OCA Study Visit - Yinka Shonibare MBE: FABRIC-ATION

Yesterday I took part in an OCA study visit at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) to see Yinka Shonibare's biggest solo exhibition to date.  He wasn't an artist I was very familiar with so I'd done some background reading.  I'd found out that he is a British artist born in 1962 to Nigerian parents.  He spent his childhood in Lagos and returned to London to study art.  He still lives and works in the East End and over the last ten years has become internationally well known, exhibiting at the Venice Biennial and leading galleries such as the Smithsonian NY and the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art.  He's been nominated for the Turner prize, awarded an MBE and is an honorary fellow of Goldsmith's College. His most well-known work is probably Nelson's Ship in a Bottle, which was displayed in Trafalgar Square from 2010 to 2012 and commissioned to commemorate the battle.

His mediums are extremely varied, just like his interests and influences which include current affairs, space travel, dance, environmental issues, consumerism, stereotyping and discrimination. He is intrigued by the aristocracy, historical conflicts, revolutions, colonialism and maritime history.  Childhood memories - books, toys, television shows, fairytales and dreams are also referenced in his work.

Before the curator came to give us a tour of the Underground Gallery (photos not permitted), the group went to the Upper Space for a brief look at Shonibare's drawings.  At a distance they look like beautiful mixed media collages; colourful exotic flowers with bright fabric and touches of gold foil in an expensive looking gold frame.  Moving in for a closer look I saw the title: 'Climate Shit Drawings' 2009. If reading the expletive title was a shock, there was another when I saw the image of curled up faeces nestling in one of the hand drawn tree branches!  As I came closer I could identify that this was some sort of disapproving statement on climate change and consumerism.  The 'exotic flowers' were made up of images of luxury cars from glossy magazines, hand written quotes about the oil industry, cut out newspaper articles on banking, stocks and shares and government policies on the environment etc. In some areas leaf shapes were cut out of the background paper which I thought perhaps represented man's destruction of nature. 

Close up I saw that some of the techniques looked not so polished and beautiful either, like I'd have expected of work in a gallery.  The handwritten quotes looked like my scruffy notebook scribbles, the cuts on the shapes were not clean curves, newspaper pieces were partially stuck - seeming to flap annoyingly and a fishing net drawn in gold pen had tentative broken uneven lines as if drawn without confidence and control.  Was this deliberate carelessness and part of the statement too, I wondered? Maybe it is actually because Shonibare has restricted mobility as a result of a virus he contracted as a teenager (he has a team of technicians to assist him create his work where he is physically unable).  Maybe precision simply was not important to him in these pieces. I don't know.

Next we met Sarah Coulson, the exhibition curator, who spent a great deal of time with us, giving background information on the sculpture park, the artist and his exhibition pieces.  It was an interesting insight into how a gallery can assist an artist with their ideas and the practicalities of setting up an exhibition. The Sculpture Park was opened in 1977 and the completion of the Underground Gallery in 2005 broadened the scope of the venue so it was now able to host big shows like this one. For example any gallery exhibiting Shonibare's 'New York Toy Painting' 2012 and 'Little Rich Girls' 2010 must be able to paint the huge turquoise background rectangles on their wall.

One of the reasons to exhibit this artist here and now, is his current shift towards outdoor work.  'Nelson's Ship in a Bottle' was so popular, it is now permanently displayed at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich after the public raised over £350k to assist the museum to purchase it.  The Royal Opera House commissioned the rotating 'Globe Head Ballerina' 2012 for the outside of their building.  Sarah told us that Shonibare has enjoyed being able to converse about his work with people who have seen it in public spaces - people who wouldn't typically visit a gallery.  The YSP estate also seems an appropriate venue for his work as it was once owned by just the type of aristocrat whose lifestyle would fascinate Shonibare.  The family was forced to sell a good proportion of their estate in eighteenth century after a period of excessive living.           

YSP co-commissioned 'Wind Sculptures' 2013. One of the artist's trademarks is brightly coloured Dutch wax fabric.  It appeared somewhere, I think, in every piece I saw in the exhibition. At art college Shonibare was forced to use a very limited palette as he was told too much colour was gaudy.  By the time he left he was desperate for colour (something I can identify with, as I remember the delight of leaving behind the black, navy and grey uniforms of corporate life for the cheerfulness of clear bright colour).  As an emerging artist Shonibare was amused by the perceptions of the work he was expected to produce as an artist of African origin. He began to think about Lagos and the origins of bright fabrics worn by Nigerian women there, and in Brixton where the fabric was sold very cheaply in the market.  These fabrics we think of as typically African, actually originated in the late 18th century as copies of Indonesian batiks and were produced in Holland and Manchester. Indonesia and the European markets were not interested in this cheap mass produced cloth but the Africans quickly adopted and embraced it.  This fabric has become an ideal medium for Shonibare's work as so many of the issues that interest him are wrapped up in its story - trade routes, colonialism, stereotyping, identity and consumerism.

