Only in France, we can across this exhibition of sculptures set in the ruins of a castle in the tiny village of Le Beaucet. Met the artist who definitely looked the part. Against the backdrop of the hills and mountains of Provence it worked.
Archive for the ‘Other’s work’ Category
Art in Nature Alain Bernegger -Le Beaucet
In Exhibitions and Galleries, Other's work, Travelling on August 19, 2016 at 09:48Reflecting on WHAAM!
In Exhibitions and Galleries, Other's work, Teaching on July 4, 2015 at 09:39
What is it about this painting that I like?
I have talked about and taught this painting for years.
I have seen it in two Litchenstein retrospectives and visited it whenever it is on display at the Tate Modern.
I own badges, postcards and calendars with the image on.
I have stood in-front of Year 8 students and discussed the meanings in the image for over an hour.
I have copied it and reworked it in different media.
On one occasion I had a parent complain that I was teaching it at all!
Maybe it is the gentle poking fun at the art establishment that I read in this painting and the spin on serious world events like the Korean War.
Here is an interesting juxtaposition, Whaam! and Guernica.
Oh and happy 4th of July….
Mark Griffiths at the Leach Pottery St Ives
In Exhibitions and Galleries, Other's work, Travelling on June 28, 2015 at 11:54Mark Griffiths has a retrospective at the Leach Pottery in St Ives. He is a potter truly in the ‘Leach’ tradition and has made his name as a thrower of very large forms. I was fortunate to have been taught by Mark during the residential I attended two years ago. Fabulous techniques, great surface decoration, beautiful forms and a master of wood firing to high temperatures.
It was great to wonder around the Leach pottery and see the spot were the master, (Leach) practiced his craft, I learnt to throw on an identical wheel. The three chambered, ‘stepped kiln’ was really interesting to look at. Originally he fired it using wood but converted it to air blown oil burners considering the time and effort needed to stoke the kiln with wood too much. Leach managed to retain the fly ash effect on the surface of his work by inserting sticks into the fire chamber right at the end of the firing cycle of about 25 hours.
St Ives is a beautiful Cornish town, out of season! Chris and I stumbled across a real gem The Pier Coffee Bar. A lovely Italian coffee shop, great place to sit eat and watch the world go by. The board of Italian meats and Cornish cheese is fabulous and great value at £10, you get more that enough for two.
St Luke’s Hospice Shop Pot
In Interesting Images, Other's work on February 27, 2013 at 14:26I saw this pot in the St Luke’s Hospice Shop and it said something to me. Three quid, sold as seen, with a chipped rim, I really like it. I think it’s made out of white earthenware, hand made, by someone who knew what they were doing. Its given me an idea…….
I Spent the Last Two Nights Glazing
In Courses, My work, Other's work on February 21, 2013 at 15:22I have over two terms worth of work that I glazed on Tuesday and Wednesday evening. Looking at it on the shelves I have forgotten making some of it and would question now why I put it through the system. Still, that’s the way it has been since September.
I have used the spay gun to create mixed surfaces with the glaze blending tenmoku and celadon over each other. With luck and the alchemy of the gas kiln the two colours should interact effectively. I have used some of Jack’s ash glaze as a base on some of the larger pieces, with a dusting of tenmoku on top. The matt of the ash and the high gloss of the tenmoku should interact and create interesting surfaces.
From now on I will try to make, consider and recycle, I have to produce lighter pots with more refined forms and experiment with surface texture and glaze decoration. I have one small piece by James Hake, a good potter to look at for all these elements
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Drawn to The Valley – Open Studios 2012
In Exhibitions and Galleries, Other's work on September 2, 2012 at 14:54
An absolutely lovely sunny day and the chance to see some really creative work in the setting it was made. Drawn to the Valley 2012 is a simply great event. The Maker Heights group of studios has a really wonderful setting right on the coat with beautiful view over the sea. Paul Cain Smith’s landscape paintings I have admired for a while. I have seen his work before in the Limekiln Gallery in Calstock, to meet the man in his new studio with a wide range of his work around him was really interesting. Large straight sided geometrical shapes make up his landscapes which remind me a bit of the work of Paul Klee. A very interesting conversation and an artist I will definitely be going back to see.
