Sunday 15th at Basement Arts Project in Beeston, Leeds.

Sunday saw us run our first workshop within a domestic setting at Basement Arts Projects.  This is a great project started by husband and wife team, Bruce and Deborah Davies, to locate a more vibrant artistic venue and community in the South side of Leeds, specifically for them in Beeston where they have lived for over eight years and have started the renovation of their spacious and airy cellar as a pop up space for events and collaborations with artists with a plan for a more permanent exhibition space over the years to come. The Davies clan also consist of Evelyn (8), Francis (4) and Lawrence (2) who seem to have greeted their parents' ambitions with equal excitement and enthusiasm and we were invited to inhabit the space for the day (Lawrence's word of the day was 'CAAAAAKE!' as we were,  literally and generously,very well catered for by Debs).

With more than twenty guests adding their hands to the film we made a rather excellent ten minutes of work by taping the film up in strips against the walls of the basement making the most use of the full room. It was a genuinely lovely day for us where we were able to meet up with new and old friends, including handing over the film (via his 9 month old daughter Bethan) to David E Thomas who will be manipulating his own section of our epic film whilst cycling from Land's End to Jon O'Groats. Suffice to say we were all made to feel very much at home and felt very relaxed whilst being highly productive and socially engaged with everyone who came; making time to interview a few people and most notably discussing the experiences of two ladies' memories of the feelings surrounding West Yorkshire during the Yorkshire Ripper period.

We'd thoroughly recommend keeping an eye on what Basement Arts Projects are doing and attending anything that they programme in. Previous events included artist Kimbal Quist Bumstead taking a five day residence with the family to create an evening of performance art and current activity includes a call out for open submissions for a future exhibition. Basement Arts Projects is a quietly sophisticated and relaxed environment that promises to be an essential addition to Leeds' art venues run by genuine and caring people, eager to promote an accessible space for their literal neighboring community....and you get 'CAAAAAAKE' too. Cheers to the Davies's and to everyone who came down, we had a great day.