Complements Hospital Arts Project Norfolk and Norwich New Children's Unit

Written comments, complements and news articles so far on the New artistic Children's Ward.

I have left out names just in case they didn't want to be published on blog.

This is amazing work. You will have to begin doing public lectures and going around colleges :-)

Good on you girl - the pics look great. Nonetheless I hope never to have to use the facilities!

I love the eel and the lighthouse – they look really brilliant and functional too. Many congratulations! On Saturday we went on an East Anglian Writers’ outing to Ely and discovered that it got its name from ‘Eel Island’. So it’s all EELS this week-end.

It looks just incredible Eloise.

Well done to you and all of you!

Your work looks brilliant! The colours work very well and you must be really pleased.

A huge thank you for all of your work for the Jenny Lind Children’s Department.

This is so beautiful, hard to describe in words. Very cheerful and happy as well as thought provoking from a child's point of view.

Very elegant as well.

beautiful !

ZapDiddlyOoooBoppaZshxxakattAmmmMmmazing work Ella!

Brilliant! I love it. Well done Eloise. I hope you gets lots of recognition for it as well as making all those ill children happy - or at least distracting them.

what a brilliant piece of work you have done for the children, congratulations.

Well done Eloise, this is how art should be used and you have done a fantastic job, not just the ideas but the drive and execution.

Go Ella x x x x

This is just dazzling and wonderful work Eloise. Such inspiration and skill, coupled with such commitment and compassion. Congratulations from us

amazing can you come to Australia and do the new wing at the Melbourne women's hospital children's wing?
very nice work i am impressed

well done Eloise, this looks great.

Very stunning. Wish I was a child when I have to go to the hospital.

brill work Eloise , that will bring loads of smiles

congrat's !!!!can't wait to see it

Wonderful news all around

What Eloise has done at the hospital is great and deserves lots of clapping and cheering. Well done Eloise!

Great Job Ella!!!!!
Very Impressed.

Norfolk and Norwich Hospital Trust http://www.nnuh.nhs.uk/News.asp?ID=692

EDP newspaper

Nice! the two links below to great big articles on the children's unit have disappeared never to seen again not even in the papers archives. I thought by adding these links I would be documenting something great in history. Well it seems not will have scrap book the old way and contact the papers for a couple of back issues of the real paper and scan them.

http://www.edp24.co.uk/content/edp24/news/story.aspx?brand=EDPOnline&category=News&tBrand=EDPOnline&tCategory=xDefault&itemid=NOED10%20Jun%202009%2021:25:10:373

Evening news double page spread http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/news/story.aspx?brand=ENOnline&category=News&tBrand=ENOnline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED27%20Jun%202009%2011%3A42%3A10%3A223

The Church of stop shopping

While I was writing about St Benedict's fair day I came across, The Church of Stop Shopping with Rev. Billy. I am so pleased I found him and he came and exorcised Norwich supermarkets too only a while ago. Since finding him on You tube I had to look at all his films. I know what he is saying and a real believer. If I ever decide to get married and be a slave wife, I will be using the Rev. Billy at my ceremony.

The Rev. Billy tries his hardest to break the brain washing mould that capitalism has turned us into. You can really feel how bad society is as he gets locked up in jail every time he goes out preaching to people that they should shop local to maintain there local community's.

I have felt the pain of supermarkets and mass chains since I left art school. Like I make my self a nice outfit to go out in and then the chain clothes shop fashion designers that forced to come up with 300 designs a day for there sweat shoppers, nick my design and put it in all the shops, what leg do I have to stand on, in today's world. Even when I pitch an idea to company in the hope of getting work they sell it to a bigger company and don't even bother getting back to me, with a penny for my thought.

I can make high quality original clothes from my living room, but how on earth can I compete with supermarkets, when the fabric I buy by the yard costs more then suit, you can buy off the hanger in a chain shop. My hours put it into the outfit would mean I would get paid less then a sweat shopper in China or Indonesia.

So you can see that most local shops that are still open because they love there shop are actually funding the rent through another job and staying open for our benefit and a gift to the city. They are not open to make mass profits. They could make more profit to cover there rent if we shopped at them instead of supermarkets.

What is the point in traveling or going on holiday, when every city in the world looks exactly the same with the same shops in.

