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Here is a little summary of all the editions of MIMAZINA so far, in case you missed any. If you would like to suggest an image for our back cover (read more in our callout, p.4) we would love to see your ideas!

We've made it to 12 issues! Missed one? Click on the cover to read!

Welcome to issue 12 of MIMAZINA, the last in the current run of weekly journals. Time has flown since the first issue was shared on 14 April 2020 – and we are so grateful to everyone who has contributed and participated so wholeheartedly in this project.

We are excited to be continuing MIMAZINA on a monthly basis – each new issue will be released on the last Tuesday of each month (with #13 landing on Tuesday 28 July 2020).

We’ve loved reading and hearing your imaginative responses to being in lockdown, your memories and the things we should be celebrating from the Tees Valley. MIMAZINA has been read by thousands of people and we’ve heard from lots of you about how much it’s meant to you. It’s been a fast-paced process of collecting stories, editing and designing – at times the energy of this has verged on mayhem! We (Foundation Press) are going to take a short break for a couple of weeks before beginning work again. We can’t wait to see what surprises the next few issues hold!

As ever we can’t do this without you – so take a look at our contributions callout on the next page and please share an article or suggest it to friends and family who might enjoy getting involved. We know that lockdown easing is a mixed picture that presents challenges for many people and we hope you’re able to stay safe and connected. The MIMA team can’t wait to see you back at MIMA as soon as it’s safe to reopen and we hope to get your MIMAZINA contribution in the meantime...

VIV

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IMAZINA!

A NOTE FROM THE EDITORS Words: Adam Phillips (FP)/ Deborah Bower (FP)/ Elinor Morgan (MIMA)

Be A PART OF MIMAZINA

MIMAZINA IS ALL ABOUT DIFFERENT VOICES. WE ARE LOOKING FOR CONTRIBUTIONS INCLUDING:BACK COVERPropose a bold, eye-catching or meaningful image for our back cover. It could be a photograph, drawing, print, pattern...

OUR HOMES ARE A MUSEUM Share an artwork from your home that you love or that has an interesting story behind it.

TEES VALLEY TREASURESuggest intriguing artefacts. We are interested in a real variety of things with a story to tell! They can be historical, more recent and better still, a bit left field.

FOLK STORIES Tell us about someone you remember – perhaps mothers, grandparents, old friends. A page to remember and share descriptions of people past.

BASED ON A TRUE STORY?Share your own stories and myths relating to the region. It could be an urban legend, folk story or a tale of the unexplained.

POSTCARD FROM...If you are a reader of MIMAZINA from outside the Tees Valley send us a 'postcard' (an email is fine) about where you are. Share some interesting facts about your home or describe what you've been up to recently.

DOORSTEP PORTRAITThis archive documents and captures life in lockdown and the experiences of the extraordinary people and families MIMA work with and serve. Let us know if you would like to have your picture taken and chat to our team.

ONE-OFF ARTICLES OR STORIESShare a short article on a subject of your choosing. We are especially interested in writing relating to the Tees Valley past, present and future, but whatever you want to publish – we would love to hear from you.

Share your stories, photographs and letters in future issues of MIMAZINA.

NOTES

• Content should be sent via email to info@foundationpress.org

• Please keep written contributions to less than 1000 words.

• Please only submit content that you would be happy for us to publish in MIMAZINA.

• We will try our best to share as much content as possible but cannot guarantee to publish all suggestions and content we receive.

• Content may be edited before publication.

• Content should be appropriate for audiences of all ages.

• Issue #13 will be published Tuesday July 28 – deadline for contributions to this issue is Thursday 23rd July 5pm.

OUR HOMES ARE A MUSEUMJohn shares a painting by Stan Binks

COLLABORATIVE POEMS These poems have been co-produced and sent in by the creative folk at the Camphill Village Trust.

THE MIDDLESBROUGH SETTLEMENTElizabeth explains the origins of North Ormesby's newest street food sensation – Nifty Nachos!

