The Humble Pencil

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

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

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!

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

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