Birtley map on show soon

I received a lovely email recently from Yvonne, who chairs the Birtley Heritage Group.  Birtley is a small district near Gateshead, and has a thriving community sense, partly because of its mining past I suppose.

The group had asked me to work with them on producing a ‘map of Birtley memories’ – planned as a mix of the realities on the ground and of internalised impressions of the area. Psycho-geography, some call it. It was a fascinating project – which I thoroughly enjoyed working on with them -, and out of it came a porcelain tile-map (you can see in the picture below a detail from the map).

The group were so happy with the work – as were the Gateshead authorities – that plans soon were put in place to have it erected in the Birtley Library garden as a centre-piece there.

I have even been able to create an additional large tile (which depicts the members of the group) that is ready to be put up alongside it – so the whole installation will be a permanent tribute to the group as well as the district.

Because the work was finished off in my studio, I am looking after it, so I was daily expecting a call to take it over there to be installed.

However, the planning system is nothing if not complicated, and it has taken over twelve months to get approval for the project…

But – thank goodness! – Yvonne says she’s confident now that all the hurdles have been jumped, and we may even see the piece in place in the next few months.

It will look fabulous. Of that I’m sure.

Link: Birtley Landscape

Paw Print Tiles

It’s always nice to see one’s work turn up on review websites, but even I was surprised to see my ‘paw-print tiles’ turn up on a home-interiors publication in America.

My paw-print tiles were designed when I was working a while ago with a rat (a real rat).  I encouraged him to run across some wet clay, and the tiles were the result. They’re intended for bathroom or kitchen floors.



I even extended the idea to make it open to commission.  Some pet-owners liked the idea so much that they want to get me to work with their cats (for example) to produce personalised tiles.
I enjoy working with animals so I find creating this product a great deal of fun.

America

And now the Remodelista site has come across this work (I don’t know how!) and written a very favourable review. Thank you, Remodelista.

And then, in the way that these things do on the web, it was then picked up by an American animal-lovers site, Dogster   and an Australian blog, Sydney Life

Wow – international fame!

For more about my paw print tiles, see Helena Seget’s Paw Prints Page    

Coral by Bridget

There are a number of artists from this region whose work I admire, and one of them is Bridget Jones.

She works mainly in architectural glass; and her designs weave together image, pattern and colour.
 However, her interest in pattern also means that printmaking is an important part of what she does.

When we exhibited together, as a part of  a group, at The Granary last November (see my previous post titled ‘Berwick’s Burrell Collection‘), I really admired the way she had taken on the task set by the gallery.

In fact, to be honest, I so liked what she did – a lovely print on hand-made paper – that I had to have a copy myself. It was an extravagance, but, I thought, it was a sort of Christmas present to myself.

Bridget’s print is a way of responding to a detail in one of the Burrell Collection’s oldest paintings, The Lady in Black (c.1638). The detail that had fascinated Bridget was The Lady’s coral bracelet.
Coral is worn in many cultures to protect the wearer and ward off evil spirits.

In fact, in Chinese art coral is one of the eight ‘treasures’, symbolising longevity, good fortune and happiness. In the 18th and 19th centuries, coral was a very popular element in wallpaper and fabric design, and prints of coral were common.

Bridget’s print draws from images of coral and its structure. It takes colour as a central consideration, using greys, blacks and sombre tones along with skeletal trees and big horizons.

I’m very proud to have her work in my home.

Talk at Berwick’s Granary Gallery

The Granary Gallery in Berwick invited me to talk about the way I’d dealt with the challenge of responding to its famous Jacob Maris painting ‘The Washing Day’.

As I mentioned in this blog a couple of posts ago, I had created a porcelain piece which echoed the way the painting showed linen-sheets undulating in the breeze.
Now, my piece was being exhibited in the gallery alongside the original.

I concentrated in the talk on the problems that come up when working with porcelain; and a couple of people mentioned how surprised they were about the the difficulties in making these seemingly simple pieces – but then, I do like to challenge my clay.

Porcelain Collars at Open Studios

One of the reasons I had great fun at the London Design Festival (see 26th Sept post) was because I wore one of my porcelain collars there. Lots of people did a double-take looking at it, thinking at first it was made of fabric… and then, when they realised it wasn’t, said how much they liked it.

I took advantage of the fact that, as with my porcelain stationery, it could be written on, so I penned my name on it – allowing visitors to my stand to identify who I was.

Collars for Open Studio too

I’ve decided to put a range of the collars on show at this year’s Ouseburn Open Studios event.

Every one is different: some can be stitched onto a dress or top, others worn on a chain or a ribbon.  I’ve used vintage buttons as well as vintage yarns on those which have a running stitch around the edge.
Hard to picture? Then you must come and see them.

The event takes place this year on Sat 24th and Sun 25th November, from 10am-6pm, with a free bus around all the Ouseburn venues.
I’ll be in my studio (on the third floor of the 36-Lime-Street complex) on both days. Please come and introduce yourself!

See: http://www.ouseburnopenstudios.org/venues/36-lime-street for more details.

Invitation from Koroska Gallery

I’m delighted to have been contacted by curators at the Koroska Gallery of Fine Arts and asked whether I would allow some of my work to become part of their International Collection of Ceramics section.
The curators had seen one my works at a separate exhibition in Slovenia, and contacted me to ask if I’d be prepared to donate it to the museum.

To be honest, I had not heard of the Koroska Gallery, but, on looking it up, found it in the Saatchi World Museums list. It has an impressive pedigree, especially of Slovenian artists, but of internationally known artists too – these include Henry Moore, Ossip Zadkine, Daniel Buren and Victor Vassarely.

