallen ones, and sorted a plan.

As the majority of the nets were already up, it was a case of filling in the blank spaces. I'd worked out the night before that if I did strips of netting with cranes hanging off it, we could then hang these like tinsel along the side of the tunnels and in the gaps between nets. We got to work, and my mum figured out a quick way of tying the fallen cranes (which had no thread) to the ones with thread, thus quickening the process and meaning we were saving on thread. Unfortunately as we went to put one 'tinsel' up the ladder it was tied to fell over, and we ended up with a clump, but that was the only problem.

Until the pigeon. When I'd gone to get a couple of chairs from the cells, I'd noticed a pigeon lurking (I actually thought it was the ghost for a moment). We'd left it alone, and it had stayed out of our way, but then unfortunately two town hall people came down and one freaked out, which understandably freaked out the pigeon, which then started flying up and down the corridor. I chased it out of the way of the netting, as much concerned that it would get caught and hurt itself as to the damage it could do, and grabbed a warden. Who then decided the best course of action was to shoo it BACK down the corridor full of netting and string. The poor pigeon was frantic, I had visions of everything coming tumbling down, and the town hall people weren't really helping. In the end we managed to get it back into the cells, covered the end of the tunnel with material to stop it getting back in, and it finally left through the now-open door.

This seemed a good time to break for lunch, when I saw the only part of Light Night I would see this year, the giant heron in the Tiled Hall. Which was cool. Then it was back to work, and shortly after my friend Rachel, who has done a great blog post about Light Night, and her husband Andy arrived. We showed them what to do, then left them to it while we went and tackled the courtroom (you'd forgotten about that hadn't you?)

The courtroom was fairly straightforward. Material for a river, worksheets to make boats on the table, and cherry blossoms EVERYWHERE. The foldageddoners had come through strong, and I had a massive bin bag full. Big shout out to Rob, Lisa, Dave, Sue, Elly, Liz, Fran and everyone else who I might've missed out who made blossoms for me.

Back down in the tunnels, and we had about fifty cranes left. I'd kept saying we could just perch them on the heating pipes as if they'd roosted, but we were so close to having all one thousand 'flying' that we pressed on. At five minutes to five a steward came down to ask if we were ready to open in five minutes, just as I tied the last cable tie to hang the final string. We were there. One thousand cranes were flying through the Town Hall tunnels.

Piece of cake, huh?

The day before...

On Thursday morning I got up early. The cranes were all packed and ready to go - glowing away flatpacked in sandwich bags then wedged into holdalls and bin bags. More sandwich bags filled my rucksack full of useful things like duct tape and netting and scissors and pritt stick (I never used the pritt stick, it just seems like the sort of thing you should carry if you're an artist). My helper for the morning (who was also giving me a lift in) had dropped out at the last minute, so I was going it alone. The taxi dropped me off outside the Town Hall, and I lugged my bags inside.

I got down into the tunnels and the first thing I noticed was that it was full of stuff. The porters hadn't got round to clearing it yet, so there were crates and chairs and trolleys and even a chaise longue! One of the Light Night organisers promised to get it sorted quickly (which she did), and disappeared off to fetch the ladders I was borrowing. She returned a few minutes later with the tiniest stepladders I've ever seen in my life. Seriously, they were the sort of ladders old ladies use to reach the top shelf in the kitchen. By standing on the next to top step and stretching really hard I could just about reach the pipes we were hanging the netting off. Unfortunately, because I was on my own, I wasn't allowed up the council ladders in case I fell off (which to be fair was a real possibility due to the rubbishness of the ladders). Pleas on Twitter for someone to come and sit with me were unsuccessful (though I had amazing people already coming later on). I was left, after a brief recounting of ghostly encounters by the porter, on my own with a thousand cranes, lots of netting, and absolutely no way of attaching them to the ceiling.

I have to admit I sat and had a little cry. Suddenly it looked like all the hard work was going to go to waste, because I needed the set up time so badly, and here it was ticking away with me sat on the floor in a dusty corridor with only a ghost for company.

Then I shouted at myself. I reminded myself how brave I'd been attending that first Light Night meeting when I hadn't known anyone and everyone else seemed to know each other. How easy it would have been to run away after I fell down the stairs at the budgeting meeting and embarassed myself. How when I'd got to 600 cranes and I was sick of the sight of them I could have given up. I stood up, shook myself off, introduced myself to the ghost and told myself to get on with it.