ARTWORK OF THE WEEK(S)An anthology of artworks from the past 11 issues of MIMAZINA

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MIMAZINA #12

THE DAY SOUTH BANK WENT DARK A stormy story from Linda about her mum working in the shipyards

FOLK STORIESSome writing from 2004 by John Fleming about his family and his childhood

GROWING UPWhere will your journey stick take you? And what stories will it tell?

THINGS TO DO Foundation Press suggest things you may or may not like to do at home

ENTERTAIN MERecommendations and links including the famous Colby Printing Co.

DOORSTEP PORTRAITCapturing life in lockdown and the experiences of the people

ARLO’S COMIC STRIPFresh from the mind of MIMAZINA’s ‘in-house’ cartoonist

OUR HOMeS ARe A MUSeUM

What art in your home do you think should be added to these pages? Each week we share a piece from people’s homes. We are really interested in art that speaks to you, or that has an interesting story behind how it came to be in your home.

Stan Binks was born in 1924 and grew up in the East Cleveland town of Loftus. During World War Two he served as a 'Bevin Boy', substituting for miners who were in the armed forces. He later completed two years of National Service with the Green Howards. Following his marriage in 1951 Stan moved to Skinningrove, a coastal village between Saltburn and Staithes, where he lived in the same house until his death in 2017. He worked at Skinningrove Iron and Steel Works which dominated the local landscape throughout his working life.

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Stan had a keen interest in his local area and he built up a formidable knowledge of its history together with a deep appreciation of the people and places in this district. Stan's love of the area is captured in his paintings which document moments in time that serve as a valuable record of local activities and events. Having been a small fishing community for hundreds of years, Skinningrove developed rapidly in the 1870s, primarily to house ironstone miners and workers at the local iron works. Stan’s paintings offer a vivid representation of the village in the late 20th century, by when the local ironstone mine had closed.

Stan Binks’s paintings include Sea Coal Gathering which depicts people on the beach collecting this fuel, either for sale or their own use. Sea coal can still be seen on the beaches of north east England but quantities have declined since the closure of coastal collieries in Northumberland and County Durham. The prevailing sea current would take waste coal south, to be washed up as minute grains on Cleveland’s shores and exposed as the tide receded. The particles were gathered and put in sacks or barrows for transporting home. After being dried, the sea coal was put in cones of paper which were fastened at the top before being burned, often as a winter fuel. Sparks might fly at times if traces of colliery explosives were in the mix! Sea coal was a free source of fuel but collecting it involved heavy manual labour.

The painting shows one collector with a sack on his bicycle; this figure looks remarkably like Stan Binks so we may be looking at a self-portrait here. This painting exemplifies Stan’s commitment to portraying daily life around Skinningrove: his other subjects include pigeon fancying and sea fishing, together with community events such as maypole dancing. Some of these activities no longer take place, the paintings becoming valuable representations of the rich history and heritage of a mining community in transition. What resonates very strongly in Sea Coal Gathering and Stan’s other work is a sense of connectedness between the past and present and between working class communities in this region▪

NOTES

The Cleveland Ironstone Mining Museum (ironstonemuseum.co.uk), itself based in Skinningrove, has a collection of Stan Binks’s paintings which it plans to exhibit when it re-opens following its major expansion programme.

With grateful thanks to Joy Arkless, daughter of Stan Binks, for permission to release this information.

Butterflies and birds Spring wildlife alive with Magpies and lavender. Flowers growing over Fields and meadows Blackbirds as big As vultures, dark Butterflies and birds Flying. Make summer Possible

These poems have been co-produced and sent in by the creative folk at the Camphill Village Trust.