Following the success of 'Nelson's Ship in a Bottle', he wanted to further develop ideas around sail forms and grand upscaling for 'Wind Sculptures'. He also wanted nature to influence his work and the idea was to recreate the form of a piece of fabric billowing like a sail in the breeze. To make sure the forms were organic, actual small pieces of fabric were placed in the wind and the fleeting moment was captured in photographs.  With Shonibare's previous outdoor work, the fabric had been protected by glass but these sculptures were to be made of fibreglass.  I like the idea that a material so hard can be perceived as the opposite. 

The sculptures are around 6 metres high.  From some angles they look like a ray fish or a person hiding under a cloth - like when I was little pretending to be a ghost under a bed sheet.  In this setting though, they mostly remind me of those huge status symbol powered fountains at English stately homes like Chatsworth.  This fits with Shonibare's theme of the sometimes ridiculous excesses of the aristocracy, particularly as public sculpture on a grand scale has traditionally been used to honour important figures like Nelson himself.

Wind Sculptures 2013

Seeing the changing grey Yorkshire skies behind the sculptures made me wonder about what made the Dutch wax fabric so appealing in Africa, yet not in Europe. (I can imagine back in Indonesia that the mass produced fabric was less popular because it seemed inferior to what was being produced by craftsmen there).  Did the vibrant colours seemed gaudy in Northern European light perhaps but not so in Africa? 'Little Rich Girls' 2010 in the Underground Gallery is a display of traditional Victorian style dresses with frills and bows but instead of the plum and bottle green velvets or peach and ivory lace that you might expect, they are made from the cheap dutch wax fabrics.  The vivid turquoise painted wall behind them could for me be an African sky and those bright colours sit happily against it.

This quote sums up my thoughts on the exhibition:
'In a way, when people see an artist of African origin, they think: oh, he is here to protest.  Yes, okay, I am here to protest, but I am going to do it like a gentleman. It is going to look very nice. You are not even going to realise that I am protesting, you are going to invite me to your museum because the work is nice, and then when I am inside it is too late.'

(Jaap Guldermon and Gabriele Mackert, 'To Entertain and Provoke: Western Influence in the work of Yinka Shonibare'. Interview with Yinka Shonibare, in Yinka Shonibare: Double Dutch, pg41)

I understand why the public were so taken with Nelson's Ship in a Bottle.  It's a beautiful thing. When Shonibare was on a shortlist of four for the Turner Prize, although he didn't win, 64% of the voters in a public poll apparently preferred his work.   On the surface his work is bright and attractive.  Even the 'Climate Shit Drawings' you can imagine hanging quite happily in an ordinary family living room.  Your friends probably wouldn't even notice the poo, though I can imagine my children would have great fun trying to spot it in a 'Where's Wally' kind of way! My first reactions to his work were just the opposite of the Sarah Lucas 'Ordinary Things' exhibition that I described in November.  In contrast, her mundane grubby objects and dull colours were an instant turn off.

There's humour in his work.  I see foxes wearing Victorian style outfits but made from cheap 'African' fabrics.  They're holding a classical pose but carrying gold guns and BlackBerry phones. They looks so absurd, they make me laugh. Then I see the title 'Revolutionary Kids' and that this work was made in response to the 2011 riots.  Gradually I appreciate some of the symbolism.  BlackBerrys represent how word of the riots spread so quickly by social media.  The figures appear half human, half animal, with taxidermy heads.  Foxes are becoming bolder and more common in urban areas and are often unwelcome as they're perceived as wily, unpredictable, fouling, disease spreaders, thieves and increasingly, killers. 

In East London where Shonibare lives, there had been a string of fox attacks on children around the same time and I wondered whether he might have had these in mind when making the work. Reading some of the news reports about the fox attacks, I noted that the urban fox was unheard of before the '60s.  One suggestion for its rise is the corresponding rise in the amount of street litter.  As the fast food industry has exploded, so have the foxes' scavenging opportunities. I think that this would interest an artist who talks with concern about excessive consumption, threatened sustainable local food production and destroyed livelihoods.   

The scale of the massive gun in the hand of the half human/half animal figures make them youthful (95% of the rioters were under 40 and half under 21).  The guns are replicas of the golden pistol Colonel Gaddafi was famously carrying when he was killed and seems symbolic of the rioters' desire for power and high value goods and their lack of remorse for the consequences of their actions and their victims. 

Many of Shonibare's diverse and complex themes seem to overlap within a single work. He often refers to the legacy of oil wealth and the gun could also be highlighting the ridiculousness and hideousness of extravagance.  Gaddafi had a gold flyswatter for example while Saddam Hussein also had golden guns and even golden toilet brushes. Mobutu Sese Seko, president of Congo for 32 years is often compared with these two and coincidentally described as a 'wily' youth. He was famed for corruption and human rights abuses.  He is alleged to have embezzled $5million from the country making it one of the poorest countries in the world despite being one of the most resource rich. Parts of his presidential palace were modelled on Versailles, he built a pink marble monolith and computer operated fountains and regularly chartered Concorde for family shopping trips to Paris.  Meanwhile, widespread poverty and starvation in the desperate country led to rampant rioting, looting, muggings and bribery. Now there's nothing funny about that.

