Exploration - Cape Cornwall - Brisons Veor Residency

In June I was part of a Residency at Brisons Veor

which enabled me to spend a week

experiencing the beautiful wildflowers

the intriguing coastline and changing weathers

with artist Susan Williams MRBS, 

photographers Gareth Williams 

and Andrew Rushton

We walked separately

in pairs

 or as a quartet

We brought our own works in 

progress to continue or pursue.

We enjoyed convivial company

and I had the most intense period 

of making and installing work.

Just a week, but what a week.

I continued to work on the pre-felts made during the course with Jeannette Appleton and developed a piece inspired by the Oblique Strategies cards by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt. I had no definite plan other than to let my surrounding sing to me and my experiences guide me, I was swept along by a tremendous energy drawn both from my surroundings and my companions. 

It was a jewel-like and infinitely precious.

An album of inspirations and experiments which informed the work can be found here.

Mess, Muddle and Materials - Monet Water Lilies, Year 2, Earl Spencer Primary School

We looked at Monet's painting and his garden,

talked about light and time, distance and focus.

We folded origami water lilies

I rolled blue watery backgrounds

each child drew a water lily and a leaf 

into press print and rolled their chosen colours.

We worked on A3 paper and made about 60 prints

and 30 folded flowers. It was a busy day!

REFractal Revisited July 2014

NN Project Space July 2014 Old Law Beacons Jo Dacombe, Kate Dyer and Carole Miles recreated elements of their sensory walk commissioned by Made in Corby and utilised Miles and Dacombe's INTenz n order to experiment with the wonderful light and space at NN Contemporary.

People played and created with our shiny pebbles, our mirrors and the light, wore our blindfold, listened to our sounds and talked about woodlands, the senses and personal connections with places. 

Listen

Mother of Pearl

 Pebble Intervention in 32 The Guild

We had some good interaction on social media also, both during the weekend and afterwards from people who came to visit. 

Friends of Delapre Abbey were extremely helpful, allowing us to make a connection between the park and N N Project Space


It was a great opportunity to test out ideas and work in an inspiring space. For more images click this link

Celebrating Winter Light

It had been a strange week of hard frosts and heavy rain but the day of our installation arrived with fair weather and blue skies. Having made about 100 torches, all that remained was to install them in the Kings Wood and wait for Friends of the Kings Wood, walkers and participants to find us! 

The Winterlight Team getting ready

Sophie Cullinan supervising the installation

Kate Dyer's epic pan of apple and parsnip soup

Lorraine Dziarkowska doing a spot of documentation

Torches tied to a tree

Light fading

replaced by a

mysterious blue glow.

We were joined by a lovely group of people, some whom had been involved in the making, others who had just stumbled upon us by chance 'Come and join us for hot soup and a marvellous slide show of fungi found in these very woods!" we cried, and they did!

It was a lovely way to explore the woods and feel connected to it's ancient roots and branches. At 5.00pm we took everything away, not one of us had thought to bring an actual torch to light our way out of the woods again, so we edged our cautious way through mud and puddles, laughing as we went. On the pavement by our cars, saying our farewells till next meeting a light drizzle of rain misted us, windscreens and tarmac.

An Invitation!

Snippet from film sound track we're creating for Light Walks , Carole Miles & Jo Dacombe

Light Walks snippet: Carole Miles and the Reverend Richard Coles in conversation, for video soundtrack

Illuminate - Looking at Language & Light

Priory Lower School have been awarded an ACE grant for a special project called Illuminate and I'm happy to say that I'll be working on this project too. My first project day was spent with Year 4 looking at the 28 ways of saying Welcome, as expressed by all the languages spoken in the school. We shared the words, tried saying them, talked about languages and words from other languages we knew. Our task was to create lanterns that could be part of the school's International day later in June, we discussed what Illumination and to illuminate meant and used a variety of stamp alphabets to apply the words to strips of paper. 

We could have printed the text out from a computer but there is something so much more personal about pressing letters into ink and the onto paper. I demonstrated how to make a sphere from paper strips, I also showed a couple of individuals who then went on to help others, creating a lovely atmosphere of making and doing in the room. When the spheres were complete we added the paper tails with their word of welcome and threaded the lanterns onto a rope of fairy lights.