I emptied out all my bags and tried to work out a way to get going. My original plan was to put all the netting up then as more volunteers arrived they could climb ladders (I'd envisioned decent ladders, and at least a few sets) and string the cranes through. Clearly that wasn't going to work. So I hit upon the idea of laying the cranes out on the floor, then laying the netting over, tying the cranes, then lifting the whole thing into the air when more people arrived. I cut the netting into chunks for different parts of the tunnel, and started work.

As I was getting on with this my husband RobW (there were lots of Robs involved in my project) rang to say he'd left work to come in and help, and he arrived shortly after with a sandwich and a big hug, then got on with tying the cranes onto the net. For about five minutes before declaring it would take a million billion years to do 1000 this way (he wasn't quite so dramatic about it). We stood and puzzled for a bit - could we jam the thread through the netting rather than tying? Should we tie the netting up with cranes ABOVE it, like a balloon net? Finally we hit upon the idea of making strings across the netting which meant it was easy to tie the cranes to it, but we could still use the netting to hold it all together and to space the cranes. Then he chanced upon the idea of tying the nets at waist height, making it amazingly easier to tie them on, and also giving us the first glimpse of flying cranes. My friend Jane arrived and quickly and quietly got on with laying out cranes ready for us to tie on - taking an extended lunch break for me.

Soon we were flying, and by the time Katie arrived, an acquaintance from Twitter who'd responded to my plea for help, we'd got it down pat. She, like a trooper, took control of a net and got on with it. A while later Fran, Dave and Lisa (Foldageddoners), Brett, Aretha and RobC (friends from my husband's work), RobE (a fellow LightNighter) and the lovely aforementioned Jane arrived, and we soon had most of the nets ready to go up. With the teeny ladders it was a struggle until someone suggested rigging up a pulley system. This worked really well, and our first net was up! Then a porter walked through, laughed at our ladders, and offered to go and get us some proper ones.




With big ladders in play, it was nothing (nothing! it was a LOT of work!) for Dave, and later RobC to scamper up to the ceiling like a spider-monkey-super-squirrel, and before we knew it, the ceiling was covered in nets and we were rushing to sneak up the last one before the Town Hall kicked us out. We got it up, and around 700 cranes were dangling from the ceiling. As we were leaving a few cranes dropped down where the thread had slipped through the sellotape, but that was a problem for the next day. Saying goodbye to the ghost, we left for the night.


Thanks to Dave 'boiler-man' Naylor (@caramboo) for the awesome pics. I forgot to take any of the setting up!

On the night...

Full report coming soon...

The final countdown

Sorry I haven't updated the blog this week - it has been more than manic.

On Monday morning I woke up at half past four in the morning, and had a panic attack that I wasn't going to get all the batteries in the cranes.

Wednesday I woke up and couldn't move my right hand, and it was all swollen. I still had 300 cranes to put batteries in.

Thursday I went down to the tunnels and half the people who had offered to help had pulled out. Then I wasn't allowed up the ladders on my own because of health and safety. Then the way that I had planned to attach the cranes didn't work. At lunchtime there still wasn't a single crane in the air.

It wasn't looking good...

What is Light Night Leeds?

There's been a bit of talk on Twitter from people who don't know what Light Night Leeds is; and as there are people coming from outside Leeds who are a bit in the dark (excuse the pun!) as well, I thought I'd give a bit of an overview.

Firstly, I can't really tell you what Light Night is. Not because it's a secret, but because it changes year on year. So I'd only really be able to tell you about this year's event after it had happened. That's a lovely thing about the Leeds Light Night, as it is so heavily driven by the people who take part.

Light Night Leeds is based on the Nuit Blanche event. It is now in its sixth year, and there are currently 11 cities in the UK who have Light Nights (Leeds was the first in the UK). Other cities are completely different to Leeds, with some having one or two big events, or taking the "light" part literally and using lasers and stuff. Leeds Light Night focuses on the artists and the people of Leeds. It asks for submissions and is open to anyone (obviously, as they took me!) What submissions come in form the basis of Light Night. Basically, it makes the whole city into a giant playground for the arts, and for the people of Leeds.

