Lois Walpole

Urban Baskets Tradition Recycled

Harley GalleryAugust 2012

This is an exhibition of contemporary pieces of weaving covering the last 28 years. 

Lois Walpole uses anything that might be called rubbish  – beer cans, juice cartons, orange nets and best of all champagne corks!  Lois thinks that there is so much to hand there is no need to buy materials to work with.

The Harley Gallery is small and as always the pieces were well displayed.  There was lots of information regarding date and materials and a place to practice weaving.

It sounds a bit corny to say there was a real WOW factor when I entered the exhibition but I can't think of a better way to describe it.  In the end I went back to the gallery 3 times to look again.  It was so exciting.   I missed the workshop unfortunately but maybe I'll go and do one at Lois' home in France!

It's hard to select just three pieces but my choice is made by trying to select different materials.

Vessel

26cmx25cm 1996 Orange nets and polypropylene string

My photo shows the bottom of what is a vessel with an circular opening at the top.  It was wonderfully tactile but I've real idea how it was created.  Lois likes what she creates to be useful but I can't see any use practical for this item. To me that doesn't matter very much because it is so interesting. All of Lois' work refers to traditional weaving but with a very modern twist through the choice of materials.  She draws on techniques from around the world and creates a whimsical feel to everyday items like this vessel.

Laundry basket

2010 102cmx60cm Paper and  polypropylene string

This is a laundry basket; the lid lifts off about half way down the piece.  The piece is highly decorative but supremely useful as well.  I was surprised at how sturdy it felt being just cheap paper.  Alice Meynell, writing in the catalogue says

"I asked her to make a laundry basket which is now rather worn, but still in daily use, despite being used as the favourite spot for hide and seek by my four children".  Tough indeed.

Lois Walpole, Urban baskets tradition recycled
Exhibition catalogue, 2010

Laundry  basket detail

The laundry basket is made of colored magazine pages that are rolled and then woven together by string that was knotted but I don't know what the technique is called.  

My attempt at the technique.

I tried to roll paper in this way and then fasten it together.  I found that I always seemed to get a white edge so my work wasn't colourful like Lois'. Thinking about it later I realised that she maybe she trims off the edges of the page so she is just left with colour.  The tying together proved difficult and required another pair of hands.

Small dish

2009 63cmx10cm Plastic lids, tube and wire

This lovely little dish is made of all sorts of plastic tops threaded together on wire and surrounded but plastic tube and it is highly decorative. The dish feels really contemporary but it is simply traditional threading which is an ancient way to display beautiful items.  The surprising thing about this is that the tops become beautiful rather than rubbish.

Dish detail

I wonder whether this style will still be appreciated as attractive in a few years time when attitudes to re-cycling will have changed.

Overview

I enjoyed this exhibition so much.  The artist seems to have been re-inventing this medium since she was in college when she was viewed as a bit of a maverick  (Lois Walpole, Urban baskets tradition recycled Exhibition catalogue, 2010).

I just thank goodness that she had the strength to pursue what was right for her and give us these wonderful pieces of art. 

As usual the Harley Gallery gave the exhibition the best possible space to present work and I could take photos which I always appreciate.

Leeds Tapestry

Leeds Tapestry 2000

Leeds Central Library, Corridor outside the Art Library

August 2012

The Leeds Tapestry is a 16 panel community arts project that depicts the story of Leeds life both past and present.  It was embroidered to celebrate the millennium.

The work was facilitated by Leeds textile artist Kate Russell, who was inspired by a quote from Lewis Hydes’ book The Gift’: "Art that matters to people, delights the senses, moves the heart, revives the soul and offers courage for living".

The tapestry was 10 years in the making and completed in 2002. Many, many men, women and children contributed their time and skills to making this montage of Leeds life.  I found the corridor where the tapestry was hung to be an uninspiring place; simply a passage really and I found it hard to see some of the work because it was so high up.  Quite how you get over the height issue I’m not sure because these pieces are BIG. Each of the 16 panels measures 2.4 metres x 1.5 metres (8’ x 3’ 6").  Each panel represents different subject matter drawn from the community including Education, Health, Transport, the Environment, Textile and Industrial Heritage, Local Faces and Leeds in Bloom.

