I've been gone so long

Sorry to have vanished for so long, I thought I better make a post before a whole month had gone by with no action on this blog of mine. I've been unwell for a couple of weeks and when i've not been unwell i've been somehow blocked and unable to focus long enough to make a post here, which I suppose is symptomatic of being unwell in the first place. Anyway here I am again and I thought I would share a few photos I took at the Installation Art workshop I took over two weekends in the very very rainy town of Glastonbury.

Due to having to use public transport I arrived very early on the first day to find the streets emptier than I'd ever seen them

I also discovered that I had left my phone at home, so I was pleased to see that such things as public phone boxes still exist in Glastonbury (also good for sheltering from the rain)

The workshop was lead by Melanie Thompson, a performance and installation artist who lectures at Dartington College of Art. IT was held at The Phoenix Project, an unfunded space that offered lots of interesting possibilities for working with. I took some photos of spaces on the first day that interested me

In the kitchen was this reminder for us all:

On the second day of the workshop Melanie lead us through an exercise using just a white bed sheet and a child's chair

the way we all responded to it was fascinating- I used the chair back to weave the sheet through, I am becoming increasingly interested in weaving and basket making, something that became apparent as my work progressed over the second day.

We had been asked to bring a chair with us for the second part of the workshop, and any objects that resonated with us. We were also given an image to look at and contemplate during the week, the idea being that we came to the second part with some materials but no solid ideas. For some reason I became obsessed with wrapping the chair with string. I think this was partly due to being exposed to the work of my friend Kirsty Hall, who uses a lot of string, and to the work of my friend Tish, who has an obsession with labels and hanging tags. It also reminded me of the handles of potato peelers, and the way in which saucepan lid handles might get wrapped up to protect your hands from the heat.

I decided to only wrap one side of the chair legs and back, and then I went on to wrapping the seat and back rest.

I had also taken along a box of cake forks that my grandparents had given me- they were one of the wedding gifts that they had been given and I wanted to include them in the piece some how. I started wrapping and weaving the forks and added them to the suspended chair.

Finished work- not bad going for one day I think.

Art in the Quarry

Yesterday I had a lovely day with a visit from Kirsty and a trip to Uphill Quarry where I had arranged to meet with artists who were interested in taking part in an event there that I am organising in September. Weston has two quarries, and the old Town Quarry is the one where pretty much everyone headed to for the meeting, until I pointed out that we were going to the other one. This highlighted the fact to me that when we come to the event we really need to make sure that people know where we are!

We took some time to investigate the space and stake our claims on patches of ground- the event will take place over one day (September 12th) so all things are liable to change, but I wanted to make sure people had visited the space and didn't just turn up on the day with work that wasn't going to fit in. One or two people revised their ideas whilst we were there- the wind and the noise from the boat yard were an ever present element and several of us felt our work would need to encompass.

Whilst we were at the site I started to consider what I would be bringing to the space- up until now it's all been about rounding up other people, but sat in the Quarry I started to visualise myself working there and creating something. At the moment I am buzzing with thoughts of dens made from tableclothes, knitting, sound recordings, and lantern shows...it will be interesting to see what of this comes to pass.

I am still looking for participants in the event so if you are interested, or know of anyone that might be, please get in touch.


And I have to share this link I found today after following a trail from the newly revived Sew Green blog: Ghost Town Farm is Novella Carpenter's blog all about her back yard farm. If anyone could get me to start eating meat again it's this girl- I love the fact she is growing her own veg and animals in her back yard, all in Oakland, a place I have a strange fondness for.

H is for...

H is for Caroline Hwang

Caroline Hwang is another of the artists who showed work at the first ever exhibition at hre gallery. Her embroidered napkins and sweet marble magnets totally won my heart. Caroline has her illustration website, has had her prints for sale via the ever lovely Tiny Showcase,
and you can read about her in Swindle. You can buy some of her work via her store

H is for Kirsty Hall

Kirsty is one of the volunteers at here gallery. As well as volunteering at the gallery, she also makes her own work too, and last year showed some of it in the gallery space. At the moment she is working on her diary project, as well as continuing to work with pins to create pieces like the ones shown above. Kirsty is also part of Ilka, a freelance curator, and writes about art and other things over on her livejournal.

H is for Hinke Schreuders

I first discovered the work of Hinke when I was starting to put together the 'Stitch or Swallow' show. Unfortuantly Hinke couldn't take part at the time and so i've never got to see her work in the flesh. (She recently showed some of her work in the UK but I didn't discover this until the show was nearly over). Not only does Hinke make amazing pieces of embroidery work, she also takes great photos and writes about art on her website.