Light Night is spread over the whole of Leeds - from the university buildings and Hyde Park Picture House in the north to Round Foundry and Templeworks in the south. There are around 100 events going on, including theatre pieces, sound installations, art exhibits, bands, children's entertainment...and some really crazy stuff. How about visiting a crashed spaceship in the library, or going on a static rollercoaster in Victoria Gardens? What about a moving maze in Millennium Square? Light Night embraces all the different grassroots and established arts and culture in Leeds. There are a lot of events that you might stumble across, such as projections on buildings and theatre pieces that travel around the city centre, and there are set pieces in certain places (such as mine) that you can plan to go and see.

A lot of the fun of Light Night is that buildings open late, such as Leeds City Museum, and some buildings open that normally you wouldn't be able to get into, like the tunnels under the Town Hall. So it's a brilliant way to have a nosey about as well.

The thing that I think is best about Light Night is the way it embraces the people of Leeds. If you're not into art, you'll probably still enjoy the virtual spray painting in Millennium Square. If you're interested in Leeds history, why not check out the Underworlds tour from Leeds City Museum which fuses local architecture and history with that of ancient mythology. If you like music, drop by and see the sound on a wire piece in the Town Hall. If you hate all the arts, you can still get a free fortune cookie from around Little Woodhouse. Everybody likes cookies. Light Night is about celebrating the city and the people who live here. It's not trying to be a highbrow arts event (though there is high-end stuff going on), it's trying, and I think succeeds, in being a fun, varied way of linking up lots and lots (and lots!) of stuff that goes on in the city, and making it more accessible for everyone. It promotes what's great about Leeds, makes the city more inviting (don't worry too much about getting lost - you'll probably find a dancing urban nymph round the corner) and might just get a few people interested who weren't interested before.

Plus, don't forget that it is all free. Every event is free. The artists involved do it for free, the buildings that open late don't charge. Bands and performers and the people who will point you in the right direction for things all do it for free. Light Night Leeds is a night put on by the council, and the guys that run it work really hard on a tiny budget to put on over 100 events, with no charge.

So what have you got to lose? Come and play with your city.

Light up, light up

The LEDs arrived.

I started putting them in the cranes, through the bottom, and realised that at the rate it was taking me I wouldn't make Light Night 2012, let alone the Light Night in a few weeks. I was having to virtually completely unfold the crane, put the light in, then refold it.

This was the first real problem I've had since the start of the project, and at this late stage it panicked me that something so massive could go wrong. I'm also a little bit fixated with planning, so to have not factored in that my plan wouldn't work made me really angry with myself, and made me panic more.

Hours later, with a prototype crane so mangled it looked like the victim of a road traffic accident, and me sat sobbing on the sofa because I still couldn't figure out a quick way to put the LED in, and the way I was doing it was so complicated I couldn't possibly ask anyone else to help, and my lovely, gorgeous husband looked at it and said

"why don't you just cut a hole in the top, and drop the LED in?"

The man's a genius. It now takes around 30 seconds to do a crane, and once they're hung up, you won't even notice the hole in the top (it's covered over with sticky tape so the LED doesn't just pop out again).

I'm back on track!

...999...1000!

I've finished my cranes. A few of us gathered in the pub whilst I folded the final ten, and they're all done. Whilst I was doing the last hundred, I thought a lot about how much has changed since I started, and everything that I've done since I folded my first crane for this project.

My cranes have been to and been folded at, and during:

Foldageddons Light Night budget meetings Leeds Pride a new dr (who) Unity Day various pubs Brighton Chorley Manchester trivial pursuit partiesTabby's naming party beer train a general election testspace Nuneaton Hiroshima/Nagasaki memorial the last ashes to ashes various club nights Manchester Pride secret tearoom my birthday party other people's birthday parties over the rainbow house sale a (very minor) house fire michael mcintyre ilovewestleeds festival the world cup Sheffield lots of motorways and lots of other things!

thank you to everyone who has supported me so far, and a special thank you to my husband Rob, who cut 1000 pieces of paper into squares for me to fold!

There's still lots more to come before October, so stay tuned!

Final furlong

Have a quick look at the Totalizer in the right hand sidebar. At the time of writing this, it is at 940. By Friday the total will be 1000. One. Thousand. Cranes.

I've got it all planned out, twenty a day until Friday, when I'll do ten through the day, then I'm going to go to Nation of Shopkeepers pub to fold the last ten in the company of friends, then I'll have a big drink to celebrate.

