Yep, back at college this week and introduced to a new tutor, Debi, who’s affinity is to textiles in all forms.  She took the 1st year’s through the technique of felt making and their will be developments in felt making next week.  However, is my first piece …

…. and a follow-up piece using a ‘resist’ layer.

The resist [in this case it was a bit of bubble wrap] is placed between layers of wool before the felting process begins.  Once felted there are two distinct layers in part of the piece, which allow one to cut into the felt to reveal, say, lower layers, or pull up parts of the upper – as I have done in the left hand photo; you might just notice the colours of wool in the cut edge.  I suppose one could have a very thick felt with multi resist layers….

I shall try and keep up to date on postings and hopefully have enough pictures.

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Jill and I went to the Whitworth in Manchester this week – they have had two building extensions since I was last there and it is a real winner!  It probably helps that it is free to enter but on leaving one cannot help but feel inclined to make a donation.

The gallery is on two main levels and there are some small floor level changes dealt with by a couple of steps [and ramps for buggies/wheelchairs etc].  It was strange to notice the outside when in the gallery; usually such places are made without windows letting light anywhere near the exhibits but you could still see daylight at the margins.  For some unknown reason that made me feel more comfortable.

Cafe was a delight and good value for money.  Its on the first floor, long, curtained in glass from floor to ceiling, and has large mature trees surrounding it.

The grounds to the rear of the gallery [where there is a new ground level entrance] are well laid out and have elements of prairie planting mixed with low box trees. – plenty of ideas to transfer to the end of our garden.

The Whitworth may be outside the capital but it cannot be called a “provincial” gallery as the range and quality of pieces on display are too good.  Although an exhibition of a textile designer had been taken down the day before we arrived there were exhibitions on fabrics from the first couple of decades of the 1900s, paintings and drawings themed on the battle front of the First World War, wallpapers from the middle of the 1900s, an eclectic hanging of portraits,  an installation by Nico Vascellari of glass and changing light sources, and a large exhibition curated by the artist Elizabeth Price [Turner Prize winner].  Oh and there was a small exhibition about gardens.  More than enough for a day out.

I think that we will be back fairly soon but with so much in one visit, how will we get time to visit  Manchester Art Gallery in the same trip?

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I’d never been to Beverley Art Gallery but went because Ilona Sulikova was taking part in an exhibition entitled “Living Land: Ceramics and Sculpture”, which finishes on 10th September 2016.

I was introduced to Ilona’s work via college where she came to talk about her experiences as a potter.  I like her work, the balance between the sculptural form and the decoration.  I find it all the more interesting given that she relies on the unpredictable method of rake firing.  Please take a look at her website.

There were two other women ceramicists in the exhibition, Marie Lofthouse with very flowing,  sort of “waves on end”, and Pam Davies whose work in clay and stone references animals whose plight has been affected by human action.

The exhibition is in part along the centre of the permanent gallery space, which is mostly hung with paintings by local artists Fred and Mary Ewell.  Different time frame but overall I preferred their work to York’s local artist William Etty: Prefer content, composition, and execution.

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Well, I started with a piece of lime wood, enough of the carving and a bit more to help hold it fast in the vice, and an idea.  The piece of wood is about 28cm long.

The picture is from the web and I traced it onto the wood and started carving,

….. and carving so there is now space between trunk and arms and legs…..

…. and carving so the neck is free…..

… and yet more carving so the right arm is coming into shape…..

….. and now the right leg and foot….

and then stopped carving after about a week’s work.

Pleased with some of the outcome [overall shape, legs, feet, forearms and hands] but I am not planning to do anymore to it to “tidy it up”.  There are too many errors which cannot be corrected.  For example, I could say that the wide head was on purpose – signifying the weightiness of his thoughts – but I’d be lying.  If I tried to make the head narrower, I could move the hands towards each other but I cannot follow them with the forearms as there is not enough wood.  the thighs present similar problems as I’ve taken away too much wood in certain places.   Next carving will be on a larger scale, say figure standing 40cm tall but I’ll have to sort out much more timber for half or full life-size.

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I really don’t know why it has taken so long for me to see the work of Käthe Kollwitz.  I first saw this sculpture in Vienna and went to find out more.

I like her work because it in unsentimental, has strong elements of composition, and it makes me think.  She mostly chose the poor as her subject and presents them in all their wretchedness but often with the innocence of young children as a counterpoint.

I suppose that I was not aware of her work because of any or a mixture of the following:-

She was a woman and, still, women are underrepresented in so many fields,

She didn’t go to Paris and join the avant garde,

Her subject matter is not the sort that attracts plaudits and people rushing to hang it at home,

Her socialist stance meant that the Nazi’s withdrew her work and her teaching post, and finally,

She died just after the end of WWII in what became East Germany; behind the Iron Curtain.

I the borrowed the first book on her I came across, Otto Nagel’s book Käthe Kollwitz, but, sadly, it is all in black and white.  However, it seems that there other books out there and a tour of her sculpture in Berlin, which is a place we’ve been meaning to visit!

Apologies for the lack of stuff of late but I hope to be more productive on this front over the rest of the summer.

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I read a Victorian translation of Cellini’s Treatise on goldsmithing, sculpture and other diverse arts.  The actual book was a soft cover with facsimile pages of the translation printed by associates of William Morris.  So, it was nice to see the Victorian translation in a Victorian font but it was the content that was engaging.

Cellini covers so many techniques but in the context of executing them in 16th century Europe.  He dictated his story and it was taken down as he spoke.  C R Asbee, the translator of this work, tried to keep to the original and he has kept the feel of someone talking to you without pretence.  I enjoyed it so much that thought I’d try the memoirs and found a copy in the Minster library [part of the University of York].

