Graphite drawing workshop at the Brindley

At the end of November I led a workshop for adults at the Brindley exploring graphite powder and animation. It was a successful day, with lots of interesting drawings produced which were made into animations on the day:

Participants experimented with hand cut stencils, graphite powder, mark making and using masking tape to create these drawings.

The Portal, work with HMP Wymott and the Harris Museum & Art Gallery

During November 2011 I've been working with 10 men and their tutors in the art class at HMP Wymott for the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston. The starting point for our work has been a painting of 'Puck' by the artist Richard Dadd.

"Puck”, a central character from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, sits on a toadstool while smaller fairy figures dance around him in moonlight. Dadd's painting evokes the play in an abstract way featuring superb draughtsmanship, a powerful poetic imagination, an intense love of nature, and a mastery of dramatic lighting. For approximately 100 years the painting was in Preston, having been purchased during the early 1850s by Thomas Birchall of Ribbleton Hall, Preston and held by his descendents until the 1960s. In 2011 the painting was purchased for the Harris Museum & Art Gallery with the support of The Art Fund, the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Friends of the Harris Museum & Art Gallery and a bequest from Mrs Dorothy Wade, administered by Arts Council England."

Like the men who took part in this project, Dadd was an incarcerated man, and it is this situation that has inspired the Portal. The men produced collages which were compiled into a book seen here. Inspired by Puck's ability to change situations in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the collages consider what their creators would change in their own lives if they had the magical juice of the love-in-idleness flower that causes such confusion in Shakespeare's play.

Themes of time passing and a desire for luxuries are to be expected from those who have too much of the former and not enough of the latter, but from those basic responses flourish fundamental desires for love, health, family, nature and change, resulting in this appealing collection of collages.

The collages were an important step along the way to completing drawings, which we animated using series of still photographs. The book and animation, plus a drawing on perspex were exhibited as part of the 2011 Harris Open. Together they form a narrative about time passing and transformation providing a window to the lives of the men who created the works.

Made by:
Craig, Joe, John N, John S, Mark, Melvin, Michael, Mike, Rob, and Shane.

Harris Museum & Art Gallery Access and Inclusion Officer: Kyra Milnes

Tutors:
Lindsey Hill, Paul Sanderson and Suzanne Snape

Education Department:
Sue Blackledge and Suzie Doyle

Project volunteer: Sue Seabridge

HMP Wymott
Manchester College
Harris Museum & Art Gallery

Tearing Space Apart at Salford School of Art and Design

I've been working at Salford University as part of AA2A for the past 4 weeks, going in on regular Tuesdays to realise a piece of work that I've wanted to make on a larger scale. And it's been useful. I'm not sure its entirely successful, but it has brought me to a new idea about how to use the process and a link to some of my more theoretical research. I've taken a break this week to reflect on the work done so far and to plan more work to come.

So here is the process I followed to create 'Tearing Space Apart (Salford I)'

• A wall is covered in newspaper
• The newspaper is torn off the wall and methodically numbered
• The wall has co-ordinates marked along its edges
• Fragments of newspaper are placed on the wall at randomly allocated co-ordinates
• Each piece of paper is drawn around a number of times with pencil according to its catalogue number
• Lines do not cross
• The fragments of paper are used again, this time they are outlined using powdered graphite according to randomly allocated co-ordinates
• Ends

And some images.

And some video documentation:

St Helens Open 2011

The St Helens Open exhibition has come around again. I've submitted two works - one has been selected to be shown at the Godfrey Pilkington Gallery and the other is off to (what I term) the Salon des Refuses at MASH art cafe.

Tearing Space Apart. Pencil & Paper. 2011. 23x23cm, £100 framed

Private view takes place Tuesday 15th November 6-8pm and the exhibition continues until 17 December 2011.

Signpost, Schiedam. Stencilled graphite powder on Kraft paper. 50x70cm, £100 framed

St Helens Open
Godfrey Pilkington Gallery, 1st floor, Central Library, Victoria Square, St Helens
and
MASH art cafe, Haydock Street, St Helens.

Wednesday 16 November - Saturday 17 December 2011