If you're in Leeds, and you'd like to see the final ten being made, or you just want to come for a drink, then please feel free to drop in. I'll be there from half past four.

It feels weird being on the home straight. There's still LOADS to do for Light Night, but this part of it is almost over. It doesn't seem very long ago that I fudged the totalizer because 8 cranes didn't even show up on it, and now it's almost full. I have bags everywhere with cranes in, and I've got used to always carrying some paper just in case I have five minutes. My fingers won't know what to do!

One more thing...

Yesterday I was sat at work when the phone rang. It was one of the organisers of Light Night saying that the courtroom, which is the room next to the tunnels where my project will be, had come free, and would I be able to do something with it?

This is where people will be coming in to get to the tunnels (you walk into the dock of the courtroom then down some stairs, the way the prisoners would have done), so of course I said yes. I hoofed it over to the Town Hall to have a look. The room is huge, and all traditionally wood-panelled with chandeliers. It isn't actually used as a courtroom anymore, but it's quite often used for filming of Emmerdale and other TV programmes, so you may have seen it already. There's a huge table in the middle of it which would be perfect for folding.

I came away a little nervous, but very excited. To be offered an opportunity to do more is great, but it's only five weeks away and I don't want it to look like a half-arsed attempt. We were discussing ideas as I wanted to keep the cranes separate from the courtroom so you still had the impact, but I want it all to look connected. After a bit of thinking, and some messing about with models, I hit upon an idea.

The 'thousand crane' story is an ancient Japanese legend, popularised by the story of Sadako Sasaki, and I often have to explain this. What if I made the courtroom into a sort of prelude to my thousand cranes? I could have some information up, and the sailboat folding in there. Thinking about making it about Sadako and the Japanese legend led me to thinking about making the courtroom into a peace garden. Lots of origami cherry blossoms 'growing' out of the courtroom, taking over the place of judgement and turning it into a place of peace and contemplation.

So this is my challenge. As well as finishing the thousand cranes project, now I need to make cherry blossoms. I'm planning on calling on volunteers to help, so if you want to get involved, please let me know. And wish me luck!

Calm before the storm

Things have been a bit quiet round here of late. I've been folding, but in terms of everything else, it's all on hold until September (when the funding will come through, and it will be a mad panic of rigging up the lights etc).

Last night I hit 800 cranes, and 200 seems completely doable (heck if need be, I think I could do 200 in a weekend, so there's no way I'll not make 1000). It feels a bit flat though, like because there's not much else going on there's no excitement over such a milestone; and because everything is just "ticking over", it's all feeling a bit ho-hum. I'm still mega-excited about Light Night, but at the moment there's few people to bounce it off, and those not involved are bored of it by now (and some who are involved!) and those who are are getting on with their own projects.

I've not lost my Light Night mojo, I've just temporarily misplaced it. I think we need to organise a Light Night drinking session to get the energy back up.

Want to get involved in Light Night?

This is taken directly from the Light Night website, but thought it may be of interest to some...

Light Night is an annual arts festival run by the council, which takes place at numerous venues across the city centre. It is a celebratory showcase of diverse creativeness, and gives visitors free access to art and venues that they might not normally see.

This year we are looking for a group of volunteers to work on Light Night with us and join our pool of volunteers for future events. This is a fantastic opportunity for anyone looking for experience of working in the arts, or just to enjoy Light Night from a different point of view!

Most of the volunteers will be required to provide information and collect feedback from audiences and performers (through asking people to fill out feedback forms). Some volunteers may also be asked to help with events. You will be expected to work for a shift, but we will make sure you have time to enjoy Light Night as well!

Volunteers must be age 18 or over and the deadline for applying is 5pm Friday, 27 August.

Please note: Volunteers will be required to attend a short briefing session in the afternoon on either 28 and 30 September, and will receive a Light Night t shirt.

Please send your CV and a covering letter explaining why you would like to work on Light Night to Mo Rowlands on morwenna.rowlands@leeds.gov.uk or ring 0113 247 6419 for further information.

Further details on Light Night here: www.lightnightleeds.co.uk

Poll

Whilst the cranes are ticking along, I'm thinking ahead to the other aspects of my Light Night event. The electrical aspect is on hold for the moment (until I get the money through to buy everything. Don't panic before you need to.), so there's only the boats to worry about. This is my dilemna.