The textile panel

All of the panels are extremely busy with the maximum amount of visual information incorporated.  This makes Leeds seem a very vibrant place to live.  Some panels like Enterprise and Local Faces use perspective,  most don’t.

There was every textile technique imaginable in the work; collage, hand and machine embroidery and image transfer that I’ve yet to try.  This was used to depict identifiable people of local renown.  Photographs were transferred to fabric and the rest of the image was usually embroidered.

I’m starting to find that the unsung embroiderer is extraordinary in the skill level they possess.  The work on show was exquisite both in the stitching and the level of design detail.  My benchmark to date is whether I’m convinced by the depiction of fabric.  If I am then I’m totally on board with the work.  I have found fabric represented in stone and more recently in this exhibition and the work of Karolina Szymkiewicz displayed close by.  I find it amazing that I can be so persuaded that I’m surprised when I touch that it’s not fabric.  This was very much so with Henry Moore’s Reclining Nude At the Yorkshire Sculpture Park earlier this year.

I found the exhibition place unwelcoming and because of this I didn’t linger as I might have elsewhere.  There was a lot more to learn from this work than I actually took away.  Perhaps this is because there was so much; maybe being exposed to a panel a day would be a better way to approach it.

The tapestry was part of a two day break where we saw other things as well so maybe there was a bit of overload around.

I’m finding it hard to offer any sort of critique on what I see because I feel that my position right now is very ill informed; I’m very much at the beginning of things.  However I’m learning lots and maybe that’s what it’s about just now.

http://www.leedstapestry.org.uk/

A Study of Dance, Karolina Szymkiewicz

A Study of Dance

An exhibition of artwork by Karolina Szymkiewicz

Art Library, Leeds Central Library

2^nd-30^th August 2012

Karolina graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2011 with a Masters in Illustration.  She has moved to Leeds and is working freelance.  Her favourite medium of expression is drawing, mostly in pencil.  She is particularly inspired by the movement of the body and her Masters year was spent looking at dance and capturing movement.

For me this was a revelation.  I don’t think I’ve ever really looked at pencil drawings before.  The hair flowed and the limbs were captured mid movement. The picture shows how dynamic the drawings are.  I love the transparency of the fabric.

It was hard for me to believe the lines were just pencil.  It made my current “Making Marks” section of my course very meaningful.

I have been looking at shading with pencil so this is what I concentrated on.  Shape was defined by shading, the contours of the body so clearly shown but there appeared to be no actual outline drawing.  This may well be a naive thing to notice but it impressed me nevertheless.

The shading was usually made with what looked like fast, linear marks.  In fact the dates of all of the pictures were recent so they must have been done quite quickly.  The hair was drawn with long, sinuous lines that varied in intensity from fine, delicate strokes to intense, bold ones.  The whole effect was to create a rhythm that strengthened the movement of the body.  In the picture above this is further heightened by the flow of the fabric.

In a jokey comment my husband said “It’s just marks on paper” and the thing is he was so right.  But there is a world of difference between my marks and Karolina’s.

The effect of these pictures on me is very marked.  First, I love dance.  I find it exciting and exhilarating and the same emotions are there when I look at this work.  Second, it is inspirational from the point of view of my course.  Whilst I’m pretty sure I’ll not be able to produce work of such a standard it is worth considering that even Karolina started somewhere.  I hope she has a successful future ahead of her; she’s very young.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

I went to YSP just before I started my course so I practiced writing notes. It’s amazing from the James Turrell Deer Shelter to the Anish Kapoor exhibition.  My course manual says “walk around the whole exhibition first mentally making a noting the pieces that really interest you” and that simply can’t be done; YSP demands many visits.

Everything I saw was well displayed the indoor work all seemed carefully placed with lighting that fitted well with the exhibits. The outdoor exhibits looked like they'd been there for ever surveying the parkland. 

