Love Your Art

Artistic Dilemma

2012-01-25T09:37:00.000Z

We've not been to see any art over the past few weeks as we've been remodelling our kitchen. Before starting we removed all the art from the room and stored it safely away from the dust and mess. Unfortunately, we didn't really plan where these items would go in the new layout and now the kitchen's almost finished we have to resolve that problem. None of it can go back where it was as we've moved equipment around and added new cupboards.

We're faced with two decisions: whether to try and display everything we had originally or change some of the pieces, and choosing new places to put the items we decide to keep in the room.

We've already discussed this at length and haven't yet come up with an answer. When we do finally work out what we're going to do we'll let you know what we decided and how we ended up displaying the art.

Vick and Vince,
Love Your Art

Lovely Art - And Tempting Food Too!

2012-01-11T08:54:00.000Z

The BBC continues to produce some fascinating programmes about art. We have written recently about Fake or Fortune and last Friday night we came across Sicily Unpacked. The show not only covered some of the interesting art in Sicily but also another of our favourite subjects, food!

Vicky has been to Sicily before and has visited some of the locations shown on the programme. One of the sights she didn't see was the Oratorio del Rosario di Santa Cita in Sicily's capital, Palermo. Art historian and presenter, Andrew Graham-Dixon, was keen to show his co-presenter, Giorgio Locatelli, the interior of this building. Once inside they turned to marvel at the stunning, ornate decoration. What seemed like hundreds of incredibly fine religious figures and scenes covered the walls. These are the work of sculptor, Giacomo Serpotta, who used stucco with added marble dust to create an amazing finish to the sculptures.

Later, as the two presenters visited the Vucciria market looking for food to cook for dinner, they popped through a doorway to find a modern painting of the market by Renato Guttuso. The picture was densely packed with shoppers, market traders, stalls and food. Andrew pointed out some of the stories incorporated in the picture such as two traders apparently feuding over something. Guttuso also has other links with food; he illustrated the book Italian Food by Elizabeth David.

We're still planning our 2012 holidays and the temptation offered by the food as well as the interesting art may be too much for us to resist a visit together sometime soon.

The series runs for a further 2 episodes on BBC2 on Friday evenings. You can catch episode 1 on iPlayer over the next few days.

Vicky And Vince,

Love Your Art.

Review Of The Year

2011-12-28T09:08:00.001Z

As the new year approaches, it's time to both look back over recent months and look forward to more exciting art over the coming year. It's been an interesting year for the art world as well as for us. Here are a few of the things we particularly remember.

The Turner prize was won by Martin Boyce with a sculptural installation. 2011 was a special year for the competition as it was held away from the Tate Gallery at the Baltic in Gateshead. In coming years, the plan is to hold the competition at venues alternating between the Tate and other regional galleries.

The Hepworth Wakefield Gallery opened in the Spring. Although we haven't yet been to see the exhibitions, a visit is on our list for 2012. We enjoyed the Barbara Hepworth Museum at St Ives in Cornwall a couple of years ago and look forward to seeing more of her works along with other similar art.

The Zurbarán saga continues. First these historical paintings were to be sold off, then a deal was agreed to save them. Recently the deal looked like it had fallen through, then it was back on. Perhaps we haven't seen the end of the uncertainty yet but hopefully the plans for converting Auckland Castle into a new art gallery, with visiting exhibitions as well as the Zurbaráns will be finalised in the new year.

Vicky's highlight of the year was when we visited Bowes Museum to see an exhibition by Damien Hirst. His prints, depicting food packaged as medicine, ask whether we are as reliant on drugs as we are on food in these modern times.

Our trip to the village of Lempa in Cyprus was Vince's highlight of 2011. The jumbled collection at the College of Art reflected the bright and informal atmosphere of the island and it was a visual delight to become immersed within the work of the students.

But we both agreed that our joint favourite place this year has to be Cass Sculpture Foundation at Goodwood. Their stunning collection of outdoor sculpture really needs a whole day to view and appreciate the huge amount of artworks. Unfortunately we didn't allow enough time to see everything so we'll be heading back there again, hopefully in 2012.

Vicky And Vince,
Love Your Art.

A Trip To Hove

2011-12-14T09:12:00.003Z

The sun shone brightly, the sea air was fresh and breezy. The colourful beach huts almost glowed in the sunshine. A row of squawking seagulls sat on the rusty iron railings. A scruffy little dog ran past. "Good Afternoon!", cried a man with a long orange coat, a stripey scarf and a wide brimmed hat. As we walked along the promenade at Brighton it felt just like the scenes in our collection of Sam Toft's Mr Mustard pictures.

One of the first pictures we bought together was a limited edition print called "No Sheep On The Beach" by Sam. (By the way did we mention we collect sheep art?) We came across the picture in Gallerina in Darlington, Sam's official northern agent, and simply couldn't resist it. This began our mini collection of Mr Mustard pictures and ever since then we've wanted to go to one of Sam's open studio events. Finally, last weekend, we managed it.

As we entered Sam's Brown Dog Studio, there was a Christmassy atmosphere with seasonal music in the background, mince pies, mulled wine and popcorn! Sadly, we'd just had lunch so had to pass on the mince pies.

The place was packed with people. In fact, this was the busiest open studio either of us can remember visiting. Everyone seemed to be buying something: framed prints, signed artist's proofs, books, greeting cards and more. There were also some new pictures that we hadn't seen before. We snapped up a 2012 calendar and a couple from previous years. Unfortunately, this was all we could carry home on the train.

While we were there, Sam asked us if we would like to send a message of hope to Jabbar Savalan, a young man imprisoned in Azerbaijan after calling for protests against the Azerbaijan government. From 3rd to 17th December 2011, people from over seventy countries will take part in Amnesty International's annual Letter Writing Marathon, writing letters, signing petitions, sending SMS messages and taking action online to demand that Jabbar's rights are respected. Sam was preparing a letter to the Azerbaijan President and we were pleased to write a brief message of hope to Jabbar on a card. More from Amnesty International.

Sam is a keen to support various charities with her work and proceeds from some of the sales at the studio will also go to Sightsavers.

We enjoyed our visit to Sam's studio and were pleased to have met one of our favourite artists. We'll certainly go back again soon, to catch up with Sam and see how the Mustard story has moved on.

Check out more about Sam and the Mustards at Sam Toft's web site.

Vicky And Vince,

Love Your Art.

The Fat Lady's Singing

2011-11-30T08:25:00.000Z

It looks like Darlington Arts Centre will finally close next summer following Darlington Borough Council's latest proposal to withdraw all subsidies for the building.

In Autumn 2010, the Council initially proposed cutting all their funding for the centre and the building was due to close in Spring 2011. Fortunately, for the current financial year they were able to find enough cash to keep the centre open. This allowed talks with Darlington For Culture (DfC) to proceed with a view to them taking over the running of the centre in 2012.

Despite the past year being only a temporary reprieve, DfC claim they are "shocked" by the latest closure announcement and have vowed to continue the battle to save the building. But their plan relies largely on continued funding from the Council which, as we pointed out in our post in November 2010, seems quite unrealistic given the current financial climate. In addition, the building is in need of substantial investment to make it more practical and many people believe that some of the facilities are less than ideal for the arts activities taking place there.

Over the past few months, DfC have been running some additional events to demonstrate how they might operate the centre. They have had some success in bringing together ideas and helping to put them into practice. We enjoyed visiting their busy arts fairs, held in September and last weekend. The film club, quiz nights, tea dances, expanded writing classes and knitting group are other innovative activities that make more use of the building, even if they are not all directly related to art.

Sadly, this doesn't appear to have been enough to secure the survival of the centre. What is actually needed is replacement funding, raised by DfC or other organisations. DfC say they need more time to gain experience of running the centre and raise money. But direct fund-raising doesn't seem to be a priority yet.

In order for DfC to save the current Arts Centre, they will need to put up the cash, make the Council an offer it can't refuse and get stuck in. We're not sure how they can do this so they need a Plan B, an alternative way forward that ensures that the arts survive and thrive in the town.

The Council and other organisations are already considering elements that could form a Plan B. The recently produced Vision for the Arts in Darlington suggests that a new "hub" for the arts could be built in the town centre.

There would be many benefits from a new centre: cash raised from selling the old building should go towards the new one, it will be in a more prominent and convenient location, the facilities will be more practical and up to date, there will be improved accessibility, better parking and it will give a greater return on the investment made.

Of course, at this early stage there are still a few issues to be ironed out: lack of specifics about what facilities would be included, more detailed costs, no funding yet in place, how the funds will be raised and an unclear timetable.

We are very keen to see the arts survive in the town, but the existing Arts Centre does not look like the best option, both practically and financially. What little money there is needs to be invested in a future for the arts that is more sustainable and better value for money than at present. The suggested new arts "hub" looks like a reasonable solution and a plan that we would be likely to support.

The end is in sight for the Arts Centre in Vane Terrace. If DfC continue to focus on what they already do well - co-ordinating events - and also engage with plans for a new venue and help to influence its development, the arts in Darlington may yet survive the difficult times ahead.

Vicky And Vince,

Love Your Art.

ps. If you want to read our previous posts relating to Darlington Arts Centre, they are here:

Suffer Not In Silence, November 2010

Arts Centre Update, January 2011

Arts Centre Update 2, April 2011

Darlington Art Fair, September 2011

Art Or Craft?

2011-11-16T08:42:00.001Z

The other evening we got chatting about the difference between art and craft. This is an age-old argument and doesn't seem to be getting any closer to being resolved.

Art is often given higher status than craft which perhaps is a bit unfair. Even the simplest craft work needs a level of skill that could be described as artistic. And works of art have to be created with manual skills that might more commonly be used to create craft type objects.

Pieces of art are more often one-off works, personal expressions of the artist's feelings and perhaps having some investment value; crafts are normally duplicated (sometimes with small variations), are lower cost and each object is what it is, without any higher meaning or purpose.

Crafts might often be produced at the maker's home, without the need for dedicated space whereas art is more likely to need a studio to separate the activity from everyday living.

After a long and interesting discussion we realised that it was getting late and had to come to some conclusion. We settled on describing everything as artistic.

This helps us to justify some of the objects we have in our art collections. A few of these items could be described as craft objects but using the general term "artistic", we are able to group together all the things we like, regardless of any alternative views.

Take Alistair (Why Alistair?) from our ceramic sheep collection (top picture) as an example. There are a number of these sheep in existence but being hand made, all are uniquely individual. Some people would regard these as craft objects. If we apply our artistic label, focussing on the artist's skill and the individuality of each one, we would definitely consider this a work of art.

Or what about this embroidered coaster (lower picture). It is likely to have been produced from a pre-supplied pattern, suggesting it would be categorised as crafts. But the high level of needlework skill along with the flexibility of the pattern and choice of colours suggest that an artistic ability is needed to create it.

Both of these items are collectible. Both have aesthetic value. Both are worthy of the term "artistic".

Vicky And Vince,

Love Your Art.

Turner Prize At The Baltic

2011-11-02T09:31:00.003Z

You may have read our previous post about the four contenders for the 2011 Turner Prize coming to the Baltic gallery in Gateshead (here).

I've been looking forward to visiting the exhibition and had the opportunity to go to Newcastle on Friday. Unfortunately, Vince couldn't make it so I headed off alone to see what was on offer.

The first of the exhibition spaces contained Martin Boyce's installation of three works. I found this interesting and atmospheric: metal leaves along the ceiling created a dappled effect with the light, a sculptural table and a streetscape of rubbish including a waste paper bin and fallen leaves.

Then I moved on to Hilary Lloyd's space which had a variety of visual images playing on television screens or projected on to the wall. The images were deliberately distorted partial images of objects such as a tower block, shadowy figures and other unidentifiable things. This was quite challenging to the viewer as the images were constantly moving and changing.

Next were Karla Black's giant size sculptures of paper and cellophane which dominated the exhibition space. Covered with paint, powder and perfumed bath bombs these objects smelt as well as making a visual impact. I was able to walk under and through some of the sculptures.

George Shaw's paintings of the urban landscape of Coventry were very realistic. The pictures, whilst showing the bleakness of an inner city estate, turned run down garages and boarded up shops into works of art. Witty titles such as "Landscape with dog s**t bin" made me laugh out loud at the irony of such a commonplace item being given pride of place in the landscape.

So which one do I think will win the Turner Prize? Although I liked Martin Boyce's pieces, my favourite works are by George Shaw. These are something that even people who hate modern art can relate to. The pictures are painted with such skill and detail they look almost photographic. It's hard to believe they were painted with Humbrol enamel paint and not the more traditional oils or watercolours.

Read more on the Baltic Gallery web site.

Vicky,

Love Your Art

Art In Lempa, Cyprus

2011-10-19T10:14:00.001+01:00

If you happen to be in Western Cyprus and have an hour to spare, the village of Lempa is worth a visit. Last weekend we happened to be in Western Cyprus and had an hour to spare so we paid a visit. We found a village that had more art than most others we have been to.

As we drove into the village we were looking out for a building that's part of the Cyprus College Of Art. It wasn't long before we passed a wall constructed from a huge number of sculptures made from concrete, glass, metal and wood and probably a lot of other things too. It was fairly obvious that this was the building we were looking for.

A little further along the road we parked the car and found ourselves opposite the studio of artist Alessandra Desole. She was taking part in the Cyprus open studio event so we decided to look round. We were a little early but were welcomed by Alessandra who showed us displays of her paintings. These, mainly portraits, have a pleasant simplicity, painted in strong colours but with a softness of touch that makes them quite atmospheric and pleasant to look at. We also admired some of her small coloured stone figurative carvings. You can see some of Alessandra Desole's paintings on her web site. The Cyprus open studios continue during October 2011.

Strolling back to the college we were overwhelmed by the vast number of examples of the art produced by the students. Being a Saturday there was nobody there but a sign invited us to look round the grounds.

Within the walls we found a cacophony of widely differing sculptures, some abstract, some figurative, some made from found objects. Vicky liked the large carved wooden head and we both thought the group of dogs playing around a pole were fun. Here are more pictures of the students' sculptures.

As we left the College, a party of tourists arrived to look at the art too, guided by George, a local character who runs trips in his colourful old-fashioned bus. Returning to the car, the chatter and laughter from the crowd of tourists confirmed how delightful and exciting the art in the college grounds was. You can visit the web site for the Cyprus College Of Art And Design.

Our holiday in Cyprus was full of pleasant surprises and the hour or so we spent in Lempa was one of the highlights.

Vicky And Vince,

Love Your Art.

An Unusual Collection

2011-10-05T09:27:00.001+01:00

We like to collect. We have a few mini collections of related works including paintings, ceramics and other interesting objects. These might not be considered collections in the mainstream sense of the word but we find them interesting and enjoyable.

We're interested in the art that other people collect too. So we were fascinated by the revelations in The Telegraph last week.

Around 300 paintings were found in an outbuilding in the garden of a Polish bricklayer. Apparently worth millions of pounds, the works included a picture that went missing during World War II. No explanation has been given for the collection but the bricklayer has been arrested for handling stolen art.

You can read more and watch the video in The Telegraph.

Vicky And Vince,

Love Your Art.

Vegetarian Sheep?

2011-09-21T09:00:00.002+01:00

Art seems to turn up in the most unusual places as Vicky discovered at lunchtime the other day.

She had bought an Innocent Vegpot from the supermarket and when she took off the cardboard wrapper she noticed something printed inside it. We opened it up and saw a photograph of a floret of cauliflower with a few raisins attached to the side. As we looked closer we realised this actually formed a picture of a sheep in a field! (By the way, did we mention we collect sheep art?)

After investigating further, we found out that this was one of a series of humorous pictures using vegetables that make the product packaging more interesting. You can see some of the photos at the vegpot art gallery. (The pea pod canoe is our favourite.)

Inspired by the images we found on Innocent's web site, we decided to try our hand at doing something similar. A quick rummage round the kitchen turned up a few bits and pieces and we managed to create a sculpture that we call Veginia. She has a body of sweet potato, parsnip arms, carrot legs and an onion head with blueberry eyes.

OK, so the official vegpot pictures may not be mainstream art but they are a bit of fun and may even encourage kids to eat their vegetables. And, of course, we've added the cauliflower sheep picture to our collection.

Vicky and Vince,

Love Your Art.

Darlington Art Fair

2011-09-07T10:18:00.000+01:00

Saving Darlington Arts Centre from final closure next year is going to be a huge challenge. As we have reported in previous posts, Darlington For Culture have been working to encourage more use of the centre and looking at organising classes and events. On Saturday, one of their first events, an art fair, took place so we popped over just before lunch.

With displays and stalls spread over several rooms at the centre, there was plenty to see. Apart from paintings there was an interesting mix of arts and crafts including photography, glasswork, ceramics, jewellery, textiles, candles and cards. And for the kids there was face painting.

We had only been there a few minutes when we came across our friend, Janet Orme, exhibiting her exquisite botanical watercolour originals, prints and cards. Janet has now expanded her offering to include delightful china cups and dishes with her pictures printed on them.