If you've read my previous post about the sailboats, you'll remember that the original was a traditional origami sailboat. Easy to fold, recognisable, not a problem. Apart from some people have mentioned how they are quite two dimensional. Someone even asked why I couldn't have a boat he could sail down the river.

Which got me thinking.

Would it better to have a different type of boat? I'm still loving the boat idea, particularly as there seems to be a bit of a theme of 'journey' going on at Light Night this year (completely coincidentally). There's three types of boat up for consideration (excuse the blurry photos):



The original idea was this one:



Like I said, instantly recognisable as a boat, but a little...flat.

This is the second option:



A bit more artistic, but not as obvious as a boat. It does travel across a flat surface if you blow it though.

The third option is the classic "newspaper boat":



Most people recognise this as a boat, and it sails on water; but is it recognisable enough?

What do you think? Please leave your comments below before I start making a load of the wrong type!

FIVE HUNDRED!!

That's right. As of Saturday night, I've folded 500 cranes. That's halfway there. Okay, we won't focus on the amount I've got left to do. I'll post a picture of them all at some point, sat in their little bags, waiting to be illuminated.

FIVE HUNDRED CRANES!!

It seems like forever since I started, although this blog tells me it wasn't all that long ago. A thousand seemed like such a massive number, but now 500 seems like an even bigger number as the deadline looms. I know I'll do it though. After all, I'm already halfway there.

Update and missed deadlines

Sorry I haven't blogged for a while. Everything is just ticking along, really. Meetings are over, and there won't be another for a while; cranes are slowly but steadily being made and the totalizer is creeping up (well it's not, because I forget to update it until I've done about 20 of them). It's really just a waiting (and folding) game until nearer the time, but I didn't want you to think I'd forgotten you.

I did miss my self-imposed deadline of 500 by my birthday (16th July) by around 50 cranes. So I'm behind on where I wanted to be, but I did have two assignments and a load of personal commitments at the same time, which have all been done now, so there's a clear run for me to catch up.

One hundred...

Today is one hundred days until Light Night Leeds, so it seemed a good time for a little retrospective.

I started out my project for Light Night thinking it would be nice just to be involved in something that I really enjoyed last year.

Since then, I've made friends, been to budgeting meetings, got involved in arts festivals and been funded by the Council to put on my installation. I've gained confidence and the whole thing has really helped me settle in in Leeds.

There's still 100 days to go, who knows what that will bring...

The results are in...

I've got in. Not only have I got in, I've got in with full funding.

I'm doing Light Night.

Now it's sorted (in terms of being 'approved'), it's all become a bit more real. The eagle eyed of you will have noticed the totalizer rocketing up this week - well that's because I'm panicking slightly!

I know I'll be alright, and I'm really really excited about doing it, it's just a little daunting. But isn't that what it's all about?

Meetings two and three

First of all, apologies! I've kept you all on the edge of your seats about how my presentation went...well here it is.

It went a bit crap.

I turned up at the second meeting and the first thing I did was trip up the stairs. So, you know, that was a good start. Despite wearing my lucky socks, I fumbled and stumbled through my idea; the room was really light so you couldn't really see the LED inside Blue Canary and a few people threw questions that seemed like they hated my idea. I was feeling really down, and thought they were just going to say "well you tried, but we think it would be best if you just went home and came to Light Night as a visitor"...but the feedback I got from people was pretty good. Good enough that I'm not going to get thrown out anyway!

Both the second and third meetings had a lot of good ideas, and I'm really looking forward to going ahead and getting to know the people involved. I should hear this week about the funding, and then I just have to get on with the folding!

Meeting number one

I went to the first of the budget meetings yesterday, and got to hear about ten of the proposals for Light Night.

There were over 200 submissions sent in, with 56 of those asking for funding. Of those 200, 75 will take place, and 30 will be funded. I'm in that 30.

Some of the proposals were really good, some (I thought) were rubbish. As with most art stuff, some I just didn't "get". However, it did bring home how diverse the range of projects at Light Night, and how diverse the people involved are. There were inclusive projects for youth groups, people asking for student volunteers and people like me who are doing something creative for the first time.

It was all very informal, and I think my powerpoint presentation was mahoosively overthinking it, so I'm going back to the drawing board on that one. Tomorrow is my presentation, so I'll let you know after I've done it what I decided to do!