So – what could I say? I told them I’d be delighted!

Torn Notepad

The piece requested by the Koroska curators is a copy of one of  my well-known items (see photo below), the award-winning Torn Notepad, which has won prizes as far afield as Japan.
It will be installed at the collection shortly before Christmas.

The Koroska Museum – in the town of in Slovenj Gradec - was established in 1957 in the former Yugoslavia, and now has over 1000 works in its permanent collection.

Berwick’s Burrell Collection

I’ve been involved with the commissioning of some regional designer/makers for the upcoming exhibition at the Granary Gallery in Berwick, up on the Scottish border.
It’s been a fascinating project. The gallery wanted selected artist-makers to visit their famous Burrell Collection and come up with personal responses – in any medium they like – to one or more of the pieces in the collection.
The gallery asked me to to draw up a short-list of makers and then to manage the run-up to the opening day.

It’s been even more fascinating to see what responses these makers came up with.

http://www.maltingsberwick.co.uk/events/visual/863

Washing Day

As soon as I saw the the “washing day “ watercolour by Jacob Maris at the Burrell, of course, I was drawn to creating my own response too! Who wouldn’t be? It’s such a lovely picture, and it came as no surprise to learn that it is considered to be the most popular piece in the exhibition.

http://www.artchive.com/web_gallery/J/Jacob-Henricus-Maris/Washing-Day.html

For me, it was mesmerising to  observe the poetic dance conjured up by the wind billowing and rippling the draped lengths  of fabric. It reminded me of something almost sacred, like the prayer cloths I’d seen along the Himalayas I saw on a trip to India.

 

So, I started to play around with some clay shapes In my studio.
I draped a sheet of plastic over a string line and held a hairdryer behind it. Amazingly, it began to produce puffed-out shapes in a way that imitated the painting, which led me to think it would be possible to create something from porcelain.

I began with quite a simple piece and became more and more adventurous with undulations and raised curves. I developed ways of supporting the clay into those different shapes and then – always the hard bit! – ways of removing the supports without breaking the brittle, dried clay.

I’m still refining the process, but I’m very very pleased with how it’s going… Porcelain so well adapts itself to the smooth flow of a piece of linen flapping in the breeze.

The exhibition opens on December… and features the artist-makers, Morag Eaton printmaker, Bridget Jones from Northumberland, Mandy Pattullo textile artist, and Bronwen Deane jewellery designer based in Newcastle.
Work will be for sale – including my own, as the gallery also want it (though they will display it in a separate part of the gallery).


http://www.maltingsberwick.co.uk/news/86

Design Event at TENT 2012

Phew… I’m now back from five days at the London Design Festival, where I had a great time.
I was there with a number of neighbour designers from here in the North-East. We were all under the banner of ‘Design Event’ and had a stand in the ‘Tent’ part of the festival.
Tent takes place in a huge former brewery in Brick Lane, which is incredibly lively at the best of times, so not only was the festival fun, so was going out for lunch!
Karen, who, with her team, Kala and Olivia, organised us all and did a great job – we put on a very professional front.

I guess we must have spoken to hundreds of people who came and asked us questions about all the products we were showing (I was showing my table place settings and my shelves). The big hope was that some major buyer would come by and place a huge order…
I was fortunate to have at least a few serious enquiries and orders; and who knows what might happen down the line?

Many people were drawn to our stand by the incredible bubble-vase which was being promoted by the lads from Psalt. They are very nice lads and very inventive, and I really hope the bubble-vase takes off.
It’s one of those things that could just take the public imagination – and suddenly you’ll be seeing it everywhere.

I managed to make a couple of festival parties too. At one of them I was introduced to Palinka, a Hungarian version of Schnapps.

Sadly, there weren’t many products in the festival that fired my imagination, which surprised me. I think that, in this recession, even new designers are playing it safe, and there was a distinct retro feel about a lot of products. I did like one item though – a sort of jigsaw-style paving, which could be customized.

All in all, being in London at such an exciting time was a lovely experience.

Links

• Balancing Fishbowl by Psalt Design (naskin.typepad.com)
• Design Event

Ink’d in with Lamy

It’s strange how things work out.  I’ve been experimenting with using pen and ink on my porcelain table place-names collection when I just found the perfect pen, made by the German firm Lamy.

I’ve always loved the feel of a fountain pen, and the way the nib smoothed over the porcelain surface was quite exciting (well, it was to me).  Luckily, the pen uses an ink that is washable so that anyone using the table-place names can use them over and over and over….

Anyway, I wrote to Lamy in a spirit of curiosity to see what their thoughts were; and I was amazed to get a response saying they would put my suggestion through a process of ‘testing’ if I sent them a sample of my work. Talk about German precision…

Even more interestingly, they then sent me back a report, which confirmed what I’d thought – their pen loves porcelain. The product development manager was very complimentary.

I never expected that kind of in-depth response…

White

I wonder if anyone saw the programme on BBC4 yesterday – A History of Art in Three Colours, White.

It was one art critic’s view of the history of the colour white in European culture: starting with Winckelmann, going via Wedgwood and Whistler and Le Corbusier up to its use in the monumental buildings of Fascism.

It was an interesting programme and made me think a lot, because, of course, much of my work is in pure white porcelain.

White represents many things, including coldness and bareness, but also including purity and simplicity. I think the latter interpretations are why I like white: it tells no lies and gives no misleading impressions. It just is what it is.
I hope that makes sense.