Our task in the afternoon was to create a different type of lantern, using a large shaped punch I made windows in the paper lantern bases which the children filled with coloured tissue paper to simulate stained glass, they wrote their 'welcome' words on the waste shapes (which look a bit like t-shirts) and suspended them under the lantern body using paper clips.

The children were invited to 'illuminate' the paper printout words, some worked in pairs, some looked for a word in their own language, others looked for words from languages that they had learnt in school. By the end of the afternoon everyone was smiling, sharing words, helping each other and felt they had learnt new skills and new words. I am looking forward to exploring illuminated letters / words with the children further on in the project.

Drawing

During a few brief moments October I gave myself permission to draw, I have been heavily involved with Back To Books Big Draw activities at the Cube in Corby. The Family Drawing Days were great fun, with a steady stream of adults and children coming to make drawings in and around the building.

 This is an uncannily accurate portrait of me by Oscar Cullinan!

As it had been quite some time since I'd allowed myself the pleasure of drawing I just made quick sketches in between the activity of others, trees in the car park, pebbles on the roof, people sitting waiting for a bus, a family exploring the view from the top of the spiral staircase.

I wasn't trying to be accurate, I just wanted to enjoy the soft bite of the pencil on paper, the longer it is between one drawing and another, the more timid one is likely to become, that's why the Big Draw is such a life enhancing proposition and it really does encourage all sorts of people to pick up some sort of drawing equipment and start making a mark. 

It allows you to go back to the joy of looking, thinking and exploring what is seen and felt in the bustling world around us, tracing the shapes people make inside the space.

During half term we visited Compton Verney  spending a really enjoyable day walking in the gardens and visiting the exhibitions. There was an exhibition "Larger Than Life" of work commissioned by hospitals, made by Quentin Blake. The Circus series was a wonderful set of images created for an older adult's mental health ward depicting a range of older people showing off their circus skills to younger participants, a lovely way of exploring age and skill, youth and experience, fun and games. It was also great to see the real marks and washes on the paper, reproduction doesn't entirely capture the energy and humour, or the way colour and form are captured inside well practised lines & marks.

There were Big Draw activities throughout the building and the most fabulous exhibition of the history of fireworks and fire festivals, I love graphic design and the packaging and posters were gorgeous. Another exhibition made a host of fascinating juxtapositions between artworks from their British Folk Art Collection which has been cleverly placed in amongst other collections and peppered throughout the building. The artists involved included:-Tasha Amini, James Ayres, Daniel Baker, Sir Peter Blake, Sonia Boyce, Faye Claridge, Simon Costin, Jeremy Deller, Carolyn Flood, Jenny Gordon, Antonia Harrison, Susan Hiller, Juneau Projects, Alan Kane, Paula MacArthur, Mike Nelson, Martin Myrone, Paul Ryan and Sarah Woodfine.

Artist Laura Ellen Bacon is currently Maker in Residence and has made these intriguing structures amongst the trees in the gardens.

In the same week The Fishmarket Gallery in Northampton was a hive of activity as artists took part in interventions and activities for Northampton's Light Night Run. Artist and Queen of Cup Cakes, Tamsyn Payne offered artists the opportunity to make a sketch using EL wire. I made four small heads which were sited outside the Royal & Derngate (for one night only and they mysteriously disappeared) but here's a very very short clip of them blinking!

When I dropped the pieces off at the Fishmarket I had a chance to see The Seven Spires by Steve Massam which had been visiting many parts of the county as part of Northamptonshire's Cultural Olympiad project "Flow". 

The were land locked in the small courtyard outside, soaking up the weak October light and dreaming of their travels along the Nene.

I was reminded of Steve Massam's Spires when I spied the roof line of the St Pancras Hotel from the courtyard of the British Library during our Pilgrimage to London. We took a brief tour of the Treasures From the British Library after an inspiring day in the British Museum.

There had been so much publicity about Grayson Perry's "The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman" I was worried that it might not live up to to all the praise. It was totally a totally fabulous exhibition and I think I might just need to go and see it again. The thought behind the selections, the clever balance of artefacts, the energy and intelligence of the artist combined with the sensitivity and humour of the texts made this a filling, thought-provoking day. Oh yes, and there was lots of drawing - on pots and from history. Luscious!