By being playful and colourful with his work he creates an instant appeal that is a way in to the darker issues he highlights. 'Alien Woman on Flying Machine' 2011 looks like an upscaled mobile from a child's bedroom and the alien family look like happy, friendly cartoon characters. It's difficult to imagine anything sinister about colourful, big-eyed soft toys on a homemade flying machine though.

I loved the frog-like fingers and toes of Alien Child 2011

The aliens' fat little fingers and toes and the Dutch wax fabrics they are made of reminded me very much of the stunningly bright poison dart frogs, well known for being the most poisonous creatures on earth.  The toxin from one tiny frog could instantly kill 10-20 adults. However just a little reading was pretty enlightening. I found out that of 245 species of poison dart frogs, only maybe 5 are potentially lethal to humans, the majority are pretty harmless.  Of the ones that are, when captive bred they're not poisonous at all due to their diet and they make popular pets. In fact I could order one online now! Also the wild frogs are poisonous rather than venomous.  There's a difference: they don't seek out prey to hurt, rather their poison is for their own protection so they don't get eaten.  Their bright colours are a warning to other creatures. The 'deadly' species are turning out to be very beneficial to humans as their extracted poison is being used by scientists to develop a painkiller that is 200 times more effective than morphine but without the sedative and addictive side effects. Frog toxins are becoming an important tool to understand neurological and muscular disorders but the destruction of their rainforest habitat is threatening many species with extinction.

Blue Poison Dart Frog

My point, which I think is what Shonibare is also saying, is that there's a difference in having valid concerns about 'Aliens' (the outsiders or the unknown) to being ignorant and needlessly fearful. Behaving this way means missing beneficial relationships and possibilities.

Just how I got to dictators and defending misunderstood frogs I'm not quite sure, but it was such an enjoyable day - a fascinating exhibition with plently to reflect on.

OCA Textiles Study Visit - Light and Line

My first visit to Barnsley on a frosty December day to meet my tutor and other students at the Civic. The artists, Anne Morrell and Polly Binns, were new to me and there wasn't a huge amount of information to be easily found on their work before the day. This was a short visit and the activity was to take a look around the gallery, identify which pieces immediately captured our interest, select one and to meet back with the group to visit one of our selected works to explain and discuss our thoughts. 

As soon as I entered this touring exhibition, I thought of Alice Fox and her wonderful 'Textures of Spurn' project that I reflected on in November.  References to water and the coast were immediately obvious from the colours to the rippling patterns. The first piece of work that caught my attention was Anne Morrell's 'Verdure:2' (2011), below on the left.  From these photographs, it's difficult to appreciate, but although it was flat and stretched on a canvas like a painting, from a distance it looked very three dimensional, compared to the two on the right, and this enticed me to come for a closer look.

 

The gallery was bright and as there was no glass on the frame (each of the frames on these three were the same tone but different colour), it was good to be able to see the stitching up close and appreciate the detail. Only one simple stitch was used throughout.  This area below was just comprised of parallel lines of running stitch.  The thread has delicate changes in shade though, and as it is worked from the back, puckering is created.  Combined with the dyed background it results in contrasts of tension and it reminds me of looking down at the sea from high above - the ripples of the tide and the contrast between the deep and shallow areas.

 

 



The colours were slightly less fresh and vibrant but certainly reminiscent of the seascape shades I so often respond to and chose for my colour bag earlier in this assignment.

 

 

I am sure that the main reason I was drawn to this work is the happy memory it evoked of sitting on the rusty pier below in Greece.  We had just missed a boat trip so sat and waited an hour for the next one.  It was just my husband & I on honeymoon, the kids were at home with Grandma, and it was so warm and peaceful looking down at the patterns in the water and listening to the gentle lapping of the water. I can imagine the brown areas as the criss-cross shapes of the rusty structure.   

 

 

 

 

Looking next at Polly Binns's work next, if felt far closer to home and less exotic.  This piece, 'Overstrand Interlude' (2011) below, reminds me very much of darker, oilier and wet sand so I was not surprised to find out that the artist spends a good deal of time walking on Norfolk beaches before working.  This was simply hung on nails so again I enjoyed being able to get up close to this to see the detail.  The 'V' shapes bleached (or possibly painted?) into the fabric I imagined as sea birds footprints.  Some of these lines were enhanced by machined running stitch which subtly increases the reflective qualities. As in Morrell's 'Verdure:2', just one stitch is used throughout.



 

All the work exhibited was fairly recent, created within the last few years and it was interesting to consider the similarities and contrasts in the way the two artists approach the 'light and line' theme.  Both are meticulous observers.  Polly Binns knows the landscape intimately from her walks and works more directly from memory and briefly recorded marks.  She now almost never photographs.  Anne Morrell has a more considered and detailed process of development.  Below are some of her working samples which we were delighted to be able to handle and inspect.

