Skip to main content

Farewell to Art in Action


Apologies for the delay in writing this but I have had to take a little time out recently.

Sadly this was the last ever Art in Action after 40 years but it certainly did not disappoint and was a fitting way to say farewell to this event which was held in mid July. The wonderful thing about A in A is being able to see the artists at work and discuss their techniques and processes with them openly and in detail.
Hannah Tounsend was very generous with her time and was happy to discuss her gorgeous ceramics with me. She had just finished exhibiting at New Designers in the 'One year on' section and is clearly going from strength to strength with her ceramic work.

Sarah Morpeth's work was as wonderful as ever and it was lovely to catch up with her again and have a chat. I have been so inspired by her work over the years.

In the International Tent it was the Polish paper cutting (Wycinanki) that amazed me. On the wall was a discreet newspaper cutting that explained the history of the craft which was fascinating. I couldn't believe such enormous scissors could produce such intricate paper cuts. Apparently they are sheep shearing scissors which are now over 100 years old and half their original size due to constant sharpening!

Another exhibitor in the international tent were the Tentmakers of Cairo with their incredibly intricate quilts which must take forever to make as there is so much detail in them. Lots of hand stitching and patience!

I was very excited to see Harriet Riddell in one of the tents, working her magic creating a stitched portrait of a member of the public. I have seen her work before and love the way she records her travels in stitch as she journeys around the world. Harriet has a pedal powered sewing machine which means she doesn't need electricity to create her amazing artworks - I'm sure that this was particularly handy when she travelled around India. 

It was lovely to see Sarah Burgess again after her Pinpoint II exhibition at One Church Street Gallery last year. She had some fabulous print and machine embroidery pieces on display along with her installation of branches, all very inspirational.


And so it is farewell to Art in Action.....thank you for giving us the opportunity to celebrate all that is wonderful about seeing 'Artists in Action' in such a wide variety of disciplines, you will be greatly missed.




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wendy Dolan talk on Art, Architecture and Stitch

I had a lovely evening at Chiltern Embroidery and Textile Group in Tylers Green earlier in the week, it was good to be back there after giving my own talk back in March. I took my Mum and a friend to see a talk given by Wendy Dolan on 'Art, Architecture and Stitch' which was right up my street! Wendy is a textile artist who uses fabrics and threads to create textured designs with some wonderful results. I have met Wendy several times before as she is from Sussex (where I grew up) and we also have some mutual friends.   Wendy's talk covered how she develops her work from sketchbooks through to her final designs and she showed us photographs that had inspired her from a variety of places such as Barcelona and Venice. My work is also very sketchbook led so I could easily identify with her thought process. I am also drawn to textures but Wendy's work differs from mine in that she starts with plain coloured fabrics, stitch and thread - ...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to start a sketchbook project - Part 1

Since I've started a new sketchbook recently I thought I could do a diary of sorts to explain how I have put the various sections together. I chose the theme of 'Layering' as I was looking through some old A-Level Art & Design question papers and this topic appealed to me. If you want to create your own sketchbook obviously you could choose any theme you like, just make sure that it's something that interests you and you will find plenty of inspiration. I favour an A3 size sketchbook but there are no hard and fast rules on this, and it's best to go for a scale that you feel comfortable with. I started out with a title page and a 'mind map' of written ideas of anything that I felt could relate to the theme of 'layering', a brainstorm of sorts. This is a good way to get over the dreaded 'first page fear' when you just can't bring yourself to start your pristine book and any mark you make is overly scrutinis...
1 comment
Read more

'Marine Life' Sketchbook,

Having taken part in several Open Studio events, I have come to realise how much people do like to look at a sketchbook. I find creating the books a hugely enjoyable process and I'm still referring back to and using some of the imagery from the ones I did some 25 years ago! In this post I thought I would give you a quick flick through my 'Marine Life' book which is a more recent creation and helped to inspire my 'Shoal' and 'Sea Garden' ranges. Once I've chosen a theme I generally do a mind map and look at all the different areas I could explore within that theme. Over the next 5-10 pages I play around with different images, textures, media and scale to explore the possibilities. I also like to focus on a few artists or designers that inspire me too and may relate to my theme. I might do a few pages combining their style with mine and my theme and see what happens. I recently wrote an article for 'Workshop on the Web'...
Post a Comment
Read more