ACT proudly presents our e-book Creatives Lockdown 2020 published via ISSUU (non-commercial) which you can now experience and share.
There are 33 pages including covers, inside publishing details page, Title, Contents, Acknowledgements, my Introduction & linocut print artwork pages, and one page each from the 24 Creatives. Please turn the pages and press the + button to magnify and zoom into each.
Update 4.7.20. Our ACT last in the series of 'What'sOnDigital' took place last Tuesday 30th June. It was a fabulous show! Marcus Gilmore reported on ACT ebook ‘Creatives Lockdown 2020’. If you missed it, just click on the link below and enjoy! You can also add any comments you wish.
Here's a screenshot of us all at the end of the show. Caron Lyon of PCM creative our producer, myself, my interview guests - Writer & Journalist Matt Turpin& Actor Melvyn Rawlinson - Santa Jolly - together with ACT reporters Inna Schuttson English Heritage https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/ & home teaching and Marcus Gilmoretalking about about the published ACT ebook "Creatives Lockdown 2020".
My INTRODUCTION page is repeated below.
Here is my summary from 24 Creatives Lockdown comments from Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, UK, USA & Netherlands which have been collated from my mid-April Facebook Call-Out.
The overall consensus is that the majority of creatives are loving and embracingtheir lockdown time, which started in the UK 23rd March. It has given them quiet, the focus to work and complete those projects they started some years beforehand and to start new ones. For writers, poets, musical composers and performers, the words and notes are streaming out in steady flow and inspiring us all on YouTube, Watch Parties and LIVE digital on-line shows. For artists of all kinds, from visual to textile, lock down life has been welcome and given them more clarity.
Storytellers have never been so busy recording their acting and voices to a wide and enthralled audience. Authors are busy doing voice-overs to their books or doing LIVE reading parties internationally to children via Facebook.
The facilities of ZOOM and Drop Box are spreading like wildfire. Home chorus choirs have been springing up and tuning up to rapt response, as well as virtual busking. Art and musical collaborations are flourishing; poets with musicians, musicians with visual artists, dancers with composers as well as weekly Virtual Cuppa meetings.
These lockdown comments, together with creation photos and business links, are now presented to you in this valuable PDF e-book which can be shared and resourced by many people, fellow creatives and industry professionals. Please do start or continue collaborating with each other...you never know what masterpieces will transpire!
Digital Art and Culture is widely accessible to everyone and even more so during the last two months. Creatives are not only helping themselves but so many people and children out there. Art is therapy and always has been, for our (mental) health and well-being.
Everyone’s thinking and planning have changed for the better. Nature and wildlife are flourishing so our inspirations are following suit. Our senses have sharpened, for young and old, so it has been good to get together with our families, via FaceTime, or just being on our own, to create and enjoy these precious moments. We now look forward to Lifting Lockdown.
To find out more about Art Culture Tourism, our What’sOnDigital Podcasts, LIVE video streaming, virtual resourcing links and Blog, please go onto our website and social media.
May 2020
Website: artculturetourism.co.uk
Email: artculturetourism@gmail.com
Facebook: @artculturetourism
Twitter: @MarysiaZipser
LinkedIn: @Marysia Zipser
Marysia Zipser
Art - Culture - Tourism
Embracing Creativity
Design and Layout by Marcus Gilmore http://www.marcusgilmoreart.com/
Updated: Jun 3, 2021
I am delighted to publish here contributions from fifteen of my Facebook and Twitter network friends from my Call-Out 26th May - Nottingham UK, Italy and USA. I asked them for their favourite 1-2 roses from their gardens and the reasons why they selected them. In addition, there are several I’ve popped in from my own Beeston-Nottingham garden.
It is a record and legacy of how important our Roses are during this period of time. To me, my garden determines what matters most in life and provides me with daily inspiration to focus, to action important tasks and complete them. Roses and their perfumes always bring back memories of childhood, our loved ones, and of places visited. And every picture tells a story...!
Kate Foale, Tollerton, Nottingham. My favourite rose is Biddulph Grange. Bought on our wedding anniversary at that very National Trust property several years ago. Married 44 years on 26 June! Thank you Kate, and Congratulations to you both!
Patricia Garlick, Beeston, Nottingham Gorgeous! I love traditional, heavily scented roses! I have Rhapsody in Blue which smells amazing! 🌹 My Rhapsody in Blue rose was a birthday gift from my partner, so I simply had to bring it with me when I moved house the week before we went into lockdown! It's a floribunda & was purchased from The Fragrant Rose Company. https://www.thefragrantrosecompany.co.uk/
Oksana Holbrook, Sherwood, Nottingham Unfortunately I do not have any roses in my garden. I do remember my late grandfather who died in 1969 who loved them and had a garden full of them in every colour you could think of. Thank you Oksana for your precious memory.