 

 

To me the exhibition felt like a series of personal explorations rather than finished pieces I might want to take home and hang on my walls. I don't necessarily think they all stand up in their own right but it is certainly an interesting collection.  You can see the direction of the work gradually changing from the earlier to later pieces. Anne Morrell for example seems to have moved away from colour completely towards concentrating on form and surface texture and most of the group preferred her later work such as this un-dyed piece below.  'Axial' 2012 had an unexpected composition.  All the interest was at the top with a large blank area at the bottom as if it is floating. 

Only one stitch was used yet again.  Even the length of the stitch stays the same and all the effects come from varying the distance between rows and the degree of puckering.  For someone like me, who likes to layer and adorn endlessly this is a good lesson in how effective it can be to keep things simple sometimes and how it's not necessary to have a repertoire of complicated stitches.  Which is just as well.  At the Embroiderer's Guild last Friday, we tried out some unusual stitches.  Two hours later this was all I had managed! (Guild recommended two Beaney & Littlejohn books: A Tale of Two Stitches and Stitch Magic - good for exploring the boundaries of stitches. They're a bit expensive but on my wish list.)

 

  

 

After this and other recent exhibitions, by using critical approach guidelines, I've realised I'm becoming gradually more in tune with why a particular work attracts me.  Maybe on a future visit, I should choose something that turns me off and try to work out why.

 

    



 

Another lesson I'm learning is relying on photographs less for inspiration and and more for a memory jogger along with notes and sketches.  In a gallery or outdoors when it's freezing, the drawings I'm making now are often very quick and rough but they're working for me as a starting point. However, I still nearly always carry my camera to catch something unexpected like the frosty view I spotted on the drive to Barnsley.  Dodging the lorries thundering past as I stood in the road and knowing I'd be late for the study visit if I got the pencils out, I thought this was a justified time to use camera!  

 

 

  

 

OCA report by Pat Hodson can be found here: http://www.weareoca.com/textiles/light-and-line-in-barnsley/

 

 

   

Harrogate Knitting & Stitching Show

What a fabulous day out!  Today has been a heavenly day of textiles and shopping. I met up with some other students and a further bonus was spotting my Textiles tutor manning the OCA stall. I was able to get some face-to-face advice on how to present my sketchbooks and notebooks and see some good examples. I need to imagine what impression an assessor, who knows nothing about me or the work I've been doing, will have when they open my pack of work.  How will I label and reference everything so that it doesn't frustrate them?  I've jotted down some good tips and particularly like the idea of attaching my small scruffy notebooks in an envelope style folder at the back and using string to attach items so they can be pulled out to look at, but don't drop out or get out of order.  

I'm sure I could go back for the next three days of the show and still not get to see everything. Here come some of my highlights of the day.


Two of 20 finalists in the UK Hand Knitting Association's Knitted Textile Awards. I was attracted by the bright colours that reminded me of oranges, limes, blackcurrants and fruity Starburst sweets in this dress by Amanda Hardy.  In contrast, I loved the delicate monochrome sculptural knitting in Cecilia Ajayi's collection.

Jonathan Korejko demonstrates paper making.

Jonathan showed me how to make paper that's ideal to stitch into using pulp made from just cotton bed sheets shredded up and put in an electric blender with water. He also chopped up and blended cotton embroidery floss to make dyed pulp.  He spooned it into plastic cookie cutters over a screen (picture frame with nylon mesh stretched over) to make coloured shapes to layer and embellish the white background. I picked up some great tips from him, like using a slightly curved bed made from towels to make it easier to remove the paper from the frame.  Also pressing the paper once, then mopping excess moisture from the back with a sponge before pressing again for a better finish.  He also had some lovely papers for sale with trapped denim.  I definitely want to have a go at making paper to stitch on and really enjoyed seeing a demonstration, rather than just reading instructions.


My tutor had her own tips for paper making, such as colouring cotton linters with procion dyes. Leave them to dry and rinse after a couple of days (they will lose a little colour). They need to cure either by time or steam and can then be liquidised and stored in plastic bags. She also adds a little cellulose glue to the pulp which she says holds the fibres beautifully in suspension.  







'Midday Sun' (above left) was inspired by hot summer days in Cornwall. This carpet is 100% silk. Compared to the other carpets in this collection by textile artist John Allen, which is inspired by British landscapes, this one really reflects the light and glistens. (I've just noticed that the colours that attracted me are similar to the fruity, tropical palette in Amanda Hardy's knitted dress above.) I was drawn to 'Mam Tor', the carpet on the right, recognising immediately the Derbyshire landscape, where we enjoyed an Autumn break last month. Below is 'Tin Mine Winter Night' and 'Tin Mine Winter Day'.  I like how the artist has discreetly woven his initials into each piece in the bottom right corner.



Jane McKeating's 'Flash fractions' have narrative. These images will be going in my Family History Theme Book. I am starting to look at various ways artists visually record their personal memories, stories and roots and incorporate them into their work.



 

Below is an Embroiderer's Guild Project 'Welcoming Athletes of the World'. Three thousand postcard-sized images were stitched by members to represent and welcome over 200 sporting nations to the London 2012 Olympics. We have been set some challenges at our branch of the Embroiderer's Guild for 2013 so I was interested to see the standards I was aiming for! There was some inspiring work by the North East Region in 'Mining a Golden Seam', an exhibition representing the mining heritage of the region in stitch.





