Art

Earlier in the month we had a very interesting visit from the artist Jon Adams.

He has a unique perspective on life partly due to his dyslexia although it shouldn't be reduced to that. His struggles with reading and writing (and some unenlightened teachers, sadly) led him to see things in terms of other kinds of narrative. Maps and geology are key metaphors in his art.

His work is more fun than I'm making it sound. He goes in for guerrilla art and playing with the boundaries of what he's doing.

At the college he gave a thought provoking talk and then ran a workshop for some of our students. They all made flags out of books and set them fluttering in a heart shape.

According to our local paper Jon Adams described the artwork as:

“A marking and crossing of boundaries that are imposed on us by others.”

Here's their article about the visit.

http://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/news/9629100.Richmond_College_flies_the_flags_for_dyslexia/

 

And here's some art as promised in the blog entry title...

 

 

Drop Everything and Read

** Just in case anyone was wondering how that DEAR event went (see previous blog entry "Taking a Leap") this is a report I wrote for our staff newsletter. This slightly downplays how much organisation it took but I recommend giving it a go if the idea appeals to you. It was a great library outreach / reader development activity. Hope you all had a happy Easter. **

DEAR - Drop Everything and Read

On the 1st March staff and students across the College took part in a DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) event to celebrate World Book Day. A bell went off at 11 o’clock and people stopped what they were doing and read for ten minutes. The idea was to do something a bit different in order to create a sense of excitement around reading.

We’ve had a lot of positive feedback from people who enjoyed their ten minute escape into a good book or an interesting magazine. It was nice to take an unusual break from the everyday. More importantly DEAR sparked a lot of discussion about what people like to read and hopefully inspired some participants to read more or to try reading different things.

If you would like to share what you read for DEAR or just your thoughts on a good read the Library has recently launched a reading blog at:

http://www.richmondreaders.wordpress.com/

If you dropped everything and read we hope you enjoyed it. Thank you to everyone who took part and everyone who encouraged students to take part.

Alan Green – Liaison Librarian