This “The Life of Benvenuto Cellini “, translated by J A Symonds, is a Victorian book with the pages torn [as 8 pages were printed at the same time, folded and stitched into the book, then the edges were torn – carefully].  I don’t think the book had been read as there are a few pages still connected along their edges.  I don’t know why but this book was more engaging than the treatise but is was.  It still sounds like someone talking without pretence but covers his journeys in Europe and how he gets on with people.  Both books are written in in fairly short chapters; usually only a couple of pages long.

The spine’s cover has fallen apart while I’ve been reading it and I agree with someone [was it Warpole], that with memoirs like these, who needs fiction.  It races along with murders and wars, intrigue and deceit.  Yes, some of the murders are at Cellini’s own hand and the intrigues are with bishops, cardinals and popes, as well as dukes and the king of France.

Cellini is very much a self publicist – nobody else’s goldsmithing is as good as his.  However, he is full of praise and admiration for Michel Angelo Buonarroti; there lives overlapped and Cellini recounts stories of their times together.

So, think about getting a copy as something to read while on holiday.  There are several english translations available but I’ve only read Symond’s version.

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The book I’m referring to is Paul Jackson’s “Folding Techniques for Designers from Sheet to Form”.   It was first published in 2011 and there were two print runs in 2012 because it must have become a recommended book on several design courses.  Clear instructions and diagrams, with helpful photographs showing  the ‘end result’ of each example, led both Jill and me to pick up paper and start folding.  It was so satisfying folding paper and not starting with a thin small square of origami paper: Instead. we made “structures”!  Here are some of the results from a couple of days folding – and we’re just half way through the book.

These are all paper but one could use other materials and, of course, coat the paper after folding, say with slip or resin, and make a rigid folded structure…..

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Jill and I went to a private view of this exhibition on Thursday last week and I would recommend it to anyone interested in WWI or early 20th century representation art.

The whole of the ground floor is given over to the exhibition, which is on until 4 September and then most of it returns home to the Imperial War Museum, London.  In the main room there are some very large canvases displaying the effects of war: each with a different subject and artist so there is lots to consider on content, composition and creativity.  Dotted around are charming busts of some of the great and the good and maquettes  of sculptures, mostly for memorials.  Among the sculptures are two by Jacob Epstein which are delicate in a way not seen in his later large commissioned work.  William Orpen  has a sizeable amount of wall space, which pleased me as I have a “critical edition” of his memoirs “an Onlooker in France”.  That book, published in 2008 contains nearly all the pictures he painted while in France together with his memoirs of the time.  It’s not a literary masterpiece but does give one a feel for both the horror and absurdity of it all.  The pictures are nearly all in colour, and quite good reproductions they are too, but they did not prepare me for seeing the real paintings, which are far larger and and have a depth of pigment that cannot be rendered in a book.

There are also quite a few paintings by the Nash brothers, several by CRW Nevinson, in different styles, a couple by Wyndham Lewis, and by  Stanley Spencer.  A surprise for me were the three monumental works by Anna Airy, one of the first women war artists, and others in that room on what was happening on the home front.

I shall be making a few more trips to the gallery while the exhibition is on as I feel there is far to much to absorb in one visit.

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You will recall, if you have been following this blog, that I cast in concrete a hexagonal cylinder of the void space around small balls in hexagonal close pack [well as close to that idea as I  could manage 1st time round].  I said that I’d leave getting rid of the material of the balls until after we had had a half term break.  Well, not so, I pursued the piece to completion today.  First, I drilled through so that all the balls had their internal spaces connected with the outside World – I didn’t want any of them exploding.

Why is it laying on the ground?  Well, that’s because it was waiting for the fire [thoughts at college was that it would produce too much black smoke]…..

….. and then it was on the fire [and not much smoke to speak of either].

Plenty of burning BUT not every bit of plastic went.  I was concerned that if I left the concrete in/on the fire for too long it would degrade so much that I would only have a crumbly ash at the end.

Here is the finished result; these static pictures show the void in concrete, coloured by the smoke, the plastic oozing over the concrete as it melted [but before it burnt], giving the white streaks, and  some charring.

The video shows how all the spaces are interlinked and we can see straight through.

Thank you for looking.  Vincent

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Someone said to me shortly after I started on the course that I should do stuff other than the projects or I might lose my sanity.  So, here are two extra-curricula pieces.

Jill has just completed a lovely embroidery on velvet and, like other pieces, it seemed worthy of a frame designed for it.  I thought that a shallow D section would be best and relied on a piece of handrail, which the sawmill at Howarth timbers, kindly ripped – as you can see.

Then, with the help of a friend and a table saw, we ripped two grooves up the back of the length: One as the stop for the rebate to take the embroidery and the other to make it easier to take out the wood later – as you will see.  I couldn’t take the wood away until the mitre corners had been cut otherwise the timber would have tipped during cutting and thereby screw up the alignment of the mitre joints.

Now you can see the embroidery and working out how and where to do the cut for the bit that sticks out.

Here, I must pay tribute to Chris & Carrie who produce wonderful woodcarving videos at  their woodcarving workshops website.  My carving and camera are far behind theirs but here’s a clip of making the rebate – sorry my head gets in the way but I Had to see what I was doing [Carrie & Chris should be watched to see how such things should really be done].

Then it was a case of priming, filling, painting ….

… and there is the frame complete.

The other small project is a stamp of JS in a piece of end grain holly [dense and fine grained and from the garden].  Start point was to get the end grain smooth, apply the design, and then get cutting!

Jill’s happy with it but I think the top bar is a bit a narrow.

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