watermark@burneside exhibition at kendal library

Once the workshops had been completed at Burneside, the children were given the exciting opportunity to share their beautiful artwork and words with a wider community audience with an exhibition at Kendal Library.

It was also a chance to say thank you to


Community volunteers including Burneside and Skelsmergh Mothers Union members, Revd Jayne Tyrer and KWoA volunteers who came to offer valuable help at Watermark workshops

Pat and Bill Turton for keeping everyone updated through the Westmorland Gazette community news pages

All the staff at St Oswalds Primary School for their commitment and support in project planning delivery and development

All the fantastic children at St Oswalds Primary School for their enthusiasm and creativity

Workshop participants at St Oswalds church activities especially Burneside and Skelsmergh Mothers Union for their curiosity and willingness to have a go.

Project funders South Lakeland District Council Flood Recovery Fund, Cumbria Community Foundation, Kendal Town Council and Kendal Neighbourhood Forum

st oswalds primary school development workshops- classes 3 & 4

The next week, Nicki and volunteers returned to Class 4 as they considered how authors and illustrators use type layouts to communicate themes in their books. The children then wrote out phrases from their flood memory tales in beautiful handwriting creating wonderfully wavy, wandering, watery words patterns. Featuring their written work on the project blog, at the library exhibition and in the project printed book was also discussed.

The Class 3 nature lovers then spent a lovely afternoon doing observational drawing and paintings from still life displays using the school’s superb taxidermy collection. Their fascination for their local wildlife is clear in their detailed and well executed studies of otters, herons, ducks and kingfishers.

st oswalds primary school development workshops- classes 1 & 2

Returning again to St Oswalds School, inspired by the Class 2 children’s enthusiasm for painting and elderberries, Nicki and volunteers brought in elderberry dye for the children to experiment with. Back on went the aprons, out came the paintbrushes and once again the children thoroughly enjoyed splashing the colour. This time the children explored wax resist to create striking images of Burneside buildings, people and wildlife.

Then it was time to go outside with Class 1 on a walk to the Millenium Green to visit to the river. The children were fascinated by the acorns and leaves that they found and made a swirling ‘leaf river’ on the grass. 

Then everyone looked at the river and thought about how high the river had risen during the floods- higher than their height! They also saw the ‘tunnel’ that the water flows through under the bridge and discovered that it had rained so much, there was too much water to go under the bridge so the water flowed over the bridge and across the road. 

As they set off back to school the children saw a helicopter flying overhead which reminded everyone about the Mountain Search and Rescue team who had helped the Burneside community during the flooding.

community workshop at st oswalds church

At St Oswalds Church, the Mothers Union members were joined at their art workshop by neighbours, from toddlers to older adults and many from the wider community who had found information about the project in the Westmorland Gazette community news pages or in church. This proved an excellent opportunity for Nicki to update everyone with project progress. The participants were very pleased to hear how much the local children knew about nature in their community and were also inspired to create their own artworks based on local studies of Burneside fauna and flora. All were encouraged to visit future workshops and also update their neighbours about project developments. 

st oswalds primary school initial workshops- classes 3 & 4

The following week, Nicki and community volunteers worked with Class 4 children who shared their individual memories of the flooding in 2009. They were full of exciting tales from dads who heroically carried children through the water or told them to ‘hang on to your seltbelt’ as they drove through the high water, to the school having to close followed by perilous trips home on bikes and buses, Burneside being on national TV and anxious enquiries for updates from international school partners.

In Class 3 activities started with studying maps of how the river flows through the village and identifying places near the river that the children felt were important to them. This map analysis soon got overtaken by the children’s interest and knowledge of local nature – where to find otters, where you can see herons or find kingfishers, ducks or crayfish.

st oswalds primary school initial workshops- classes 1 & 2

Nicki and the community volunteers were given a very warm welcome at St Oswalds Primary School by the enthusiastic staff and children and she was able to work with all the children in the school, studying the effect of the river Kent on the village and its community and local environment.

First Class 2 talked about their walk to the river and the children were particularly keen to share how they’d seen elderberries and then drawn them back at school. Following discussions about the river when it flooded, the children then energetically painted the river in flood.

Then it was time to wipe off the paint from the childrens’ hands and faces, the tables, the floor and even the chairs!

Class 1 had also been studying their local river and looked at photographs taken in Burneside during the flooding. The children were most interested in how the Kendal Mountain Search and Rescue team helped the community and how their vehicles, other vans and cars tried to drive through the rising water levels. The children then drew the river, the mountain rescue vehicles, themselves and their families.

burneside workshops begin at the mothers union

During Autumn 2011, local community artist Nicki Smith worked with different age groups in the Burneside community at a series of project workshops.

Nicki initially discussed the impact of flooding in Cumbria with the Burneside and Skelsmergh Mothers Union who meet at St Oswalds Church. 

She explained about her visit to Isel Mothers Union near Cockermouth and how their members had told of how they had coped when their community and their church had badly flooded in 2009. 

The Burneside and Skelsmergh group also considered how they could engage with the KWoA Watermark activities in their village. The older community members were keen to support childrens workshops at the local primary school, host their own community art workshop at St Oswalds Church and keep everyone updated about project progress.

a record year for rainfall

As part of their research for the KWoA Watermark project, KWoA artists Nicki Smith and Pam Williamson took part in the US based Arthouse Co-op Sketchbook project 2011. Both artists submitted sketchbooks featuring their personal responses to when the Cumbrian Floods of November 2009 hit their villages, Burneside and Ambleside.

The 'A Record Year for Rainfall' sketchbooks toured the US, visiting a range of exhibition locations including Washington, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago and New York. They are now at the Brooklyn Art Library in New York and have been digitized so that they can be viewed online. Nicki's online sketchbook was used as reference when she worked with the Burneside community in Autumn 2011 as part of the KWoA 'Watermark' project.         http://www.arthousecoop.com/library/2980