This month we decided to join in with the Hillsborough Christmas Festival at Hillsborough Park and use the opportunity to go somewhere new, work with other people and enjoy the festive spirit. Hillsborough Park is a large green space with a lake, community gardens and library about to undergo a lot of regeneration. Although it isn’t in Upperthorpe, Netherthorpe and Langsett (where we usually work), it is a park that many people from the area we work in would visit because of it’s size, nearby facilities and because it holds large community events. The Christmas Festival also has an arts theme and the organisers had already planned to ask artists to come an deliver workshops and demonstrations. We decided to offer a wide range of different activities and make them as accessible as possible so people could just drop by and do something creative as well as learning a bit about what we do the rest of the year.

As usual we had our easels and paints out. They were incredibly popular, and lots of beautiful paintings were made. We also helped people make celebration cards and envelopes, using ribbons, glitter and collage images. Although it was remarkably warm and sunny for a mid winters day we were still glad to have a go at poi spinning to get us moving, with even some adults joining in! We also had glass painting on jam jar lanterns (sadly we run out of jars very quickly) and got some interesting chalking going on the paths around our little green space. Our task as volunteers was rather different at this event as most children were accompanied by their parents so we were less involved with engaging people with different creative activities and more involved as technicians, particularly with the easels which demanded lots of fresh paper, water and paint as the pictures just kept coming!

Around the rest of the Festival we enjoyed seeing other artists, a sculptor who made intricate art with leaves and other natural materials and a chainsaw artist, who I sadly never got close enough to chat with but enjoyed watching. Overall the Festival was a great success, there were craft stalls, live music, food and drink, information about the regeneration and a very lively atmosphere. I hope we can be involved again in the future when perhaps we can do something on a larger scale such as a giant piece of sculpture which everyone can contribute to. We are also glad to have told so many people in Hillsborough about Art in the Park and hope we can persuade some of them to come to our other events in the future.

Thanks to the organisers – Cupola Art Gallery, Hillsborough Community Development Trust, Hillsborough Park Regeneration Team and the Hillsborough Town Centre Development Officer for all your hard work in making this event a success.