Skip to main content
Menu Lucy Barker

interdisciplinary artist and creative producer

  • Projects
  • Installation
  • Commissions
  • Collaboration
  • Co-production
  • Communities
  • Facilitation
  • About
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • subscribe

instagram

CHEARRINGS! 🎉🤍🖤🧡 In my ongoing foray i CHEARRINGS! 🎉🤍🖤🧡 In my ongoing foray into figuring side hustles and ways of generating income when spending 16 hours of the day lying down has become the norm, I am reigniting my teen passion for Fimo, a polymer clay you can cook in the oven, which I used to make jewellery and sell it on York market and various craft fairs. I’ve not worked with Fimo for 20 odd years (!) and there have been some tech advances, even in this world, so imagine my delight when I found you can now get ‘true colour’ Fimo, so it is possible to use a mixing chart and obtain literally any colour your whim might want. As an internal motto of mine (or maybe a stim!) is ‘colour is everything’, this excited me a great deal. So, while I get my eye back in and re-figure out how to use this fabulously colourful and playful material as well as explore it’s new facets and possibilities, I’m going to be making some short runs and one offs which are hopefully at a very reasonable price for ear cheering! (Chearrings?). Again, this is second-time-round-new to me so all feedback is really welcome - how do they feel, how do they hang, style, colour etc - anything!  DM or email to get happy ears. All prices inc p&p: L byeafy ‘studs’ (BOO, FAM) £10 Raindrops (BAB and similar) £10 Multi triangles (YOU) £15 Black, white & orange pairs (WOO and others that are similar style with orange circle and dangly bit) £15 Made from black and white (and orange!) Fimo with a metal hook or stud fixing. #HandmadeJewellery #fimojewellery
Lucy is a bit short on words this week, so it feel Lucy is a bit short on words this week, so it feels like exactly the right time to post about this new publication “Autistics At Work”, caught here sitting on top of Emily Brontë in the studio library. Swipe for a few more windows into Lucy’s workspace at Everybody Arts (as it looks this week!). The book has been written by WEBworks founder Sonia Boue and it's an essential read for autistic people to be empowered to access sustainable careers in the arts, as well as for all organisations to implement access and inclusion for autistic people. You can get your own as a pdf or hard copy from the BOM (Birmingham Online Media) website - the link is in Lucy’s bio and highlights. Sonia also developed the Neurophototherapy project that Lucy was also part of (it's a gentle, playful unmasking tool for Neurodivergent people - a link to the brilliant Neurophototherapy book or pdf is also in the usual places). Oh, and the earrings and thumb pots will be coming to a very rudimentary but easy to use online store near you soon 🙂 @bomlab @s_boue @everybodyarts_ Image Descriptions are in the image alt tags.
‘The holes for hanging didn’t come until the f ‘The holes for hanging didn’t come until the following year – listening to a book launch conversation online for @dougaldh Dougald Hine's ‘At Work in the Ruins’, as a talk about existing in a time of climate change. It really resonated with me from a chronic illness place, the idea of “What do we have to work with? let’s work with that”, and somehow this turned into wanting to create tiny dioramas of this idea. Initially the micro hanging plants were to have a slow growing fern and some foraged concrete, or other industrial detritus, but I’ve not got round to that bit as yet (mainly as I wasn’t sure how bits of industry would affect a tiny plant). I’d love to see 100s hanging in a space…' - Extract is from the new blog on my site: ‘Thumb Pots, Chronic Health Issues and Creative Expression Through Pottery-making’ - link would be in bio but... my website is saying it isn't secure (although it is, it's just the electronic thing that says it is has expired😬 - if your browser will let you bypass the message then do try to visit, or it it will be fixed soon…). Some pots with plants are now for sale on Etsy though! See my bio for the link 💚 Image descriptions: 1. Viewed from above, a small circular pot, an air plant, some green reindeer moss and some hessian twine are laid out neatly on a square brown paper background. 2. A thumb pot with gold leaf on the lower part and containing a spiky air plant hangs in front of an old stone wall. 3. A thumb pot with gold leaf on the lower part and containing a fluffy air plant hangs in front of old ironwork. 4. A spiky air plant in a thumb pot is suspended above a work bench on which more pots and other materials are laid out. Collab post made with Producer and Glitter Herder @lordgid