I have a friend who was an accountant for chain shops, he said that a shop owner opens one shop he loves it and looks over it and sits down the back answering staff problems and changing the little things and fixing the machines that break and changing the light bulbs etc. He then thinks I will open the same shop in the nearest city because this one is so good. But then he opens another shop and cant have the time to completely be there for either shop so he drives back and forth, then he opens 10 more shops in other city's. Now he is going slightly bonkers trying to do the accounts for the shops and solve all the problems in all the shops. He has to drive around to check them all. A few of them the staff are not turning up things are going wrong. Then he decides it to get an account to do all the accounts for all the chains. But still the account visits all the shops and notices that the standards of each shop varies and there in there is still only the first shop that the guy opened that is the one that does well. The rest of the chain is weaker.

Then the crazy business standard that has been going on for decades. Open a big business get lots of loans etc. Keep it going for for a year then go bust the business is so big the government writes the dept off. Then the business person opens another big business and does the same again over and over. While doing this the business kills off all the little businesses in the area. So when the big business goes burst the neighbourhood looks like a run down ghost town with no local shops to buy necessity's.

So these big businesses that not only ruin are life are a complete con. It is horrible to live ones life being completely conned. It would be much better to live a life where you know your neighbours are there for you and going look out for you.

Robert says I have gone on quite a bit on this subject, but someone has to do it. Best out then in.

Dont forget to visit the Church of Stop Shopping.

Unveiling Persepolis animation

At the weekend I lay in bed recovering from Children's art workshops at the hospital open day.

The hospital open day is the only one in the world, no other hospital has an open day. Patients and staff and there family's attend. It is a good idea because I have found that I only go to the same areas of the hospital and never see other parts, so there for don't know my way around. Also good for staff bringing in there children to show them where they work and to show off the hospital arts project. Lots of Rabbits were painted by the children. The Rabbit was designed by Alex Johansen in Glasgow and sent down to Norfolk to be reproduced in plaster. They will be placed in the grounds of the hospital and one of them will win a competition.

While lying in bed I watched a DVD called "Persepolis" it was a fantastic animation made by an Iranian lady Marjane Satrapi. It was mostly made by hand as in artists drawing millions of pictures, which looks so much better then computer animations.

Here is a clip from the movie, but I do say get it out from a rental DVD place or your local library or buy it and watch it all.

It certainly gives an insight to silly fashion laws made by stupid men, with pea brains.

Wear what you want dont let the facists get you down. If you think someone is going to steal your wife. Then have it out with the someone not your wife. But also women are not dollys and no one owns us, we are born free. This film also gives a history of Iran, over the last 5 decades.

Unvieling of the Veil

The French Prime minister is unveiling the veil. This is most confusing for a everyone. I went to Saudi Arabia as a teenager and had to wear the full gear apart from covering my face that was OK because I was from the West. I also had to be escorted everywhere by my family. I was sweet sixteen and was very shy and didn't want to draw attention to myself. In Ireland where I grew up boys were never interested in me and I was worth nothing to them. Boys and men had generally been bully's in my life and rarely showed a nice side, so I had no interest in getting a boyfriend at that age.

But when I was out in the markets in Saudi, I went to a gold shop to have a look around at the jewelery with my brother, this view of European men was reinforced. The gold shop owner said to my brother how much for your sister. Then he started haggling and offered my brother the whole gold shop to him. My brother then said 40 riyals which was about 40p, the gold shop guy then got mad at him and opened draws of cash offering money and the whole gold shop. My brother still said forty riyals. I was raging by then and annoyed by my brother saying I was worthless.

Then my dad had an offer from his boss who already had several wife's and children but had no sons and thought another wife might give him one. He offered £30,000 to my Dad plus £30,000 to all his brothers each and a camel farm and a string of limousine cars. My Dad was certainly thinking about selling me off. I actually had to stand my ground for freedom, but was flattered by so many great offers. If the rules were changed like that I got offered the cash instead of all the men in my family getting it, I might have taken one of the men up on the offer. But as it went there is very little I would want to buy anyway, so all the money in the world doesn't really make me a bride to slavery. If I had spent any longer in Saudi I think the marriage offers would have turned to annoying and I would have completely covered up to save the hassle.

The full gear also worked as a great way to keep the sun off as I got burnt easily in the dessert and the silk caught the slightest breeze, which kept me cooler. What I wore underneath didn't matter so a bad clothes day could be covered up.

Then years later I was at art college in Bradford and there is quite a lot of Muslim Women wearing the full outfits there. But there was never very many happy stories about the Muslim women there, who were sometimes bought over from abroad, could not speak English, forced into arranged marriages then forced to have children, trapped into there homes with lack of communication with the outside world. Getting beatings and sometimes tried to suicide by pouring petrol over themselves. So the Burka in one way covers up the scars of forced arranged marriages.

