Where are you bound? A shout out sailors passing each other would ask. Where is SB May bound? She has an uncertain future. We have the opportunity to record the next few years to an unknown final destination by creating a visual arts record of her journey. From her 130th birthday to her end goal, a restoration dream which has now become for her a cargo of hope. We can do this using video, photography, sound, poetry, paint, sculpture, ceramics, theatre, the list is endless. No boundary on creativity.
For one of us, Connie, an aspiring artist one day, is hoping to capture the moving of the tide across the mud where she lay. The sound of the creaking timbers in the hold as the tide ebbs and flows. The marks in the mud which remain for a while but change and slowly transformed by the next object that will take her place.
The beautiful Sailing Barge May is 130 years old on the 22nd July 2021. She is sitting on the foreshore at Pin Mill, but is moving as soon as practical and possible to Brightlingsea where she will sit for a couple of days for a survey and some paint, before being moved to St Osyths Boatyard. Here she will be covered and cared for until her future is decided. Dates will be announced on our pages. She is owned by a female led CIC committed to securing funding to get her restored which will enable her to become a floating bakery and safe space for groups helping vulnerable women to move forward.
If our story inspires you in some way to create your own piece of artwork to add to our journey then please get in touch, via our social media pages or to connie@sbmay.co.uk. We are planning an exhibition of work sometime in the future, dates to be decided upon. We are also in the process of creating an online gallery linked with our work and if it is something that may be of interest, please let us know.
Helen, Jane & Connie
The Bread and Roses Barge Team