LLooookkss lliikkee aa ssmmiillee TThhaatt wwiinnddmmiillll uupp nneeaarr tthhaatt hhoouussee WWiitthh sspprriinngg’’ss sskkyy bbeehhiinndd iitt.. IIttss rreefflleecctteedd oonn tthhee wwaatteerr WWiitthh ssuunnlliigghhtt bbuurrssttiinngg TThhrroouugghh sshhaaddooww.. TThhoossee pphheeaassaannttss hhooppppiinngg OOvveerr aa ppaattcchh ooff bblluueebbeellllss TThhaatt hhoouussee uupp nneeaarr tthhaatt wwiinnddmmiillll WWiitthh aallll tthhee lliigghhttss iinnssiiddee WWiisshh II lliivveedd tthheerree.. CCaann yyoouu sseeee tthhaatt wwaallll nneeaarr tthhee ppoonndd?? WWrriitttteenn aaccrroossss tthhee ffiieelldd IItt llooookkss lliikkee aa ssmmiillee.. TThhee sskkyy ttuurrnnss ttuurrqquuooiissee nneexxtt ttoo tthhee cchhuurrcchh TThhee bbaarrnn aanndd tthhee ccaarr.. TThheerree’’ss nnootthhiinngg ttoo hheeaarr hheerree.. IIttss bbeeaauuttiiffuull..

These poems have been co-produced and sent in by the creative folk at the Camphill Village Trust.

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Barefoot Kitchen CIC* have worked Trinity Youth Group, North Ormesby for three years. Starting with MIMA’s How We Eat** project, they have developed a rather brilliant relationship with the group. Here, Elizabeth (of Barefoot) reflects on Nifty Nachos, a project initiated by the group to develop skills in cooking and gain experience in the catering industry. Income from the sale of their street food is used to sustain projects led by the group. MIMA’s support of the project forms part of MIMA’s Great Place Tees Valley programme, The Middlesbrough Settlement which is funded by Arts Council England and Heritage Lottery. Words: Elizabeth Homan

Image: Official launch of Nifty Nachos / Credit: Courtesy of MIMA

North Ormesby’s newest street-food vendor:

Nifty NachosIn autumn 2019, Trinity Youth Group planted edible seeds and talked to us about how they would like to work more with food. Nifty Nachos was born!

Keep your eyes peeled for a special Settlement-shaped edition of MIMAZINA soon!

It is a social action project focused around the group’s love of making and sharing nachos and desire to create their own food business using a zero waste model.*** The ingredients were to come from locally-grown surplus and supermarkets and any surplus packaging would be donated to the Northern School of Art to use in their environmental art projects.

Weekly sessions showed the group the different roles that people play in a food business, how to adjust recipes to suit the available ingredients and the importance of working as a team. One of the sessions took place at Preston Park Walled Garden where we saw how local food is grown and harvested. It resulted in the group really coming together as one. Their personalities started to shine, with an awesome sense of confidence and trust in themselves and the project.

We visited a local restaurant so the group could see first-hand how a kitchen team works together and the Head Chef, Nixon, prepared a special meal using surplus from the day’s menu. We helped finish off the dish with eggs soft-boiled to perfection and were served in a stunning candlelit dining room by the Head Chef himself. It was truly a magical evening!

The young people next invited MIMA and graphic designer Joanna Deans to help us think about our branding. The group came up with lots of ideas before finalising their Nifty Nacho character, which appears on the menu board and compostable packaging.

NOTES

Image 1: Some of the Nifty Nachos team. Credit: Image courtesy of MIMA

Image 2: Practicing knife skills. Credit: Image courtesy of Rachel Stark

Image 3: Visit to a local restaurant kitchen. Credit: Image courtesy of Elizabeth Homan

*Barefoot Kitchen are a community interest company who create revolutionary, regenerative, and resilient communities in the Tees Valley through food growing, cooking and sharing initiatives.

**Organised by MIMA, How We Eat was a programme of creative cooking and design sessions, which kicked off the young people’s work with food. Through it we explored where, what and how we eat with young people in North Ormesby.