 

 

 

Of course, with all the shopping opportunites, my purse was soon empty, as was the cashpoint when I got there.  Obviously I wasn't the only one overpending.  I was trying to contain myself and buy what I can't get locally. The dilemma was whether to buy something when I saw it, or to fight my way back through the crowds at the end, hoping I could remember where the stall was and whatever I wanted had not been sold out.  I hadn't planned a particular route and when I thought I was all done, I discovered a further two exhibition halls.  It's a good job we grow vegetables because it's soup for the rest of the month in our house!

I loved the bright colours and rummaging through the fabric at The African Fabric Shop stall. I bought a fat quarter of Kenyan indigo dyed fabric (below).  Ever since seeing Aboubakar Fofana's work at Cotton:Global Threads, an OCA Textile Study Day, I've been interested in indigo dyeing.  I also bought some dye to have a go myself plus the chemicals I need to create fabric sun prints. I enjoyed experimenting with photograms and sun prints a couple of months back and it would be great to explore the technique further and have a surface to stitch into.

My other buys included some scraps of Japanese kimono fabric and lots of new products to try including an intriguing 'Ultra-Punch' needle which is a gadget that is held like a pen but punches stitches into fabric. Watch this space! 










Experiencing Exhibitions - A Reflection

Over the last few weeks, I've been to four exhibitions.  Each experience has been unique and I've learnt something quite different from each one.

Fellow student Miriam had shared details of a free Alan Turing textile workshop on the OCA Textiles Facebook page and it was lovely to meet her at Manchester Museum and spend time chatting about our coursework during the day. She is ahead of me on 'Exploring Ideas' and has been through formal assessment so had useful advice to give on the process, such as how she went about mounting her work.

When I found I had a place on the workshop, I spent a couple of days reading a biography of Turing that concentrated heavily on his involvement in the invention of the computer.  For me the book was very hard going, with complex mathematical codes.  Turing, who was born 100 years ago, seemed an unlikely point of inspiration for textile work, so I was curious to see how we would begin to connect the two.

Firstly we were introduced to the course tutor Gwyneth Depport, then we were taken for a look around the exhibition 'Alan Turing and Life's Enigma' while we listened to a brief talk by the curator.  While Turing was working on developing early computers at Manchester University in the 1950s, he had access to natural history exhibits at the museum next door.  He was fascinated by finding the science behind the patterns in nature that he'd noticed related to mathematical sequences, such as markings on animal furs and skins, the spiralling tendencies of pine cones and flower seeds and the tendencies of branching trees.

 

 

 

Turing was fascinated by the growth process and 'morphogenesis' - the chemistry behind what causes an organism to develop non-uniform shapes like spirals, spots and stripes. 



Gwyneth asked us to make a series of about ten 1 minute sketches of anything at all from the exhibition that caught our eye.  Working on Project 4 has taught me how to focus on a single aspect, which I needed to do with this time limit, so as the lighting was poor and many of the exhibits behind glass, I decided to focus on shapes. I was surprised that in just one minute I was able to produce an identifiable drawing that conveyed the essence of an object and this was my biggest lesson of the day.           

Back in the classroom we selected from our drawings.  I chose one of a shell sliced through and redrew it, altering the proportions till it felt right.  I cut it out and began to play with the angles and added an element from another drawing to balance the space until I was happy with an A5 sized design.

In the afternoon, we chose fabrics from the stash bags we'd brought and began to cut, layer and stitch. In the morning the time constraints had helped me but at this stage I felt I needed more time. Turing is often described as one of the greatest ever thinkers - and now I felt like I wanted to think. In particular I wondered what Turing would make of what we were doing and couldn't help but think he wouldn't have any time for work produced without more consideration and exactness.  Though I have discovered that he, and his work, have inspired many art projects, I haven't found any references to his opinions on art.  I also felt hindered by the limits of my mobile stash, and at no point enamoured with the sample I was working on. I haven't felt the desire to work into it any further since, though I still like my drawing and have ideas brewing on how to develop it using some of my photographs above of patterns in nature.

Though I was wrestling with my thoughts, it was still a very enjoyable afternoon.  Gwyneth has photos of the work everyone produced on her blog, and as she says, it was fascinating to see the variety of work produced from one brief. Looking through Gwyneth's portfolio and sketchbooks, then hearing her talk about her work was also very interesting.  I particularly identified with her 'Conversations Past' theme which she describes as 'memories of wisdom I've received from the older women I've known'.  In my knitting group, there is always an older lady willing to help with a stitching problem or any personal dilemma.  It also made me think of the Memory Cafe for Alzheimer's sufferers and carers where I volunteer.  I always feel like I benefit from the arrangement more than the sufferers.  I bake cake, serve drinks and chat. In return, every visit I hear wonderful stories, learn a new (or rather an old song new to me), receive a piece of practical advice or recipe or learn something of local social history. 