Darlington Media Group were hosting a photographic exhibition - Disparate Integrations - that Vicky particularly liked. The photos by Bob McAvoy, Geoff Dodds, Jim Lycett and Ian Martin were predominantly black and white local scenes and views. Vicky thought the monochrome style gave a timeless feeling to the images and helped to focus on the subjects of the pictures. We both stopped at a picture of hay strewn over some old metal cartwheels and agreed this was a very atmospheric picture, reminiscent of historical farming techniques and a simpler life. This exhibition continues until 15th October 2011.

We were very pleased to see lots of sheep paintings (did we mention that we collect sheep?). We were particularly interested in those by Anne Mason, Eiann Cosgrove and Caroline Riley. We hadn't been looking for anything in particular but all three artists had "portraits" of individual sheep. It was difficult for us to resist any of these but after much deliberation we bought a pair of prints from Caroline Riley. We are now trying to come up with names for them both.

Most of the exhibitors were local artists and craftspeople and the event was a great showcase for their work. We can't remember anything similar to this in Darlington recently and in view of its popularity we hope there will be further events like this, perhaps near Christmas. We look forward to visiting the next one.

Vicky And Vince,
Love Your Art.

ps. Our next post will be in 2 weeks - Wednesday 21 September 2011

Local Support

2011-08-31T10:35:00.000+01:00

We often hear people talking about buying locally produced goods, usually fruit and vegetables. Perhaps this idea should be extended to buying art locally too.

We don't mean the abstract prints in your nearest supermarket, mass-produced and imported from the Far East, but original art created by artists who live in your local area.

There are many opportunities to see and buy locally produced art. We're particularly keen on going to open studio events. Here you can visit one or more artists that you are interested in, see a variety of their work on display and talk to them about what they do and why they do it.

Many pro-active artists also hold their own exhibitions in towns around their locality. The artist is often in attendance so again, there is a chance to chat about their work.

Often an artist is represented by one of their local commercial galleries. The gallery owner or staff will have an in-depth knowledge of the artist and the works. They'll have a number of works on display by the artist and will be able to obtain others if you are interested.

Buying locally has the advantages of being more convenient to build up a collection of a particular artist's work, it is easier to keep in touch with the artists and is an extra talking point when discussing your collection with friends. It also helps to strengthen the community and retains money in the local economy.

Of course, you needn't buy art locally just because it's local, you should buy art that you like, art that you can enjoy. But as we've explored the world of art, we've discovered lots of local artists making pictures and objects that we like, and we've bought some of them too. Why not explore a little closer to home, you may be surprised at what you find.

Vicky and Vince,
Love Your Art

The Wow Factor!

2011-08-23T16:00:00.000+01:00

Loving art as much as we do, we've a long list of places we'd like to visit all over the country (and the world). So when we decided to go to Chichester for our summer holiday we checked our list for the Sussex area and found Cass Sculpture Foundation, with its displays of large-scale, modern sculpture at the top of the list.

When we arrived we found that it wasn't only the artwork that was on a large scale, at 26 acres the grounds were big too. In some galleries and museums you're given a guide to help you find your way around. Here we were given a map, but perhaps a satnav system would have made things easier.

We largely ignored the map and just wandered where we fancied. After passing a fish on a bicycle, we were delighted to come across a bronze sheep (did we mention we collect sheep?). However, we were quite worried about the hungry-looking bronze wolf on the other side of the path and wanted to take the sheep home to keep it safe.

Wandering further, a palm tree made from old tyres caught our attention. Then we came to a large clearing with a huge, bright orange structure of steel loops named Alfa (top picture) and created by Gerry Judah.

Wow! We just stood in amazement at the scale of this work. With its monstrous curves swooping around each other it reminded us of animations of atoms with their electrons buzzing along circular paths. The orange tubes, glowing in the sunshine, created a strong contrast with the grass and trees in their summer greenery.

Everything seemed to be on a big scale. We were dwarfed by a bronze sycamore seed almost three metres (ten feet) tall and the free-standing steel and glass Stairway. We were tempted to have a rest on the Sitting On History seat in the shape of a book.

With over 70 individual sculptures, there was a huge variety of works to look at. From the wonderfully curvy designs made from carbon fibre and epoxy resin by Eilís O'Connell to the slightly creepy Host characters made by Peter Burke from reclaimed copper and steel. With so much choice, how could we pick our favourite?

Well, we found our favourite just as we were heading back to the car. Paparazzi is a series of cameras mounted on spindly birds' legs in bronze (lower picture). With their dull black finish these seemed to reflect the sneaky, anonymous character of the photographers that relentlessly badger the rich and famous.

Sadly we hadn't allowed enough time to see everything as we had to leave to meet up with a friend for dinner. With so many amazing sculptures there was simply too much to see in under two hours. Next time we're in the area, we'll be taking a picnic lunch and making a full day of it.

You can visit the website of Cass Sculpture Foundation for more information on the sculptures and artists.

Vicky And Vince,

Love Your Art.

Worthing Art Gallery

2011-08-17T08:38:00.000+01:00

With so many major art attractions wherever you go, it is easy to overlook some of the smaller, less publicised exhibitions in local galleries. So I made a point while on holiday on the south coast last week to seek out one of these exhibitions.

The art gallery at Worthing in Sussex was holding several concurrent exhibitions but with limited time, I had to choose which one to visit. The "Trees In The Landscape" offering sounded interesting and when I entered the Norwood Gallery I found a delightful mix of mainly landscape paintings with trees as the main feature. These were by various artists who had lived in or had a connection with the area.

One of the pictures that caught my attention was Flowers in Hot Sun by Ivon Hitchens. Hitchens had moved to Petworth, north west of Worthing, from London during the Second World War and was a keen landscape artist. The style of this picture, influenced by Cezanne, was bold and somewhat abstract. Its strong, bright colours warmed me up, despite the drizzly summer weather outside.

In strong contrast, another painting I found quite attractive was a winter scene entitled "Mill Near Midhurst". The bleak view across the millpond to the old buildings was gloomy, with heavy grey clouds stretching into the distance. The black bark of the trees stood out starkly against the snowy ground. The artist, Bruce Barnden, was once head of Chichester School of Art an enthusiastic romantic interpreter of the Sussex landscape.

The paintings in the exhibition have been chosen from the gallery's collection by Christine Forbes, a local art tutor. It runs until 5th November 2011. Details of this exhibition and others are on the Worthing Museum and Art Gallery web site.

Vince,

Love Your Art.

Holiday Time

2011-08-09T14:00:00.006+01:00

We've been busy planning our holidays which hasn't left much time for getting out and about looking at art. If you are still trying to find somewhere to go for your holidays, here are a few suggestions.

In Birmingham, a sculpture of Andy Warhol is on show.

Or if you fancy a trip to South Wales, a new art gallery has been opened in a phone box.

We are sure that the beer mat show in London will also attract a lot of visitors.

We hope you enjoy your holidays wherever you go.

Vicky And Vince,

Love Your Art.

Objects Of Desire

2011-08-03T10:57:00.000+01:00

"Just look at those smooth, sleek lines", I said to Vicky, "and the reflections in the shiny red paintwork." I've always fancied a Ferrari and although we weren't looking at a real car I wasn't disappointed; this painting by Anthony Knight was a stunning representation of a classic Dino.

We saw the painting when we visited the Unlikeness event at Arthur Robinson House in Billingham last week. Anthony and several other artists, photographers and authors were presenting some of their latest work.

Anthony painted his first car at the age of four and in the past couple of years has begun to spend more time developing his artistic talent. He particularly likes to paint iconic American cars, sometimes in an advanced state of decay.

In addition to the cars he was exhibiting there were several paintings of training shoes. This may sound like a strange subject to paint but Anthony is in good company with Van Gogh's old leather boots and Warhol's fashionable high-heels. Anthony's choice of a large size canvas and bold colours for these still lifes created quite an impact. There were different brands and colours and each pair of shoes had been posed in a unique way (one worn-out pair had even been thrown into a dustbin).

We particularly liked the blue Nike trainers swinging in the breeze as they dangled from a telephone line (see picture). The shoes clearly stood out against the background despite the similar blue and white colours. The larger than life scale of the painting meant we were able to admire the intricate design detail of the shoes that had been painstakingly reproduced by the artist, details often overlooked even by owners of the real product.

Anthony is working to develop his techniques and aims to produce paintings that are photo-realistic. From what we saw, he is well on his way to that already.

You can see more of Anthony Knight's paintings on his web site.

Vicky and Vince,

Love Your Art.

Lucian Freud

2011-07-26T16:35:00.001+01:00

We were saddened to hear of the death of Lucian Freud last week. Although he was not one of our favourite artists, we did see some of his pictures earlier this year at the John McCracken exhibition at Hartlepool Art Gallery.

Freud is a very popular British artist and is probably best known for his portraits which have been exhibited and sold all around the world. He has painted a wide range of people from family and friends to fellow artists and celebrities like Kate Moss and even the Queen.

His portraits are characterful, often nude and highly focused on the individuality of the sitter. He liked to get to know the people he painted, finding out about their unique personality and characteristics. This, along with his slow and deliberate painting technique, meant each picture could take weeks, months or even years to paint.

In 2008, Freud's portrait "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping" sold for over £17 million, becoming the highest price ever paid for a work by a living artist. This picture took around four years to paint with Sue Tilley, the subject of the picture, posing for a few days each week during the process.

Having learned a bit more about this remarkable artist, we have become much more interested in Freud's work and we are pleased to see that the National Portrait Gallery are to hold an exhibition of his portraits early in 2012. We will certainly be amongst the visitors to that show.

The exhibition runs from 9 February to 27 May 2012.

Vicky And Vince,

Love Your Art.

John Jones Linoprints

2011-07-19T16:01:00.001+01:00

One of the highlights of our day visiting Scarborough recently was calling in to John Jones' studio a few miles to the north of the town. We wanted to visit John as Vicky likes linocut prints.

John uses the reduction block method to create his prints. This involves building up a picture with layers of different coloured ink, working from lighter to darker shades. For each layer areas of the lino surface are carved or etched to form the printing area needed for the layer. When the final layer is complete, the block can't be used to make any more prints as the patterns for all the previous layers have been reduced to the final one. The end result is not only visually attractive but is also a high quality piece of art.

We were given a demonstration of the actual printing process using a linocut of a goose that John had previously used to make Christmas cards. He used a roller to apply ink to the lino then positioned the block in the press, a hand-operated Albion platen press from around 1830. In a matter of seconds, he had a perfect print of a goose!

John normally uses photographs or drawings to guide his work, either copying them closely or simply using them to inspire his own interpretation of the subject. Although he doesn't favour any particular themes in his work, we did notice that there are quite a few windows - stylish Georgian fanlights, Gothic style windows framing the scenes beyond them and, our favourite, images representing the seasons viewed through the window of a railway carriage.

As we were about to leave, John gave us the goose print he had made - a lovely reminder of our visit.

Vicky and Vince,
Love Your Art

Art In The Park

2011-07-13T09:55:00.001+01:00

As far back as I can remember, Brinkburn Dene in Darlington has been a place for leisure and relaxation. It's where I learned to ride a bike. It's where I saw Punch and Judy for the first time, gathered conkers each Autumn and enjoyed endless hours of hide and seek in the bushes (when the Park Keeper wasn't around). But over the years, the six denes became a bit neglected; seats were vandalised, flower beds were abandoned and gates fell apart.

However, in recent years, the council have given more attention to this useful local amenity. And this year an award from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Big Lottery Fund has meant some further developments including a bit of art.

Last week I witnessed the installation of a steel arch at the Pierremont Road entrance to the "Sheddy" dene. This is the first of the new, artistically decorated entrances that will soon be installed in all six denes.

The artistic effects are fairly subtle and have been created to reflect a different theme in each of the denes. This one (lower picture) has a theme of water and wood - representing the numerous trees and the beck that flows through the dene.

The designs for the arches have been created by artist Coralie Turpin. As part of the re-development project, she held workshops with community groups of all ages to identify and explore themes for each dene. She then took all the ideas and artwork from the workshops and consolidated them into simple themes for the six denes. Ideas ranged from the wood and water mentioned above to butterflies, flowers and footballs.

The £878,500 project also includes new bridges across the beck, lighting along some of the paths, new seating and signs. I'm looking forward to seeing the other archways and enjoying some new experiences to complement my childhood memories - there are still plenty of bushes for hide and seek!

The arches are being manufactured by Sheffield-based Mayflower Engineering,

a specialist in sculptural metalwork.

You can read more about the denes project or visit the website of Coralie Turpin.

Vince,

Love Your Art.

Digging Deeply

2011-07-05T13:59:00.002+01:00

What an interesting and popular series Fake or Fortune has turned out to be. The BBC show (BBC1, Sunday evenings, 7pm) has told some fascinating stories about the art world. We have learned a lot about how the art world works and have been entertained at the same time.

The first programme informed us about research into a painting that was claimed to be by Monet. Presenter Fiona Bruce and art expert Philip Mould visited Paris to investigate the picture's history. The found what seemed to be conclusive evidence that the picture was genuine, linking its previous owner with a dealer's label on the back of the picture. However, the people responsible for authenticating genuine Monets flatly refused to accept the evidence. The picture's owner and the presenters were all hugely disappointed at the news.

In the second programme, a painting by American artist, Winslow Homer, found near a tip in Ireland was due to be auctioned in New York. The investigators established the history of the painting but shortly before the auction the original owners got in touch to claim it back. The painting was withdrawn from the sale and a long-running legal battle continues to decide who really owns the picture and what is to be done with it.

Last Sunday, the investigation set out to find whether a picture thought to be by Van Baburen, a pupil of Jan Vermeer, was genuine or a forgery. The picture had been donated to the Courtauld Institute in the 1960s and their team had mixed views as to the artist. Some experts were pretty sure that it had been painted by Van Meegeren, a prolific forger during the first half of the 20th Century. After much to-ing and fro-ing between London and Amsterdam, the scientific evidence proved that it was a forgery. However, this may have increased its value as there are many keen collectors of Van Meegeren's work, despite its dubious status.

If we were to make one criticism it would be that the programmes are filled out a bit to fit the one hour slot. This is not uncommon with documentaries these days as producers seem to want to fill their allocated broadcast times with only as much as they can get away with. Vince fondly remembers the early Horizon programmes that were packed with facts and information, an entirely different style to today's stretched out documentaries.

The final program in the series is next Sunday but you may be able to catch up on earlier episodes on the BBC iPlayer.

Vicky And Vince,

Love Your Art.

Is It A Bird?

2011-06-29T09:05:00.000+01:00

At one of the open studios we visited in Scarborough last week, we came across some unusual pictures of birds. They were painted in mainly blue and green hues with the bird placed centrally with the surrounding area being a gentle blend of similar colours around the subject. But looking more closely our curiosity was aroused when we realised that the pictures had been painted on pieces of textured surface wallpaper.

Susan Slann, the artist who produces these intriguing pieces of art, takes sections of textured wallpaper and finds images hidden in the swirling, floral patterns in the paper. She then paints the image that emerges and colours the surrounding area. These works and other, more abstract ones, are part of Susan's exploration of how the mind works, especially how memories are uncovered.

Susan told us that she allows the images in the wallpaper to reveal themselves to her, she doesn't try to force a picture on the paper. At the studio we saw several pictures in this style with pigeons, blue tits, a swift, a hare and a brain.

The brain is, in fact, one of Susan's favourite pictures. It isn't depicted as anatomical text books would show it but more in the way that a person might feel about their brain. The result is a bold, striking picture in strong red hues that certainly stops you in your tracks.

We'll look out for Susan's works again, they represent a fascinating concept - how to understand memory - and we won't forget them in a hurry.

Why not visit Susan Slann's web site?

Vicky and Vince,

Love Your Art.

Time For A Break

2011-06-21T15:04:00.001+01:00

Saturday found us driving across the normally beautiful North Yorkshire Moors through mist and pouring rain to visit some of the Open Studios in Scarborough. By the time we arrived we were ready for a cup of tea and fortunately found one at our first port of call: Woodend Art and Craft Gallery.

"Designed To A Tea" was a small exhibition of works inspired by tea drinking. We liked the delicate, if impractical, wire cups by Helaina Sharpley. Vicky also loved the teabag necklace and sugar cube earrings by Angela Knipe.

In the adjoining room was an exhibition featuring a huge variety of teacups, made or decorated by members of the community. Artist Jane Poulton had been commissioned to work with local groups to create these decorative and often amusing cups. Some had been made from cardboard or paper, some were decorated with paint or with pictures stuck on them. One was even covered in used postage stamps! This was a delightful show with so many different styles, shapes and colours to see.

After a refreshing cuppa, we had a look round some of the other studios that were open in the Woodend building. In Sally Jubb's studio we especially liked the colourful pastel land/seascapes. Lindsey Tyson's textile art along with her delicate, flowing wraps appealed more to Vicky than Vince! And Vince instantly recognised Sally Gatie's paintings of people lying on pretty, decorative bedding, having seen her work last year at the Great North Art Show.

We also found time to call in to a couple of other studios in the area and hope to report on these in our next posts. Sadly we didn't see much of Scarborough itself, only catching a glimpse of the sea through the arches of the Spa Bridge. Perhaps next year we'll have to make it a full weekend.

