Birtley Heritage Map

At last the ceramic plaque community-project that I was working on six years ago has come to fruition!

Though it was all finished by the beginning of 2012, the problem was securing the place for it to be displayed.
At first, we thought it might be in a public garden, but the authorities at Birtley (near Gateshead) have worked hard to get the permissions and find a suitable site for it, and it is now proudly presented in Birtley Library.

Rather than me rabbit on, here’s the official press release:

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Artwork of Home

An artwork that remembers some of the great icons of Gateshead’s past is now on permanent display at Birtley Library.

Working with a professional artist, Birtley Heritage Group members came together to create the piece, which records their personal feelings about the history & landscape of their district.
The group’s chairperson Yvonne Armstrong said: “We are absolutely delighted that the Birtley Landscape artwork is at last on display in our own local library. Thank you to our councillors, whose community fund helped us to get it installed.
“This map was our first-ever project; we were so new, we were so naïve! But we learnt so much.”

Birtley Heritage Group with Helena Seget (Helena holding the flowers)

The artwork is made up of porcelain tiles, all forming a map of Birtley district.
Fired into the tiles are depictions of aspects of the area that the group members thought were important to them – such as its coal mining industry, the Royal Ordnance Factory [originally the site of the Projectile Factory, which operated during the Great War], and historic houses such as Birtley Hall built by John Dobson in 1815.
Yvonne said: “We hope that by depicting only a small range of Birtley’s history on the map, it will jog memories and promote discussion about other aspects of Birtley’s fascinating and unique heritage”.

The group worked with Helena Seget, the award-winning Newcastle ceramic artist, whose works can be seen in galleries across the world. Helena said: “It was an honour for me to work with Birtley Heritage Group – to learn about the town about which they’re so passionate and to share with them my passion for art.
“I hope that the map not only inspires more memories, but might encourage an interest in ceramics too – and also exploring creativity in other ways.”

Birtley Heritage Map

Community artworks such as the Birtley Heritage Map arose out of Gateshead Council’s Arts Development Team 2010 ‘Soul Soup’ project (itself a response to the ‘Generations Together’ initiative, originally set up by the Department of Education).
‘Soul Soup’ was a way to bring communities together: to build trust, promote well being and also to address negative perceptions of age, through arts activity.

Issued by Soul Soup: June 2017

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I must admit it was a happy time working with the ladies and gentlemen, and I learnt a lot about life as well as ceramics.

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Thanks to Denise Envy, the Birtley Library manager for the photos.).
For more details, see the Birtley Library website – http://www.gatesheadlibraries.com/your-local-library/birtley-library

Our spring salon sale

Well, whatever else anyone may say, for me the first day of Spring will be Sunday 23rd March!
It is the day of the Spring Salon Sale, which is taking place at the 36-Lime-St-Studios (from 10am-5pm) – and I’ll be taking part.

Memo pads – in porcelain. Pencilled scribblings can just be washed off – to start again

The idea is that everyone in the complex will be opening up their studios, each trying to exhibit a range of work that might include ideas for some unique gifts.
After all, the event comes shortly before Mother’s Day; and just weeks before Easter for that matter.

In my studio (on the complex’s third floor) I’ll have my usual range of: ceramic shelves, porcelain jewellery, porcelain furniture and homeware (including my porcelain stationery range) – but I’ve been experimenting with variations on the forms, so you’ll see twists on themes that you haven’t seen before.

Paw prints for everybody

One experiment I’m quite excited about is paw-print casts in porcelain.

Last year someone asked me for an item made of pottery which would be a permanent reminder of their pet for them… so I persuaded their dog to place a paw into some wet clay – and I made a single, beautiful tile with the impression of the paw print in its middle.

Tiles showing the paw prints of Hamish, a Lhasa Apso dog

The fact that the print came from a real creature, one that had a name and a personality, deeply appealed to me.
Anyway, I’ll have examples of some of those tiles (from different pets – including rats, dogs and cats) on display.  If you too are interested in a paw-print tile, I will be on hand to explain how it can be made to happen for your pet.

