Botanica
Fabula
Amanda Edmiston
Herbal storytelling
To Hand on
To teach
share
create
Treasure memories
To create value in an everyday or overlooked small item
because of the story it holds.
To share love and wisdom
To facilitate transitions.
To carry onwards beyond transitional times.
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Handing On
In 2021 mother and daughter storytellers: Jean and Amanda Edmiston, were generously awarded an Andy Hunter Bursary to create a multi-faceted project: Handing On.
Handing On is a project created around a personal journey undertaken by Jean and Amanda to distil and create a tangible form that makes their interdisciplinary storytelling practice something that can be shared.
The project comprises of a series of online elements, workshops, mentoring opportunities and connections.
A showcase performance was recorded live at The Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh thanks to a commission from the Scottish International Storytelling Festival 2021 and is available online and there are a series of live in-person workshops in collaboration with The National Library of Scotland are soon to be announced, running during Summer 2022.
You can also join in with a range of unique insights into the projects developments and mini workshop elements in the private project facebook group which you can join here: HANDING ON and catch up with what we're doing in the BLOG or on social media by following the hashtags #handingon and #botanicafabula
Workshops
with The National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh.
Connecting to the National Library's new permanent exhibition Treasures... Jean and Amanda Edmiston, will lead three interactive workshops exploring the ‘treasured’ stories held in household, personal and found objects (or maybe those brilliant family photos of grandparents on the beach in the 1950's!) passed down through the generations.
We invite you to bring along, or have in mind, a small everyday object that you love and to consider the story of why it is significant. Each workshop is different and stand-alone, or can be booked together to build up a personal collection of stories and objects to hand on.
The July workshop will be family-friendly encouraging an intergenerational sharing of stories and there will be a special edition dementia friendly Library Socials workshop on the 13th of May.
Thursday 5 May
11.00-13.00
Friday 13 May Dementia friendly Library Socials event
10.30-12.00
Thursday 9 June
11.00-13.00
Tuesday 5 July Family friendly
11.00-13.00
Jean Edmiston
Was born in Aberdeen in 1946. Her sculptor father’s passion for the natural landscape and its stories meant the family went long walks in all weathers, exploring!
Out of this childhood grew her own love for stories, place and art.
One of Jeans enduring passions is working with textiles: dyeing, printing and creating clothes. During the '70's and '80's she developed a successful business with a retail outlet in York ‘Showspace’.
But life events in late ‘80s meant sudden change for Jean, and she had to find new creative ways to survive. She discovered storytelling with Mary Medlicott as her guide and mentor.
Now with over 30 years’ experience of working full time as a storyteller and writer with community projects, schools, arts organisations, museums, she is 'considering' retirement!
Jean says:
‘I have been fortunate and privileged to work over the years with some wonderful people and amazing artists, now I am officially retired, but will always be a storyteller, always creative, and working with my fabulous daughter developing a new project and ‘Handing On’.
Amanda Edmiston, Botanica Fabula.
Was brought up telling stories; she first learnt about plants and recipes from her gran who still remembered traditional remedies and folklore and has been mentored by her mum: Jean, who has been a storyteller for over 30 years.
After studying herbal medicine, Amanda found it natural to start bringing together stories, plants, and magical places together, drawing on the Scottish storytelling tradition, but in her own unique way.
She has been showcasing her work for the past 10 years, creating combinations of stories and art for projects including the Ruglen Ropewalk with Grow 73 and The Very Curious Herbal.
Amanda says:
“I've always been fascinated by plants and the stories around them, I love how their use reveals the way we connect to each other and our natural environment.
I love to weave together facts, folklore, traditional tales, history and herbal remedies using traditional storytelling techniques, which I then combine, creating a rich multi-sensory tapestry".
Creating Handing On
Changing worlds, Forvie Sands~Creating stories and revisiting memories for Handing On August 2021
Creating the stories and revisiting the places, the memories that are beginning to form Handing ON.
The stories that belong to the objects are what creates the value
Stories make things worth more than gold.
Once this railway carriage carried people in journeys.
To see family and friends, to reunite lovers, to take people away from danger, to find new things and places, to take them to relax by the sea.
It found its way to Forvie sands where for years my mum remembers the ranger who looked after the reserve lived there, checking folk cared for this magical place, collecting discarded birds eggs to explain the ecology to visitors.
Now it is as wind blown as the dunes themselves... the carriage, now discarded itself, shares a speck of its rust to add to the mordant and leads us to the first plants that will dye the cloth that will help tell the story of Handing On.