Although the Open Studios event is over for this year, you can keep a look out for information about next year's event at the NYOS web site.

You can read more about Woodend Creative Workspace.

Vicky And Vince,

Love Your Art.

Vorticism Mania

2011-06-14T15:04:00.001+01:00

In the past week or two, I've been reading a lot about the Vorticists. With articles in the newspapers and on the Internet, it's difficult to avoid at the moment. Fortunately, having an interest in abstract art, I have found them all interesting. When I mentioned this to Vicky, she said she had heard the term but didn't really know what Vorticism was. So we spent an evening last week, reading up and talking about it.

Founded in the run up to the First World War by Percy Wyndham Lewis, Vorticism is a style of abstract art influenced by Futurism and Cubism. Works are inspired by the geometry of the industrial machinery of the time and include sculpture and writing as well as painting.

It is a British development in art but had both supporters and detractors. Apart from Wyndham Lewis, other painters and sculptors within the movement were Jacob Epstein, David Bomberg, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Dorothy Shakespear.

The War made things difficult for the artists to continue their work although exhibitions were held in London (1915) and New York (1917). Sadly, after the war, Wyndham Lewis was unable to revive the movement as attention moved to new developments in Europe and America.

Vicky enjoyed finding out more about Vorticism and although it's not her favourite type of art, she was fascinated by the stories we read.

Of course, the reason for all the interest in Vorticism now is the opening of the Vorticist exhibition at Tate Britain today. On display will be works by the leading Vorticist artists and sculptors of the time.

The Vorticists: Manifesto for a Modern World runs until 4th September 2011.

Picture:
Wyndham Lewis
Workshop circa. 1914-5
© Wyndham Lewis and the estate of Mrs G A Wyndham Lewis. Photo: By kind permission of the Wyndham Lewis Memorial Trust

Vince,

Love Your Art.

Happy Birthday!

2011-06-07T14:00:00.002+01:00

What do Paul Gauguin, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Damien Hirst all have in common? Well, of course, they are all well known artists. But they were also all born on this day, 7th June.

Despite sharing this birthday, the three artists have entirely different styles in their art.

Gauguin was born in Paris in 1848 but spent his early childhood in Peru. He was always interested in art but after returning to France and serving in the navy, he became a stockbroker. It wasn't until 1885 that he began to paint full time.

Tiring of expressionist painting, he developed his own style influenced by Cloisonnism as well as African and Asian art. His works show bold images and colours. Many of his later paintings are of people in the Polynesian Islands, where he died in 1903. Read more about Paul Gauguin.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was born in Glasgow in 1868. He may be best known for his architectural work but he was also an accomplished artist. He produced many drawings and watercolours and had a particular interest in landscape and floral and themes (see picture).

He was one of "The Four", a group including his wife, Margaret Macdonald, her sister, Frances and his friend and work colleague, James Herbert McNair, who together influenced the Glasgow Style of Art Nouveau graphic and decorative design. A couple of years ago we enjoyed a visit to the Mackintosh House at the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow to see furniture and interior designs that he had produced. Read more about Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Damien Hurst was born in Bristol in 1965. He may not be everybody's favourite artist but he certainly makes an impact on the art world. His controversial works include dead animals in tanks of formaldehyde. More conventional work includes print making. We visited an exhibition by Damien Hirst at Bowes Museum earlier this year. You can also read more about Damien Hirst on Wikipedia (his official site is under construction at the time of writing).

Interestingly, two other artists that we hadn't heard of were also born on 7th June.

Malcolm Morley, born in London, was the first Turner Prize winner. He is known for his photo-realistic paintings. Read more about Malcolm Morley.

And Red Grooms, whose works include sculpture, pop-art, printmaking and multimedia, was born in Nashville. Read more about Red Grooms.

Vicky And Vince,

Love Your Art.

The Humble Pencil

2011-05-31T15:01:00.002+01:00

Last Friday we decided to have a day out in the Lake District and, after lunch in Kendal and a lovely drive past Lake Windermere, we ended up in Keswick. We were looking for the Pencil Museum. We had seen announcements that the museum was celebrating its 30th anniversary and were intrigued such a museum even existed, let alone that it had been around for thirty years.

The museum, run by the Cumberland Pencil Company, is easy to find, being just a few minutes walk from the town centre. From the outside it looks like a simple, plain, large shed. But on the inside it contains a fascinating mix of art and history.

Although we use pencils all the time, we had never really considered how they were made. In fact the "lead" in pencils is made from graphite. This was first discovered around 1500 near Keswick and was used by shepherds to mark their sheep. By the mid 16th century graphite from the Cumberland region was being used by many Renaissance artists in their work. Originally, rough pieces were wrapped in sheepskin but the Italians improved on this by encasing strips of graphite in wood to.

The pencil has changed little since then. Nowadays the graphite is mixed with clay and pigment to make pencils with a wide range of colours and hardness to suit all types of artist and other users.

We enjoyed our visit to the museum. There is an imaginative range of educational and entertaining displays including a mock-up of a graphite mine and a video room showing how pencils are now made and a clip from the Snowman animated film which was drawn by Raymond Briggs using Cumberland pencils. Other displays show manufacturing equipment and sets of pencils from the past. We even recognised tins of coloured pencils that we had received as Christmas gifts when we were children.

With a cafe area including displays by local artists on the walls, a kids' activity area and a shop with art books, souvenirs and, of course, a huge range of pencils to try and buy, the museum has something to interest almost everyone.

If you're not heading up to the lakes in the near future, you can visit the Pencil Museum web site for more on the history of pencils.

Vicky And Vince,

Love Your Art.

We're Still Here

2011-05-24T16:07:00.003+01:00

Phew! We survived. Along with many of the other sinners in the world we were getting a bit worried about the warnings from Harold Camping, a preacher from California who predicted that the end of the world would be last Saturday. Fortunately he was wrong and we live to write another blog post.

Mr Camping is not alone in trying to predict the Rapture, artists have been trying to do this for centuries; not the date but how it might look. We've thought we'd check out some of the paintings that depict Judgment Day - a Christian and Muslim belief that good people will be taken to Heaven or Paradise when God makes his final judgment.

Probably the biggest is Michelangelo's The Last Judgment on the wall of the Sistine Chapel. This shows Christ in the centre with various saints around him. The people who have been saved are floating happily in the sky, with the condemned being forced into the mouth of Hell by a gruesome boatman at the bottom. In fact the boatman, Charon, is a mythical character from Roman and Greek history; Michelagelo was allowed to merge biblical and mythological stories together in the fresco.

The Last Judgment by Michelangelo

Another recognisable painting is by Hans Memling. This is an oil on wood triptych. In the centre panel Saint Michael is in the foreground weighing up the souls of the resurrected. On the left panel, the good are being welcomed into heaven whilst on the right, the evil are cast into Hell.

Last Judgment by Memling.

A more recent representation by Kandinsky takes a highly abstract approach, leaving everything to the observers imagination. Unusually, it is painted in reverse on glass with a frame for protection.

Last Judgment by Kandinsky (Half way down page.)

There doesn't seem to be as many paintings depicting the Islamic Judgment Day but here are a couple.

Day of Judgment by Mohammed Modabber

Day of Judgment by unknown artist

Finally, our favourite from those we've seen is this one by Fra Angelico. It is quite colourful, has a nice balance between good and evil and is less gruesome than most of the others (apart from the people cooking in the cauldron).

Last Judgment by Fra Angelico

Sorry if we missed your favourite. There have been dozens of works produced over the centuries and hopefully we'll have time to look at some more before the world ends on 21st October 2011 (according to Mr Camping's revised calculations).

Vicky and Vince,

Love Your Art.

Holiday Choices

2011-05-17T17:01:00.001+01:00

Lighter nights and warmer weather mean that it's time for us to start searching for a holiday. We are looking for a week away, somewhere in Britain, with some art that both of us would find interesting.

This year, after a bit of digging through some old brochures and the Internet, we have narrowed the options down to Sussex or the Cotswolds. We are heading to Sussex to visit a friend for a weekend in the summer anyway. Should we extend that short visit to see more of the area or broaden our horizons with a tour around the Cotswolds instead?

Both areas have a lot going for them. There are numerous museums and galleries, stately homes with their own traditional collections and various displays of outdoor sculptures and installations. Plus plenty of other appealing attractions, exciting events and stunning scenery to give us a bit of a break from the art.

In Sussex, we like the sound of popping along to Worthing Art Gallery to see some of the work of Carol Wagstaff, a versatile artist who is exhibiting works inspired by the museum's collections. Cass Sculpture is another possibility. It's a charitable foundation that commissions, displays and sells sculpture by 21st Century established and emerging artists. And for a late night out, we could watch the coloured lighting of the "Sticks Of Rock" along the prom at Hastings and St Leonards.

If we choose the Cotswolds, we could visit the Minotaur and the Hare, a large bronze sculpture, made by Sophie Ryder, in the middle of Cheltenham. Nature In Art, near Gloucester, has a diverse collection of works depicting animals, landscapes and other natural themes. And the Fox Talbot Photography museum at Lacock, near Bath, sounds fascinating too.

The jury is still out at the moment. We'll let you know our decision later and report on what we find wherever we go.

Vicky And Vince,
Love Your Art.

Howay, It's The Turner Prize!

2011-05-10T14:00:00.002+01:00

Great news for the north east of England. The Turner Prize is coming to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead later this year. It's a welcome change to have this major art event held outside London and there are plans for the event to be held at other regional venues every second year in the future. The Baltic, a converted flour mill, provides an ideal venue with it's spacious display areas and a solid reputation that it's built up over the years.

But the change of venue hasn't changed the controversy over the choice of artists which always seems to surround the event. This year the artists short-listed for the prize range from a sculptor of concrete trees to an artist who covers sheets in make-up. Here's a brief guide to the four nominees and an outline of their work.

Karla Black has an innovative approach to sculpture; producing installations out of unusual ephemeral materials such as cellophane, Vaseline, lip gloss and flour.

Martin Boyce, a sculptor, is known for his atmospheric installations influenced by modernism an urban landscape of sculptural trees, litter bins and park benches.

Hilary Lloyd uses sounds and images from the urban environment to create installations using those films, and the projection equipment itself, in the gallery to challenge the viewer with the still and moving images.

George Shaw uses Humbrol enamel paint to depict the area around his childhood home in Coventry in a photo-realistic way. His work represents conventional landscape painting but focuses on images of the mundane and the everyday.

We've never been to a Turner Prize exhibition before as we haven't managed to be in London at the time. With this year's event just up the road on Tyneside, we'll definitely be paying a visit and we'll let you know who we think should win.

The exhibition of the works of the Turner Prize nominees runs from 21 October 2011 to 8 January 2012. You can read more about the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art or Tate Modern.

Vicky and Vince,

Love Your Art

Pottery In The Gardens

2011-05-03T15:14:00.002+01:00

The weather has been lovely recently and with family visiting over Easter, we had a perfect excuse for a day out in Durham. There's plenty to see and do in this charming, historical city but the most enjoyable part of the day was when we visited Crook Hall.

We first discovered Crook Hall and its gardens a couple of years ago. We were enthralled by its quirky charm, the medieval rooms in the house, and outside the themed gardens and the pond with its water lilies.

But this time there was more. We found the gardens taken over by strange objects dangling from trees or lurking in the undergrowth. There were ceramic torsos hung against the stone of the walled garden, and animals and strange shapes next to colourful plants. These were all part of the "Out of the Earth II" exhibition of ceramic works by artists from NENPA, the North East regional group of the Northern Potters Association.

The hundred or so items on display were for sale and they ranged from pieces of thrownware to sculpture. We were tempted by many of the unique objects and enjoyed discussing where we could put some of them. But as we're still tidying up our back yard following extensive renovation work to the house, we weren't able to buy anything on the day we visited. Hopefully, the good weather will hold out, allowing us to finish the yard and return to Crook Hall to buy a couple of the works before the exhibition ends on 22nd May 2011.

Here are more pictures of the exhibits.

Find out more about Crook Hall or NENPA.

Vicky and Vince,

Love Your Art

Hidden Treasures

2011-04-26T14:11:00.000+01:00

You may have read recently about the Zurbarán paintings at Auckland Castle being sold off by their owner, the Church Commissioners. Concern over losing these historical pictures caused an outcry and led to campaigns across the region to prevent the sale. Fortunately, in March, a generous donation of £15 million was received from a City investment manager, Jonathan Ruffer, and the paintings are no longer under threat.

Tucked away in a quiet corner of County Durham, the pictures do not get the exposure of more famous works exhibited in London and other large cities. So what are the paintings like? And are they really worth £15 million? I decided to pay a visit to Auckland Castle over Easter to see them for myself.

The series of paintings is commonly referred to as the Zurburáns although the official name of the group is "Jacob and his Twelve Sons". The picture of Benjamin is actually a copy made by Arthur Pond of the Zurburán original which hangs in Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire.

On entering the Long Dining Room you are immediately confronted with the huge, larger-than-life, 8ft high portraits. There are thirteen portraits in all, one each of Jacob and his 12 sons. Zurbarán based his portraits on the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament and uses the descriptions of the sons to create recognisable figures. Some are obvious: Judah is depicted as a king wearing a crown and robes, and holding a sceptre; Asher is shown as a farmer carrying loaves of bread.

The portraits are dramatic, the ones showing Jacob, Judah, Zebulun, Dan, Gad, Joseph and Bejamin are full of rich reds, greens and gold in their clothing. Issachar is dressed more humbly in a plain green smock working on the land. Simeon is clad in animal skins and his uncivilised vengefulness is hinted at by the sword and the stick he is carrying.

These are an unusual group of religious paintings and it is fitting that they hang in Auckland Castle, the seat of the Bishop of Durham. I'm not sure I would pay £15 million for them but now they have been saved, I hope that many more people will be able to come and see the Zurburáns in the future. These have been hidden treasures for too long and deserve a wider audience.

Vicky,
Love Your Art.

Relaxing On The Beach

2011-04-19T14:00:00.003+01:00

Over the past few weeks we've been busy making some alterations to our kitchen. Moving cupboards around means we've also had to take down or move some of the artwork we have on the walls. Fortunately one of our favourite pictures, a view looking across sand dunes towards the sea, can be left where it is.

The kitchen has a coastal and boating theme and the artworks in the room follow that theme. All the items of art were bought cheaply as we were concerned about damage from the heat and humdity in the room. This picture was one of the earliest we chose together. We picked it up for a fiver in a home decoration shop while out and about on our travels.

It has no frame, but the clipped edges of its composition give the effect of a window, perhaps in a beach hut. It gives us an alternative view to the main kitchen window: an urban scene with patio, concrete path, brick walls and neighbouring houses.

The sand dunes scene has a calm, atmospheric feel to it. You can easily imagine strolling hand in hand along the wooden boardwalk towards the secluded shoreline on a warm summer's evening. With the gentle sound of waves washing over the sand it is a haven of tranquility compared with the realtively hectic activites that go on in the kitchen.

We are pleased that we have been able to keep this picture in its place within the new kitchen arrangement. So now, when we've finished baking bread and cooking soup, we can relax over lunch with a wonderful view to enjoy.

Vicky and Vince,
Love Your Art.

Arts Centre Update 2

2011-04-12T20:26:00.002+01:00

Darlington Borough Council, having re-arranged the existing activities at Darlington Arts Centre to run on fewer days, have made the Arts Centre available to Darlington for Culture (DfC) on Monday and Tuesday evenings to run their own programme of events. These would be additional activities, expanding the use of the centre.

Ideas for what to do will largely come from supporters of DfC and at a meeting on 31st March a number of people outlined the ideas they had. They were then hit with a "single whammy" - they must plan and organise their event themselves. This may be a great way to get people more involved in supporting DfC's campaign to save the Arts Centre but it seems like a case of being dropped into the "Big Society" deep end.

It also stopped us putting forward a few vague ideas we have because:

a) we don't know enough about the facilities to work out if an idea is possible
b) we don't know how to assess the overall feasibility of each idea
c) we don't have a broad enough range of skills or experience to take on a broad range of ideas
d) we don't know how to develop the ideas into fully formed proposals
e) we don't have the time to research all the above and work out how the ideas could be implemented
f) we're not in a position to underwrite them financially
g) we can't run three or four ideas on our own

Perhaps a better alternative may be for the steering committee to take each of these ideas, decide how workable it is then organise a small team of people, including the person who suggested it, to plan and implement the idea. This would combine the innovative ideas with the experience and support of others. It could also protect DfC from running unsustainable activities and may also lead to other ideas being considered.

We are hoping to attend the next meeting on Thursday when more details of the programme up to March 2012 will be discussed. But we suspect that our ideas will stay on scraps of paper for now.

Another development coming up in May is that Darlington For Culture are to officially become a Community Benefit Society, a type of co-operative. This approach is more democratic than alternative structures such as the Community Interest Company originally mooted and means that groups and individuals with an interest in the arts can be more directly involved.

This poses an interesting challenge for us: should we become members of this organisation to show our support for the arts in the town? We have discussed this at length between ourselves, debating the pros and cons, trying to predict the future and looking out for alternative proposals that may interfere with DfC's plans. We haven't convinced ourselves either way yet. Here are some of the issues we have considered.