Then as growing up in Dublin only in the 1970's all women wore head scarfs. Even my mother would not leave the house with out one. They were not a fashion statement, they covered up the hair do, to stop it blowing about in the wind and kept the wind from blowing in the delicate ears and kept the head and neck warm and in winter bigger scarfs were worn to keep the shoulders warm. As we see in the UK the Queen still wears a head scarf when outdoors.

As for the hole in the Ozone which is directly over Tasmania, women there have taken to wearing a head scarf to save getting skin cancer on head and neck.

When I worked in a retirement home I had to take a guy to the hospital to have his skin cancer on his head treated. My eyes watered watching him have the treatment done, it was so painful.

My friends from OZ have skin cancer and there between the ages of thirty and forty. So I make a point of not going out, unless necessary and always wearing a hat or scarf and sunglasses.

So I think the French President is right to say women should have there freedom but he should take into account that the head scarf is a useful item of clothing.

Maybe he should instead fund programmes for teaching Muslim women French and helping them set up there own businesses and women's groups or art groups after all it is France home to the great artists.

None of the information in my blog is based on scientific research and evidence, it is purely on my experience and story, so don't get upset by anything I write. I get on much better with men now and put them in there place when there out of line. I would also say it be a good idea if the whole world started to respect women and let them wear what what ever they want or nothing at all if that's what they want. The ultimate freedom is wearing nothing at all, which we get about 10 seconds of just after were born and the occasional go at skinny dipping in the sea.

I have just heard that religion is band in french schools this is fantastic news. My school life was ruined by religion and I could have spent all the hours per day wasted on religion making art. I really could not relate to the story's or the illustrations of religious figures in robes, centuries before. The constant thanking of to a god that I couldn't see, made me feel like adults and teachers were all insane. I wanted to learn straight up things, like how to grow a tree, buy an apple from a shop, how to make a pedal car like the one in the Bugsy Malone film, how to make sugar glass. How to play a guitar, How to fill out a form, what all the stars in the sky were, what all the wild flowers were called. How to cook a decent meal, how to make a ladder. How to be a tailor, a sailor, an actor, a film maker, a decorator, a stilt walker, a fire person, how to fix a bike, a car, sewing machine. All these useful things I had to teach myself at home. School was in fact 10 years of wasted in my life and because I knew it was and didn't want to go. I was sent to a shrink by the government officials which wasted more of my time.

Mother collects her prize

Saint Benedict's street fair today, the sun shone its face and we ventured down the cobblestone streets to the fair. There was happiness and music in the air. People sitting outside cafes and clothes racks on the the street and homemade arty assortments stalls. Everyone was smiling and saying hello. It was like walking into another dimension in Norwich, where usually gloom and doom of medieval city hangs with consumerist loom.

After cruising round the 4 churches that were now opening with art and crafts, one of them dedicated to knitting. We headed over to the Ship of fools shop where I still had to claim my prize for best dressed costume from the Warhol rejects party that was held at Take 5 crypt bar weeks before. The flaunted through the racks wondering which dress would best suit my opening day at the hospital children's unit. It was dicing up between conservative formative to just been my wacky arty self. My Son (Alister) gave a big friendly hello and then recognised his old mother from the party. He was very helpful in hints of what to wear. As we were chatting we were rudely interrupted by the police saying the fair was over and the clothes racks had to come in off the street. This was when the sun was peaking and the atmosphere of the fair was in full swing. I stood outside as my son was taking in the clothes racks and shop dummy's with his helpful friends. The last rack was the shoes my feet started to tingle as they came across a wonderful pair of modern day Japanese style shoes with pink rope straps. This was my prize a pair of shoes to match my Japanese/Chinese twin piece that I had made and was pleading out for matching shoes.

My Son took a photo of the prize winner and we chatted to all his friends on the street. They were all heading over to the Birdcage pub for some Bloody Marys and invited us along but due to my heavy paint work load I had to decline and head home up the cobblestones. As we waved good bye, we were nearly run over by one big enormous Tesco's truck that scrapped the sides of the medieval streets to pass through. So the realisation as to why are streets are not closed to traffic entered my head. All for the multi national smelly over sized trucks for the big shop that kills off local business. Then another truck passed again on another small street up on Pottergate nearly taking me off my bike.

When I become Mayor of this City the first thing I am going to do is Ban Tesco's monsters from being here. Please start the boycott today, why support a shop that treats it costumers, staff and farmers badly and shop at lovely local friendly shops.