It is their first ‘public’ pyramid that will be used to raise funds for the event in line with their aim, which is to become a social entrepreneurial artwork practice.

This pyramid, called ‘Formal Dress’, is the result of many small gestures made by a lot of people. Small, medium and large hands of all ages have made one paper snowball…and the pile keeps growing for future projects! For the ruching, it was decided that ‘up-cycled’ Guardian newspapers would be a suitable choice complementing the snowballs and also a salute to Stroud’s green social history.

With so many anonymous volunteers, it isn’t easy to say who made the pyramid, so we just call ourselves The Snowball Gang to embrace the growing number of snowball makers as well as all their snowballs. Banded together we are a unique artwork practice ready to do stuff for Art and the Community in diverse ways.

Materials used in ‘Formal Dress’:

• freely resourced recycled paper (an assortment)
• paper snowballs made from paper and water only
• the Guardian newspaper
• metal armature strung with single and multiply wire
• plant twist tie wire
• wire mesh
• No More Nails
• micro-crystalline wax

Thank You

We thank the Stroud International Textile Festival for inviting us to take part in this event for our debut. We hope our endeavours to raise money for some aspect of its future in Stroud community will be well supported.

Snowball Gang Raffle Tickets

The Snowball Gang raffle tickets in aid of Stroud International Textile Festival are available at all Festival venues. The prizes include a weekend at the home of the Snowball Gang for two, an excusiion with the Snowball Gang and a life membership of Stroud International Textiles.

The Gang are were also written about on the BBC website, in a story entitled ‘Sybil Edwards makes pyramids with paper snowballs’.

F-Snowball

Twenty-four members of the Snowball Gang left England on 2 September and have gone on a long distance flight to Japan and to North America. Each snowball has been tagged with a scribble and the letter ‘F’ which is very faint. One of the snowballs has a blue tag because we ran out of the others!

They are accompanying their leader while she visits her family who live far from home in two different countries. During her travels each snowball will be left somewhere with a letter of explanation.

They are on an adventure…perhaps they’ll end up living miles away too! Or perhaps they will find their way home…the ecological way!

If you should find one of the snowballs, we hope you will join our discussion about the ecological dilemma of loving our family, maintaining strong links, and loving our planet especially when the planet is starting to grumble.

What should we be doing about this? Who should be involved? How do we get the transport providers to pay attention?

Meanwhile, we will be posting photographs showing the position and location of each of the snowballs.

The first Big Pyramid Project is underway. Participants include groups and individuals:

• Stroud Valley Community School
• A group of women from Ross-on-Wye who have started a snowball-making bee group
• a woman from Lancashire
• Callowell Summer School, Stroud
• a gentleman interested in the practice of meditation, Forest-of-Dean
• a lad and his pub friends, F-o-D
• The Nelson Trust, Stroud

The Eternal Eye - The Gang on a Pembrokeshire beach

Sybil has taken the Snowball Gang to Pembrokeshire to carry out experiments on the beach. They got carried away.

Lost Civilisation - The Gang on a Pembrokeshire beach

Sybil has also begun experiments for the second Pyramid Project that will be announced in due course.

Giant Moth