Pros: If DfC take over the running of the Arts Centre it would continue to be used for all its current activities and probably more; DfC's democratic structure would be good for the arts community and should help with funding applications; the cultural parliament meetings that DfC have already been holding helps to direct and validate arts activities in the town.

Cons: Running or expanding the arts centre will be a mammoth task and could be overwhelming; there is no guarantee that DfC will be allowed take control in the future; as a group they have no track record of running such a complex organisation (although the individual experience of the people involved would help); will DfC be able to attract the substantial funding necessary and co-ordinate the resources when Darlington Council finally withdraw all their financial support?

The opportunity for running activities on Monday and Tuesday evenings will allow DfC to begin to show what they are capable of doing. Perhaps we should wait until this is under way before we make our final decision.

Vicky and Vince,
Love Your Art.

Press Freedom

2011-04-05T14:49:00.001+01:00

We always look forward to our trips to Richmond Station in North Yorkshire. And on Friday evening we were rewarded as usual with an exciting show of works by twenty of the UK's most popular printmakers.

As we strolled around the building, we were amazed at the broad variety of techniques used: etching, linocut, lithography, aquatint etching, screen printing and engraving. And with an even wider range of subjects and styles there was literally something for everyone to enjoy.

This made it very difficult for us to pick out a couple of particularly interesting pictures to write about. In the end, we agreed that everything was attractive and of high quality. So here are just a few of the things we saw in no particular order of preference.

Tescopolis, by Martin Langford, showed a busy townscape where all the buildings, vehicles and signs were branded or referred to Tesco, suggesting they are taking over the world. The only exception was an advertisement for The History Channel showing a program about Sainsburys.

Vicky's eye was caught by linocuts produced by Colin Moore. He has been influenced by Edward Bawden among others and Vicky instantly recognised the general style. The print "Suffolk" was her favourite with its soft colours and English themes.

Appropriate to the location in a former railway station, Gail Brodholt had a number of pictures showing railway stations and scenes. These were quite atmospheric, and were printed in strong, unusual, almost neon colours.

Ghost by Chris Pig was a detailed engraving that showed a building with ghost-like clouds swirling overhead. Chris has been influenced by film noire amongst other things and the building looks like it has a dark and scary past.

There were several attractive etchings of animals by Sonia Rollo including hares and cows. And Maggie, the cute little dog with big eyes made you just want to say "Ahhh".

We are hoping to win the competition running during the show. The prize is a copy of Nige Barges Past by Anita Klein. It shows a domestic scene which, like our own kitchen, is cramped, limited in space and means we are always bumping into each other. It is also typical of the way we use our kitchen: Vicky likes to cook and Vince likes to clear the cupboards of crisps, biscuits, etc. Hang on, that looks like our oven in the background too!

The show runs until 6th May 2011 and all the prints are available for sale. More details on the Press Freedom exhibition web site.

Vicky and Vince,

Love Your Art

The Art of Jewellery

2011-03-29T15:27:00.001+01:00

I love buying and wearing jewellery but try as I might I've never yet persuaded Vince to buy me any. I think he's scared of getting it wrong, because I'm very fussy (subtle hint: a pair of Tiffany diamond studs!). Vince wears a watch occasionally and that's about as far as he gets with personal adornment. He says that jewellery should enhance the natural beauty of the wearer. So he might have been surprised by the latest exhibition at mima in Middlesbrough on The Modern Jewel: In Time and the Mind of Others. Here jewellery becomes more than an object to be worn; it is a piece of art.

I was fascinated by the exhibit "Charlotte's Choice", two sets of cast carob beads, one set from gold and one from silver. Each set has equal value which works out to be 251 silver and 4 gold beads. Charlotte Wood, a 19 year old fashion student and Teesside resident, can choose which set she keeps and wears. The other set will be kept for exhibiting by the museum.

I would have loved to have been in Charlotte's shoes when she was given the opportunity to commission artists Lin Cheung and Laura Potter to produce this jewellery for her. Still, I can influence her choice as visitors are invited to help Charlotte by putting a gold or silver token into a box. I opted for the silver; 251 beads would make a wonderful necklace! I wonder whether Charlotte will follow the visitors' advice or make her own choice?

In any case, her choice is not final: she is allowed to swap one set of beads for the other. The rules for this exchange are set out in a contract that is part of the exhibit, along with a book to record the details of the exchanges over time. So Charlotte and the beads will become part of an on-going living art project.

The exhibition is part of the museumaker project and is a collaboration between the artists, local residents, mima and other Middlesbrough museums.

You can read more about the artists and the projects here:

Vicky,

Love Your Art

And the winner is...

2011-03-22T14:19:00.001Z

On Saturday evening we sat eagerly awaiting the lottery draw. The first number came out... We matched it! The second number came out... Oh no! It didn't match. Sadly, none of the others matched either. So no luxury mansion and posh car this weekend.

With nothing much else on TV we got round to talking about what art we would buy if we had won the lottery. With a few million pounds, there wouldn't be much that was out of our price range. And with so many interesting artists and such a wide variety of art, coming up with a single choice would seem impossible. Eventually we decided to pick two items each, not necessarily our favourites but something we would enjoy having around to look at, feel and admire.

Vince's first choice was Three Elements by Ronald Bladon. This minimalist sculpture is formed from three plywood trapezoids stood on end at an angle of 65 degrees.

"I like the simplicity and strength of the slabs," said Vince. "And the way they defy gravity."

Three Elements

Vince's second item was a more classical choice, The Hunters In The Snow by Pieter Brueghel the Elder. This picture has so much detail and reflects the hardships of the time it depicts. The story it tells is full of historical insight, social issues and symbolism. A very interesting picture.

The Hunters In The Snow

"I think I would choose one of Edward Bawden's linocuts," said Vicky. "Perhaps one of the rarer ones like 'Campions and Columbine'. I like the simplicity, the style and the Britishness of his works."

Campions and Columbine

Another artist whose work Vicky admires is Marc Chagall. "I love his folksy depictions of animals and people as well as the bright bold colours. As I have a fondness for cats I would choose 'Paris through the Window' as my second picture."

Paris through the Window

Even if our luck was in and these works came up for sale, we would probably only win a tenner on the lottery. Still, it was fun discussing and choosing what we would do if we did get lucky.

Exploded Art

2011-03-15T13:52:00.002Z

We were intrigued by the story on Newsbeat about a Mercedes Formula 1 racing car being "exploded" into a work of art. "We could do that," said Vince and promptly grabbed his toolbox and headed for the study.

The old Canon NP6016 photocopier that had been lying around for several years quickly became a pile of plastic, metal and electronic circuits. The challenge was then to arrange everything in its relative position and find a way to suspend it for display.

Not having a purpose-built frame to hang the hundreds of bits from, the washing line became an emergency stand-in. And it was back to the study to find a ball of string to suspend the components. However, we were only able to hang half a dozen pieces due to the weight threatening to snap the line.

Vince said, "Copiers are used by millions of people and they normally only see a plastic box with a lid. This exploded view shows them the heart of the machine in an unusual and artistic way. I call it 'Hang The Copier'."

The display makes the copier look like it has been frozen in time, except when a breeze blows and moves the bits around. It took about three hours to dismantle the parts and create the work of art, but that's nothing compared to the thousands of man-hours needed to design and build the original machine.

The parts are (from left to right):

Frame side panel

Main control circuit

Assortment of brackets

Operating panel

Cleaning brush

Prismatic triangulating focal reflector assembly

Supplementary toroidal quantum energy converter

Sadly, it looks like the sculpture will have to be dismantled as there is now a pile of freshly washed towels waiting to be dried.

Vicky and Vince,

Love Your Art

ps. Here is a previous version of an exploded F1 car.

A Busy Week

2011-03-09T06:55:00.000Z

We've been so busy this week, we haven't had much time to write anything. But here are the major headlines from the past week or so...

The world's most expensive painting goes on display at Tate Modern.

Read the story at BBC News.

Germaine Greer confuses students and teachers while trying to explain what art is.

Read the story at The Guardian.

And our favourite, Sheep Invade Times Square.

Read the story at All Art News.

Vicky and Vince,

Love Your Art

Artistic Influence In Hartlepool

2011-03-01T14:00:00.009Z

Vince's interest in boats combined nicely with our mutual interest in art last week as we headed over to Hartlepool for an afternoon out. After a quick look round the marina, we called in at Hartlepool Art Gallery to see an exhibition by local artist John McCracken.

We found an extensive show, filling a large part of the gallery, mainly portraits including several self-portraits of John at various ages (See picture above). We hadn't come across this artist or his work before but that didn't stop us appreciating his varied styles, mixture of subjects and versatility.

A couple of paintings that caught our attention were of people sat on a train. These pictures reflected a favoured style of John's: painting ordinary people in everyday situations. We could almost recognise the people sat chatting, reading the paper and gazing out at the dramatic views along the Durham coastline.

Also on show were paintings by artists who had influenced John's work such as Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Frank Auerbach. Some of these pictures had been loaned from the Tate Gallery, MIMA and Newcastle’s Hatton Gallery. It was interesting to compare the styles of all four artists in one place.

Originally from Belfast, John later settled in Hartlepool and came to have a wide involvement in the art scene in and around Hartlepool. He lectured at Hartlepool College of Art and was a curator at the Gray Art Gallery and Museum. He acquired a number of important modern works of art for the town’s collection including Lucian Freud’s ‘Head of a Woman’ and Frank Auerbach’s ‘Shell Building Site’. His friendship with Lucian Freud also allowed him to bring a major exhibition of Freud's work to Hartlepool in 1972. This is the only venue outside London to have held such an exhibition.

Apart from art, John wrote poetry and enjoyed jazz music. Sadly, he died in 1982 at the age of 46. We were surprised to discover that he married his wife, Carol, in the church that is now the art gallery where his exhibition is being shown. A very appropriate tribute to this versatile artist who had so much influence over art in Hartlepool.

The exhibition, 'John McCracken – His Work and Influences', continues at Hartlepool Art Gallery on Church Road until 2nd April 2011.

You can read more about John McCracken on Wikipedia.

Vicky and Vince,

Love Your Art

Have A Fun Week

2011-02-22T09:55:00.001Z

At this time of year we get rain, sleet, snow and half term. We should be able to keep the kids entertained by making pancakes but perhaps that's cheating as Pancake Day isn't officially until 8th March. So what can you do to keep the kids occupied this week. Why not take them for an arty fun day out? Here are a some family events happening in the north-east. Some are free with others making a small charge.

At Bowes Museum there is a Printing Workshop for Kids on Friday 25th February. Advance booking is required.

More about the Printing Workshop.

In Gateshead, the Shipley Art Galley and Museum has a variety of activities apart from the art shows. You could take them round the Sit Down: Seating for Kids exhibition, on tour from the V&A Museum of Childhood. On Thursday 24th February the kids can make a mini beanbag for their toys.

More details can be found in the PDF leaflet for the Sit Down Exhibition.

Head over to Mima in Middlesbrough for the Half Term Art Trolley event on 23rd, 24th and 25th February from 11am until 12 noon. Use a range of materials and equipment from the gallery's art trolley to make some art.

Broken Art

2011-02-15T13:31:00.001Z

Exposing art to the public can be a risky business as residents of Tullibody in Scotland found at the weekend. On Saturday evening, a car crashed into the steel statue, Man in Motion, which stood on a roundabout in the village.

The statue, now a heap of twisted metal on the ground, apparently received a mixed reception from local people when it was commissioned. However, there is no suggestion that the accident was a deliberate attempt to restore the roundabout to its original appearance, but was simply a traffic accident with unusual consequences.

The problem with putting art objects in open public places is that they will get vandalised, damaged and destroyed. We recently visited Bowes Museum where a display of bird lantern sculptures in the grounds was damaged by vandals late last year. The artist, Laura Baxter, had to spend a lot of time repairing them and replacing some of the parts. And in other places we have seen public art with physical damage or defaced with graffiti.

These risks should not stop artists and patrons producing art for public places. Perhaps methods such as barriers and CCTV cameras can be used to better protect these artworks. It would be a shame if all art had to be housed inside buildings to protect it as fewer people would go to the trouble of visiting those places. Outdoor public art can enhance its environment and if it doesn't, well, it gives people something controversial to talk about.

Read about the accident and related comments at The Scotstman web site or find out about the artist Andy Scott.

Update: 16 Feb 2011
It seems that keeping art inside doesn't help much either. In 2008 a ceramic sculpture by Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez was accidentally knocked over and destroyed by a visitor to a Royal Academy show.

Vicky and Vince,
Love Your Art

Art Revolution

2011-02-08T14:00:00.001Z

The world of fine arts may be about to undergo a revolution thanks to the Internet. Last week I went on to Google to do some research and found a panel on their home page referring to their newly launched Art Project. Of course, I couldn't ignore this so called Vicky over and we clicked on the link.

It seems that seventeen museums and art galleries from around the world have teamed up with Google to display a selection of their most popular works on the web. Looking around the project pages we discovered many paintings we had heard of (such as the Night Watch by Rembrandt and the View Of The Grand Canal by Canaletto) as well as a few we weren't familiar with.

We were surprised to see some of the pictures in extremely high resolution. By zooming in on these we could see the minute details of the subjects and the condition of the work; freckles on faces and cracks in the varnish.

It didn't take long for us to realise that this is an exciting development for the art world. Although there are only a limited number of galleries on the system at present, the potential is for every gallery and every work of art to be included, all in high resolution. Judging by Google's track record in other projects it has created, we have no doubt that this is what they would like to achieve.

The project means that anyone who has access to the Internet can see these works of art without the expense of having to travel half way round the world. While some claim that this will turn museums and galleries into deserts, we think it's more likely that people will be inspired to go and see the real thing and could use the project to help them plan a trip. Standing in front of a real work of art is an entirely more rewarding experience than looking at a photograph, however detailed.

Far from discouraging people from visiting collections, it should generate a wider interest in art, particularly as Google are likely to incorporate relevant links to the project in their search results listings. This can only be good for art lovers, galleries, artists, the general public and, of course, Google themselves.

We look forward to seeing the project expand and wonder how many art works and galleries will be on view in a few years time. Our next challenge is to decide where to go on holiday this year, a challenge that may be simpler thanks to the Art Project.

Why not take a look yourself at www.googleartproject.com?

Vicky and Vince,
Love Your Art

An Interesting Gift

2011-02-01T14:52:00.002Z

I had a pleasant surprise last week when Vicky brought home a picture she had been given by friends.

The picture is a black and white sketch of a semi-naked lady draped in a towel revealing her shoulders, back and neck. A black marble-effect mount sets off the picture perfectly but the shiny gold frame may not be quite right for it.

We hadn't been given any information about what the picture is so, as we often do, we opened up the back. Inside we found it was a print of a pencil sketch entitled "Portrait Of Back" by Gilles Sacksick. Neither of us has come across this artist before and we wanted to find out more. This proved a bit of a challenge as he was born in Paris and most of the websites that have information about him are written in French.

Once we had made sense of the translations we were intrigued to find Gilles is a versatile artist. He produces traditional fine art paintings, drawings, illustrations and woodcuts covering a wide range of subjects from portraits and landscapes to animals and still life plus many other subjects. He has also worked on theatre sets and costume designs.

His work has been exhibited in Paris, London, New York and Tokyo as well as many other places around the world. We will now be on the lookout for other work by Gilles.

As for the picture, it would certainly benefit from a more complementary frame to replace the gold one it is in. And we are looking at all our display areas to find an appropriate place to hang it.

Many thanks to Vicky's friends for this interesting gift.

Vince,
Love Your Art

Arts Centre Update

2011-01-25T14:09:00.002Z

We are pleased to hear that Darlington Arts Centre has been given a temporary reprieve from closure.

Unable to maintain their financial support due to the Government cuts, Darlington Borough Council had proposed the closure of both the local theatre and the arts centre. Now, following discussions with various interested groups, the Council have decided to try to sell off the Civic Theatre as a going concern. They will also be able to provide partial funding of the Arts Centre for another year, allowing other groups the time to properly organize themselves and take over the running of the centre by April 2012.

Last Thursday we attended Darlington For Culture's latest meeting where the new proposals had created a more optimistic mood. The council also propose creating an Arts and Culture vision for the town to give a clear and co-ordinated focus to whatever facilities and services will be provided in the coming years.

All interested parties would be involved in creating the new vision and as the seventy or so people attending the meeting fell into this category, we made a start. Tables, paper and pens were set up for four categories: people/service users, artists/producers, venues and education. We wracked our brains, discussed and debated, and scribbled down ideas about what we would like to see provided over the next ten years or so. After about half an hour, several sheets of A1-sized paper were filled with people's thoughts and comments. We look forward to seeing the summary of these ideas and the ultimate vision that, hopefully, they will influence.

It is not yet clear how the Arts Centre will operate during the transition year and whether there will be any reduction in services provided. From Darlington For Culture's point of view there is still a huge challenge ahead to retain the Arts Centre and the cultural activities that take place there. The group's steering committee will have their work cut out for them over the coming months.

Vicky and Vince,
Love Your Art

Art? Passive?