Jill Holland has her ceramics studio in the old guard house on the same site. It comes complete with bars on the windows and a very heavy duty door to the room she keeps her wheel in. We already have several pieces by Jill, very subtle and understated colours with some interesting use of decals. Jill has a volcanic glaze that I really like, I wonder how it would perform in the gas kiln?
Georgie Brown makes mosaics out of broken ceramics, plates with pattern on them and things that people just give her that they think she would be interested in. Small subtle and wonderfully put together Georgie has a real eye for detail and composition. Her house and workshop are like an Aladdin’s cave of interesting things she has collected and the work she has made. The pieces that Chris wanted to buy had all already been sold, I can see us going back.
Sue Richardson is my personal favourite. We had previously seen several pieces by her at the Limekiln Gallery, she paints in a beautiful setting right in the middle of Ashton village. Her work talks about the humour in everyday life. She has a knack of catching people in those settings that are either whimsical or just funny. She simplifies and and captures human movement and emotion without over painting detail. She is in my opinion an undiscovered star, her painting have sold very well this weekend.
It was a great day out and culturally very refreshing, the tea and homemade ginger bread cake helped to, thank you Sue.
Rob Whelpton – Raku Fish Pot at The Devon Guild of Craftsmen
In Other's work on August 31, 2012 at 12:06I saw this lovely little piece by Rob Whelpton at the Devon Guild yesterday, it just said buy me! I know how hard it is to control your colours with raku and Rob has combined the smoking black with the image on the lid beautifully. The splash of gold sets the whole thing off perfectly. I can’t find a web site for Rob but there are lots of links on the web for various sites that he appears on, try http://www.montpelliergallery.com/rw1_c_2.htm
Severe Weather Warning and a tour of the Wobage workshops
In Courses, Interesting Images, Other's work on July 8, 2012 at 16:12As part of a long-standing arrangement to remove Jack from his old student accommodation and install him in his new, I braved the torrential rain, floods and tempests and drove to Cardiff on Saturday. The journey was fairly horrible and started with a car parked just outside of Plymouth facing the wrong way in the A 38 central reservation. Things did not get better. Moving three car load’s of stuff in the rain, queuing around the one-way system in Cardiff was not much fun, but the job got done.
The up side of this was I got to take Jack back to Wobage were he is doing a summer apprenticeship, under the guidance of Jeremy Steward. The set-up at Wobage is a potter’s heaven. As you can see from the slides there is a strong philosophy running through the approach to making. Using large wood fired kilns the work that Jeremy produces is thrown and decorated with slips and fired up to stoneware green. The ash from the wood firing and soda/salt do the rest. The clay he makes himself, or rather gets Jack to make. It’s absolutely beautiful to throw with, very plastic, resilient and forgiving.
I have managed to get a place on the rapid improvers course for five days during August. My ambition apart from improving my technique is to coil-throw a very large object, perhaps 80cm. We shall see. You can see in the slide show my first brief attempt. Looking forward to the whole Wobage experience.
http://www.wobagecrafts.co.uk/makers/jeremysteward/jeremysteward.html
Severed Cow’s Head and ‘Shoes to have Sex in’
In Exhibitions and Galleries, Other's work on July 1, 2012 at 09:44Damien Hurst Tate Modern and Christian Louboutin Design Museum.
Whenever I visit Tate Modern I always walk over the Millennium Bridge, getting off the tube at St Pauls. You get a great view over the city and all those iconic landmarks. The Olympic rings suspended inside the span of Tower Bridge are spectacular, when you get closer you see how massive they are. At night lit they must look even more impressive. The Shard is finished from the outside, that is a day trip in itself, the observation platform and lift journey would be as good as any theme park ride. A must do, maybe in October, if its open. The usual huge crowds in around the south bank everywhere looked so alive and full of anticipation, you can almost feel the buzz of the impending games.