*** A zero waste model is a set of waste prevention principles, which focus on the repurposing of materials so that all products are used.

A pop up ‘soft opening’ was held at the North Ormesby Hub with a fantastic turnout from parents and the local community. The group prepped, cooked and served homemade nachos with all the trimmings, with some guidance from me. The fantastic feedback they got from their customers only cemented their confidence and group hugs were in abundance!

Now registered as a food business, the group served their Nifty Nachos and spiced hot chocolate from a converted horsebox at the North Ormesby Christmas light switch-on. The whole community turned out to support them. The takings made little profit but covered costs and the members of the group who worked the evening all received a small pay packet. A follow-up stall at the Live Nativity the following week was a sell-out!

The plan for 2020 was to continue to work with the Nifty Nachos team to meet more chefs, fine tune individual roles and sell at local markets and events. Sadly, Covid-19 has put a scupper on this but we are busy thinking and plotting ways we can bring this truly awesome project back, safely, and with more energy than ever▪

NOTES

Image 1: Logo design workshop with MIMA. Credit: Image courtesy of MIMA

2: Pop-up restaurant at The Community Hub, North Ormesby. Credit: Image courtesy of Elizabeth Homan

3: Prepping for the soft launch. Credit: Image courtesy of Elizabeth Homan

You can support the project by following their adventures on Instagram @niftynachos

ARTWORK OF THe WeeK(S)

The Middlesbrough Collection, held at MIMA, encompasses 2,250 works from 1870 to 2020, made by local and international artists. The Tees Valley’s art historical depository, it holds many voices and stories, intertwining various media, styles, periods, and subjects. Each issue we select an artwork to share – this week we recap what we've looked at so far.

NOTES

A: High Force, William Tillyer (1974)Screenprint on paper. Read more in Issue #1 Click here

B: Seated Figure, John Maltby (1996)StonewareRead more in Issue #2 Click here

C: Crown Jewel, Mi-Ah Rödiger (2012)Silver, gold, topaz, labradorite, silicone rubber, resinRead more in Issue #3 Click here

D: Peter Pan series: The Neverland, Paula Rego (1992) Etching and aquatint on paperRead more in Issue #4 Click here

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E: The Art Collector, Jérémie Mabiala & Djonga Bismar (2015) ChocolateRead more in Issue #6 Click here

F: Necklace, Hermann Jünger (1990) Gold-plated silver, bronze, rock crystal, haematite, gold wireRead more in Issue #8 Click here

G: Bowl, Takeshi Yasuda (1986)StonewareRead more in Issue #5 Click here

H: Vase, Loretta Braganza (c.1989)StonewareRead more in issue #7 Click here

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I: Girl, Kara Walker (2006)Mixed media collage and drawing on paperRead more in issue #9 Click here

J: Necklace, Thea Tolsma (1988) Rubber Read more in issue #11 Click here

K: Dish, Lucie Rie (c.1965)StonewareRead more in issue #10 Click here

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It took place on 2nd July 1968. I was at home in Passfield Crescent, off from school, covered in chicken pox and camomile lotion. I can’t recall where my sisters, Sheila and Sharon, where – but they weren’t at home. So my nana Roth (Francess) was looking after my brother Dennis and I.

My mam, Maureen Gibson (neé Wigglesworth), was at work – she was a tack welder in Smith’s Dock shipyard and had just returned to work a few months earlier. It was her second time working at the dock, as she first worked there in the early 60s and left around 1964. The day was warm, not hot, just warm enough to make my chicken pox-covered body feel uncomfortable. My brother Dennis, was in his pram near the window. It was then that the thunder began to roll in. The lightning flashed – Mother Nature was angry!

The sky began to darken, soon it was more like midnight than midday! Nana looked worried. She moved the pram from the window, drew the curtains and turned off the lights and the radio, then she sat with me on the sofa. Uncle Percy came into the house – he was absolutely soaked, rain dripped from the peak of his cap onto his nose and down his chin.

