Coming Along

Image for previous text

Work in progress - this is one of the units for one of the pieces for Frome

Miniature Gardens

On Thursday 23rd at 12.15 I am going to be on Radio Gloucestershire talking to Anna King about my miniature gardens. Here are some pictures so you can see what we are talking about!

Collaboration Exhibition

Pictures of work from the collaboration between Rosemary Cochrane, a potter from Usk, and myslef.

The Exhibition is at Cardiff in the Bay Makers Guild Gallery. It finishes on the 26th June so do visit if you can!

Nature Weeping

info about Carla Mines work for "Curiouser...?"
It is our task to imprint this temporary, perishable earth into ourselves so deeply, so painfully and passionately that its essence can rise again, invisibly, inside us.’
Rainer Maria Rilke

The raw material used for the manufacture of plastic is produced in small pellets, these are called nurdles or mermaid’s tears. We have endangered our very existence by overproducing plastic, 300 million tons a year. Carla’s work aims to demonstrate the damaging effect of plastic and the dioxins that incinerating them produces.

The Body Beautiful

work from Jan Connett...

‘I pluck and polish and powder and paint

I soap and soak and deodorise and re-perfume

I lather and rinse and colour and shine ….’

The 21^st century woman’s talisman is her houseful of cosmetics, beauty products and accoutrements. They offer her a disguise, protection against the physical world (sun, wind, rain, late nights) and the imagined (‘I can’t let anyone see me until I’ve got my face on’). And so the superstitious daily routine of preparation for the outside world binds her into the creation of the Body Beautiful, according to the image and rules imposed by her society and transmitted by media and the global cosmetics/ beauty products industry.

Why do women wear corsets, when these constricting garments are the most widely-recognised symbol of their subjugation?

Actually, for many reasons:

§ in pursuit of the Body Beautiful, as a means of conforming to a body shape that they, and their society, conceive to be perfection;

§ in defence of the Body Beautiful, as a representation of modesty and sexual abstention (the chastity belt);

§ in constraint of the bulging Body (un)Beautiful;

§ in celebration of the Body Beautiful, alluring and seductive;

§ in liberation of the Body Beautiful, by applying a mask that permits the wearer to adopt novel behaviours under cover of a bodily disguise;

§ in danger of the Body Beautiful: a weapon to be used in the chase; the powerful woman toying with, devouring, then spitting out her lovesick counterpart.

Daisychain

"Curiouser...?" work in progress from Jan Connett

Daisychain

The major thesis of my work is the exploration of woman’s dichotomy in pursuing the Body Beautiful. We all do it, in our different ways, taking pleasure in presenting our ‘best’ face to the world. But at what cost?

We become addicted to diets, exercise regimes, cosmetic surgery.

We dream of machines that will tone our muscles while we sleep, pills that will dissolve our fat even as we stuff ourselves.

We tie ourselves in endless knots, through our internal, castigating dialogues and our metaphorical corsets.

But where do we learn this behaviour? For Curiouser, I want to look at how we pass on our habits and attitudes to our daughters. How we (mothers? society?) subvert our children’s innocent acceptance of their bodies and drive them, so soon, towards see-saw destructive relationships with food and drink, body and self-image.

I’ve started with Alice’s curiosity (she of Wonderland fame). She leaves the innocence of daisychains in a sunny-afternoon-meadow and chases a white rabbit down an enchanted hole. Then encounters a series of nightmares during which she shrinks, grows and changes shape in response to ‘Drink me! Eat me!’ pleas. Just as we do, in response to bombardments of alluring, seductive advertisements….

Leaf 'tears' from Carla

New Work from Linda

Thought for the Day

Everyone seemed to like the quotes I post so here is another one by Satish Kumar

'To find a synthesis between the intellectual and the manual, between the head and the hands, between contemplation and action and between science and spirituality.'

This is exactly what we were discussing at the meeting yesterday and I referred to it in my own practice.

Liz Harding - 'Glimpses'

Liz is working on a series of pieces called"Glimpses".

Built spontaneously and quickly using combinations of paint, dye, stitch on organdie the work reflects glimpses of walks though woodland.

Contrast is explored through light/dark, opaque/transparent, painted/dyed, stitched/clear areas.

A Japanese Gift

A Japanese gift came Carolyn's way yesterday - fragments of papers and textiles.

Thank you to Sachiko and Hiromi

The whole concept and presentation of the gift are so beautiful. Wrapping and rewrapping

looking, thinking, dreaming - what tales do the pieces tell?