Festival on tour: Let’s Make Art

In collaboration with Blackburn Central Library, the National Festival of Making and Let’s Make Art have curated a collection of activities, all presented in a beautifully handmade wooden cart created by Stilings Workshop.

Located in Blackburn Central Library – the cart is a mini-festival on wheels intended to inspire making all-year-round. Activities developed by Let’s Make Art evolve throughout the year, changing every few months.

Let’s Make Art are long-time favourites, having created countless iconic family workshops for the festival weekend over the years. They are artists in residence at the Arnolfini in Bristol, home to the original wooden cart designed by Jack of Stilings Workshop, with input and activities designed by Let’s Make Art.

Inspired by this cart, we worked with Jack and Let’s Make Art to develop a Festival of Making version for Blackburn, with bespoke new activities created specifically for the town. All the materials needed to complete the activities live inside the many draws and slots of the cart. For scissors and glue sticks, please ask at the Information Desk in the library.

So far, activities have taken inspiration from Blackburn’s high street and the library’s commitment to the National Summer Reading challenge.

The town’s many heritage buildings were reimagined through stencils and collage; instructions to create your own book from an A4 sheet of paper was the perfect starting point to write a story; and looking at archival photographs from when the library was once a Co-Op building was the starting point for designing a window display.

You can find the activity sheets on our download page, or head to the library, where you’ll find the materials you need.

Go to Downloads 

About Let’s Make Art

Alice and Karen founded Let’s Make Art, an independent arts organisation, in 2012. They run high quality, unique art activities, events and workshops to ensure people of all ages and abilities experience many art techniques in a fun and imaginative way. Karen and Alice are currently Artists in Residence at the Arnolfini, Bristol’s International Centre for Contemporary Arts. Their first art book for children was published in 2022.

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About Stilings Workshops

Jack is an artist with a workshop near Bristol. He conducts and constructs a playground of art toys and inventions. “I’ve been called an inventor, designer, artist, mechanic, craftsman, illustrator, signwriter, automata maker, baker. ‘Maker of things’ is a good resolute conclusion made by most after they’ve given up, including me.”

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Photography by Stilings Workshops and festival team.