Exciting times! Work on the @bradford_2025 project Exciting times! Work on the @bradford_2025 project has begun. We still can't reveal any details, but we can report that dancers are deep in R&D in a secret Calderdale rehearsal space (OK, it's @mtgstudios 😂), and a select few sworn to secrecy have been up onto the moors to scope routes, accessibility, locations, and also vibes 🙂. Shots of the walk taken by @ladygreygold. Vibes were good. Collab post made with Producer and Glitter Herder @lordgid
Between 2020 and 2021, and then in the winter of 2 Between 2020 and 2021, and then in the winter of 2022, I’d been having a lot of work on my spine and my shoulders and generally my back and was having a lot of tendon and neuropathic pain in my right arm and my right hand to the point where I couldn’t type or text. I couldn’t really do anything and it was really frustrating me and it was part of a bigger process. So it was not permanent, necessarily, but it was very painful. And I got really frustrated and I really wanted to make something, but I couldn’t use scissors, couldn’t draw or type. I was like, the only thing that’s f**king working is my thumb. Okay, we’ll make thumb pots… The end result is that I now have quite a lot (OK, a lot) of thumb pots that need a home, some of which I’ve turned into micro plant holders for air plants like the one you see starring in the video above. You can find them in my BucyLarker Etsy store. - Extract from from my blog: ‘Thumb Pots, Chronic Health Issues and Creative Expression Through Pottery-making’ - link is in my bio 🙂 Music is an extract from an untitled sketch by @lordgid Video Description: A stop motion video of a small ceramic pot with gold leaf on the lower part. The pot enters from the right, followed by green reindeer moss and a spiky air plant, both of which climb into the pot. Hessian twine then appears, is cut by scissors before threading through holes in the pot and lifting it up with the plant in.
Notes on a Glitter Brain, Mind The Gap Residency, Notes on a Glitter Brain, Mind The Gap Residency, May 2024. Photo dump part 2: 🪩💫🪩 A fact finding mission, asking questions rather than answering; preparing for the immersive sculptural piece that will be created as part of Notes on a Glitter Brain later this year. Thanks to @mtgstudios Image descriptions: Mirrored disco balls suspended a metre above the floor in a dark space are bathed in green light. Reflections form patterns. The photographer's feet are stretched out in front of them and two more people are visible, lying on cushions on the other side of the space. An abstract, blurred image of disco balls creating silver flashes and indigo diagonal beams. Disco balls in darkness are struck by different coloured light. One on the left creates a spray of white beams, one on the right casts a violet arc and a geometric spray of stretched points of purple light. (Collaborative post created with Lucy’s Digital Glitter Herder/Producer @lordgid)
Notes on a Glitter Brain, Mind The Gap Residency, Notes on a Glitter Brain, Mind The Gap Residency, May 2024. ...Photo dump part 1: noting notes & preparing to release the sparkles ✨🪩✨ Thanks to @mtgstudios Parts 2 to ♾️ to follow… ---- Image descriptions: A section of a large piece of paper with words written on it at different angles, in different colours and handwriting. “WHAT DO WE NEED?” is prominent in thick gold pen. Other phrases are “OK to ask questions” in red and “space to be heard” in blue. A shot taken looking down on a long piece of white paper on the floor, about 50cm wide and bisecting the whole image. The photographer's orange leg warmers and gold trainers catch the eye. The paper has many different pens scattered around it and is covered in words and short phrases written in many different colours. The phrase must easily read at this distance is “What do you need?” A diagonal view across a performance space. Black curtains cover two sides, theatre seating is folded against the far wall some distance away. On the dark floor area in front of the viewer seven medium sized disco balls (each approximately 50cm across) are arranged in a circle about 3m across with an eighth disco ball in the centre. A long strip of white paper stretches away from the viewer on the floor, reaching from the bottom right to top left of the image. Pens and standing feet in gold trainers are visible near it. The paper has writing on it in different colours and styles. Phrases scattered on it include: snacks & drinks, Quiet space, freedom to move around, breaks and “pre-knowledge of frame of work”. The corner of a high ceilinged performance space with black curtains draping the walls and lighting gantry up at the ceiling. A number of disco balls are on the floor. Two people stand below a raised aerial access platform looking up while I third person in yellow dungarees is high up at ceiling level. It is not clear what is happening… —-- (Collaborative post created with Lucy’s Digital Glitter Herder/Producer @lordgid)
