Jumblies Theatre’s Artistic Director Ruth Howard is hard to ignore. Her presence within a community is obvious as soon as you see random people creating art, engaging in conversation or carrying odd objects across town with puzzled looks on their faces. Ruth engages with people in all ways imaginable as her found objects bring people to her or as she brings people off the street to create their first artwork when they said they would never have done that. Community arts are fascinating to me as the Artist-Run industry functions in a very similar way with a few key differences. Ruth is working with a few people now in the space and each of them have a bewildered look of both excitement and confusion. Learning new things brings us out of our shells and makes us grow as people. Community Arts and Artist-Run culture share that trait and as I blog about this residency over the next few weeks, I will reveal more. –Clayton Windatt
