Kingsgate Open Studios

The studios are on three floors in a converted 19th century warehous with what must be "original design features" - though it was probably built before the days of electricity.
Lots of potters there, also furniture makers, painters, textiles - a good mix. Here are some pots made by 6 year olds in a class - including the Leaning Tower of Pisa - not bad, eh? -
We dropped in to a life-drawing session. Boy could that model sit still....

Stepping back and seeing the not-really-finished picture in relation to the model is instructive - Here's a bit of wall with a history - in a painter's studio of course -Great way to spend an afternoon.

Graphics 1

Another Friday, the start of another module - graphic design. Another project - we were given a written piece called simply "Plastic" to read and respond to. Turned out it was written by Roland Barthes in the 50s, a time when philosophers were starting to find meaning in ordinary things.

In the discussion we heard about a sea of plastic swishing about - bottles and bags and whatever, that will never degrade, just get ground finer. Much sand is now fine plastic. In some areas of ocean, plastic bits outnumber the plankton by 6 to 1; creatures can't get enough to eat, get stuffed with plastic instead.

Here are my first thoughts, using a painted and burnt plastic cup retrieved from the bin. And another worksheet, with the text and some ideas. At the end of the day we talked about what everyone had - one was that just parts of the plastic disappear, like a part of the bin (what happens to the garbage inside...), a bit of the cable covering (what does the electricity do, leak out?), and so on. That got me looking at the world as though chunks of it were peeling off....quite disconcerting... (too much imagination perhaps!)

By Sunday reality had slotted back into place. I got all the bags in the house out of the cupboard and laid them out, engulfing a corner of the kitchen -

Menacing? Pathetic? what do they look like to you? -

An evening of watching tv and cutting up bags, knotting the strips together, and winding them into a ball. More to come...

Site-specific project, day 2

We all came to class with our sketchbooks, lots of photos, things we'd found... Rose brough this photo of me with camera in hand - I like how she's removed all colour but green -

We're aiming to produce three, A1 sized worksheets that map out our influences, give a spatial context, develop primary sources and show the use of materials and perhaps the influence of other artists; refine ideas; and develop a final idea.

The worksheets are meant to be "lively". I tend to produce lots of small, faint scribbles when developing ideas, so using collage and colour is a step forward. One aim of the class is to "enjoy visualising your ideas". Perhaps we forget about the enjoyable aspect?

The layers of tracing paper are a development of the double-image reflections in the glass. This could be realised as a series of triangular mirrors that people walk past, so they see themselves refracted - whereas they wouldn't notice the phenomenon as they walk past the glass walls.

Another idea is based on a photo I took while lounging on the lawn - a touristy postcard that comes fresh out of a machine, and isn't necessarily sunny and bright because when you visit the site it's not always sunny and bright. This would need some text to liven it up - who needs a reminder of a dull day? Or it needs some way to get the visitor into the picture. It definitely needs some added value. Not the best idea ... move on...

How about a slot machine that dispenses - if you hit it lucky - some of the treasure to be found on the foreshore?

A more serious idea has to do with surveillance and constriction, but it's still gestating. I had several conversations about the narrow space, the dark tunnel, the "empty" corner - Or, how about a billboard of those foreshore scavengings?

The actual items are lying on a large photo - once this photo is printed out, the items could be added ... this is a series of ever smaller/larger photos that could go on and on -- Burmashave signs without the slogans? Or, a slide show of shards projected onto Tate Modern? there's a metaphor in there somewhere...

Site-specific project, day 1

The brief for this module of the art foundation course is to produce a proposal for a site-specific project along the Thames, between Tate Modern and Waterloo bridge. It can be anything - financial cost, health and safety aren't issues. Perhaps that's too broad a brief? That unrealistic aspect did seem to confuse a few people.

First stop was Tate Modern, with a look at the Arte Povera exhibit, works moving between painting and sculpture, with artists considering the site of the work and removing the frame. It's a movement that cleared the way for a lot of today's conceptual work.

The exercise of comparing a sculpture by Richard Serra (Trip Hammer) with a painting by Kasimir Malevich was illuminating (see both works here), but because we were a large group and the galleries had an echoey acoustic, it was hard to hear much of the other discussions. I'm thrilled to find the exhibition (Energy and Process, level 5), room by room, online here - not all images are available however.