2011-01-18T14:00:00.007Z

I was chatting to a friend yesterday about our blog and how interesting it is to be getting more and more involved in art activities. She was only half listening, nodding politely from time to time. When I paused, giving her a chance to make a comment, she said, "That's all very nice but art's a bit passive for me."

Passive! Passive! I couldn't believe my ears!

Perhaps a stroll round a gallery casually looking at the pictures to pass the time of day is passive. But beyond that you will find that art is an exciting, dynamic and sociable activity. Vicky and I can spend whole evenings talking about art in general as well as discussing the concepts and merits of pictures or objects we have bought. It's fascinating to explore what the artist is trying to achieve with their work and what it all means.

And when you start chatting with the artists themselves there is so much to learn about their inspiration and the techniques they use. It's great listening to their stories about life as an artist, the places, people and art they have encountered.

Then, of course, there are the endless exhibitions, galleries, open studios and outdoor sculptures to visit. Sometimes it's difficult to choose what to do with our time, there's just so much going on.

My friend was now listening intently. "It sounds like lots of fun the way you explain it," she said, "but you must be exhausted all the time."

Well, maybe not quite exhausted but we really do enjoy the varied and stimulating world of (not so passive) art.

Vince,
Love Your Art

Food, Glorious Food!

2011-01-11T13:31:00.003Z

After the indulgences of Christmas and having polished off the last of yummy chocolates, cakes and puddings, we decided we needed to get out for some healthy fresh air. So last Sunday we had a trip to the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle to see Damien Hirst's current exhibition.

The exhibited works were grouped into four sections: photogravure prints of skulls and butterflies, Spirograph style drawings, spot paintings (multi-coloured circles) and pictures of medicine packaging modified to represent food, rather than tablets, as the contents. It was the latter display that caught our attention the most.

The thirteen prints of food packaged as medicine, collectively known as "The Last Supper", are intended to question the relative importance of drugs and food and whether people in the modern world can survive without both of these. The prints were cleverly presented using drug company packaging with the ingredients changed to items of food and the brands replaced by variations on Hirst's name.

We laughed at the idea of food as medicine: imagine popping a small pink capsule of sausage or having steak and kidney pie fed intravenously! We also wondered about the Science Fiction connection and the rehydrated food used by astronauts on space flights. We decided that we preferred the tastier and healthier option of preparing and eating natural food - the colours, tastes and smells that bring so much pleasure to life.

As we wandered round the other galleries, we were reminded that food has been a popular subject in fine art over the centuries. An oil painting by Henri Fantin-Latour with fruits and flowers looked so tasty we wished we could eat them (the fruits that is, not the flowers). Damien Hirst has brought this tradition of food in art into the 21st Century with familiar commercial packaging and a pop art style to give us plenty of food for thought (sorry!).

By now we were getting hungry and headed downstairs to the cafe. We were relieved to find that there were no fish and chip pills or dumpling suppositories on the menu and enjoyed a nice cup of Yorkshire Tea instead.

The "Damien Hirst: Print Maker" exhibition runs until 27th February 2011. More details are on the Bowes Museum web site.

Vicky and Vince,
Love Your Art

New Year Resolutions 2011

2011-01-04T14:00:00.002Z

Happy New Year! Hopefully you've all recovered from the fun and festivities. Now it's time to get serious and make those New Year's resolutions that you've been putting off. We'll help to get you started with our list.

Enjoy a wider variety of art. We've barely started to explore many types of art: textiles, glass, photography, jewellery and many other genres. We'll open our minds to all aspects of art.

Meet and talk with more artists. Looking at art is great but when we get the chance to chat with the artists about their work, it opens up a whole new world. Everyone we've met so far has been fascinating to listen to and we've enjoyed discussing a huge range of art related topics.

Buy better art. Some of our earlier purchases were not quite the best choice. Now we have more experience, we can buy better works to replace them, improving the quality of our collection and making a more attractive visual display.

Launch our web site. We've been planning a web site to support the blog for some time and have been busy developing the idea recently. A little more work should see the site ready for launch in early 2011. Watch this space.

Despite many New Year's resolutions about diet and fitness being abandoned after a couple of days, we're confident that our art resolutions will be achieved - some day.

Vicky And Vince,
Love Your Art.

2010 Round Up

2010-12-28T14:00:00.022Z

As the year rapidly draws to a close, it's time to reflect on what's happened over the past months. For us it's been a great year: we launched our blog, visited lots of galleries, exhibitions and other art events, talked to dozens of amazing artists, began to build up a collection of pictures, ceramics and other art and generally had an arty kind of year.

It's difficult to decide what the highlights of the year have been, but after much discussion, here our some of our favourite things from 2010.

Favourite Picture

Rosita, our own Mona Lisa. We discovered her in a charity shop and almost passed her by. She now keeps an eye on the comings and goings from the corner of our living room. This is an intriguing portrait that has given us lots to discuss and we are sure it will continue to do so.

Favourite Ceramic

Mortimer, the toucan has a unique style, dramatic colouring and a personality all his own. He has a comfortable little perch on top of the electric meter cupboard; an ideal vantage point to watch the world go by through the front window.

Favourite Place

Richmond Station in North Yorkshire. This rennovated railway station is not only a versatile and active venue for displaying and selling art but also a very popular focal point for local residents and tourists alike.

Favourite Artist

Where do we start? We've met so many and admired so much of their work. As we've chatted with them we've discovered a wealth of artistic talent and enthusiasm. So we have to say that they're all our favourites. We thank them for their interest in what we are doing and look forward to seeing them and many others we have yet to meet next year.

Vicky And Vince,
Love Your Art.

Art In Malta

2010-12-21T14:26:00.003Z

We're just back from a lovely trip to Malta. The island is strategically located in the Mediterranean Sea, just south of Sicily. Having been occupied or administered by Phoenicians, Romans and British amongst others, it is steeped in history. But despite this varied history, we weren't expecting to see much in the way of art.

However, we had barely got off the plane before we encountered our first piece of Maltese art. As we entered the airport terminal building we passed a modern sculpture called Flight (pictured). This was the beginning of an art journey through the ages.

Our first trip out was to the capital, Valletta, where crowds were celebrating Republic Day. We had been led to believe that everywhere would be closed but we found all the shops open. These included quite a few art shops selling contemporary paintings, ceramics, glass and jewellery.

Whilst in Valletta we also visited the Casa Rocca Picola, a splendid 16th century palace now owned and occupied by the 9th Marquis and Marchioness De Piro. As everyone else was watching the Military displays in Republic Square, we were given a personal tour by the guide and were able to spend more time looking at the things we found particularly interesting. Every room was filled with pictures, including family portraits dating back to the 1500's, local landscapes and other interesting subjects.

Later in the week we returned to Valletta to visit The National Museum of Fine Arts. On display are a large number of pictures by artists who were either native to the island or who had visited there. The dates range from the 1400s to the present day and many of the earlier pictures are in a Caravaggistic style. Sadly, we missed seeing some of Caravaggio's own paintings which are in the St John's Co-Cathedral; we arrived 15 minutes after it had closed. If you're not familiar with Caravaggio, you can read more here.

Moving back to Roman times, we visited the domus museum at Rabat, near Mdina. A small display of artifacts did not really prepare us for the splendid mosaic floors that had been unearthed here. Sections of mosaic were also on display around the rooms. Some of these were made with tessera only few millimetres in size. The exquisite detail must have taken a team of artisans months to create.

Going back even further in time, the Hypogeum in Paola is a series of prehistoric underground burial chambers dating back between 4000 and 6000 years. This amazing feat of architecture carved out of the limestone to form interconnected chambers is the last place you would expect to find art. But in some of the more recent (if you can call 4000 years recent) chambers, hexagonal and spiral patterns painted in red ochre could just be made out on the walls and ceilings.

What we had planned to be a simple, relaxing holiday with visits to a few historic places, turned out to be a fascinating exploration of the history of art in Malta.

Vicky and Vince,
Love Your Art

Letter To Santa

2010-12-14T14:00:00.004Z

Dear Santa,

We are looking forward to Christmas very much and have been very good boys and girls all year. We have built a worthy collection of art and supported several charity shops at the same time. We haven't written nasty things about controversial artists or their beds and we haven't knocked over any expensive Chinese vases.

Please stop at our house on Christmas Eve. We will leave you two mince pies and a glass of sherry as well as a saucer of milk for Rudolph.

Here is our list:

Tickets to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, inclusive of flights from Heathrow Airport. We want to have a thorough look round the gallery so we will also need two weeks accommodation at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Plus a bit of spending money for the shops.

An art lesson from Banksy. This will let us decorate the outside of our house in a stunning fashion and increase the value of our home by about ten million times!

The Tate Art Collector card game. This will keep the family occupied when they visit and with our superior knowledge of art we will always win!

Finally a picture of sunflowers to brighten up the Winter days. The one by Van Gogh looks quite nice and we will make every effort to find a space on our wall for it.

Finally, finally, a year's supply of Pringles crisps so we have something to nibble on as we admire our own little art collection.

Vicky and Vince,
Love Your Art

Colours Of The Landscape

2010-12-10T09:30:00.001Z

We were hoping to visit Ann Whitfield's exhibition at the Witham Gallery in Barnard Castle this weekend and were disappointed that other commitments made this impossible for us. We've come across Ann's work a couple of times recently and had made a mental note to take a closer look and hopefully chat to Ann to find out more about her unique style of painting.

As luck would have it, Ann had read our blog and invited us to visit her a couple of weeks ago for a chat and to see a broad range of her work. So we wrapped up well against the early snows and trekked along to Barnard Castle.

Ann began to focus on painting landscapes around eight years ago when she and her husband, Terry, moved from Dorset. She is inspired by the scenery in and around the Dales but rather than make a realistic depiction, she prefers to give a slightly abstract feel to her pictures.

Working with acrylic paint using a palette knife, she sometimes incorporates other materials in the pictures including tissue paper, gold leaf and metallic foil (apparently Green and Black's is the best - both the foil and chocolate!). The tissue paper gives an interesting texture to the paint and the foil and gold leaf adds an extra dimension when it catches the light.

On the face of it, her choice of colours (not that it's really a conscious choice) are unusual. But the lively purples, oranges and pinks are used by Ann to express her emotional response to the subject matter. She recalls a visitor saying that her pictures were "full of joy". We have to agree, they are quite uplifting and very different from conventional landscapes.

Apart from the colours, Ann told us that she likes to portray the hills and valleys accurately so that people are able to recognise the places. She and Terry often go walking to find interesting and unusual views for Ann to sketch and subsequently paint. She finds that fellow walkers like to see and buy her paintings and love to relate stories from the locations they are familiar with. We'd also like to visit some of the locations in Ann's pictures to see them for ourselves. But perhaps we'll wait for the snow to melt first.

The exhibition is running from 10th to 15th December 2010, from 10am to 5pm each day. Ann is sharing the exhibition gallery with Anne Mason, another popular artist from nearby Eggleston.

Ann also has a selection of her pictures permanently on display at her home and is pleased to welcome visitors. You can arrange a visit by email (info@annwhitfieldart.co.uk) or take a look at Ann's web site.

Vicky and Vince,

Love Your Art

The Art Of Geometry

2010-12-07T14:00:00.012Z

When you think of art, you don't normally associate it with mathematics. But an artist we met recently combines her skills in both art and geometry to create distinctive carved ceramic works. We met Halima Cassell at the preview of her "Dreams Made Manifest" exhibition at Darlington Arts Centre and again a few days later when she gave a talk about her work.

Easily recognisable, her unique style comes from her observation of patterns and their transformation into three-dimensional forms. She takes inspiration from the patterns she sees in Islamic architecture and Asian and African designs.

A versatile sculptor, Halima occasionally works in bronze, stone and wood but her favourite material is clay. Using a variety of clays from around the world she first makes the basic form then calculates, measures and marks a geometric pattern into it and finally carves out the three dimensional pattern. The resulting pieces have individual colours and textures and are described by Halima as "faceted forms"; they reflect light and produce shadows creating a sense of movement as you walk around them.

As we browsed around her exhibition, we were delighted to see that almost all of her pieces had names (we've lost count of how many times we've visited exhibitions where everything was labeled "Untitled"). Halima told us she usually comes up with the names herself but on the odd time she gets stuck, she simply invites a group of friends around, opens a bottle of wine and by the end of the evening, somebody has usually come up with a great name for the anonymous piece.

Halima is a remarkably talented artist. Her imaginative ideas and observational skills combined with her dedication to quality and precision make her work popular around the world. Yet she remains down to earth, friendly and accessible to her fans (which now includes us); she can explain her work equally well in both a technical way and in a simple, jargon-free way that even we can understand. We look forward to our next encounter.

Halima's web site is at www.halimacassell.co.uk.

Love Your Art

Vicky and Vince

The Missing Link

2010-11-30T14:00:00.011Z

We've talked about seeing art. We've talked about buying art. The missing link is doing art. So with cheque book in hand I called into Darlington Arts Centre and enrolled on an Introduction to Drawing and Painting course.

I have to say that I am not a skilled artist. I've done a bit of doodling in the past but nothing worth keeping. I can also manage to splash a bit of paint on the kitchen walls when they need it.

It was a chilly Wednesday morning in September when I joined the group of a dozen other students to learn what drawing and painting is all about and have a bit of fun at the same time. After the obligatory safety talk and introductions, we got started mixing paint to work out how to make virtually any colour from a basic half dozen tubes of paint.

By week two we were painting a watercolour landscape, a task that was pretty simple thanks to the carefully thought out approach of the tutor, Paul Dillon. Paul has over thirty years experience of drawing and painting and easily pointed out what each of us was doing well and how we could improve on the trickier aspects of painting.

One of Paul's main interests is landscape painting and this influences the classes to some extent. However, he's keen that everybody discovers their own preferences and techniques and he spent time with many of the students suggesting how they could develop their individual styles in the future.

Like me, the other students enjoyed the course too. They agreed that it had been a useful, broad introduction to painting and drawing. Those who had not done any art before had learned a lot; those who already dabbled a bit had refined their techniques and picked up a lot of hints and tips to take them further.

Although my artistic ambition is to create sculpture and mixed media art, this course has given me many of the essentials that I can use when working on my own art.

The course content covers drawing, watercolour and acrylic, observation and composition. It deals with the basic theory and provides lots of opportunities for practical work. So if you want to put things into perspective or find out how to use puddle management to avoid cauliflowers, why not have a go yourself.

The course was part of a programme of leisure classes run by Darlington Borough Council. More are planned for the New Year term. Contact the Arts Centre for details.

Love Your Art,
Vince

Suffer Not In Silence

2010-11-23T14:23:00.002Z

If you'd gone along to Darlington Arts Centre last Thursday evening, you may have struggled to get in the building; there were hundreds of people milling around. Some had come to visit the centre's own theatre, some to learn how to paint or make jewellery, some to see Halima Cassell's ceramics exhibition preview, some simply to have a drink and a chat with friends in the Lounge and some to attend the Darlington For Culture meeting.

This is a thriving centre of culture, entertainment and social activities. Sadly it may close next year due to Government spending cutbacks. We joined the latter group of visitors to hear about an initiative that may avoid the closure of the building and retain the range of popular arts activities in the town.

Last month Darlington Borough Council announced their worst-case scenario for cutting £22m from their total budget. This included withdrawing their generous (compared to other, much larger, councils) funding for both the Civic Theatre and the Arts Centre, leading to their likely closure. Darlington For Culture was quickly set up with the intention of maintaining the services provided through alternative support from other funding bodies, the centre users and the community at large.

The meeting, chaired by Paul Harman who has extensive experience especially in the performing arts, covered three main points; the discussions that had taken place with the Council so far; a proposal to set up a Community Interest Company to take over the operation of the building and an idea for a "cultural parliament" where issues and the needs of the community could be discussed openly and acted upon. The meeting was attended by members from the clubs and groups based at the centre, representatives from the council, staff and users of the centre and also concerned members of the public.

The general feeling from the audience was that losing a facility like the arts centre would be a significant loss to Darlington as a whole, not just the regular users. It was pointed out that the arts centre served a regional community and perhaps additional support could be obtained from further afield. Several people urged co-operation with the council and other bodies rather than trying to go it alone.

A number of related ideas, some more realistic than others, were put forward. But we're not sure that the suggestion to ask the council to do a U-turn and leave the funding in place would be very successful, considering the pressure they will be under to make substantial savings across their budget.

As you might expect, there was some political posturing by a few people in the room. However their mischievous interruptions were greatly outnumbered by the concerns and support from the majority of the day-to-day users of the centre.

At the end of the meeting a vote was taken on whether individuals would pledge £10 each to buy a share in the company. The vast majority raised their hands, moving the process another step forward.

Whether or not Darlington For Culture will become part of a solution is still uncertain. There may not be sufficient support or time to make the necessary arrangements. What is certain is that without a determined push to find a solution, it is likely that Darlington Arts Centre will close next year.

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

Art For All

2010-11-16T14:34:00.002Z

Darlington Society Of Arts is holding its annual exhibition at the Arts Centre in Darlington. We couldn't miss seeing a large number of paintings, ceramics and mixed media by local artists so off we went.