Henry Moore

I liked Henry Moore’s Draped Seated Woman (1957/58) because of its serenity and I was almost surprised when I touched the folds of the dress to find them made of bronze, they looked so soft and fabric like.  Henry Moore said of working on drapery

Drapery can emphasise the tension in a figure, for where the form pushes outwards, such as on the shoulders, the thighs, the breasts, etc., it can be pulled tight across the form (almost like a bandage), and by contrast with the crumpled slackness of the drapery which lies between the salient points, the pressure from inside is intensified . . . Drapery can also, by its direction over the form, make more obvious the section, that is, show shape. It need not be just a decorative addition, but can serve to stress the sculptural idea of the figure.

Henry Moore quoted from Sculpture in the Open Air: A Talk by Henry Moore on his Sculpture and its Placing in Open-Air Sites, edited by Robert Melville and recorded by the British Council 1955; typescript, copy in HMF library.

 Available from http://www.henry-moore.org/works-in-public/world/germany/wuppertal/von-der-heydt-museum-wuppertal/draped-seated-woman-1957-58-lh-428  

Moore must have studied how fabric drapes so intently.  I have an idea that I would like to look at a section of the drapery on this sculpture and transfer it back into fabric once again.

My photo of a section of

Henry Moore’s Draped Seated Woman (1957/58)

Miro

Joan Miro is not an artist I know much about.  Looking at the paintings I was able to identify materials and techniques; splashes, wax, collage with fabric, brush, spatter and finger strokes as he painted. Looking so intently at paintings is something I've not done before and whilst I don’t really care for the work I learned a lot just deconstructing in this new way.

There were also a great number of sculptures.  The ones inside the gallery were made of a variety of found objects; bits of dolls, old shoes and so on and this emphasised to me that everything can be put to another purpose and this changes its context

.

The outdoor work seemed to vary in style.  Sometimes the work resembled what I had seen indoors but other pieces were much smoother in texture and less fragmented.

I much preferred the Henry Moore work but at this stage it is hard for me to identify why.  

Kapoor

My most powerful responses were to the Kapoor works Void Spaces particularly Adam, a sandstone and pigment work from 1988/9.

Adam - sandstone and pigment 1988/9.

As I walked towards it I was afraid to approach, the apparent depth was so intense.  I think that might be because the pigment is matt black and seemed bottomless.

When I got back home I made a pencil drawing of Adam then tried water colour for the first time.  I decided neither of these actually evoked the feelings I'd had in the exhibition - they were a bit lifeless.  I tried to make a collage and this worked much better for me.  It is the only one of the three images that captures even a little bit the emotion I felt in the gallery.

My attempts to capture Adam

The other work was fascinating; as I moved it changed and changed and changed again depending on the light playing on the sometimes highly polished surfaces. 

I liked Void, a blue fibreglass form that hangs on the wall. It too changed so much as I moved around it.  It felt as though I could never really see it “properly” – there was no optimum position for viewing.

Kapoor says

the idea that if I empty out all the content and just make something that is an empty form, I don’t empty out the content at all.  The content is there in a way that’s more surprising than if I tried to make content.

From the exhibition pamphlet for Anish Kapoor: Flashback at The Yorkshire Sculpture Park 2012

Overview

I feel as though I've been able to comment on Moore because I'm more comfortable with the work I've seen and it's more familiar to me. 

I think I've sold Miro very short because I only know what I've learned today and feeling no position to make much by way of informed comment.

By contrast, whilst I knew little of Kapoor, my response was intense and immediate.  It simply didn't seem important that any comment would be a naive one.

I found YSP a wonderful place to visit and I've no doubt I'll be a regular visitor.  I've learnt  a lot about the many artists and their work but huge amounts about how to view and letting the emotional impact just happen without asking too may "intelligent" questions.

Re-framing my thinking

I've spent all evening exploring the OCA student pages and been amazed at the amount of information available. Thanks OCA.

I was unsure about creating my blog because I'm pretty shy about having my work out there in the public domain. Tonight I've been inspired by how freely students share their work for others to learn from. I can see that I need to stop feeling shy, re-frame my thinking and hope that other beginners can use my work in the same way. Thanks OCA students, this lesson was not in the manual but very, very valuable.

This is a just short post and doesn't do justice to the thinking and learning the evening has provoked.