"What shall we do with these disco balls?" These 8 "What shall we do with these disco balls?" These 8 vintage disco balls have seen and reflected many wild and curious sights in their lives, but being part of a residency at Mind The Gap @mtgstudios, rolling around in the dark in a game of 'cosmic boules', is definitely a new experience. This was happening last week - another facet of the Notes on a Glitter Brain project and an important question some way to being answered... Collaborative post created with producer and glitter Herder @lordgid #NotesOnAGlitterbrain #NeurodivergentArtists #discoballs
Seaside Funtimes - analogue collage created while Seaside Funtimes - analogue collage created while part of a focus group working with Sonia Boué on the Neurophototherapy 2 project. These words accompanied the images in Sonia’s innovative creative self-help book for neurodivergent people (more info on that below - it’s FREE!): “Neurophototherapy enabled me to work in an accessible way and I began to understand my own art practice more. The lightness of the Neurophototherapy method is really helpful in accepting where I am and getting a lot out of a little, by gathering and reflecting. It felt like making a rock pool where the rest of the sea has gone and I felt quite protective of that space. I had to work through a lot of physical pain due to an injury. Using tape transfers and not sticking things down enabled me to generate a lot of images very quickly! I really enjoyed revisiting images of myself as a child. I felt like I was getting my memories back and recognising myself - my excited self! I’m much more comfortable in myself, I feel more confident to resist. I feel like this work is a form of resistance because it is really pleasurable.” = = = More info from autograph.org.uk: Sonia Boué’s creative self-help book for neurodivergent people encompasses materials from Boué’s two-phase Neurophototherapy Project, the publication was shortlisted for a Contemporary Collage Magazine Innovation Award, 2023. This joyful and life-enhancing creative method offers a gentle invitation to ‘reconnect with the sparky kid who didn’t mask’. Neurophototherapy is for neurodivergent people and anyone seeking to explore their true identity in new and creative ways with readily available materials. This method is suitable for artists and creative beginners alike. The publication includes explanatory texts, colour photographs, collage works, and contextual essays by Dr. Joanne Limburg and Professor of Performance at the University of Kent School of Arts, Prof. Nicola Shaughnessy. A free PDF of the publication can be downloaded from autograph.org.uk (link in bio) @autographabp or a paperback version can be purchased from there. (Collaborative post created with Lucy’s Digital Glitter Herder/Producer @lordgid)
In order to maintain balance in the Barker househo In order to maintain balance in the Barker household we are now contractually obliged to share a photo of the other cat. Here's the thousand yard stare of Jeremy ‘the filth’ Fisher last week when he got in at 4am after disappearing for 22 hours. ‘I’ve seen things…’ 🙈😅
Load More Follow on Instagram
Breaking Through: a hand holds a drawing of a police car on a table with various art materials and a mobile phone.

Breaking Through
Between: A view of the sea at dawn, sideways on. The sky is soft pink and blue and is reflected in the softly rippling sea.

Between the Sea and Thee
AniMates: a group of young people, some in powered wheelchairs, some not, sit around a table which is covered in colourful craft materials.

AniMates
A distorted ‘spherical’ image of people standing in a circle in an opulent ballroom

Dancing with Parkinson’s
People in the landscape: A woman holds a lens up at each of her eyes as she faces the camera, in the background a large scale photograph is on the exterior wall of the gardens at Cartwright Hall.

People in the Landscape
Coastopia: A large sheet of paper is covered in bright pen drawings and words relating to what people like and don't like about their home town of Scarborough.

Coastopia 2029
Of Real Worlds: A small group of people face the camera with their palms open and fingers splayed toward the camera, a large white sphere is in the background.

Of Real Worlds
A night time image of glowing perspex hexagons suspended in a leafless tree etched with ‘GOOD NATURE’, ‘CURIOSITY’, ‘BALANCE’, ‘PASSION’, ‘PRECISION’, ‘DETERMINATION’ with simple drawings to illustrate

When We Shine

© Copyright 2024 Lucy Barker

Website by Sue Johnson