We were let loose to wander along the river, draw and photograph, collect information. I did some drawing of the birch trees in front of the gallery, even tried to use colour
but got a bit more excited to see the double reflections in the cafe's glass walls. Out came the camera and then it was all go -

Dozens of photos later, time to find something different. Upriver a short distance is Blackfriars Bridge, and the footpath goes into a short tunnel. There's work going on to make a train station entrance on the south side of the bridge, so the tunnel is narrower than usual -

Here's the approach from the other end - very narrow, constricted, and gloomy beyond - people squeeze past the forbidding railings and hurry through -

past this empty corner -

watched by the inevitable CCTV camera high on a wall that's part of the bridge -

So I stuck my camera through the railings and took lots of photos of the reflections, zooming in and out, letting the automatic functions deal with light levels, using what the camera provided -

Looking back into the tunnel at 2.30 -

and the same scene at 5.30, when the sun had moved round - The bridge made terrific shadows -

Meanwhile others were already making their site-specific work in situ - and after the wrap-up session several of us went along the foreshore (you can see the tide was way out) to pick up bits of pottery and glass, some of which might well be Roman. The clay pipe stems are destined to become a necklace -

Strawberry time

When the berries are this big, you fear they'll be flavourless. But they were delicious - the variety is Driscoll San Juan, and they were flown in from the USA, probably the northwestern USA...

Voting

It's the election for Members of the European Parliament. My polling station is in the nearby nursery school
across the road from this florabundant pub -

Textiles 3

Final day of the textiles module, and I was leaving at lunch time - to get the train up to Preston for the Contemporary Quilt summer school at Alston Hall. But other people were busy making amazing things ....

...and I did have time to make a few more little ... um, what would you call them? Stitching round with raffia was interesting. Of course they were very tactile - and people discovered that they really did need picking up to be looked at properly, because of the stuff inside -

Then a few hours later, the discovery of this view from my attic bedroom -
So very not-London! And with a bonus of sunshine - it lasted all weekend, too.

Summer school workshop

Up at Alston Hall, we were layering and slashing - tutor, Karina Thompson. Here's the lovely big room we had to work in -

Karina's work is fabulous; we were privileged to also be able to look through her sketchbooks, and she brought many samples.

But we all had to start somewhere, and this is my first effort, turning down some of the layers -Then we learned about brushing the fabric to change the texture - and things suddenly got much more exciting, for me anyway. Using the leftovers from the "many out of one" little gems, I added some organza to see what would happen - especially if it was folded to protect the edge from the wire brush -

Here's what happens after some vigorous brushing! -

My biggest surprise was the way this loosely-woven scarf disintegrated - good thing it did - it started out as rather hideous (purple plus orange plus yellow plus gold threads plus gold print). The next layer is a splodge-dyed silk, pale and quite tightly woven.

The copper-coloured shiny stuff does start to peek through, but I left an unbrushed area as the organdie square on the top was curling nicely. I tended to dot various smaller pieces under the top layer, rather than use complete layers.

In the next one, the small pieces are near the surface, with something tweedy under the sheers, and that lovely coppery stuff again. I had a large piece of pink net and let that extend round the edges, with some organza sewn over it - for a feathery effect. Unfortunately the corners do tend to fall off - but look how the organza goes all wispy!

Now some prosaic cottons, and a bit of this 'n' that - It brushed up rather well. The angle of the stitching is steeper here.

Back to the revealing of layers - the sequins are added with a micro-tag gun. Gotta get one of those... And what happens when you use plastic? This is from a bread bag (nice sturdy plastic) -

The micro-tag gun was used to hold the layers together and reveal a bit of the background. Vigorous brushing didn't raise much nap: the fabric was calico and the plastic did need a bit of care -

More tweed, and more of the wonderful coppery stuff. I forgot to take a "before" picture, so here it is halfway.

Here's that hideous scarf again, over several layers, at the bottom of which is The Ugly Fabric that we were all given - we were expected to do "something" with it, and there would be a prize (not that we needed spurring on). I cut circles of the coppery stuff, and added more gold motifs... and stitched, and slashed (with ordinary - sharp - scissors, rather than a special cutter, by the way) -

And here it is, all fluffed up. The spotty fabric (a polyester with a sateen weave) has shredded nicely.

I liked that so much, I did another - this time with some loosely-woven cotton in the mix, and with the stitching at a steeper angle. In places, it needed a bit of a haircut. It was very addictive to keep making these samples. (Those last ones are about 16" square.) And now what? This is a great way to use up fabric - try everything, you'll get some wonderful surprises!