DO yOU ReMeMBeR THe DAy SOUTH BANK WeNT DARK AT MIDDAy?

NOTES

Words by Linda Hammerton / Originally published in the Black Path Press book – SOUTH BANK TALES / Black Path Press was a project devised by Foundation Press. It was a Great Place Tees Valley project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England National Lottery Projects in partnership with MIMA. Read further stories from Black Path Press here.

Share your stories with us – we love reading them. They can be about anything! This week a stormy South Bank story by Linda Hammerton.

“What is it?” asked Nana.

“I don’t know!” he replied.

We all sat in the dark and waited. I was 12 years old and I could tell both adults looked uneasy. The storm continued, we sat there in that dark room that erupted into light with each flash of nature’s anger. Slowly the daylight returned, neighbours appeared out in the street discussing what had just taken place, heartbeats slowed and gradually everything went back to the way it should be.

When mam got home all was back to normal, but she was really excited and had a story to tell.

“I was working in the ship, I heard the storm but didn’t know about the darkness. I could hear people running and someone shouting, ‘Get Off! Get Off!’ My friend Joan shouted ‘Maureen! Get up here and run for your life!’ As I climbed the darkness hit me and the bright lights dazzled me, which made it hard to focus. I just followed everyone and ran like crazy. Joan was in front of me one minute and gone the next – she literally disappeared before my eyes. I just kept running and headed for the nearest shed!”

When my mam got to the shed she told the other workers sitting in there what had happened. They all tried to come up with their own explanations of what the darkness was and what had happened to Joan. Apparently one person even suggested it could have been martians! They laughed but it was nervous laughter – they all wanted to know what happened and to check that Joan was okay.

My mam continued with her story, “soon the sun came back and we found the boss to ask what we should do – but they just demanded we go back to work! But we weren’t interested in going back to work, we wanted an explanation”.

It was then that Joan appeared! It turned out that a group of lads had found her wedged in a hole, saved from falling further by her buxom bosom. Apart from a few bruises she was fine but was very angry with my mam for leaving her. We all later found out that the cause of all of this was a large dense cloud (made worse by Teesside’s industrial pollution) that had blocked out the sun▪

FOLK STORIeS

Mother, especially, hated the change. She had spent most of her late adolescence in a village in Cleveland called Great Ayton, where her widowed mother was postmistress and her daughters had jobs in the Post Office. My aunt Laura managed the telephone exchange (about twenty lines, I think) but my mother, Florence Isabella, went to work in Middlesbrough as an apprentice milliner, and it was here that she met father in a drawing and painting class. The myth was that one of dad’s friends bet him that he daren’t go over and speak to “that pretty woman over there”. I wonder if mother encouraged the myth?

In Issue 7 of MIMAZINA, John Fleming's grandson Mat recalled the story of his grandfather - The Best Lie I Ever Told. Here is an extract of writing about John's younger years in his own words, written in 2004. The family have just moved to Thornaby from Ripon.

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Thornaby was the kind of place where you had to keep the windows shut if you didn’t want to wash the curtains every week. The first school I went to, a grim smoke-blackened Victorian edifice, and where most of the children wore neither shoes, socks nor coats all the year round, and where the cane ruled, I hated. Mother, a timid woman, made a great effort, and asserted herself with the education authorities and got me a place in an ancient (fifteenth Century) grammar school in Stockton-on-Tees. Sylvia also went to the girls’ department, which unfortunately closed during the next year. (And there my memory misled me – what really happened was that mother got me transferred to a school in Stockton, from which I obtained a scholarship to the aforesaid grammar school in about 1923.) Here, I think I got a good education in spite of a little laziness on my part, and made good friends, and avoided all the games I could, because my freedom seemed to me much more important! The next thing I remember was that, fed up of Thornaby, mother took the initiative and we rented a nice modern house that had been built at the back of an ancient village round a green, called Egglescliffe. 12/6’ a week was the rent (which I am now sure we could not afford.) The village was on a hilltop overlooking Yarm-on-Tees, and surrounded by market gardens and little woods – paradise, we thought!