Jeanie O'Shea - Jeanie Barton, Nottingham This climbing rose is my Dad's. It's been there all my life and comes back strong every year - really cheers me, like it’s him looking down on me.
Maeve Wright, Nottingham This is Iceberg, I'm not sure if it is actually a climbing rose, but it certainly loves to climb all over the obelisk it sits on, accompanied by a dark purple clematis that blooms later in the year. It's always prolific but is more so this year, my husband John didn't get round to pruning it, and when it produced buds he didn't want to cut them off. So it's gone crazy, lots of flowers appearing at once, and lots more buds. It's never been as full and lovely before, and would probably be the first plant you'd notice if you walked into our garden. It has a wonderful scent too, it's like having a drink of fruit juice. We've had it for about four years. John bought it at Brookfields Garden Centre, Plains Road, Mapperley, Nottingham, and we love it. https://www.brookfieldsgardencentre.co.uk/ We do have another fabulous rose, name unknown, a very voluptuous, many-folded pink one, but John did prune that, so it's growing back again, and no buds yet. Here's another photo of my Iceberg rose. As you can see it's grown sideways both ways from the obelisk, I think it wants to take over the garden! (The photo angle doesn't do it justice, it has way more flowers than it looks as if it has).
Here is my Graham Thomas rose, very soft perfume.
Yellow roses mean Welcome and Friendship!
I received this photo from Fiona Greenslade, Nottingham. Perfection, like a sugared rose atop a confectionery delight being presented to a Queen at a state banquet! Fiona says, “It was presented to me as a celebration for finishing my house!” I found out this rose is called Pink Celebration Hybrid Tea - it has a fruity flavour!
My Augustine rose. It’s very rambling and thorny so I have to regularly train it with green wire to the trellis (wearing thick gardeners gloves!).
Cathy Hurt Henson, Tennessee, USA This is my rose here in the USA, N/W part of Tennessee. I love planting a well known variety of rose called Knockout. They are very hardy and do not require dusting or spraying...they are continual bloomers and if our weather stays warm they will bloom up into November.
Christoper Frost, Nottingham
I bought this rose bush in memory of my late mum Connie, who died some 20 years ago now. I think the bush’s flowering season is coming to an end, as this is about the last decent flower left.
My Hanky Panky rose. This rose has special memories for me of my mum, Sonia Zipser. It was originally planted in her front garden and whenever I visited her, we would mention how's Hanky Panky today, go and check on it together and have a giggle and smile. After she died in 2011, I removed the rose and re-planted it in my garden where it has amazingly grown and flourished ever since. She's with me all the time I'm in my garden, either telling me what to tender first or winking at me sitting on her bench, now painted cornflower blue in my garden, while sipping tea from her china mug.
Tracey Dineen of No 31 Belper, Derbyshire, https://www.homeaway.co.uk/p8249391 - Twitter @No31belper Both David Austin Roses Gertrude Jekyll and Winchester Cathedral are my favourites because they look and smell divine. And because my OH was born in Winchester.
Gertrude Jekyll (Ausbord) - English shrub rose bred by David Austin. Twice voted the Nation’s Favourite. https://www.davidaustinroses.co.uk/ “Always one of the first English Roses to start flowering, its perfect scrolled buds open to large, rosette-shaped flowers of bright glowing pink. The beautiful, perfectly balanced Old Rose scent is often described as being the quintessential Old Rose fragrance. A vigorous rose; it will form a medium-sized, upright shrub. Named for the famous garden designer and author. David Austin, 1986.”
Patrizia Poggi, Relais Villa Roncuzzi hotel https://www.villaroncuzzi.it/en/ nr Ravenna, Italy. In the Villa garden there is a flowerbed of damask roses, progenitors of current hybrids. In fact, when systemic botany was born in 1700, the five founding roses were described: Rosa Gallica, Rosa Centifolia, Rosa Alba, Rosa Moscata and Rosa Damascena. Damask rose, more commonly known as the Damask rose, or sometimes as the rose of Castile, is very robust, taller than Gallic, it emits, in bloom, a very intense perfume that distinguishes it from the others. It blooms once a year in April.
Maria Velardi, teacher, Bergamo, Italy
Maria calls it The Rose of St Anthony Day, because it blooms around June 13
Johnny Kim, Los Angeles, California
"Basically every year they have this flower field event and people from all over the world visit it. They let the public choose the flowers and the workers will cut it for you for a small charge. Love them flowers... It is in the North part of San Diego, about 90 miles south of the Los Angeles Area." The photo above by Johnny is taken of the Tecolote Giant Ranunculus field. The famous fields also boast roses, orchids, sweet pea blossoms, petunias and poinsettias.
