Playing

Recently I have been doing some workshops in order to do a few things.

• Explore new techniques
• expand my means of expression through using new materials
• Play

Item number 3 is perhaps the most important of all, as I have been an adult for a good few years,and it's all to easy to stop playing.

Remember those times when you were a kid and had nothing to do but play all day. Make believing, dressing up, making stuff just for the hell of it ... well this is what I want to keep doing!

Part of my journey into the next phase of my artistic practice has started with giving myself time to play by taking some workshops that are completely unrelated to my previous works and therefore I can just 'make stuff' with no particular intention.

The freedom of doing this is wonderful... you should try it.

Have a look at my creations below... they are not meant to be beautiful or profound or amazing or anything in particular ... they are simply experiments of play.










Sculptural Surfaces
Blending fabrics and going at it on a sewing machine like a nutter ... it was a lot of fun.

I did not enjoy so much the repetitiveness of the making the 3D circle and leaf going round and round and round. I am more sporadic than this ... not to good with uniformity and continual repetitiveness.


Wire Animals
Loved it. It first started out as if it was going to be a monkey but I persisted and now I have a baby elephant.

It is about 35cm high and took about 5 metres of wire netting. I suspect if I made a mummy elephant to go with her, it may need 100 metres of wire and then a tow truck to move it.

I very much enjoyed this workshop even though the wire ripped my hands to shreds... its hard working with big leather gardening gloves on all day so lack of protection has lead to my hands looking like I have been in a scrap with a cat! Oh well ... all in the name of play.

Today's photoshoot ends in sleep!

...After a hard day of prancing around a country park ... she slept under that yellowy fallen leafy tree and drifted into the realms of wonder and perhaps a little magic ...







Photography courtesy of Craig Coady

Updating

It started yesterday... after a year or so of living away from the scrupulous draw of the computer, getting into the 'real' world and actually doing stuff with other human beings; I decided that my journeys of out and about really needed to continue being documented, so I have given my blog a bit of a face lift with the intention to use it and keep my friends and followers (no I'm not some kind of God!) happy and up to date with my world...

... So I guess this is going to take a while but my intention is to get some exciting stuff on here over the next week or so....

... also went on a photo shoot today, all in the name of art... so I will be posting some of those images soon. I will also be telling about recent events at Poole Literary Festival - an artist collaboration and many piles of books sponsored by Oxfam. And my upcoming residency at Lighthouse Gallery in Poole that will be taking place over the coming year...

... see you soon... Hazel

REPORTAGE

In September I got involved as a reporter for 'Reportage', an arts project by Emma Leach and Natasha Vicars whilst in residency at KUBE Gallery of Contemporary Art. Emma and Natasha, visual artists from London, came to Poole to work in KUBE at their news desk for a duration of four days. During this time they sent reporters out each day to respond to a brief that was delivered by text.

Responding to the daily mission was challenging to fit in to the day, however it was a pleasure to contribute towards another artists project, and quite frankly gave me an excuse to indulge in some creative writing that excitingly was used for a publication.

I look forward to more interactive, live and visual arts coming to Poole.

Click on the images below to read the publication.

Beautiful World

Into the ocean and into the sea
I dive in the water and set myself free.

Open in the blueness of deep and beyond
I float in the silence of this beau monde.


August 2009

Contemplation ... As long as there's fine weather there'll be art

... Further to my recent open air exhibitions, this contemplation has begun to arise in my mind - As long as there is fine weather there’ll be art -

Last weekend's A-Board sign directing people towards the pier to view the artwork, read " Every Sunday - As long as the weather is fine - ART -> ".

I read this, and it seemed to resonate in my thoughts. I headed straight for my notebook and bullet pointed ...

• As long as there's fine weather there'll be art

I then paused … jotted another circle for a bullet point …paused … then wrote:

• Fine weather Art – Fart! – Fine Art

I laughed to myself and then looked up, left and right, as if I had just been naughty; I am not one for childish toilet humour you see.

… I left the note taking at that and furthered the contemplation dialogue silently inwards. ‘Does this mean that all art is dependant on the weather? If the weather is rainy, stormy or snowy, then art will exist no more! Surely this could not be true, there has to be art even when the weather is not fine… Is this why they call it Fine Art? And anyway, why fart about with fine art? Is fine art just farting with art?

I don’t know but I do know that there is no point in farting about with fine art in the rain; it would just be a complete disaster! Evidence of this is at the end of the first arts on the pier exhibition; the sky suddenly opened the floodgates and before you could say “Peter the painter on the pier”, Peter, as well as every other painter on the pier had activated into fast-forwarded motion and had disappeared into the misty distance.

… Is there any point in farting about with fine art in anyway? …Well, I am an artist so I would vote for fine art. And it would not just stop there … I would also vote for all sorts of arts in all sorts of weather. Why install meteorological boundaries?’

…‘I like fine weather and I like art … I also enjoy a good dramatically moody coloured thunderstorm, with torrential rain and strong winds; going down to the coast and watching the waves crashing violently upon each other and swallowing pebbles from the beach.

This kind of weather is just fine for me. it also seems to have been fine for many artists through generations who have used nature’s painted landscapes of ever changing expression, as inspiration for their fine art … so … I guess it is true, as long as there is fine weather there’ll be art’.

And here my contemplation ends. Not case closed however, as the rest of the page in my notebook has been left empty for the time being … and so contemplation continues …