Here, Sylvia made friends with three village girls and together we walked about and played in and climbed trees in the local fields and woods in an enormous ox bend in the River Tees. Especially we loved

climbing in four or five two- or three-hundred year-old trees. Once we had pinched a rope from a local barn (and remember there were still horses on the farms) to get over the first hurdle, the enormous and friendly trees were our playground. I can remember doing my reading homework in a kind of cradle, forty feet from the ground – perfectly safe even if I had fallen asleep there.

And one day, walking by myself in the meadow enclosed by the embankments of the Tees, I remember watching, enchanted, as a thick white fog poured over a break in the lip of the embankment and proceeded, like milk from a jug, to fill the meadow.

We walked after school every day in the fields and mother, if she could get father to stir, would have us all on longer walks to Crathorne, and the river Leven and Weary Bank. Somewhere in the house I have a little photo of mother perched on a stile, wearing a very fetching cloche hat, for she was not a milliner for nothing, and cloches were le dernier cri just then.

It wasn’t long before I cajoled a bicycle from my aunt Annie, one of dad’s sisters, and Sylvia and I got one each from Graves of Sheffield.And you can imagine that it wasn’t long before we found our way to the Cleveland Hills, that delectable four-hundred square miles which we were to spend the next four or five years exploring. By this time my best friend, Denis Little, had a bicycle also so the three of us, or sometimes two of us, made sandwiches every weekend and off we went.

If I remember, the railway fare for children to the nearest seaside resort was sixpence single, so we soon found the delights of Seaton Carew, Redcar and the slightly upmarket Saltburn. Here we tasted ice cream for the first time, and because the wide sands were often windy, I always associated ice cream with gritty sand particles between my teeth! Part of the fun of gong to the seaside was that the railway wound in and out of the great steel furnaces – dangerously close to them, I thought! – and if one was lucky one could see the tapping of a furnace or better still, the rolling down the great slagheaps of white-hot balls of slag, whose light played on the clouds – wonderful!

Somewhere here, but I’m a little hazy quite when, the family doctor became worried about my lungs, partly I think because my maternal grandfather had died of TB in his forties – we have a lovely photo of my mother in her early twenties in a fetching mourning outfit, and a hat I think she must have made herself – so I was packed off to spend six months in the country, in a Pennine village (it was scarcely a town) called Addingham where my aunt Laura, now married, kept a grocer’s shop. Thanks to a whopping lie I told my auntie – I said the doctor said I wasn’t to go to school but to spend most of my time in the fields and woods to mend my lungs! – I had a wonderful six months, playing in the local streams, and walking unsupervised among the moors and woods of the area. On the half day when the shop was closed, my aunt and uncle and I would walk to Ilkley, or Bolton Abbey, or climb the Beacon, and came back to a gorgeous apple dumpling, or

Image: John and Barbara Fleming pose at their wedding in February 1940 / Courtesy of John and Barbara's family.

occasionally a trifle! Somehow, in later life, I never quite managed the flavour of her trifles. She was a good cook, my aunt Laura.

Somehow, school came to an end 'not with a bang but a whimper' – no help with advice on how to choose a career – just one teacher, on the last day in the echoing and dusty school hall, after the interminable drag of the Latin school song, asked me, “What are you going to do, Fleming?” but I didn’t know! Eventually I was apprenticed to the pharmacy in Yarm – a place where life was easy, and if work was slack in the shop, the boss’s father would say in broadest Yorkshire dialect: “Coom thee down to t’garden and help me prune t’roses, lad!”

I remember the garden, a narrow one, going right down to the river, past a two-seater privy, and ending up in a riot of purple lilac bushes from which I was able to collect my first present of flowers to my new love, Barbara.