The Flower Fields is a flower garden found on the Carlsbad Ranch in Carlsbad, California. It is open once a year in spring from March 1 through May 10. The fields experience attendance of anywhere between 100,000 and 200,000 visitors every year from all over the world. The fields were given positive press from outlets such as CBS News Los Angeles, NBC News 4 Southern California, and The Huffington Post Travel, which praised the quality of the flora and recommended that people visit the area to check it out.
Roberto Alborghetti, Bergamo, Italy
This is from my garden, I think next week another will pop out. It was given to us by friends. They said it is a wonderful kind of rose, but I don’t know the name. So we are curious to see more.
Update 28.6.20 - Here are 3 more contributions received since 17.6.20
From Steve H from Nottingham. These Roses were given to my mum by the Gregory family when I was born 54 years ago. It's taken a while for them to come into bloom as I had pruned them hard due to the condition and age of them. So they were 54 years in the making!
From Theresa Moynes in Dublin. My favourite Rose has to be the Dublin Bay Rose as a cutting was given to my son and daughter in law, Keith and Denise, on the birth of their baby girl Eloise and it is now thriving in their garden. Another cutting was given to my other son, Graham and his girlfriend Caoimhe, on the purchase of their first home together and is also thriving in their new garden. Beneath is a picture of said rose (credit of Farmleigh Estate) which is where the cuttings came from so that makes them special also.
From Anna Abatecola, teacher at Frosinone (Lazio), Italy.
Her rose is called Mister Lincoln. It has a wonderful perfume and is like velvet to touch.
Thank you so much Steve, Theresa and Anna, I can smell their perfume from here!
To conclude, I found three links which are fascinating to read...have a look!
June 24, 2018
https://www.countrylife.co.uk/gardens/gardening-tips/ultimate-guide-growing-roses-plant-plant-whether-really-need-prune-179765
June 4, 2020
https://www.bhg.com/gardening/flowers/roses/rose-facts
Updated September 24, 2020
https://happydiyhome.com/benefits-of-gardening/
My grateful thanks extend to Inna Schutts, ACT Photographer, Beeston-Nottingham. Published here is a small collection of her photographs taken recently in my garden - main heading photo and after my writing. My enduring thanks also to my garden plant suppliers since 2012 - David Austin Roses (Wolverhampton) https://www.davidaustinroses.co.uk/; Ashridge Nurseries (Somerset) https://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/; Fred Hallam Ltd, Beeston, Nottinghamshire https://fredhallam.shop/; and Lavender World (Yorkshire) https://www.yorkshirelavender.com/. My sincere gratitude to my social network contributor friends in Nottingham UK, Italy and the USA. I’ve really enjoyed the experience of gathering all your rose photographs with stories, and I hope all of my blog readers here have enjoyed this blog collection too. I would welcome any comments below you may wish to add to “Our ROSES and what they mean to us”.
Thank you for reading! Marysia Zipser Find me on Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn All photographs below are from a collection by Inna Schutts of Beeston.
Since Roberto’s first visit to Beeston six years ago, he has immersed himself, as a visual artist, into the storytelling worlds of our famous outlaw and into our historical town of Beeston and Nottingham ‘Red City’ environments. "The Ghost Bus ‘Roads’ Project exhibits the power of combining visual and musical arts; the wonder of family history (the Barton family firm was for a time the largest independent bus operator in the world) and the beauty of what human beings can do through creativity and mutual cooperation. It encourages us to take the time to look more closely at our surroundings and discover the stories our environment can tell us." Roberto adds his Thoughts for Today… “Re-birth, Re-new and a sane Re-bellion is what we need today to make this world a better place! In every field and activity. And mainly in the world of Art!”
When I told Roberto that my second recording of ‘Letter from Beeston’, telling the story of his first visit to Barton’s with Robin Hood Tim, was broadcast on BBC Radio Nottingham on 20th May, he immediately sprang into action and said, “I know what I’m going to do Marysia! I will put the photo images of that memorable evening of The Ghost Bus Show 27 March 2015 at Barton’s garage and turn your story into a RadioVision production!” After forty-five minutes he presented it on his blog site for all to experience - a speedy visual art transformation creating such impact!