Project 1 Stage 3 Exercise 1

Textiles 1 - A Creative Approach, Mark Making
Stage 3 Ex 1

A detail from A New Song 2005

      Jennie Merriman

Jennie Merriman uses stitched acrylic sheet, linen threads, linen, printed waxed paper wooden sticks and woollen weavings in her work.  The varied materials of this piece offer lots of different textures and for me evoke strength and solidity despite the sometimes transparent fabric.  There is  a softness about the weaving and the colours used.  I think the feelings in the piece are as varied as the materials.

My try at capturing Jennie's textures

I felt really out of my comfort zone with this exercise and found I was putting it off. I still feel that I don't really know what I'm doing with paint.

However, I tried to create a variety of texture

with gouache and a selection of brushes and hoped that the "feelings" would come out of that. 

I didn't manage Jennie's preciseness but maybe it doesn't matter too much as it seems to lend a softness to the piece.  I like the way I managed to get something of the transparency on the left of the work.  I wanted to represent the weaving element on the right and did this with short straight marks which I think work well.  I'm less happy with the way the wool doesn't seem to wind around the sticks.  My marks are too sharp.  The beads look quite tactile and hard.

I'm hoping that my next attempt will feel more comfortable.  I have to get over feeling that it has to be "right".

Another detail from A New Song 2005

                    Jennie Merriman

This is another detail from A New Song. I love this piece of work.  It's inventive and the colours are subtle and work together effectively. My second try was with soft pastels simply because I wanted to see what happened; what are the differences between them and the watercolours I tried earlier.

Using soft pastels

This is what I came up with.  It took just a few minutes but I had to stop myself just copying.  I tried to think of marks that represented what I was viewing.

I think pastels are too soft for the preciseness of the design - paint was better; less smudgy.  The transparency  was pleased with last time doesn't seem to work so well here and it was hard to get just hints of colour.  The background beige was easier to achieve and I quite like it.  I need to learn to mix paint more effectively.  Have I captured the feel of the piece?  I don't think so.

Sue Spivy - birthday card

The next image I tried is a birthday card by Sue Spivey.  It is a digitally produced image and I like the way the rock looks so improbable but still look convincing.  The card just shrieks "mark making".

Water soluble crayons

This was harder than it looked at first.  I couldn't seem to give the strokes the sharp, jerky feel they have on Sue's work.  I think the busyness is captured though.  I used too much colour for the sky and it really brightened when I wet it then I didn't know how to tone it down.  I used what was left on the brush for the sea and I think it worked much better - it seems to actually look wavy and watery.

Felt tip pens

I like the rock here much better than before.  I used quick jerky strokes and it makes the rock  look sharp and jagged and there's plenty of movement to represent the strata. I'm pleased with it.

I couldn't think how to use felts for the sky and the sea so I used pastels.  Not so good and I wish I'd persisted with the felts a bit more and experimented.

Project 1 Stage 2 Ex 1, 2 ,3.

I originally planned to use a paper based Learning Log but decided I needed yet another challenge so I'm doing a blog.   I've been working away on paper so to catch up I'm posting samples of what I've done so far.  Be warned there will be many slip ups!

This collage represents the journey I'm about to begin.  The luggage labels have text on the back which is all about beginnings.

Making Marks

Making the same mark with different grades of pencil

Making expressive marks

Making marks with a variety of paints

Making marks with a variety of media

Water colour on dry (at the top) and wet paper (bottom)

I wasn't happy with my first try at oil pastels so I had another go and taking more space helped a lot

I got interested  in how the colour I used evoked emotion.  Then I chopped things up and got quite different effects.

Printing and rubbing

Lifting out marks with a rubber

I've visited a few local exhibitions as well.  Art Through Textiles is a Sheffield based group who are exhibiting at the Rufford Gallery and Lois Walpole and Ptolemy Mann were at the Harley Gallery.  I've been to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, the Leeds Tapestry and seen a wonderful exhibition of pencil drawings by 

Karolina Szymkiewicz.  I'll copy them all into my blog as time allows.

This first blog looks a bit like a list - I'll keep practicing!