One of my favourite stories recently was from one of our couples who were celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary.  We were asking them about their wedding day and if they went on honeymoon.  They said they set off for Filey in a motorcycle and side car.  It was shortly after the war and all the signposts that had been taken down had not yet been replaced.  This was designed to confuse any Germans parachuting in, but of course it confused everyone from out of the area.  So it was after midnight when they finally found the guest house and had to wake up an extremely bad tempered landlady who kept up her bad mood for their entire stay!  These memories are priceless snippets for me that help me empathise with older people and understand our recent past. 

A few days later I visited the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield for the first time, meeting up with the OCA Yorkshire group. It was a chilly day so I decided to save the outdoor installations for another visit. I arrived early and entered the stark, spacious foyer.  There didn't seem to be anyone else around and the space felt intimidating. (Later that week I was watching a recording of the series 'A History of Art in Three Colours' and I realised that my feelings were similar to those described in the 'White' episode.  This described the public's reaction when they first viewed Whistler's Venice paintings in a completely white space in 1883.)  After familiarising myself with the galleries though, I felt more comfortable.  Being able to appreciate exhibits lit by daylight, without distracting backgrounds or other pieces placed too close, it felt wonderfully refreshing.

After I'd walked round the galleries alone, I decided to revisit two areas I was drawn to: the Barbara Hepworth Sculpture Collection and Richard Long's 'Artist Rooms' Exhibition.  I first discovered Hepworth when I was an architecture student but it has been many years since I've seen her work and I enjoyed simply walking round the sculptures looking at the contrasts in texture of the carved stone and wood and appreciating the different views created by the shapes, holes and shadows on the white walls.  Maybe it's the time of year but I particularly love her polished curved wood that reminded me of opening up a horse chestnut shell to find a big, perfect glossy conker before it loses it shine.  I can imagine climbing inside.  They look comfortable and cosy like a nest or womb. (Unfortunately I didn't photograph an example of one of these, but click on this link to see something similar I saw a few weeks later in Leeds City Art Gallery) 

The Hepworth is so spacious, providing many different viewpoints to appreciate the shapes and shadows.  The daylight flooding in and being able to get so close means you can really appreciate the craftsmanship and textures.

Talking with two of the other students, we wondered about the meaning of string Hepworth sometimes used in connecting surfaces and highlighting the voids.  Then we read how the string was part of a style she developed during WW2 when she was living in St. Ives.

‘I used colour and string in many of the carvings of this time. The colour in the concavities plunged me into the depth of water, caves, or shadows deeper than the carved concavities themselves. The strings were the tension I felt between myself and these, the wind or the hills.’

Richard Long was a new name for me and his exhibition theme was using walking as art. There were photographs of sculptures created during a walk with found materials and one of flattened grass - evidence of a walk taken place.  Photographs described places discovered as a result of walking in a straight line from a predetermined location on a map.  Sarah and I spent some time looking at the 'Somerset Willow Line', looking for pattern, debating how it was constructed (border first or last and why is there a border at all?), whether the width was right for the space and whether it might have ever been exhibited outdoors.  We wondered why the walks were straight and whether this was a male thing (after all isn't a walk in the country a meandering affair?).  I benefited from the interaction with Sarah and learnt that I don't always have to have information available or completely understand a work of art to consider or enjoy it.  Today I found and enjoyed the photos in this article that shows the artist installing the exhibition.  We had been debating whether he did it all himself, how precisiely it was planned - are all the separate pieces coded in some way, or is it arranged by eye so that every time the work is moved to a new venue, it is slightly different to harmonise with the space?    

Richard Long's Somerset Willow Walk

Looking at the slate sculptures in the next room, we discussed how Long's work might be an inspirational starting point for textile work.  The materials were so hard!  I thought back to my previous projects and focused in on the colours and textures of the rough stone. I imagined the arrangement of 'Cornish Slate Ellipse' as different length and width line stitches. We enjoyed discussing the differences of this sculpture with 'Blaenau Ffestiniog Circle'.  They were both slate but one felt friendly, reminding me of a box of brittle compressed charcoal drawing sticks with their snapped ends tucked away and smooth, flat surface exposed.  The other felt sinister.  Sarah said she felt afraid she would fall on it if she got too close.  The slate was jagged and the arrangement reminded me of a gang with dark, pointed hoods.





Richard Long's Cornish Slate Ellipse

'Blaenau Ffestiniog Circle'

When I first walked into the exhibition gallery, I was delighted to see a huge painting applied directly to the walls.  Immediately I thought, 'waterfall!' and it made such an impact on me not just because of the scale but because of the 'drawing from an image' exercise earlier in the course.  I'd used a photograph of a waterfall on a Yorkshire Water postcard I'd picked up somewhere.  I could see similarities in the marks on the wall to some of my drawings which gave me some confidence that parts of my experiments had potential.

'Water Falls' by Richard Long

Waterfalls by me!

