Shoe People Lawyers

I recently finished these two rather snooty looking gentlemen. Their bodies are made from vintage wooden shoe trees and the heads are high-fired porcelain. I have a big box of vintage shoe trees (thanks to Stephen) so expect to see a few more 'shoe people' turning up on here...

Fringe Festival Event

Just a few photos of  the amazing event at St. Lawrence's Church, Stroud, organised by the Good on Paper Magazine team. Such a wonderful space...

Video by Good on Paper Magazine

Good on Paper Magazine have just released this short video....

https://www.facebook.com/GoodOnPaperStroud/videos/1772050796342077/

It's a Cracker!

I have just finished my contribution to a collaborative artist's book project.
A group of us have been working on a small edition of 'cracker books' inspired by a collection of cracker toys inherited by a fellow member of the UWE Artist's Book Club. We each had to select some toys and use them as a starting point for an edition of 10 cracker-shaped books (a notched gatefold format).
So when everyone has finished there will be 10 boxed sets of the different crackers.

I chose a turtle and a little figure of a child as inspiration for my books. I made up a story, comic book style, about a boy finding a giant tortoise in the snow one Christmas. I haven't seen all the others yet but I know some people have made screen printed images of their toys. One of the boxed sets will be in the Artist's Book Club exhibition in the Bower Ashton Library at UWE starting on 19th April.

'Pilgrimage' exhibition, Gloucester Cathedral

It was the private view of the Pilgrimage exhibition at Gloucester Cathedral last night. There was a wonderfully varied response to the theme evident in the prints on show. And what a fabulous space for an exhibition! Unfortunately it was a bit dark for taking photos.

The start of the exhibition also marked the official opening of the IMPRESS PRINTMAKING FESTIVAL.A month long celebration of printmaking in the area.

I entered a new collagraph in to the exhibition

Checkmate   

(image size 41x30cms)

StoryKeepers for the Affordable Art Fair, Battersea

http://affordableartfair.com/battersea/art-under-500/directors-picks/

There is a StoryKeeper on the adverts for the Affordable Art Fair, Battersea!!! I have been busy making some more for The Drugstore Gallery to take along next week.
My daughter took these photos recently as the paint was drying. (I think these might be the last ones I make of the design on the right).

Surprise!

I'm still here, just about!

This is the print I did for the 20:20 print exchange at the end of last year.
It's a collagraph with letterpress type.
I called her Flora O'Bracket

RWA Bristol interview.


Just a quickie...

Last year I was lucky enough to win a prize in the RWA Open Exhibition and recieved coaching (relating to my art practice) from the lovely Alex Moate of New Creations Coaching.

The RWA Bristol recently interviewed me for their Behind the Scenes Blog. Click below to read it...

 

As we open submissions for 163 Annual Open Exhibition we chat to winner of the New Creations Coaching Award: Kate Williamson



  

 

Recent Graduates Exhibition in Cirencester



The Rabbitmen are off on another outing. This time just down the road in Cirencester. Do drop in a and visit them if you are passing. There may be other sculptures of mine on show too. And there will definitely be lots of interesting work from other graduates as well as local A level students.

https://www.facebook.com/artventureatwetpaint

Hello Again!

It's been a challenging few months and there have been a lot of changes demanding my attention.

I did carry on with my MA though and finished the first module which involved doing (and writing about) lots of different methods of printmaking. I also made some ceramic pieces and took part in a sketchbook project organised by an American university.
As you will see I got a bit obsessed with depicting men in bird suits...

We have now started the essay module but I am also carrying on making work and experimenting in the Fabrication and Printmaking depts. at UWE aided by the excellent, ever patient technicians.



Lino print

Porcelain Birdman

Drawings from the Sketchlook project



Recent Graduates Exhibition at the Affordable Art Fair

A selection of my work was on show at the Recent Graduates Showcase at the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea. I dropped my stuff off on Monday and was persuaded to return for the PV on Wednesday evening. It was REALLY busy. 