We joined the Labour League of Youth, which was for me, I have to confess, merely a chance to form a walking group of about ten friends to explore the lovely North York Moors, thanks to a small bus company which served the Cleveland area. It was the heady time of the Spanish Civil War, and the end of my childhood, with the clouds of war assembling.

There followed a long and happy marriage, the births of four children, and subsequently of eleven grandchildren. And as this is merely a short resumé of my childhood here I shall have to stop, after recording my gratitude to my children (now near retirement age!) and our eleven grandchildren, whose love and friendliness has helped me so much in the days and months after Barbara’s death▪

Image: John and Barbara Fleming and their four children, Bill, Jane, Richard and Andrew, at Dadnor Fruit Farm (c.1954). Courtesy of John and Barbara's family.

GROWING UP Here we share tips from Community Campus Learning Garden.MIMA works with experts, students and artists who are passionate about the environment. Weekly sessions focus on food, ecology, horticulture and sharing skills with other gardening and growing enthusiasts.

Words and Images: Kate Pounder

Journey StickOften referred to as a ‘story stick’ or ‘nature stick’, our Journey Stick is an exciting, fun way to show and tell family and friends your recent adventures.

This type of storytelling is hundreds of years old and is still used by communities worldwide to share tales of journeys, through connecting with nature and the wonderful outdoors. We captured one of our favourite journeys, a woodland walk with the puppies (who helped us find a massive stick). We used stuff that had naturally fallen to the ground so we didn’t upset the nature, respect please!

I took some things with me on my walk: string already cut into 30cm lengths so I could tie stuff to my stick on route.

Locate a stick that works for you, then gather bits up as you go, tie them or wrap them round your stick.

Share pictures of your summer journeys with MIMA by tagging @mimauseful

I only used the top of my stick but you could cover the full stick for all the storytelling with others when you return home.

Happy journeying▪

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oPut the name of the thing you have become a fan of within your artwork.

If you are worried about drawing faces or specific things, you could just decorate words.

If you want to share your fan art you could put it in your window or on social media – but really it's just for you!

Over the next few pages are some of ours and a few from some friends...

TASK

Create a drawing, painting or poster – a visual love letter to something that you have valued over the last few months.

Your fan art could be celebrating a piece of culture (for example a song or album, a writer, a TV show, etc.) or something closer to home (a walk, a person, a hobby that you’ve taken up).

Work in any medium you feel comfortable with – don’t worry about how it looks too much, the shonkier, the better! Go to town on making it as extravagant as you want it to be! Im

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Foundation Press suggest things you may or may not like to do at home.

Martha Jackson

Martha's love for Monty Don has only grown stronger as Gardener's World (BBC/iPlayer) persevered through lockdown.

Lindsey Thompson

Like many grandparents, I have missed my baby grandson so much and not seeing him has been very difficult at times. Here is a poem I wrote for him – Max's pumpkin seed is now sprouting and growing strong (see back cover).

Deborah Bower

We always look forward to watching the Sewing Bee each year. I love all the interesting outfits that they sew and the gorgeous fabrics. I think that the contestants are always really canny and this year there is a contestant from Middlesbrough - Liz - she's made some fabulous clothes. As someone who enjoys sewing but has no time, this scratches an itch! (See Entertain Me column for another fan of The Great British Sewing Bee).

Arlo Fleming (MIMAZINA's cartoon extraordinaire)

Arlo's favourite cartoon is called Teen Titans. When asked what he has especially liked about it, he said it is because they have a T-shaped tower in it and it's very funny. In his favourite episode they eat loads of waffles and all they say, in the whole episode, is waffles.

Faythe Lockwood

It's no secret that Faythe is a massive Disney fan – but here she made a drawing to represent the healing incantation from the movie Tangled, which felt especially apt during the past few months.