 

As I've now joined the Halifax Embroiderer's Guild, I'm looking forward to textile artist Alice Fox coming to talk about her work tonight.  I felt I'd get more out of this opportunity by seeing her current touring exhibition, 'Textures of Spurn', at the South Square Gallery in Thornton beforehand.  Alice is artist in residence at Spurn Point Nature Reserve this year as part of a lottery funded Arts Council project supported by the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. 

The exhibition was in another plain white room but in contrast to the Hepworth, this space was small and intimate and my first impression was that this work felt very feminine. The pieces were not behind glass and most were at eye-level so I could really appreciate the beautiful, delicate, marks on paper and fabric.  The colour palette was limited and the pieces really felt like a collection.  Reflecting later on what I'd seen, I thought that I'd loved to have seen the exhibition in-situ when it was displayed at Spurn Point last month, the lighthouse hung with the huge Spurn cloths that South Square didn't have space for.  How would the changing light, sounds and smells of the reserve have changed or enhanced the viewing experience? I also thought it would have been interesting to see how the cloths had been altered by the elements from the beginning to the end of their display. 

Another thought came as I looked at the photographs I'd taken.  Some of the concertina books were just a few centimetres high, yet on my images there was no sense of scale and I imagined them as 2 metre high screens.  I thought that this small sized work would be so dramatic enlarged to a huge scale.  Alice made three Spurn cloths to fit this gallery as a smaller representation of the textile element of the project that was too large to bring to South Square. What qualities make some art only work on a specific scale while others transfer so well?

This concertina book was displayed on a wide window ledge and I loved the way the daylight shines through the stitching holes making me think of sparkling water in sunlight

One of Three Small Spurn Cloths - Rust Dyed Silk

 

I believe this piece crosses the boundaries of scale and would work whether 10cm or 10 metres high

 

 

The weather was appalling that day and I was rather pleased to have the gallery to myself.  I bought the book to accompany the residency and settled down at the table to read. The book was how I imagined a perfect sketchbook journal should look, with drawings, photographs and found objects, ideas and descriptions neatly laid out in poetic text. Though images of patterns in the water and sand reminded me of pictures I'd taken on the beach in Jersey and Spain, the feel at Spurn is quite different.  I felt that the artist really captured the essence of the place.  I can see words she used in her observations like 'scattered', 'hollows' and 'pummelled' when I look at the final pieces. And I like that Spurn itself is  ingrained in the pieces. Rusty objects and wet shells stain paper and Alice has used found objects like feathers to print and emboss.  She laid swathes of cloth on the sand, and as waves manipulated it, the fabric took up and was marked by water, salt and debris.

Printed and Embossed Feather

Wormcasts in the sand perhaps?

 

At one point I realised, if only I stopped spending so much money on art books, I could probably buy some original art! (I was really coveting the handmade concertina books with their embossed, stitched marks and collagraph prints.) Then again, I get a lot of pleasure from reading around my subjects and I wondered whether these little books would look quite so spectacular in my house, rather than being part of a cohesive collection.  I also pondered on my own 'notebooks'.  These are the total opposite of Alice's with scribbled notes and sketches made with any pen on any paper to hand, and intermingled with shopping lists, telephone numbers, my children's doodles etc. I can't always find my notes after I've made them. My systems, I decided, need some urgent attention and I was glad I'd booked to go on a series of workbook workshops over the next year with local textile artist Anne Brooke. 

The book I wanted

Alice's book is a really good insight into the starting points and processes behind her work, such as how the cloths were made by wrapping the fabric around rusty objects and left till marks were made over time.  The rust marks reminded me of distressed effects I've achieved by burning but these marks were much more subtle. I came home feeling inspired to try some rust dying but was disappointed to find a distinct lack of rusty object round my home and garden.  I resolved to go on a rust hunt soon but in the meantime thought I'd try out some spray ink suitable for fabric I'd bought on sale at the local craft shop.  They were partly filled bottles, three for £1 and it turned out there was a good reason they were so cheap.  Most of the spray mechanisms were blocked to some degree, which caused blobs, and when they were less than a third full, no ink came out at all so I had to mix colours together.  Despite not achieving quite what I expected, permanently staining the kitchen floor and ending up with blue Smurf-like hands, I was pleased with some of the effects I achieved (even with blobs) by layering the colours up and firmly ironing creases into the fabric before I sprayed.  When I opened up the fabric again, I liked the way the creases had been protected from the ink.  Alice describes using stitch in response to the marks on the cloth.  Creases are held in place and highlighted by stitch to emphasise the reflective qualities of water and wet sand.

Stitches highlight and hold creases in place



My experiments with creases and spray ink on fabric

Mountain Range?

Overspraying with a different colour before the first has dried so that the colours merge.  This reminds me of a coastline from above 

Looking back at my recent holiday snaps, turns out I was always a rust fan!