A huge space at the entrance to the Fair is given over to the Graduate Exhibition. The Rabbitmen were displayed differently, again (see below) and the Frog Prince was on a plinth right in the middle of the room. Birdbabies and StoryKeepers were also on show.

Thousands of people will see my work over the next few days which is great but it's really made me think about a lot of things, particularly about the presentation of artwork. There was SO much good art on show in the gallery spaces (mostly really reasonably priced) all competing for visitors attention. 

 



A child ran off with the Frog Prince's crown over the weekend. He looks even more forlorn without it, in this photo taken by the fair organisers. Little did I know at the PV that the Frog Prince would soon no longer be mine. He's going to live in Scotland. Not in a castle but in a very large house.

 

 

20:20 Print Exchange

Later this month some of the members of the Gloucestershire Print Co-op are taking part in an annual Print Exchange with other print workshops round the country. I decided to take part this year.
Each artist produces an edition of 25 prints each measuring 20cm x 20cm, [paper size]. In return each participant will receive a portfolio of 20 randomly selected prints from all over the UK and Ireland. Last year 585 artists from 40 print workshops created 14,625 prints.

Instead of making a new print one of my options was to use a little etching which I made on the 'Introduction to Etching' workshop at uni last year. The print wasn't that exciting - it was my first ever etching after all. Inking it up in different ways didn't really improve it, so then I experimented with colouring the print with watercolours. Painting prints seems to be frowned upon by purists but it really brought this little etching to life. Enough that I thought it would be acceptable as my contibution to the exchange. I printed and painted the edition of 25 over 2 days last week and I've just finished numbering and signing them ready to send them on their way. Now I'm looking forward to seeing what prints I get in exchange...

RWA OPEN EXHIBITION - Coaching Emerging Artist Award

The Rabbitmen were selected for the RWA Annual Open Exhibition and I attended the PV this afternoon. I left it to the curators as to how the figures were installed and they arranged them on several small shelves at head height and above. I was quite surprised although I don't know why really. So far everyone has organised them differently (and that freedom to group them in various ways is part of the work). Looking up at them feels quite odd to me (as well as being a very unforgiving vantage point!). Interesting though.

 I was also lucky enough to be awarded one of the prizes. 'The New Creations Coaching Emerging Artists Award'. My prize is £240 worth of creative consulting with a company called New Creations Coaching. I'm looking forward to finding out whats involved. I think it will be really useful to me at the moment. Stephen snapped this photo with his phone as I was recieving my prize.

I will have to go back to and have another look at the exhibition. I noticed work of some particular favourite artists of mine, including Nicola Bealing and Kerry Phippen but it was very crowded (as PVs should be) and I'd like to have a good look round when it's quieter.

Starting an MA in Multi Disciplinary Printmaking

At the end of September I came back from a relaxing couple of weeks in Ireland (staying with my lovely aunt and uncle) just in time to start my MA in Multi Disciplinary Printmaking at UWE.
The first semester is mostly taken up with workshops covering various printmaking techniques and starting a Critical Jourmal covering all our art related activities.
When I first started at UWE I went straight into the 3rd year to finish my BA which I found quite difficult. Everyone was really friendly but they had all been there for 2 years already. It's really nice to be on a course from the begining, starting with everyone else. Also I get to do some printmaking at last - although I will also be continuing with my ceramic work too. I'll keep you posted.

I was on holiday for most of the View Gallery exhibition and for the Bristol Affordable Art Fair (where the DrugStore Gallery showed some of my pieces). But I did sell work at both venues which is great news. Just need to keep the momentum going...

 

StoryKeepers at AAF, Bristol along with work by Benjamin Buckley and Lily Urbanska

Good News!

I was awarded the 2nd Prize at the PV of the First Impressions exhibition in Bristol! The prize is for the View Gallery to take my work to an Art Fair in London next year. I also got to meet the sculptor, Beth Carter (who was really lovely) although I was rather nervous and have since thought of loads of things I would like to have asked her...
Lizzy Drury, who was on the DAA course with me won the first prize with her beautiful drawings of deconstructed teddy bears.
These photos come from The View Gallery's Facebook page (there are loads more on there).

