Protest and production in song (and dance)

Liz Hoggard's review of Yan Tan Tethera in Crafts Magazine,
September/October 2014, issue #250
(a taster in four extracts) 

For further reading / copy of magazine, visit
http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/magazine/issues/

First Moves: from Darlington to Stave Hill and back again

Last week I rehearsed the making of a piece at Stave Hill Ecological Park, destined to be installed at the Festival of Thrift. Looking like what is pictured here only larger, the installation will appear as a hanging garden woven between buildings, patches of grass and a row of 18 trees with many more twined constructions (see below and link) made by visitors at the festival attached to it.

This trial is the first of many interventions I’ll be making at Stave Hill, where I’m due to take up an artist residency later this Autumn. I’ll be collecting materials to work with in the park to create installations and sculptures as well as harvesting materials I've sown and grown on site. 

I’ve long thought of creating something of a basketry garden since writing Practical Basketry Techniques and with this project, I'm much closer to achieving this. With this opportunity and other ongoing projects, I’m sowing all sorts of seeds at the moment. Let's wait and see what work I’ll be reaping in the future...

painting for paint's sake

Painting again, at last! When I was studying at art college I stopped myself from specialising in the subject; so seduced was I by the medium I thought I'd lose myself in it, and never produce anything worthwhile, only frivolous decorative meanderings in paint.

Well, that is exactly what is happening now and, I’m loving it. Thanks to the enthusiasm of the members of Meet Me At The Albany I’m painting again, and making collages using the scraps of painted paper left over after the Matisse Cut-outs inspired workshop (see previous post). I love the accidental, aleatory, chance nature of these, and that the outcome is the result of a co-production between myself and the MMATA members.

It's also a relief not to be thinking about weaving for a change. That said, I still get a sense that I’m weaving with colour and shape on paper. Hmm... Off to the framers with these two anyway…