We were impressed by the quality of the works, the range of styles and techniques used as well as the variety of subjects. We would love to talk about them all but we only have space to mention a few items that caught our attention.

Bella Staithes by Cassandra Anderson is a watercolour of Staithes harbour in unusual shades of purple, pink, brown and turquoise. To us, it seems to be alive with movement and activity, we can almost hear the seagulls and splashing waves. It has an atmosphere that many similar pictures fail to achieve.

Cassandra likes to paint all kinds of subjects. She told us that she paints very quickly and has built up a diverse collection of work. She is now studying Art History through the Open University.

Jack and Rosie Mackenzie are brother and sister and both obviously talented artists. At the show they are exhibiting mutual portraits in acrylic. Both pictures use completely different styles yet both are full of character and emotion.

Rosie's portrait of Jack won the Junior Award. It captures the light and shade on Jack's face perfectly. Jack's portrait of Rosie was highly commended. His technique of bold brush strokes works well to portray his sister in an intimate pose of laughter. It's a pleasure to see some younger artists applying their skills to portraits, a genre that seems to have lost its popularity these days.

The exhibition runs until 19th November 2010 at Darlington Arts Centre.

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

It's Alive!

2010-11-09T13:52:00.003Z

Illustrations for books form a specialist art genre of their own and are growing in popularity among collectors. The opportunity to own an original illustration is enticing for several reasons: it represents favourite books or characters especially from childhood; it brings a story to life; it's a work of art in its own right; and it's for investment reasons. The Alive! exhibition at the Myles Meehan Gallery, Darlington showcases important illustrators some of whose images are instantly recognisable as well as including many unseen illustrations that were unpublished.

The role of the book illustrator is to interpret the story and depict it in a visually appealing way. In children's books these pictures are often whimsical depictions of people and anthropomorphised animals sometimes in comical situations. For example, I laughed out loud at Emma Chichester Clark's Croc - a cute, harmless bright green crocodile wearing a pink scarf - opening gifts on Christmas Day in "Presents"; or sitting on chair in an outdoor cafe enjoying a nice cold drink with her friend Melrose in "Cafe Scene".

Both adults and children will be familiar with the work on Quentin Blake; of his works featured here, I particularly liked "Reader with Parrot" rendered in his well-known pen and ink style with watercolour. The simple, quickly drawn lines portray the humour and absurdity of a purple parrot perched on top of the head of an elderly man sitting reading in a chair. This picture is part of a series Blake has produced featuring birds doing human tasks in "The Life of Birds".

Ronald Searle also switches between illustrating for adults and children and I didn't know he had produced illustrations for Jeffrey Archer's short stories in "Cat O'Nine Tales". The story of "The Commissioner" is illustrated with a portrait of the Bombay Chief of Police as a rotund looking man: dressed in a grubby cream military uniform bursting at the seams; with an elaborate upturned moustache; a gun holster is hooked around his neck, and he is using a large white hanky to mop his head.

Coming to exhibitions such as this is enjoyable as I'm often introduced to artists whose work I want to see more of. One is Oliver Jeffers for his simple but humorous illustrations with complicated titles such as "He Thought He Might Lasso The Star With The Life Belt" and the book eating boy in "He Was Going Through Them At A Fierce Rate".

Another is Paul Cox, whose work I'm going to nominate as my exhibition favourite for his picture in Durrell's "My Family and other Animals" entitled "Don'ts says anythings to anyones". This shows Spiro and Gerald driving, in an open top car, back from town where they'd been to buy some goldfish. It's a large dramatic picture fizzing with personality and energy allowing the characters to live beyond the pages of the book.

The Alive! Contemporary British Illustration exhibition continues at the Myles Meehan Gallery in the Arts Centre, Darlington until 13th November 2010. The works have been selected and supplied by Chris Beetles Gallery, London.

Love Your Art,
Vicky

Cockerton Art Group

2010-11-02T14:33:00.001Z

We had a weekend of surprises while visiting an exhibition of art at a local church in Darlington.

Our first surprise was how many people were there viewing the art works. When we arrived, around 11am, the atmosphere was buzzing and we had to squeeze past lots of other enthusiastic viewers to see the pictures.

The show, held by Cockerton Art Group in the Methodist church on the village green, had around 120 pictures produced by the group's members. As you would expect with a general exhibition like this the subject matter and the mediums used were wide ranging. The quality of the work was excellent and most of the pictures were for sale, with prices typically between £10 and £50.

We moved slowly up and down the rows of tables with the pictures on them, it was easy to view the pictures and nobody seemed to mind if you picked them up for a closer look.

As is customary with our blogs, we will mention a few that we liked. Vince was impressed by Carol Cloughton's picture of sheep on the moors. By the way, did we mention that we collect sheep art? Vicky liked L Roach's use of perspective to draw you along the South Jetty at the harbour in Amble, Northumberland. We also admired the finely detailed fretwork of two ladies by Peter Edge.

After a brief look round we noticed a sign saying 'cafe' so decided to go for a cuppa. Here was our next surprise, the Sunday School rooms had been converted into a makeshift cafe and it was packed with even more people than the exhibition! We managed to find a space sharing a table with a couple who had been to see the pictures too. We enjoyed a friendly chat with them about the exhibition and the pictures that we liked.

Our final surprise was on the way out as we spotted a couple of scantily clad women! Fortunately they were only paintings, by the aforementioned Peter Edge. We wondered what the Minister might say if he saw them in his church!

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

Teesdale Open Studios

2010-10-26T16:26:00.000+01:00

Open studio events are a convenient way to have a day out visiting artists, enjoying their art and exploring the local area. So last weekend, foregoing our Sunday lie-in, we headed off to Barnard Castle where members of Teesdale Artists' Network are throwing their studios open to art lovers.

Our first call was on John and Pam Pickering. Pam was showing some of her delightful felt pictures based on mythical themes and the natural world. She explained how she embroidered the felt panels both by hand and using a special sewing machine. When producing commissioned work, she likes to include images and symbols that have some connection and meaning to the client.

John showed us a wide range of his paintings, many depicting scenery and landmarks in and around Barnard Castle. His style is strongly influenced by his background in graphic design and screen printing. We particularly admired his paintings of Venice. John likes to visit Venice to find scenes to paint and has found these pictures are very popular with art viewers and buyers.

Next we headed for the Spice Island Restaurant. Not for lunch but to see pictures by Rennie Hamilton (see picture above). Her abstract landscapes and rock formations are influenced by climate change. Rennie told us that she is more an artist than an environmentalist but painting these pictures is her way of helping to raise awareness of ecological issues. We liked the bold style and colours of her paintings.

Our final visit was to Suzanne Tweddle's studio where she produces exquisite glass beads using lampworking techniques. Suzanne actually made a bead while we were there. It was fascinating to watch the demonstration as she melted a rod of coloured glass onto a stainless steel mandrel. She then added dots of different coloured glass. As the whole thing finally melted together and the glowing blob of glass began to cool down, a gorgeous colourful, patterned bead emerged. Suzanne uses the beads to create unique items of jewellery, hand made from start to finish.

We are fast becoming fans of open studios. The events are informal, there is no pressure to buy anything when you visit and the artists are pleased to discuss their work and answer questions. In some cases the artists or makers are happy to demonstrate their techniques to visitors. Although the wide choice of studios to visit can make it tricky to decide who to go and see, with a little bit of advanced planning you can have a great day out.

The Teesdale open studios continue all this week in and around Barnard Castle, ending on Sunday 31st October 2010. There are more details on the web site at www.teesdaleopenstudios.co.uk

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

Credit Crunch Art

2010-10-19T14:40:00.003+01:00

Times are tough. The future's uncertain. Everyone's short of money and along comes the perfect picture you've been waiting for. Or in our case, three of them.

We don't want to miss this opportunity but buying so much art may not be the best use of funds during the credit crunch. On the other hand, we don't want to wait or we may miss out.

So should our personal cutbacks affect our art collecting or can we justify buying art in a recession? Here are eight good reasons that we use.

1. It's cheaper than a holiday. Of course it depends where you go: giving up a wet weekend in Bognor may not pay for the Mona Lisa but postponing that two weeks at a 5-star hotel in the Seychelles could buy you some very nice artworks.

2. You can cut back on other things. Try living on baked beans for a week, or three...

3. It's an investment - you'll be able to sell it in thirty years to fund your pension, probably.

4. It cheers you up every time you look at it. (Vicky uses that excuse every time she gets a new pair of shoes.)

5. Your friends will think you're really wealthy and not about to lose your job.

6. You can sell the yacht. (Are you listening Vince?)

7. You can buy your next picture from a charity shop. You might even find that lost Van Gogh hidden by the Nazis. Even if you don't it still provides entertainment seeing all the rubbish, sorry, treasures that people have thrown out.

8. Retail therapy works.

So this weekend we'll resurrect the credit cards and go on a spending spree.

Now we're off to have dinner. Guess it will be beans on toast again tonight.

Love your Art
Vicky and Vince,

Going Back In Time

2010-10-14T15:40:00.003+01:00

I must be dreaming. I am. I'm dreaming. I can't believe it. I've travelled back in time to when I was six years old and I'm surrounded by dozens of pictures of Thomas, Percy, Henry and the Fat Controller. Back then I was a huge fan of Thomas the Tank Engine. Those little oblong books, full of wonderful stories and brilliant pictures, were what childhood was all about.

But hang on, it's 2010 now, I'm not six years old any more (sadly). How can this be possible? Well, I'm at an exhibition of original illustrations from the Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends comics. There are over a hundred pictures here; many black and white drawings, some in colour, depicting all the popular characters from the stories, old and new.

To add to the excitement, the exhibition is in a converted railway station, in Richmond, North Yorkshire. And what's more, all the pictures are all for sale!

These original pen and ink drawings were created by the late Timothy Marwood for the Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends comics. They include cover illustrations as well as the stories inside the comics.

With so many magical pictures here it is almost impossible to pick a favourite. The quality and detail is fantastic. I must have looked at each picture 3 or 4 times at least. Eventually I recognised the images from a story I remembered reading all those years ago. It told the worrying tale of how Thomas was low on water but found the water tank out of order. The fireman saved the day when he refilled Thomas's tanks from a nearby stream using only a bucket full of holes!

Vicky's favourite was set in the countryside and showed a charming scene with two children receiving an Easter egg from the Fat Controller with Thomas and James in the background. No doubt they were being rewarded for preventing a major disaster on the railway. Sadly, Vicky, quite an avid reader, has never read the Thomas books. Perhaps this visit will inspire her to do so.

I suppose the question on your mind now is whether we bought one of the illustrations. Well, I think you probably know the answer to that already. A charming drawing of Thomas with Annie and Clarabel is now waiting at the signals until we find a space for them on our walls.

The show continues until 31st October 2010.

Two Different Worlds

2010-10-12T14:00:00.006+01:00

Several events over recent weeks have prompted us to think about how the art world goes about showing and selling art. It seems there are two main styles - formal and informal.

In previous posts we have written about Gallerina and their friendly, relaxed approach, the open-plan exhibitions at Richmond Station where you can browse at leisure all day long if you want and the Matombo sculpture displays with their "have a go yourself" feature.

These ways of seeing and buying art are easy, enjoyable and fun.

On the other hand, some of the commercial galleries we have visited have made us feel quite uncomfortable, even nervous, as though we don't belong to their exclusive art-set.

We went into such a gallery a few weeks ago. The walls were plain, cold white. The pictures and ceramics were displayed in neat, rigid rows, with official looking descriptions, equally neatly aligned next to them.

The owner was just as rigid and predictable. He hovered in the background looking almost like one of his works of art (perhaps a self-installation?). We were "allowed" to wander round the displays. But when we stopped at a picture, he pounced and gave us a lengthy lecture about the artist's life and the concepts behind this amazing work of art. Oh, and he owned a collection of works by that artist too.

We rapidly worked our way back to the door and left the gallery dazed by the intense experience. Time for a coffee and large slice of cake to wind down!

Like most people, we are interested in art for the pleasure it gives us. We can admire the skills of the artists and collect the works we find attractive. We want to enjoy the experience. Gallery owners and curators can help us to learn about the art we are interested in, help us to choose which pieces of art to buy and put us at ease. If we are comfortable and relaxed, we might even spend more money than we ought to.

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

That's The Way To Do It

2010-10-05T14:18:00.001+01:00

If we asked you to guess who won the recent customer services survey in Darlington, you might suggest it was one of the big supermarkets, a popular department store or a designer clothes shop.

But this year, the award for the best customer service in own was won by Gallerina, a commercial art gallery on Duke Street.

The survey was organised by Darlington Borough Council and Darlington Town Centre Traders' Association who sent out mystery shoppers over the summer to find out which businesses gave the best service to their customers.

Brother and sister team Richard and Helen Hindle, who run Gallerina, are both delighted to win the award and put it down to their friendly, relaxed approach, creating an atmosphere where you can browse at leisure and not feel intimidated.

Our experience of the gallery confirms that this philosophy works. Whenever we've popped into Gallerina, we've invariably found Richard enthusiastically discussing an interesting artist with a customer or helping someone to choose the best type of frame for a particular painting.

In fact, when I (Vince) called in to discuss writing this blog, Richard was sat on the sofa chatting with customers over a cuppa. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to join them.

Gallerina's approach has helped them to grow over twelve years to become one of the leading sellers of contemporary art in the area. The gallery currently has displays by Tom McGuiness and Peter Blake as well as a varied mixture of works by many talented artists.

Check out the Gallerina web site.

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

Starry Starry Night

2010-09-28T15:41:00.003+01:00

Our living room finally has a nicely balanced spread of art on its walls after we discovered a neat little picture called Stars.

In one corner of our living room, a door leads to the kitchen. The two walls that meet at that corner both have various pictures on them a little distance away from the door. The high ceiling leaves a space above the door of around 750mm (2' 6") high by 850mm (2' 10") wide. This space was crying out for a picture but as it was so high and an awkward size, we were at a loss what to do with it.

The other day as we entered one of our favourite local charity shops we glanced across and saw Stars. It wasn't very big, it didn't look very exciting and the chunky gold frame looked a bit out of scale with the picture.

On the way out we took a closer look. It was an original oil painting by Anne Jackson Shields. The picture was basically black with lots of tiny specks of colour to represent the stars. Vicky liked the chunky frame that had been very neatly assembled.

We weren't sure if it would work in the space we wanted to fill. A black picture in a brightly coloured living room? It didn't sound like a recipe for success. We stood in the shop for quite some time discussing whether or not to buy it. We even considered keeping the frame but swapping the picture for something more colourful. In the end we did buy it, thinking we could do something with it even if it didn't work in the living room.

Back home, Vince held Stars up above the door; the scale and proportions looked good; the bold frame didn't overpower the space; it didn't fight with the pictures on the other walls.

We nailed in a hook and hung the picture in its new home. After a bit of discussion about how good it looked, we realised that not only did it fill the space well, it also tied the two walls together. On one side, the gold frame matched a group of other pictures with gold frames, on the other, the blackness of the painting connected with the black frames of two large pictures and the black TV set.

After a few weeks with Stars in our living room, we are very pleased with how it works, integrating other displays that were completely separate before. Sometimes it is not always obvious what works until you try it.

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

Surprises At Newby Hall

2010-09-21T14:39:00.001+01:00

There's a lot to see at Newby Hall. Apart from the house and gardens there is quite a bit of art too. On the day I visited, there was a display of children's book illustrations by Catherine Rayner, pictures to view in the hall itself and the displays by the Matombo sculptors. But my main aim was to look at the contemporary sculptures on the woodland trail.

It was a bit of a relief to be able to get out of the hot, late summer sun and wander along the shady woodland trail. This was a quieter part of the Newby estate; a place to wind down a bit and enjoy the natural surroundings. But it did turn up a few surprises along the way.

Walking through woods can feel strange, the shadows, the darkness between trees, you sometimes feel as though you are being watched. I looked up and found that I was - an eye-shaped stainless steel sculpture was hanging from a long branch, gazing across the path.

The suddenly from the right a wild boar rushed towards me. Well it seemed to but it was just a bronze casting of one, apparently being chased by medieval hunters.

Of course, art can be fun too. In a broad clearing a family were gathered round a group of giant conkers, one of which was tied to a branch as a swing. Four children were scrambling over the conkers on the ground and arguing over whose turn it was to go on the swing. I'm not sure they should have been doing that as they were priced at £550 each!

Strolling past a large bush I came face to face with a huge gorilla! Fortunately it was only another bronze casting, Jambo from Jersey Zoo.

As I neared the end of the trail, I was startled by the screams of children; they had just entered the tunnel on the miniature railway, another attraction at Newby, and I was back in the real world.

Altogether there were over 50 sculptures placed in the woods and around the gardens. Materials included bronze, wood, glass, stone and steel. This was an excellent experience for me as I am very interested in sculpture.

The sculptures on the trail are all for sale and are on view until 26th September 2010.

Read more about Newby Hall.

Love Your Art,
Vince

Ripon - City Of Art

2010-09-14T13:50:00.001+01:00

As I entered through the heavy wooden door the sight before me was not what I expected. You would generally think of churches as peaceful, reverend places with a handful of tourists admiring the architecture, stained-glass windows and religious artefacts.