Adam Phillips

So many people have been doing amazing radio shows on the Star & Shadow Cinema's Mixlr page – which you can find here. I have especially appreciated hearing the familiar

voices of friends on Una's Rola Cola Radiola show and Dawn's Chip Chat.

Giles Bailey

I was listening to an audiobook of Ursula K. Le Guin's Left Hand Of Darkness recently and liked it a lot. I've also been trying to draw animals dreaming. This fan art brings these things together. Ursula K. Le Guin, before she died, posted semi-regular blog posts which described the world from the perspective of her cat Pard – you can still read some of these posts here The Annals Of Pard.

Adam Phillips (another one)

I was already a fan of this comedy show (Joe Pera Talks With You, Adult Swim/4oD) but I began rewatching all two seasons of it when lockdown began and found it so comforting and rewarding. Each episode is only 10 minutes in length and is basically gentle Joe Pera reflecting on a topic (including growing beans, going to the supermarket, trying to get to sleep). The show is so layered and lovingly detailed, but really I just like that each episode leaves me feeling happy. It is a comedy about enjoying the small things in life, it feels different to a lot of comedy which can often be about 'cringe', awkwardness and a dislike of the wider world.

eNTeRTAIN Me

YouTubing?Title: The Colby Poster Printing Company Year: 2013Duration: 10 minsClick Here

Until its doors closed on December 31, 2012, the family-run Colby Poster Printing Company made the letter-pressed signs, posters, billboards and showcards that were a ubiquitous feature of the visual landscape of Los Angeles. For three generations, promoters of boxing bouts, rodeos, reggae concerts and literary-minded visual artists were drawn to the swift graphic science of the dayglo poster. In this short documentary, artist C.R. Stecyk III visits the company to make one last print, and to expound on its enduring appeal to anyone who ever wanted to leave a mark of their own in the city of signs.

Recommended!The Great British Sewing Bee (BBC One/ iPlayer)

For tops tips of how to sew (or how not to sew!) this will keep you entertained for hours. After watching this I was inspired to search for a local pattern cutting course, and guess what I found, YES – a summer course I can do digitally, An Introduction to Pattern Cutting at Teesside University, check out this link for loads more courses. I wanted to do them all. Wish me luck! Brought to you from Harrison Braithwaite, MIMA Young Person and volunteer.

Weekly ThunkPhilosophical fun for all the family. A thunk is a simple question with NO right or

wrong answer. It makes you stop and think about the

world around you. The thunk for this week is:

Where does the sky start?

DO

ORSTe

P P

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This amazing duo are Hannah & Tobi, longstanding friends and MIMA community ambassadors. Together we have imagined programmes, events and interventions to connect and bring gather our Community Day Friends. We all miss Hannah & Tobi and can’t wait for the day we can have a cuppa and catch up together.

This new archive documents and captures life in lockdown and the experiences of the extraordinary people and families MIMA work with and serve.

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MIMAZINA #12Credits

ContributorsCamphill Village TrustClaire Pounder Elinor MorganElizabeth HomanFoundation PressHannah & TobiHarrison Braithwaite John Fleming John Roberts Kate PounderLinda Hammerton

Fan art Adam PhillipsArlo FlemingDeborah BowerFaythe LockwoodGiles BaileyLindsey ThompsonMartha Jackson

CartoonArlo Fleming

Back coverLindsey Thompson

Designed byFoundation Press(Adam Phillips and Deborah Bower)

Commissioned by Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, May 2020.

With thanks to Sally Pearson and all the MIMA team

MIMAZINA is a project by Foundation Press and Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art

Foundation Press are a collaborative group who create design and editorial projects with artists, students and communities.

foundationpress.org @foundation.press

MIMAMiddlesbrough Institute of Modern ArtCentre SquareMiddlesbroughTS1 2AZ

mima.art@mimauseful

The Middlesbrough Settlement is part of Great Place Tees Valley, funded by Arts Council England and Heritage Lottery.

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That’s all for now –see you next month.