So I wish to record here on my blog, for posterity sake, his 4 minute photo montage film synchronised to my voice recording of Letter from Beeston (2). Experience all on Roberto’s link below. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin… https://robertoalborghetti.wordpress.com/2020/05/21/the-ghost-bus-bbc-radio-tells-the-saga-in-letter-from-beeston/ In October 2014, Roberto Alborghetti came to Beeston for the first time. We had ‘met’ on LinkedIn earlier that year - the world’s business networking platform. I loved his posts and, in particular, his visual art project called Laser/Actions. He transforms and turns pictures of ripped and decomposed publicity posters, natural cracks, scratches, and deteriorations, into “art subjects”. His whole concept is “making art” from industrial de-construction-ism, caught by camera, macro scale. He captures the randomness, letting the picture tell the story, and documents the reality. He doesn’t change what he sees. Nothing is manipulated. I asked Roberto that I would like to feature him and his work at my second Art-Culture-Tourism networking evening in March called “Cultures Crossing”, by showing his artworks on screen. He was delighted, and my event at The Lace Mill certainly was Vay-Nee Vee-Dee Vee-Chee “Veni, Vidi, Vici”. It brought European press coverage all thanks to Roberto’s journalist efforts. A few months later, Roberto contacted me to say he was visiting London friends and could he come to Beeston to see me for several hours before he went back to Italy. I said yes, of course. Prior to his proposed visit, I had researched further into his background, and found out that, besides being an Italian ‘Pulitzer’ award-winning journalist and best selling author, he was also the official biographer to Pope Francis. And, he had just published his second volume on him, called “My Life is an Arrow”. So, I thought, I wonder if Nottingham’s official Robin Hood, Tim Pollard, who happens to live in Beeston, would be free for a photo shoot with Roberto. Tim gladly accepted. So the day came when I met Roberto from Beeston railway station and brought him to Chilwell High Road. He and Tim got on famously and I photographed them together at Chilwell Creative Corner and then walked them up to Barton’s head office. Simon Barton greeted us and steered us into the old garage walking through his office, as though left in a time warp. I have always loved the Barton’s historic building and the events Simon and his sons have staged there. I knew Roberto would be hooked. I was not mistaken. In fact, he disappeared totally among the old Barton buses, vintage cars, vans and bicycles arrayed over the large expanse of the docking sheds. It is a transport enthusiast’s Valhalla. While Simon, Tim and I chatted, Roberto was taking his macro photos of the old vehicles cocooning him. He was transported back in time. The Robin Hood marque on the side chasses of the red buses proved excellent photo backdrops for them all together. Then, he chanced upon the Ghost Bus, a 1956 URR Reliance, which had been rescued from a Suffolk field...after 20 years of slumber. When it was time to go, I called out to Roberto. He excitedly walked back to us with a smile. We said our grateful goodbyes and entered into the street’s bright daylight. Roberto followed and called out, “Marisha, I know what I am going to dooo!” “I’m going to make a film about The Ghost Bus!” And so in March 2015, Roberto returned to Bartons to premiere his short film at The Ghost Bus Show. The journey and Ghost Bus Saga had begun. And the rest, as they say, is history. *****
So, nearly a week later, on 26th May, Roberto was my interview guest at ACT ‘What’sOnDigital’ podcast and Facebook LIVE streaming show. He was speaking LIVE from his home at Bergamo, Italy. The city, you will remember, was one of the first Italian high casualty areas of COVID19. I first questioned him about The Ghost Bus and what had been happening recently, namely my Letter from Beeston and his RadioVision production. So much history about Barton’s...and also about Jeanie Barton, Beeston’s singer-songwriter and Roberto’s musical arts collaborator. Roberto had first met Jeanie on that historic night. Now she was playing out our storytelling spot with her aptly composed Lockdown Lift lyrics to Glen Miller’s melody “In the Mood”. It was like sequence after sequence, stepping back in time but also keeping a sense of reality in our Covid19 times. Watch the Facebook LIVE streamed show here incorporated into Roberto's blog - Art-Books-Music... https://robertoalborghetti.wordpress.com/2020/05/27/art-books-and-music-here-the-live-facebook-video-streaming-from-uk-and-italy/
Or you can just listen to the podcast on Home Page https://www.artculturetourism.co.uk/ To give you further background about the Ghost Bus Saga, please read my and Roberto’s blogs covering 2019 and backwards to 2015. See and click below. Roberto’s 4-8 June 2019 visit including Barton’s Garage “In Conversation with…” as YouTube film. https://www.artculturetourism.co.uk/blog/category/ghost-bus-project
2018 https://www.artculturetourism.co.uk/landrovermapping.html 2017 https://www.artculturetourism.co.uk/ghost-bus-project.html 2015-16 https://robertoalborghetti.wordpress.com/the-ghost-bus-project/ Here is The Ghost Bus ‘Roads’ Project - Introduction - The Ghost Bus is travelling!
the_ghost_bus_‘roads’_project_-_introduction__1_.docxDownload File
We look forward to Lifting Lockdown. Our next What’sOnDigital show, before our summer break, will be on Tuesday 30th June, 16.30-17.00 hrs GMT. I hope you will be joining us and maybe participate live by commenting in the Chat Box. Here is the link below, so please do register your interest now. https://www.facebook.com/pg/artculturetourism/events/?ref=page_internal We hope you will follow ACT and Roberto Alborghetti in our Adventures in the Land of Robin Hood both in the real and digital worlds. Thank you for reading, listening and watching. Andiamo! Let’s Go! Marysia Zipser Art-Culture-Tourism Find me on Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn