Significant/Permanent/Reminder

Significant/Permanent/Reminder, Amanda Loomes, 2021, vintage ink stamp, ink pad, post-it notes

Amanda's monument is on the bar at Oakes Barn and there is an invitation for visitors to stamp their own note and signpost a place in the town centre that is significant to them. It would be great if they photographed their personal signpost and put it on social media #groveprojects
​

 
The Stamp of Approval
 
‘Please look left before you cross’
declares the inky finger. It is control and command embossed
in the page.
Authority never lost and although time fades it away,
it keeps its pressure on the paper.
Its black and white stencil forces a cage
that says you must colour within these lines,
‘look at this, this is what you’ll find
attractive, interesting, useful,
important’
--- important for us then, so obviously important for you now.
The pointing finger talks without a mouth,
averts your gaze, diverts your attention,
redirects your priorities, saying
‘this, you must see’
but the stamp of approval doesn’t come easy -
if the National Art Gallery, why not my local chippy?
 
After all, they’re both doing God’s work.
Some crowned and others denied
but the insisting inky finger never lies.
Come, this is what you’ll find
attractive, interesting, useful,
important.
 
Faith Falayi 

Pinch your curiosity to wake it up. 
Only look for what delights you -
Indiscriminately. 
Now, do you see?
There!
 
A print of memory? 
The stamp of your truth?
 
Told you so.
How easily overlooked
Is the quotidian, 
Nesting all the world in its
Generous intertwining chaos.
So, now show me what you love.

Urve Opik

Amanda Loomes People at work have always preoccupied me. I am particularly moved by the effort of people whose work goes unnoticed, work that becomes erased or undone, or work that seems out of kilter with our time. In my practice I am drawn to record this labour to see if art can inscribe value or somehow make things fairer. I usually work with the short experimental documentary form, utilising the redemptive power of non-linear video editing in its ability to speed up, reverse, repeat and stop. Amanda has an MA in Fine Art Painting, The Royal College of Art, 2006. Instagram loomesamanda Twitter AmandaLoomes Facebook amanda.loomes.1 https//:www.amandaloomes.net

Faith Falayi is a young poet based in Peterborough. In 2020 she was selected the first Peterborough Young Poet Laureate. ​https://syntaxpoetryfestival.wordpress.com/peterborough-young-poet-laureate-2020/

Urve Opik studied art history at Manchester University and the Courtauld, and worked for many years as an Arts Administrator.  She became increasingly interested in the life psychotherapeutic in the late 1990s, retrained, and now practices as a psychotherapist.  She retains a deep interest in the visual arts, and has a quiet writing practise running on the side and weaving through her life.   ​