Starry Starry Night

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

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

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!

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

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.

More on Matombo.

Love Your Art,

Vince