But here, in Ripon Cathedral, were crowds of people, chatting loudly, dodging seats, memorials and other visitors to look at the paintings and photographs that are part of the Great North Art Show.

A wide variety of pictures adorned the walls down both sides of the cathedral with more on display boards at the east end of the building. An endless list of artists were exhibiting an endless variety of pictures including landscapes, abstract, townscapes, animals and local scenes. Here are a few that caught my attention:

I liked the watery reflections by Fiona Kemp.

Wendy Gimson had some interesting shimmering trees.

Sally Gatie had produced some pictures that made clever use of quilt patterns.

And having an engineering background I was particularly drawn to the Valve pictures by Sue Slocombe.

The bright colours in the pictures of buildings by Alan Luty were really attractive and worked especially well on the night scenes.

Yvonne Elvin had an interesting variety of pictures including this one.

The cathedral isn't the only venue for the Great North Art Show. Around the city hotels, cafés, commercial galleries, and other places have art on display. Even the Workhouse Museum has some installations and was due to hold digital photography workshops. The whole city has become an art gallery!

I managed to pop into a couple of galleries on Kirkgate on the way back from the Cathedral. Alan's Gallery has dozens of watercolours and prints for sale, many depicting landmarks in and around Ripon. The small prints for £20 were neat and colourful, an ideal memento of your visit to Ripon, or a lovely gift for a friend.

This is the ninth year of the event and it continues to provide funds to support the choral and musical activities of the Cathedral. There was probably too much to see in the limited time I had available. Perhaps next year I should set aside a couple of days to do justice to this interesting and extensive exhibition.

The show ends on 18th September 2010.

www.greatnorthartshow.org.uk

Vince,
Love Your Art

Encore!

2010-09-09T14:00:00.013+01:00

Last week was a busy week for us. On Thursday evening we headed to Arthur Robinson House on The Green in Billingham for the opening evening of the Encore exhibition. Here fine art students from Cleveland College of Art and Design were showcasing and selling art they had produced on their courses.

On arrival we were greeted with a glass of champagne and canapes, always a good way to start any social occasion! We strolled around, admiring the skills of these young artists whose work included paintings, glass, plaster, porcelain, mixed media and prints.

Here are some of the works that particularly caught our attention. (With apologies for our low resolution images that don't do justice to these artworks.)

Even before we entered the building, we noticed a colourful set of prints through the window. "Emotions Within Relationships" by Lauren Duncan explores relationships between people, from beginning to make friends, to a more involved relationship and finally its deterioration and breakdown. The work is split up into segments to reflect these stages. The wide range of colours and varied patterns, including figures, is intended to help viewers connect with the work.

Kirsten Yates presented a series of three large canvas paintings entitled Fairytale. These largely abstract images are intended to relate to the more real aspects of the Alice In Wonderland story (one of Kirsten's favourite books), rather than the more obvious "fairytale" images. The pictures are based on deserted forests. The use of strong shades of blue in this picture made it stand out to us.

We liked the set of digital prints by Hope Stebbing, called "Home Is Where The Heart Is". These showed repeated, hand drawn images of everyday objects. The curvy shapes and bright pink and purple colours on the old-fashioned telephones created an image reminiscent of the 1960s. Vince said, "It reminds me of record covers by the Beatles." Vicky liked the clean, simple lines of the birdcages. "It's unusual to have simple outlines rather than blocks of colour," she noted.

Sadly we don't have enough space to talk about all the art that was on display but the students have clearly put in a lot of effort to produce some substantial works of art. Well done all.

Check out the College's site at www.ccad.ac.uk.

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

Matombo - Spirit Of Sculpture

2010-09-07T13:54:00.001+01:00

The north-east of England may not be the centre of the art world but it does have global connections. Two sculptors from Zimbabwe have spent the summer in the gardens at Newby Hall near Ripon, demonstrating and talking about sculpture and exhibiting work that they and other sculptors from their country have produced.

As I headed along the path towards the exhibition area, I saw the first clue that the Matombo exhibition was going to be interesting. Here was a group of giraffe standing by the hedges surrounding the exhibition area. Although they were made from welded metal they were very big, perhaps close to actual size. As I turned into the garden, spread out before me were lots of stone and metal sculptures neatly laid out on the grass and on raised beds. There were animals, birds, figures of people and many abstract sculptures in various sizes, textures and colours.

In the centre of the garden were two lumps of rock that a couple of children were chiselling away at. "Having a go yourself" is encouraged and the rocks had clearly been attacked by kids of all ages over the weeks.

Matthew Nakhawale and Dudzai Mushawepwere, the sculptors, were busy answering questions from visitors, polishing the sculptures with beeswax and supervising the kids as they chipped away in the middle of the garden.

I chatted with Dudzai for quite a while. He told me about the types of stone, the techniques used to create the sculptures and the way some of the artists approached their sculpting. I was a little surprised to hear that it can take several months to complete even a small sculpture. Dudzai was very enthusiastic about his own work, explaining that he liked to create sculptures in an abstract style. He hoped that different people would interpret his art in different ways or one person may see different meanings in the shapes at different times.

As I was leaving a young boy had just finished chiselling at one of the rocks in the "have a go" area. "That was fun," he called to his mother. Yes, it was a bit of fun for the kids and fascinating for me. We may not have heard much good news from Zimbabwe recently but this exhibition showed that there is a positive side to life there.

Computer Art

2010-08-31T15:50:00.001+01:00

We had the opportunity, recently, to see some pictures produced with the assistance of a computer. This brought up the debate about whether computers are a valid way of creating art. Here are some of the points we discussed.

A computer can produce better results because bad bits can be fixed or re-done. Yes, but artists have always painted over bits of their pictures that they didn't like, or torn them up and started again.

An artist's individual skill is still needed to decide on the subject, compostion, style, etc. Computers can't come up with the ideas unless somebody has already built that feature in to the system. That's right but who knows what computers may be capable of in ten or twenty years time.

A computer to paint pictures is like a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. If you want a painting, use paint and a brush. But a computer is simply a tool that can be used to create a picture, it is just a more complex tool. New technologies have regularly been adopted by artists. Oil paint was a new technology at one time.

Using a computer is cheating, you avoid the skilled and time-consuming work that the artist does to create a work of art. It may simplify some of the work but the computer only does what the operator tells it to do.

It comes down to the point that if you want a painting, pick up a brush and paint. OK, for traditional art that may be the best option. Computers may be better suited to new styles of art rather than mimicking current styles of drawing or painting.

A computer can't make an artist, there has to be some artistic ability and skill to use the computer as a tool for creating art. Yes, art is, perhaps, the creation in the mind of the artist, not the resulting physical representation of it.

Whether or not you like art produced using a computer it still needs the creativity and skill of an artist to come up with a subject and control the computer. But the advantages and flexibility of using this method mean it is likely to become more and more prevelant in the near future. Of course, there is always the potential that computers will be programmed with some of the artists skills, it is happening now in a limited way. Will creativity be the only role left for the artists of the future?

Vicky and Vince,
Love Your Art

Give Them An Inch...

2010-08-24T14:17:00.001+01:00

...And they'll take a yard, so they say.

But who would begrudge these students a yard of space to brighten up the walls in Darlington town centre.

Art In The Yards is a project to bring student art to the attention of the public and brighten up parts of the town. This year, six students from the Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College have added their work to those from the past two years. The images are based on the theme of heritage to complement the historic location of the yards. The students used their own individual ideas and a variety of techniques to create images that are all attractive but at the same time very different to each other.

Vicky was intrigued by a typographical arrangement by Joe Cocking, reminding people of a historical fact about the town. She said, "That's clever, it's a piece of art and a historical record and an unusual way of decorating the plain brick walls. We'll have to pop into the library and read up on that."

Vince liked the low-relief sculpture of Barclays Bank by Justin Ramsden, made entirely of Lego bricks. "The detail is amazing," said Vince. "There's even handrails on the steps and posters in the windows."

We went round the corner to look at the real building. It was a surprisingly close match, even the people looked the same! We understand that there is no truth in the rumour that Barclays will be renovating the building to match the Lego® version.

The other artists and their works were Charlotte Clewlow: You are Here, Jessica Everitt: State of Mind, James McKeown: Census, and James Snook: Tees Valley Gateway. Well done and good luck to all six of this year's artists.

Darlington Town Centre Management, which is the project co-ordinator and financial sponsor, has published a PDF brochure describing the Art in the Yards from all three years.

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

A Spot Of Art

2010-08-17T14:33:00.002+01:00

We've just got back from the Station in Richmond, North Yorkshire. This wasn't a train journey (the railway in this part of the Dales closed in 1969) but a visit to an exhibition of pictures from over two hundred artists and photographers on display in the restored railway station.

Since opening in 2007 Richmond Station has become one of the region's most popular venues for exhibiting art. Their latest initiative, A Spot on the Wall, is a fantastic opportunity for local artists to put their work in front of thousands of people, who may not otherwise visit an art exhibition or commercial gallery.

As well as local residents, the Station attracts many tourists visiting the region from all around the world. We watched people coming and going all the time, not only to see the art but to visit the shops, the cinema and have coffee or lunch in the open-plan restaurant. This is a thriving centre of the community.

Although we didn't go intending to buy anything (our walls are pretty full at the moment), we were very tempted by many of the pictures and the fact that all the artists are locally based. In fact, we spotted the names of several artists that we recognised from previous events we've visited in the region.

While we were there we chatted to the Curator, Donald Cline, who told us that one lady had bought her first ever picture. This was largely down to the informal surroundings, the easily accessible displays and the wide variety of pictures on show.

Of course, you don't have to buy, the show can be treated simply as a large exhibition of original paintings, stunning photographs and limited editions. It seemed that wherever we went in the building there were pictures; they clung to display panels, paraded along the mezzanine gallery and meandered down the corridor to the shops.

Curator, Donald, is delighted with the response to the show.

"Art lovers have already bought up sixty-five of the pictures on display, raising over £13,000. This is great news for the artists and also helps to support the running of the Station," Donald told us.

We like the idea of this event, giving people the opportunity to see lots of local artists in one place and being able to buy a picture and take it home straight away; you don't have to leave it until the show is over.

The exhibition and sale ends on 3rd September 2010. You can read more information at www.richmondstation.com.

Update: At the end of the show, 110 pictures had been sold, raising £22,000. An estimated 40,000 people had visited the Station while the show was running.

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

Taking It Easy

2010-08-10T14:37:00.000+01:00

Not much to report this week as we've had a few days holiday. But here are the major headlines from the past week or so...

Kieron Williamson sells paintings worth £150000 in less than an hour. And he's only 8 years old!

Help the world economic crisis by bidding on art from Lehman Brothers Bank being auctioned at Christies in late September.

Vince buys 73 empty picture frames in a framing shop's stock clearance!

Vicky and Vince,
Love Your Art

Flower Power

2010-08-03T14:08:00.002+01:00

Not all pictures are created equal. Work by local artists is often better quality and better value than the mass produced stuff.

A year or so ago, we picked up some square framed floral pictures (left hand picture) in a local department store. They were neutral and inoffensive, like much mass produced wall art but we hoped that three of them on a tall, narrow wall above the stairs would create an interesting display. At the time, we didn't consider whether £15 each was either good or bad value.

After a couple of weeks in place, we grew tired of them. They looked dull and boring and did nothing to lift our spirits as we passed them each morning on the way downstairs. They are now buried deep in our "pile of shame" along with most of our other mistakes. Now we are a little older and wiser, we are more careful and look for reasonably priced, better quality art, often from local artists.

For example, we recently discovered some exquisite floral pictures while attending an exhibition and demonstration at the Castle Gallery in Witham Hall, Barnard Castle. Janet Orme, from Darlington, is a Botanical Artist, producing precise, highly detailed paintings of orchids and other plants in watercolour. We chatted with Janet for some time about her work. She had a wide range of originals, prints and note cards for sale and Vicky chose a wonderful cyclamen print (right hand picture) as a gift for a friend.

Looking round the shops in Barnard Castle we were amazed to find an unusual cream and gold frame that went perfectly with the picture and it was a simple task to assemble them once we got home. Together the print and frame cost less than £20. An excellent purchase compared to the other, dull pictures described above.

You can visit Janet's own site at www.janetorme.co.uk.

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

Temenos, Middlesbrough

2010-07-28T09:34:00.003+01:00

The North East of England continues to be an inspiration for artists and an important location for big works of art. Temenos, by Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond, is the latest of such works, following in the footsteps of Gateshead's Angel of the North, Darlington's Brick Train and North Shields' Lightning Clock. It is part of a major arts project to install five huge sculptures across the Tees Valley; others will be in Stockton, Hartlepool, Darlington and in the Redcar and Cleveland area.

So armed with an information leaflet, we headed for the Middlehaven Docks area of Middlesbrough to see what all the fuss was about.

Vicky: It looks quite graceful. The netting looks like it's floating across the sky.
Vince: It looks like a trawling net to me but you won't catch much with it; it's just an open ended tube.
Vicky: It says it's 50m high but it doesn't look that tall. That crane behind it is higher and the Transporter Bridge looks much bigger in the distance.
Vince: They should have put it higher up to stand out from its surroundings. That would have made it more visible from the A66 as well.
Vicky: The leaflet says it cost £2.7 million. It doesn't seem much for that amount of money.
Vince: There's a lot of engineering gone into it. It will attract tourists to the area and could become a focus for the re-development work being planned.
Vicky: I wonder if it will do for Middlesbrough what the Angel has done for Gateshead?
Vince: What's that?
Vicky: Create an icon for the town, an image that's easily recognisable and represents Middlesbrough.

This is still a new work of art and opinions will need time to consolidate. Perhaps Temenos will grow in stature, if not in size, when the other four works that will be produced as part of the project are complete and installed.

See a larger picture of Temenos in Middlesbrough.

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

The Purple Picture

2010-07-20T14:00:00.006+01:00

We've had one of those serendipity moments! A happy accident that in our case gave us a piece of interesting art as well as solving a problem and saving us money.

Last month in one of the charity shops we visit regularly, we spotted a watercolour of Hartlepool Harbour entrance: Vince learnt to sail there so was keen on buying it. But its mahogany style frame was a bit too smart for the soft, blue-grey colours of the picture and it had no mount to show it off to best effect. Then Vince realised that the frame was ideal for a print we had bought some months earlier.

What we call "the purple picture" is a small African landscape print of unusual proportions and in shades of purple. When we bought it it was in a very large chunky brown wood frame that was way out of scale for the picture and it had a ubiquitous cream mount that was entirely the wrong colour. Temporarily, we put it into a cheap A4 certificate frame and planned to get a new frame made for it later.

On checking the frame from the Hartlepool picture we found that it was perfectly proportioned for the purple picture, matching the style well too. All it needed was an appropriate mount. So off went Vince to our local framer, and selected a purple pearlescent mount to match the picture. It now hangs on the living room wall and looks like it was bought from a gallery.

So, that one picture has solved the problem of framing the purple picture and saved us having to buy a custom-made frame that would have cost us many times more. All we need now is a decent frame for the Hartlepool Harbour picture.

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

ps. The charity shop where we got the Hartlepool picture now sells only books, with no bric-a-brac or interesting stuff - shame! One less source of great value art.

Greetings To You All

2010-07-13T12:19:00.004+01:00

Greetings cards come in all shapes, sizes and subjects. And looking in any card shop, you now find more and more often that some of these cards are based on paintings and other art.

Combining these cards with a cheap photo frame can give you a simple and quick way to decorate your walls with art for probably not much more than a fiver each. And if you pick up the frames for a pound or two in your friendly, local charity shop, you get even better value.

So we're always on the lookout for interesting greetings card on our travels. We already have a triple frame in our living room displaying a set of three cards from Sam Toft's Mustard family collection. And a couple of framed sheep scenes we found in a charity shop turned out, on closer investigation, to be the fronts of Christmas cards.

We have also recently discovered a series of cards with humorous pen and ink sketches by Glockwork. Drawn by Graham “Glock” Ashbridge, these cards include motorcycling, steam trains, life in the Yorkshire Dales and, to our delight, sheep (see picture).

So far, we only have one Glockwork card but we suspect it will form the basis of a mini-collection of these charming sketches. The cards are available in shops across the North of England (plus some South of the Humber) or on the Glockwork website.

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!

2010-06-30T08:49:00.002+01:00

Unbelievable! One of my life ambitions is about to come true thanks to Light Artist, Bruce Monro.

I happended to come across this BBC news item about Bruce's CD Sea . Using hundreds of thousands of old CDs, Bruce and a team of volunteers have turned an ordinary field of grass into an amazing sea of shimmering light. CDs are a great medium for this project, creating an ever-changing effect of light and colour on a huge scale. Plus, it's a great way to recycle old discs.

For the past fifteen years or so, I have been hanging on to old CDs, collecting unwanted music, computer and Internet discs. I imagined I could produce interesting, unusual and colourful sculptures or framed arrangements. But I was never brave enough to actually do anything with them as I wasn't sure if it would really be a valid way of producing art. Now Bruce has led the way, I have artistic validation for my plans.