I’ve also been developing my range of porcelain table-settings.  I have a set of place names now which features images of animals (a tiger, bird heads, and swallows from the blue willow pattern).  They are re-usable of course, as one just writes the name of the guest on the place-name setting – which can be then easily wiped off when the meal is over!

As I’m into table decoration right now, I think I’ll also display my ‘Crime Scene’-design plates, which feature silhouettes of dead animals.  (It’s a vegetarian angle…)

Origami

It’s always interesting to be asked to work with a creative company, and I’ve admired the work of the Newcastle firm Folded Square Origami for a long time – and now we will collaborate.

Folded Square creates rather amazing origami papers and kits (many of them in shapes of animals).

One of Folded Square’s origami rats

I’ve also been photographing the fur of pets (ones whose paw impressions have been used to create paw-print tiles), re-interpreting the results as graphic art, and printing off the designs on to paper.
So,  Folded Square will then create the same animal in origami (it could be a cat, for example) using the printed paper I supply.

This image was designed from a photo of the fur of Olive the cat – who was very patient in the photo session! I then printed it on to origami paper

Thus, side by side, the paw-print tile and the origami figure will be a form of portrait of the animal.

Folded Square will also be exhibiting for the first time.  They will be putting on a display in my studio of fantastical origami insects – which I can’t wait to see!

Animal theme

Do you know, now I look back at what I’ve written, I realise I hadn’t been aware that such a strong animal theme was emerging in this show.  I don’t know how I could have missed it.
Amazing what the subconscious can get up to…!

For more details about our Spring Salon event, nearer the time, see: 36 Lime Street Studios News

New work at the Late Shows

The recent Late Shows event, in mid-May, was really fun to take part in.
Lots and lots of people came along to look round the studios, including mine, at 36-Lime-Street, and I really enjoyed talking to everyone who visited.  Because the event always takes place in the evening, you see people you’d not usually see.
The idea is get the artists and general public to interact, instead of having the usual barriers, and it really worked.  I’m a great supporter of both this event, as well as a similar thing we do in the autumn called Open Studios.

My studio got quite crowded at times!

This year, there was also an exhibition – featuring the work of the makers at Lime Street – in the complex’s foyer.
Our enthusiastic curator, Maggie Walker, thought it would be good to theme it along the lines of responses to the ‘Arte Povera’ movement, which flourished in Italy in the 1960s.  She gave us a complete blank slate for creating our reactions to the ideas of Arte Povera, which was both challenging AND exciting for me.

Who’s Kidding Whom?

If you were one of those who came along on the Late Shows evenings, you may have noticed some artificial flowers embedded in the cracks along the pavement outside the studios building.
That was one of two such concepts I put together for the show, the other being a plot of rye-grass growing inside the main exhibition.

The plastic flowers lined the outside walls of the Lime Street complex

I thought it was a way to reflect Arte Povera ideas, because AP was very much an anti-consumerist movement.

On the one hand our demand for low prices for our food and other products encourages the manufacture of poor-quality, garish, artificial flowers.   Yet the natural appearance of the growing rye suggests something different – a purity or wholesomeness.

The rye sprouted very quickly, even in the exhibition space, it grew quite tall before we eventually took the show down

However, do these products actually differ?  They are both produced to maximise profits – even the rye is a commercially developed, thus ultra-economic, plant – and the result is the decimation of our natural environment.

And – can any of us honestly deny our own complicity in this consumer-led demand for quick, fast, cheap products?
Which is why I called the two works: ‘Who’s Kidding Whom’?

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.

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

Sneak preview of Owl Service plate

Earlier this month I mentioned I was working on a series of plates with fellow artist Louise Bradley.  The picture shows a bisque fired plate (one of three) – before it’s final firing.

The idea came about while I was making plates for my new range of ‘Crime Scene’ tableware, which will be on view in my studio, during the Late Shows.

Should I give you any clues as to what they are about?

The Late Shows nights are held all over Newcastle on May 18 & 19; and the collaboration from Louise and me will be on display at 36 Lime Street Gallery. The exhibition is called ‘Cahoots’ and Maggie Walker is the curator.