Visiting Exhibitions in London

I haven't been to see any exhibitions in London for ages. (When I helped out at the graduate exhibition a couple of weeks ago there was no time to go out). So at the risk of getting Art Overload I am catching up on what's on at the moment. My first ports of call have been Tate Modern and Tate Britain.

However it was an uncomfortably hot day and Tate Modern was really heaving with people and I think that affected my appreciation of the exhibitions somewhat. I really didn't feel as beguiled as I thought ought to be by the huge Mattisse exhibition. The story of the last years of the artists life is so familiar and through the crowds of people I think I just saw what I expected to see. No more, no less. It was interesting to see how 'hand made' the 'cut-outs look with their occasional rough edges and glue stains and the faint outlines of preliminary drawings still evident. In reproductions the colour looks completely flat (as it is meant to) when actually you can see the varying density of the paint and the brush marks of the assistants. And I must say that I have seen his stained glass windows in books and on TV many times but I found that in the flesh the organic forms combined with the colour and light were really powerful in their simplicity. I will be going again to the exhibition with a friend before it finishes, may be it'll be quieter then.

Folk Art at Tate Britain was a rather weird and a wonderful collection of extraordinary objects
created by ordinary (often unknown) makers. Folk Art is a vast subject and, as if to make the point, the first display as you entered the exhibition was of outsized objects made as shop signs. If I had brought a child with me I would have told them that someone had used the huge key to break in to the giants castle and make off with a random collection of huge shoes, kitchen implements and toys (and here was the proof of their daring).  In fact it was a 'wonder full' exhibition altogether. We will never know who decided to paint a horse’s vertebra so that it became a mini-model of Methodism’s founding father John Wesley or what prompted Irish labourers to fashion the peculiarly fetishistic “God-in-a-bottle” sculptures. The exhibition certainly succeeded in  showing that creativity and innovation have always permeated every aspect of everyday life  and can pop up in the most unexpected places. I'm thinking now that I'd really like a 4ft teapot....

The Rabbitmen are in Crafts magazine....

advertising the Synecdoche exhibition in London! It felt amazing opening my copy and seeing them there.

Yesterday I packed up and delivered the artwork which is going in the exhibition next week. My contrbution is all very rabbitty. Accompanying the herd of rabbitmen is the original rabbitman collagraph and the Rabbit Suit for Mr Messerschmidt. The exhibition is being organised and curated by fellow students from UWE and I'm taking my turn at invigilating next Saturday. So if you're in London next week do pop in to the Embassy Tea Rooms, Union St, SE1.

The 'Story Keepers'

The tutors at uni have at last decided which pieces of mine are going to be in the degree show and how they want them displayed. A mixture of 2D and 3D work has been chosen. So I thought I'd make them next in line in the series of posts on some of the ideas and influences behind my work.

I think I will start with the Story Keepers. (There are more pictures of them on my website)

When researching for my dissertation about fairy tales and fine art I discovered that as far as anyone can tell stories of magic and mystery have always been with us. Plato called them 'old wives tales' but they were not only told to children. Long before they were ever written down as 'fairy tales' they were passed on by word of mouth. And, although there may have been a basic plot structure, the details of the stories changed with each retelling to suit the type of audience, the time and place and the motives of the storytellers (who were usually women).

I started to think about creating some sort of timeless female characters who had heard all the stories over the centuries and kept them safe until they were needed again. Originally I imagined that that they had swallowed the stories, keeping them inside a huge, smooth cone shaped body but having childrens faces. (I was looking at the work of the surrealist Leonora Carrington at the time and she often painted children in big cone shaped cloaks.) And at one stage I toyed with the idea of giving them nun-type headgear (I adapted an origami pattern to make a prototype out of paper). But eventually they developed the ear trumpets and the more bulbous patched and worn out bodies, although they still have young faces.

Here are some of the pictures from my reference/sketch book 



making a pattern for the bulbous form



'Echo' (print by Aine Scannell)

            



'ear trumpet' mould from a bicycle bell