I don't have enough CDs to create a sea, not even a pond, but now I have the justification to start working on this art. The next step is to dig out all the sketches and notes I have made over the years and start putting these into practice.

Love Your Art,
Vince

Name That Sheep

2010-06-22T14:56:00.003+01:00

By the way, did I ever mention that we collect sheep?

One of our sheep has pride of place high up on the bookshelves in our living room. It's a hand-made pottery ram that we have owned for a few months. It has a quite individual personality and we felt it was crying out for a name. We often give names to pieces in our art collection. In fact pottery firms sometimes do this too, for example the whimsical "Ewe And Me" sheep characters produced by Border Fine Arts. So how do you go about choosing a name for a ram?

We began by trying, unsuccessfully, to find out more about the ram. The sticker on the base suggested it might be a studio piece or possibly sold in a shop. We Googled but failed to find any information on the internet. If you've come across Trinity Pottery or Stuart Taylor, please let us know as we'd love to find out more about this sheep.

The spirally horns and long thin nose are its most distinctive features. The wavy wool coat is represented by spaghetti-like strands of clay built up on the main body of the sheep. It is finished roughly and unglazed giving a rustic texture that helps to create its interesting personality. Our lack of information about this ram gave us the opportunity to create our own story about his origins. His long, thick, brown, curly coat and his imposing horns evoke an image of an upland sheep in a cold, harsh, mountainous environment like the Scottish Highlands. We can just imagine him sheltering from a snowy blizzard behind the wall of a ruined castle.

After looking through a list of boys' names in a dictionary we drew up a shortlist of those with a Scottish origin. We toyed with Hamish, Angus, Fraser and others but finally settled on Alistair as his name and we think it suits him very well!

Love Your Art
Vicky

If Toucan You Can Too

2010-06-15T12:54:00.006+01:00

We've been back to Croft village hall where Fran Connelly and Petra Lloyd were exhibiting their artwork as part of the North Yorkshire Open Studios event. For a couple of weekends, artists across North Yorkshire are throwing open the doors of their studios or holding exhibitions and demonstrations of their work. These open studio events are a great way to meet up with your favourite artists or get to know about some new ones. We were able to chat with Fran and Petra about their work and see a broader range of the things they do.

We mentioned Petra's toucans in a previous blog and were delighted to see an even wider selection to choose from than last time. Petra was half way through making one of her ceramic toucans. She explained to us about the clay, how she shaped and carved it and how it was fired using a process called Raku. The Raku firing is a technique, developed in the Far East, that extracts oxygen from the glaze, allowing the metals within it to form unique and distinctive colours such as blues, greens, copper and bronze. As we listened to her explanations, Petra thrust the half finished toucan into Vicky's hands, encouraging her to work at some of the carved detail around the eyes. This kind of interaction with the artists makes these events really interesting and fun. We were so impressed with the way the toucans were made and the wonderful end results that we just had to buy one. We look forward to it landing on on top of our display shelves next week.

The way that Petra's toucans and other ceramics were displayed alongside Fran's gorgeous, dramatically-coloured pastel skyscapes (yes, we bought one of those too) created an attractive display. The mix of different styles worked very well together.

Unfortunately we were not able to visit any of the other open studios last weekend but if we are free next weekend, look out for us.

Find out more at http://www.nyos.org.uk.

Vicky and Vince,
Love Your Art

Buy Me!

2010-06-08T14:46:00.001+01:00

"That looks unusual", said Vicky, pointing to a rather strange looking picture cowering in a corner, half hidden by a rack of ladies jackets. Vince pushed the jackets aside to the annoyance of a little old lady who was rummaging through them. He rapidly scanned the piece, making disdainful grunts as he digested the brown colouring and the angular lines of the landscape.

"It looks a bit dull," he suggested. Then he noticed the markings along the bottom edge. "Ah, it's a signed, limited edition. Look 4 of 36, Souel - Vines, D M Patterson. It might be worth a bit!" So we bought it because of its unusual style and the fact that it was a limited edition.

That happened on Saturday. On Sunday we cleaned the picture up and and tried to find a suitable location for it. We failed completely! It didn't hang happily on any of our walls. Perhaps it was the harsh, jagged angles of the brush strokes, the monochrome brown colouring or the wholly inappropriate lime-washed grey frame it was in. Our interest in the picture rapidly turned to disappointment. Now, the only reason we had to keep it was if it had some value.

We spent several hours discussing how much it may be worth as a piece of serious art. A thorough search on the Internet revealed nothing about the picture or the artist. Vince claimed that its unique and distinctive style, and the fact that the artist thought that it was worth producing a limited edition, suggests that it did have some value above a basic print. Vicky argued that the frame reduced its value significantly and the dull, jagged lines of the landscape would appeal to only a very few art lovers. Our conclusion was that if we sold it, we would be unlikely to be able to retire to the Caribbean.

We both regret this impulse buy. Were our expectations too high? Are we becoming over-confident and buying without thinking things through first? Whatever went wrong, we are now left with an unloved, unwanted picture. eBay here we come!

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

Serving Our Apprenticeship

2010-06-03T12:13:00.004+01:00

Watching episode 4 "A Work of Art" of the BBC's Junior Apprentice programme provided an insight into the difficulties of buying and selling art. The teams were given a shortlist of contemporary artists from which they had to select two to represent and sell their art at a special gallery sale. Easy? No, it was harder than it looked!

The first problem was which two artists to choose for the team to represent. Was the bottom-line, as Kirsty from Team Instinct focused on, money and whether the artist had a range of prices. Or was it, as Zoe from Team Revolution showed, the concepts behind the art backed up with some schmoozing and flattery of the artist. In the end both teams wanted the same artist, Tom Lewis, as he had a range of affordable and expensive prints and originals that would appeal to a range of buyers. The losing team were stuck with the more expensive artists like Sarah Kate Wilson who's pieces were up to £4000. Although both teams drummed up buyers, most of those preferred to pay in the hundreds rather than thousands of pounds.

What could we learn from this? Despite professional artists trying to push the conceptual boundaries, the majority of buyers wanted something attractive and decorative to put on the walls; neon lights spelling out words or phrases didn't cut it for the average buyer. Price is also important. When buying pieces for our walls we've bought originals by unknown artists from charity shops, or bid on eBay for more well known artists and tried to get value for money. In the end art is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it.

Vicky,
Love Your Art

Spring In Amsterdam

2010-06-01T15:20:00.001+01:00

A few days away in Amsterdam gave us a great opportunity to look at some 'proper' art for a change! We visited two museums, the Van Loon; a traditional family-owned canal house and the Rijksmuseum, the main museum in the city.

The Van Loon house, built in 1671, had artistic connections from the time it was built: its first tennant being Ferdinand Bol, a pupil of Rembrandt. The rooms remain decorated as they were near the end of the eighteenth century. We were delighted to discover that one of the bedrooms was decorated with a sheep print - walls, curtains and bedding. We may give that a try at home! The walls throughout the house are adorned with family portraits, dating from 1600 to the present day, painted by many artists.

In contrast, the Rijksmuseum is a typical large museum with displays of paintings, ceramics, silver and furniture. There were dozens of paintings, some of which we had heard of: The Night Watch by Rembrandt, The Milkmaid by Vermeer, The Toilet by Jan Steen and Portrait of a Young Couple by Frans Hals. Sadly, none of these were for sale, so it's back to the charity shops to find something to fill that gap on the stairs.

Seeing all these original old paintings puts our little collection of prints to shame. Never mind, we like what we have. And besides, The Night Watch is just a bit too big to go through the front door.

Love Your Art,

Vicky and Vince

Whodunnit?

2010-05-25T15:09:00.003+01:00

It wasn't us officer, honest.

Last week a thief broke into the Musée d'Art Moderne across from the Eiffel Tower in Paris and stole paintings by Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Léger and Modigliani worth a reported £85 million. Apparently, the thief simply cut through a padlock, broke a window and was free to roam around the gallery at leisure. The alarm failed to go off and motion sensors were out of order. Three night security guards noticed nothing on their CCTV system.

Of course, art theft is nothing new. The Mona Lisa disappeared from the Louvre in 1911 and Munch's The Scream was snatched in Oslo in 2004. Both paintings were recovered after a couple of years. And there are many other cases of famous art works being stolen.

The latest theft again raises the question of whether works of art are well enough protected. If famous paintings and sculptures are valued at millions of pounds then the galleries and museums must provide and maintain adequate security. But what about works that are privately owned, how can individuals afford the necessary levels of security to protect such valuable items? Or maybe some of these works are not really as valuable as the are made out to be and don't warrant such high security.

In any case, those who are responsible for looking after objects that have historical or commercial value, need to do as much as they can to protect them.

Love Your Art,
Vicky and Vince

Guess Who?

2010-05-18T14:00:00.010+01:00

As she gazes out from her frame, her eyes seem to follow you around the room. She poses gracefully, a lady of elegance and beauty. Her enigmatic expression puzzles you - what is she thinking? Is she happy, content, amused?

Sadly we don't have the original Mona Lisa on our living room wall. Not even a copy. But we do have Rosita, our very own Mona Lisa! She languishes in the corner of the living room pondering the everyday comings and goings. Her expression is undefinable. An expression that is sometimes curiosity, sometimes fascination, sometimes disapproval. Like the Mona Lisa, her enigmatic expression makes it difficult to tell what she is thinking. Her aura is both charming and disconcerting.

We discovered Rosita in a charity shop earlier this year. We were looking for a portrait and it's hard to find an attractive one! She looked old and tired behind the dirty glass and distressed frame. We almost passed her by, but her eyes followed us from the moment we entered the shop. We had no choice but to rescue her.

Back home, opening up the frame revealed a modern painting in acrylic on board. The frame is probably old, with traces of old woodworm, chipped areas and rippling glass. Once cleaned up and hung on the wall, she came to life and her true beauty shone out.

She begged for a name; we chose Rosita from her Spanish appearance and the pink roses in her hat. We admire her poise and deportment, her confidence and experience, her slightly un-nerving gaze and her endearing charm. But she remains a puzzling enigma on the living room wall.

Love Your Art,
Vince

Is It Art? (Part 1)

2010-05-11T16:35:00.003+01:00

In many shops these days you can find canvases and prints with little more than splashes of colour or swirly shapes. But are these items simply decorative, like wallpaper, or are they art. At the risk of outraging the art aficionados out there, I am going to illustrate this question by comparing a traditional oil painting to "Charity Splash", a typical example of these objects.

"The Corn Harvest" (left hand picture) was painted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in 1565. It is currently displayed in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (where it is referred to as The Harvesters). Its place in art history has been well established over the years and I doubt that anyone would argue about whether it is truly art. But what about "Charity Splash" (right hand picture), an anonymous square foot of canvas found at the bottom of a box in a charity shop? Can we reasonably (or unreasonably) describe it as art?

I think it is art. Why? Well, somebody must have created the original, and presumably that person was an artist. Their intention was surely to create something artistic regardless of its ultimate purpose. The picture's abstract style does not stop it from being described as art. Abstract art has been around for over one hundred years and is a recognised art form. I would also argue that it is probably more artistic than some of the piles of rubbish presented as art nowadays!

So, although "Charity Splash" and similar items are used mainly for decorative purposes, they are definitely art.

Love Your Art,
Vince

How To Ruin A Perfect Picture

2010-05-04T14:06:00.002+01:00

Last month we bought a lovely picture from a charity shop. It showed a couple of rowing boats lying beside water (not sure if it was a lake or sea inlet). The subject, style and colours made it perfect for our kitchen. It just needed a more substantial frame with a mount to display it to best effect.

When we finally got round to taking the picture out of its ugly frame we discovered that the painting itself (apparently an original in oil) was stuck to the glass around the edges. What could we do now?

Hoping for a simple solution, we checked a web forum, spoke to a local framer, and consulted a professional restoration company. The advice we got ranged from heating the glass with a hair dryer to smashing the glass and removing the pieces one by one (don't try that at home). In the end we warmed the glass against a radiator which helped loosen it a little in some areas.

But the picture and the glass were still firmly stuck together. A final attempt at parting them with a thin knife blade only separated bits of the the paint from the board it was painted on. So we decided to leave them joined, rather than risk further damage.

We still aren't sure exactly what to do but will probably get a frame made to fit the glass and not bother with a mount. Meanwhile the lovely boats are still in their horrible frame. We'll let you know how we get on.

Love Your Art,
Vince

Do The Locomotion

2010-04-30T16:06:00.006+01:00

One of the last places you might expect to see an art exhibition is in a railway museum. But Durham County Council have been using Locomotion, the National Railway Museum at Shildon, to display the entries in a local art competition.

The pictures were framed between towering steam engines and crumbling carriages. We expected to see lots of pictures of trains. In fact, there were only a couple but with paintings and sculptures from over 100 artists, we had plenty to look at.

The first prize of £1000 had already been awarded to Dr M Quinn with a charming painting of "Sessy", an older lady sitting in a chair, sewing. It had lots of fine detail and the artist had caught the light from an adjacent window very well.

The fun thing about an art competition is that you can pick your own, unofficial, winner. We agreed with the judges that the painting of "Sessy" was excellent but set about looking for the ones we preferred. We particularly liked the pictures of local places; countryside as well as town views. Also the intimate portraits of people who were probably friends or neighbours of the artists. "Solitude" by A Jackson evoked a mystical feeling in both of us and we marvelled at the detail in two miniature paintings by R Earnshaw.

And so to our winners. Vince chose the wooden carving "Resting Miner" by A Brookes. The detail was fantastic and the organic shape very realistic. You could almost hear the miner snoring away in a corner.

Vicky plumped for the portrait of "Seamus The Cat" by Lydia le Brun. "He's got such a cute expression!" Vicky exclaimed. She also liked the kaleidescope of bright colours chosen by the artist.

Running an art competition is a great way to show the work of local artists. Displaying their works in the middle of a popular railway museum also connects with people who may not have visited conventional galleries.

Vicky and Vince,

Love Your Art

In The Frame

2010-04-28T13:25:00.004+01:00

One of the advantages of buying art second hand is that it generally comes already framed. One of the disdvantages is that the frames are not always an ideal match for the picture or the room where they will be displayed.

On several occasions we have found a picture, agreed that we like it but moaned about the frame surrounding it. The colour, size or style are often totally unsuitable. This has never stopped us buying the picture. Replacing a frame doesn't worry us as we're not scared of taking pictures apart and often do this anyway to give them a thorough clean.

A new frame can turn an average picture into something spectacular. It's quite easy to get a frame made to suit the picture. Most framing shops can advise you on a suitable style and colour, or you can try online. We prefer to work this out for ourselves based on the picture and where it will be hung.

For smaller pictures we have sometimes bought photo frames from camera shops, department stores or even supermarkets. Charity shops are another excellent source of interesting or unusual frames. If the mount needs replacing too, your local framing shop will normally have a good choice of colours for a few pounds each.

Love Your Art,
Vince

Croft Art Exhibition

2010-04-26T15:19:00.003+01:00

The other week we went to a local art exhibition in Croft, a small village near Darlington. From the outside Croft Village Hall didn't look promising, a scruffy portacabin that had seen better days. Never being ones to judge a book by its cover, we decided it was worth taking a look. Other people thought so too as a good number were arriving to view and buy.

The work of Croft village art group was on display alongside the works of local artists including Petra Lloyd, Fran Connelly and Lone Helliwell. Most of the pieces on display were for sale though I was disappointed to discover that two of the pictures I really liked were marked "Not For Sale". Others were priced reasonably and they were being sold quickly judging by the number of little red stickers (indicating they were sold) that were appearing like a rash.

There was a variety of work on display to cater to all tastes: conventional landscapes, traditional still lifes (should that be still lives?), textile pictures, pastels and some wonderful toucans. We caused much amusement when we said that we collect things with a sheep theme (by the way, did I mention that we collect sheep art?). We were pointed in the direction of Lone Helliwell's textile pictures which included a gorgeous collage depicting sheep in a moorland landscape. Sadly, we decided not to buy the picture, it was just too big.

We both enjoyed visiting this small exhibition. It was interesting and popular, proving that local events are definitely worth a visit.

Love Your Art,
Vicky

In The Beginning

2010-04-26T15:11:00.002+01:00

We've both been interested in art for as long as we can remember: visiting exhibitions, meeting artists and buying a few nice pieces. Wherever we went people we talked to asked where else we'd been, what we saw, what we thought and which artists we liked. So now we've decided to keep a record of our art related activities.

We're always looking for opportunities to discover and acquire interesting art but there's a bewildering array to choose from. Home stores like Ikea, TK Maxx, Wilkinsons and B&Q are a start point for mass produced art. However, we prefer something a bit more individual rather than just following the latest trends. Art shops and galleries are a better, albeit, more expensive option. But for the best bargains and the occasional surprise, you can't beat charity shops. We've already found a few unusual items for only a few pounds each.

We don't claim to be conventional art lovers and we're brave enough to choose less obvious pieces of art and experiment with ways of displaying them. Our walls and shelves are already looking more attractive and make an interesting talking point with visitors. In fact, our home is slowly turning into an art gallery.

Vicky and Vince,
Love Your Art