The picture I took of the Hurst anatomical figure does not really give you a sense of the scale of the figure, its huge, worth looking for a scaled image on the internet. I have a vauge memory from the audio guide that Hurst sold that piece to Saatchi for a million pounds, not the sort of thing you would put with your gnomes in the front garden. The themes that Hurst has explored in the exhibition of life and death hit you as soon as you walk in, one of his earliest pieces in the exhibition is a student photograph of him posing next to a severed human head from an anatomy class in Leeds. Would he have got away with it today? H and S and human rights would have knocked that on the head straight way. The next severed head you see is the cow being eaten by fly’s. Contained inside a hugh steel and perspex box it really grabs you. I asked one of the gallery attendance how often they have to replace the cow head, once a week, it gets eaten. The thing that I found most interesting was the reaction of the public, if his intention is to shock and disturb people he has achieved what he set out to do. The young children, there were many didn’t seem to mind. Would I have taken my children, maybe not. It was morbidly entertaining watching the insectorcutor zapping the flies as the strayed onto the vu lights.
The shark, sheep and cows young and old chopped and variously preserved have an impact of their own. Suspended in time the moment they met their end, the cow looks like its still forcing out a last moo, or w t f. I had no idea about the scale of the pieces, they must weigh literally tonnes. How they move them around I have no idea, where are they kept when not on display, who owns them, are they really art, is it clever or are they just shocking? I still don’t know. But it was definitely worth going to see. The butterfly’s room was lovely. As you can see from the slides one of them was very attached to me. The gallery staff gamely try stopping people taking pictures and I got a serious wigging even though I told the lady ‘but I’m taking pictures of myself’, does the butterfly belong to DH? or the Tate? Can you not take a picture of yourself standing in a gallery? Why can’t you photograph the art?
I felt seriously outnumbers at the Christian Louboutin, I am male. Queueing down the street this is still a real crowd pulling exhibition and one that woman almost obsessively engage with. I really like female shoes especially the taller and more exotic types but Louboutin takes it to a whole new level. The fetish section of the exhibition was where most of the men seemed to have gravitated to, my wife pointed this out to me. I was too engaged in the work to notice. Louboutin takes making shoes to a whole new level. Red soles and rapier like stilettos are his trade marks. Most of the shoes in the exhibition would be very difficult to walk in and only fit a size 4, but they are things of exquisite beauty in their own right. Exploring themes from his childhood and in a brief period as a landscape gardener he does things with materials that are fabulous. I have never seen a pair of knee length boots made out if palm tree bark. He loves his studs and spikes, many steel stilettos and steel toes caps. Some shoes you simple could not stand up in as the heel is longer than the sole of the shoe, perhaps you are supposed to just lounge around and look beautiful in them? To prove the point two of the beautiful people who hang around outside the exhibition walked past wearing ‘the shoes’, recognisable for the highest of heels and red soles. So it can be done. The full back tattoo of an angle set off the ensemble beautifully, definitely not for mere mortals and everyday wear. Art and craftsmanship in harmony this exhibition is wonderful.
The Contemporary Craft Festival Bovey Tracey Devon 2012
In Exhibitions and Galleries, Other's work on June 16, 2012 at 10:48We went to the opening of the The Contemporary Craft Festival and as you can see from the only picture I managed to take outside it poured with rain. The work this year is however some of the best yet, (I’ve been for the last seven years). The two small pots I bought are by James Hake, lovely little pieces with a very fine ash type glaze. I really like the way he has incorporated his finger marks on the base of the pot, a deliberate feature that the glaze runs into and turns into those characteristic dribbles. I met Jo Downs the glass maker, Wish Sticks and all that. She welcomes visits to her factory in Launceston so that definitely on my list for next year. Rachel Darbourne’s clinical waste sack jewellery was selling very well, such a beautiful simple idea, Annie bought a pair of yellow earrings with gold centres. Said hello to Nic Harrison, his stand was great, high fired temoku domestic ware. He has moved inside this year and is not giving throwing demonstrations, he told me that he got very wet last year! Good move if this weekends weather is anything to go by. I had a long chat to Helen Noakes, tiny people set into resin, we discussed Tiny Man and were I could find some friend for him, she does a line in tiny tennis players. Peter Archer’s wooden turned forms are some of the most refined turned wood that I have ever seen. The turning process involves using a hook to hollow out the inside, all judged by feel using a hook tool. Super light and finished with stain and wax which is then over worked. Adam Buick’s work speaks for itself, refined technically excellent and just out there. One day I will be able to afford a piece.
http://www.jodowns.com/About.html
http://www.racheldarbourne.com/
http://www.turned-wood.co.uk/ Peter Archer
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