Patterns in the sand at St. Brelade's Bay, Jersey - such a different feel from the beach at Spurn.  More of my wave and sand photos are in my June 2012 post
 

The following day I went to the Henry Moore Institute and Leeds City Art Gallery on a Study Visit for OCA Visual Arts students. Tutor Gerald has written about the day in a post entitled 'Erotically shaped vegetables and cheap nylon tights!' This can be found on the We Are OCA blog. (I have just focused here on the morning session because my head was so full of thoughts.) We were going primarily to look at the work of Sarah Lucas and Helen Chadwick and I was interested to see how much my views would change over the day.  These were not artists I particularly knew and when I looked at images of their work, I wasn't excited or drawn to them in any way.  However the chance of a local study visit and to meet tutors and fellow students was too much of an opportunity to pass up.  The visit was open to all visual arts students - the majority were studying sculpture.  This was a totally different experience from the Cotton: Global Threads OCA Textile study day back in April.  I saw no sketch books or cameras, just a couple of note takers.  This day was all about discussion and debate. 

I found the briefing notes and the pre-reading were essential to my appreciation of the ideas behind 'Ordinary Things'.  I understand that Lucas challenges the definition of sculpture, uses traditional sculptural techniques such as cutting and moulding and works with familiar everyday materials.  I can see there is a narrative behind the pieces and an erotic theme running through and it was quite interesting to consider how she thought through the process of construction - where the puckering might be used on a pair of stuffed tights to represent a body part for example.  My problem was that these were not things I found comfortable or pleasant to look at and I couldn't identify any great ingenuity, humour or skill in their making or arrangement, so I wasn't sure what I could find to like. Another student echoed my thoughts when she queried what was so anarchic about 'Big Fat Anarchic Spider'?  (The tutors either didn't hear or couldn't seem to think of a response and moved on.  If anyone has ideas on why, please share! )  It just looked like a large spider made from stuffed tights, like something I might make at home with the kids the other night to decorate for a Halloween party. 

I've just seen an image of the spider and read this rather worrying conclusion from a review of the exhibition by Adrian Searle of the Guardian.

     
'But sometimes small, tightly curated shows work best. I urge anyone who likes Lucas's sculpture to see Ordinary Things. Those who believe contemporary art is a load of old tosh should see it, too – if only to be reminded that what counts is not so much the materials an artist uses, but the ways they are transformed. If you don't get Lucas, you don't get sculpture.'

I feel that I am open minded when it comes to contemporary art and I have no problem with non-traditional, ordinary or even repulsive materials.  For example I loved the Compulsive, Obsessive, Repetitive exhibition at Towner pictured recently in Selvedge Magazine, with its constructions from till rolls, sugar cubes and fish skins.  Manya Donaque's 'Presence, Absence, Duration' exhibition at the West Yorkshire Print Workshop last month sparked thoughtful conversation between myself and my daughters when we viewed it last month. Like Lucas, Donaque's art is of and from the body (for example here she used pubic hair and hoover dust) and has themes of decay and passing of time. I 'got' Donaque's exhibition even though I didn't find it beautiful.  What should I make of Searle's conclusion then?  Many of the comments posted in response agree with his views and those that don't are generally lacking in good argument. I tried but I still can't see the brilliance in Lucas. Maybe I will be embarrassed by these comments in future but for the moment, either I don't get sculpture, or as I prefer to think, Searle is wrong!

We moved on to look at the work of Helen Chadwick.  Her work has similarities to Lucas's with Arte Povera influences, erotic and decaying themes.  In their materials, both use degradable and bodily matter.  The Chadwick exhibition included photographs of some of her 'Wreaths to Pleasure'. Pale pink tea roses appear like a pretty and feminine Victorian floral arrangement at first glance.  Then you see they are obviously arranged as male genitalia.  Another wreath is made of vibrant red flowers jam-packed together but then you get the shock of realising the flowers look to be exploding out of some dark oozy liquid and they're hinting at something bodily, possible internal and bloody.  I liked the variation in the subtleties of the repellent and erotic aspects and agree with the description of the series of thirteen wreaths as both 'seductive and repellant'.

For me, the most thought-provoking aspect of the Chadwick exhibition was seeing all the accompanying prep work.  Detailed supporting handwritten notes, sketches and test prints give us insight into how her ideas developed and how she approached the physical process of constructing a sculpture.  I particularly loved reading one notebook where she'd noted memories of her own past.  These gave me some ideas for my theme book which I need to start on soon. (I've decided on a family history theme.) Her notes included dates, records of her height, places, buildings and dreams.  On one page she written a list of memories of a particular school. Alongside 'maypole', 'pale green frieze above window' and 'wooden block floor', I laughed to read 'Angel in Nativity. Miserable.'!

I was heartened to see that the notebooks Chadwick submitted for her sculpture course had many similarities with mine: untidily written in various directions using different pens in a handwriting style that can vary depending on mood. Thoughts are sometimes very organised and sometimes random interspersed with lists, dates and contact details.  Like mine, I felt they were very personal 'notes to self' - sometimes no more than a word or two, possibly written in the middle of something important or maybe at night when you have a sudden thought you are afraid you might forget.  Though they are not beautiful to look at in the same way Alice Fox's are, seeing Chadwick's notebooks encouraged me to feel that perhaps my own scruffy scribbles are just as valid.

My notebooks have similarities to Helen Chadwick's! Some of her fasciniating notes are available to view online, courtesty of the Henry More Institute archives.