In Our Garden

Just before lockdown - was about to put some work into an exhibition with a group of Digswell artists at the New Maynard Gallery in Welwyn Garden City, as part of the 2020 centenary celebrations. I'm posting here images of the pictures that I made for this exhibition, The theme 'In Our Garden' linked with the idea of garden cities and conjured up ideas for me about houses that are growing and gardens that are built - played with collage using prints of bricks, tiles, patterns and flowers and gradually ripped off the paper and replaced its with paint and oil pastels. Here they are: From left to right: Ghost House, Tree House, House Tree

Here is the beautiful poster of the exhibition that didn't happen by the very talented Sue Jarman - if you click on the poster you'll find more details about the other artists that made work for this show - hope we can show it one day as I was so looking forward to seeing all the work together:

Imprinted, St Albans Museum and gallery, 24th Nov till 3rd feb

Everything is Kept

Delighted that one of my 'time pieces', Holding Still 2017, is currently inhabiting one of the Keepers Galleries at St Albans Museum and Gallery.  It's part of the Imprinted exhibition with Suman Gujral, curated by UHArts, University of Hertfordshire's arts and cultural programme.

We'll both be talking about our work in the gallery at a meet-the-artists event on 9th December, between 3.00 and 4.00 - all welcome - no need to book.

My piece includes twelve of my paintings, twelve pockets of the now dried flowers seen in the paintings, and the twelve vases that are featured in the paintings - all given to me or purchased from craft stalls or second hand shops throughout my life. The paintings were made one per month on the day that I picked the flowers.  I made the paintings over a few hours, never allowing myself to go back to them once the day was finished.  They are in second hand frames that I repurposed to fit the paintings. The vases in this show were all made by other people and I hope I remember to acknowledge them where I can.  This seems a good place to start:

Here are the credits for the vases:

(From top, left to right)

January: Tintagel Pottery, 1984
February: Lisbeth de la Cour, 2003
March: Lisbeth de la Cour, 2005

April: Denby, 1930

May: Ford and Sons, Derby pattern, Burslam, 1900
June: Trident Pottery, 2007

July: Unknown origin and date

August: Stuart Crystal Vase in Cascade Fuchsia Pattern, 1999
September: Unknown origin and date

October: Kinska, London, 2013

November: Jean Knowles, Norfolk, 2004

December: Wileman bone china c1840 - 1900

The frames also had previous lives and were reclaimed from family and friends' pictures and from second hand shops.  I now have a range of prints, paintings, drawings and embroideries, emptied from their frames - they are kept carefully and I'd like to find a way of showing them one day too. 

You can find out a bit more about this piece here.

28th August 2018

Upcoming Exhibition:

Very pleased that I'll be showing some of my visual diary work at the wonderful new St Albans Museum and Gallery in November, alongside the beautiful work of Suman Gujral.  More details to follow - below is a picture clipped from the UH Arts Programme for 18/19.  You can see all of the exciting upcoming UH Arts events here

Saturday 14th July: Create Together, St Albans Museum and Gallery

Create Together, St Albans

Enjoying working on a collaborative project with groups of visitors at St Alban's Museum and Gallery.  Inspired by a wonderful installation by Susie MacMurray we are creating elements for a large scale piece using velvets, silks, sticks, bark and herbs.
Here are some pics of our work in progress:

And here is a detail of some of Susie MacMurray's work at St Albans Museum and Gallery; this is made from silk velvet and wire:

This Saturday 14th July I'll be inviting families visiting the museum to come and help with our collaborative response to Susie MacMurray's work.  Very much looking forward to it.

26th October 2016

Great 'Dress the Giant' drop-in workshop at Watersmeet in Rickmansworth yesterday.  This was a Big Draw event.  We all helped to create clothes for the giant child and then tried them on her to see how she looked. Participants were also invited to draw their own giants in charcoal on card and to make paper clothes for them.  One of the giant's dresses was made from wax leaf rubbings, another was created from stripes of natural materials and the last long dress was a mass of tiny patterns and drawings.  It as wonderful that so many people participated and the whole room was buzzing with creative energy.  Thanks so much to everybody who came to help us and to all the staff at Watersmeet for making sure that everything ran smoothly.  

Molly the giant is now standing in Artistsmeet with one of her beautiful dresses on and will be there till my show finishes on Wednesday next week.  

20th October 2016

Very much enjoyed the opening of my show at Artistsmeet in Rickmansworth last week.  It was great to show people work from the past five years of my ongoing visual diary.  Also loved running the 'thoughts diary' workshop afterwards as part of the Big Draw festival.  Thanks so much Elaine Johnson and all at Riversmeet for organising everything so smoothly and thanks to everybody who came along and helped make it such a nice occasion.

Great to meet Chairman Andrew Scarf and his wife Alison too.
https://threeriverschair2016andrewscarth.wordpress.com/2016/10/12/the-big-draw-steam-at-artistsmeet-12-october/

Next week I'm looking forward to our next Big Draw event: "DRESS THE GIANT" - a family drop-in event from 12.00 - 2.00 also taking place at Artistsmeet.