Watery-themed cyanotypes for an exhibition, using cut-out templates over vintage tile patterns. Definite Matisse influences here!
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Creative Sessions at the YMCA
Recently, I have been asked to run a couple of taster sessions for YMCA Cardiff Design For Life. The learners were keen to work with clay, as this is something they hadn’t tried before.
Clay is so tactile, soothing and grounding. Several learners commented that they had come reluctantly to the session, thinking it would be ‘boring’, but they had actually found it ‘relaxing and enjoyable’. The time passed very quickly, and seemed to open up a space for discussion about significant things. I asked the participants to create something that represents them, and one man sculpted miniature versions of the tools that he had used as a woodcarver. He included a mallet, two types of gauge with handle, and his unfinished sculpture.
Another learner had the use of only one hand due to a stroke, but was able to create two pieces that were meaningful to him. An ashtray, signifying his struggle to give up smoking, transformed into a clam shell into which he inserted a perfect pearl.
we pass the clay from hand to hand, raw and smooth,
shaping something unseen, something buried.
something is bypassed, something is regained:
an ashtray becomes a clam shell with a pearl,
a woodcarver recreates his tools.
the sea washes up a shoe, stones for skimming,
a rabbit’s remains
NHS @ 70 – Exhibition
Wonderful to see learners work exhibited from our Creative Wellbeing course that ran over ten weeks at Hafan Y Coed. Accompanied by two of my cyanotype prints from the bottle series, using words from poems written on the course.
Learners’ clay models
Exhibition: Pioneering Abstract Artists
The exhibition Surface Work (11 April – 16 June 2018 at the Victoria Miro, Mayfair) was a rich feast, with abstract work by more than 50 artists, all women, from five continents, spanning every decade between 1918 and 2018.
I knew of some of the artists who have “shaped and transformed, and continue to influence and expand, the language and definition of abstract painting”: Helen Frankenthaler, Yayoi Kusama, Lee Krasner, Agnes Martin, Mira Schendel, Gillian Ayres to name a few, but the majority were new to me, and it was revelatory to ‘discover’ so many artists who had been there for years, producing fantastic work in obscurity.
The exhibition gave me the opportunity to see work I had only seen small reproductions of in books such as one of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Nets. Kusama began painting the Nets in the early sixties shortly after she moved to New York, living in poverty until she began to sell work through a dealer. I love the intensity and repetition of the repeating loops that seem to expand and contract like a murmuration. There is a tension between a random and systematic aesthetic. Apparently, Kusama would paint the Nets for uninterrupted sessions of 40 to 50 hours as a way to channel and contain her mania. She has repeatedly revisited and expanded this body of work throughout her career.
Infinity Net (HNBKY) made in 2012
Kusama with early ‘Infinity Net’ paintings in her New York studio, 1961
Also immersed in the tradition of the sublime is Loie Hollowell’s work. Link Lingam (yellow, green, blue, purple, pink) 2018, has an intriguing undulating surface that folds into the design giving it a sculptural element.
Jessica Warboys’ large canvases are ‘painted’ by the sea shifting and scattering mineral pigments into them. The coast and landscape are a source of inspiration and influence for Warboys, who draws upon pagan history and folklore in her films and performances. She had a solo exhibition at Tate St Ives recently that included Hill of Dreams, a film that draws from Welsh fantasy writer Arthur Machen’s book of the same name.
See here for the online catalogue with overview of every artist.
Processions
The Women’s Arts Association has collaborated with Oasis refugee centre, Women’s Aid, and other groups to produce 31 squares for a banner to be carried through the streets of Cardiff on Sunday 10 June. PROCESSIONS celebrates the fight for suffrage and expresses what it means to be a woman today. I’m proud to be a part of this inter-generational project that celebrates women’s progression towards equality, strength and cultural representation.
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My square with cyanotype centre.
Whatever the Weather
The sessions that I am running at the lovely new mental health unit Hafan Y Coed have evolved into a combination of writing and art. As this is a new venture for me, it has been interesting to see how the planning of the course translates into practice.
We have taken a generic theme for each session, and this week was ‘weather’. As mindfulness is really useful in cultivating creativity, I’ve tried to incorporate it into the sessions. Learners initially used pictorial prompts as a focus, imagining themselves into various natural scenes, engaging all the senses through a short guided visualization. From this, they did some free-writing – jotting down anything that came to mind without worrying about punctuation or spelling or whether it seemed relevant – anything at all. This free-writing often leads to some unexpected story seeds and associations that can be developed later into a poem or short prose piece.
We read poems by some well known poets relating to the weather, and discussed how we felt about each piece. Then I presented a few examples of expressive art such as Frank Auerbach’s series of drawings he made after walking on Primrose Hill, and Georgia O’Keeffe’s watercolour, ‘Sunrise’.
Working Drawings for ‘Primrose Hill’ 1968. Coloured chalks and black pencil on cartridge paper.
Sunrise, 1916 – Georgia O’Keeffe
As we had access to the resources in the art therapy room, there was a good variety of mediums for learners to choose from to create their own weather-inspired art works. Within the work, they could incorporate their favourite words or phrases from those they had written earlier.
Two wonderful landscapes with text, using acrylic paint and coloured pencils.
News!
When I saw this a few months ago, I just knew I had to enter:
The Female Gaze PLAY OPEN CALL
I’ve long been a fan of the avant-garde film maker, Maya Deren, and here was the perfect excuse to revisit her work and life and turn it into a monologue.
I was thrilled when Sarah Gonnet of The Female Gaze magazine emailed me to say that my monologue has been chosen to be performed as part of the play on Women and Film at Alphabetti Theatre in Newcastle firstly as a work in progress in July, and then for a full run in early 2019. I should also get a contributor copy of the book. Very exciting!
This is the second monologue that I have had performed. My other monologue ‘The Bump’, written from the point of view of a pregnant teenager, was performed in 2008 as part of Scratch at the Jack, Brockley Jack Theatre, south east London. Directed by Hugh Allison.
