Abirdabode Art Bird Boxes
Myself and Arbarus (Richard Dawson) have been delivering the Abirdabode Project for the last eight months. Funded by Oldham Arts Development, the project aims to bring art and nature together by building bird boxes using a variety of different creative techniques and skills.
We are currently working with a number of different groups in Oldham including the Dove Stone Youth Rangers, the Barrier Breakers, an Age UK older people’s group and the Grassroots Community Allotment Scheme in Failsworth.
We’re making lots of progress on the bird boxes which is good as deadlines are fast approaching – there’s an exhibition of them at Gallery Oldham in March and April. The exhibition opens on Saturday 14th March and will have all the bird boxes made during the project on show. Once the exhibition finishes, the bird boxes will be distributed to various communities, gardens, allotments and housing schemes around Oldham – get in touch if you’d like one for your community!
Most of these images are from Grassroots where we’ve been building a large-scale bird box for the exhibition!
One more thing… we’re doing a drop-in workshop at RSPB Dove Stone Reservoir on 22nd February. This is to celebrate National Nest Box Week (14th – 21st February) and to kick off the RSPB’s Discovery Sundays for 2015. We’ll be based at Ashway Gap (halfway round from the main car park) between 11am and 3pm – come and see us!
Hot Bed Press ’20’ Exhibition
I’ve been lucky enough to be selected for the Hot Bed Press 20 Year anniversary exhibition. Held at Warrington Museum and Art Gallery, the exhibition features 20 artists selected from the printmaking studio’s members and runs from now until 16th September 2014.
Four of my screenprints were chosen to be part of the exhibition, including one that I’ve just completed. In the same style as my previous urban sketch screenprints but much larger, it shows the view from the top of Shudehill Car Park (see my earlier rant about views from car parks here). As I use paper stencils to get the background colours, printing this caused all sorts of problems due to the stencil warping and stretching over such a large area. However, I didn’t want to use photo screens for all parts of the artwork as it creates a final image that’s too perfect for me.
I was really pleased with the final piece especially once framed by the lovely and helpful ‘In the Picture Framing‘, who have just opened up in Woodend Mill in Mossley, where I have my studio.
Artists’ Proof Exhibition
My new series of screenprints are being exhibited at Bank Quay House in Warrington. Part of a group show, the Complete Printmakers from Hot Bed Press will be exhibiting alongside the Wrexham Regional Print Centre.
The exhibition runs from 4th April – 26th May 2014 at Bank Quay House, Sankey Street, Warrington, WA1 1NN. Go to their website for opening times and further details.
I’m back… again!
I’ve just arrived back from installing an origami piece in Hong Kong for Chinese New Year. Hot on the tails of completing my London commission, I was asked to create an origami installation for Pacific Place, an upmarket shopping mall on Hong Kong island which houses the likes of Cartier, Bulgari, Tiffany & Co and Burberry.
The finished installation.
The peach trees below the fish will eventually burst into flower.
As the title of the installation was ‘Shoals of Prosperity’, it seemed ideal to create a large 3D fish made from thousands of small origami fish – 4876 in total. The deadline was incredibly tight, so I waved goodbye to Christmas and set about folding and folding and folding (with the help of some willing assistants – thank you Amy, Kate and Martin!).
Making the origami fish
The tricky part of the commission was to create a realistic fish shape from lots of origami hanging from fishing wire. And the fact that, due to its size, I wouldn’t be able to see the completed piece until it was installed in situ. The overall size of the fish was six metres in length by three metres wide by four metres in height and was all hung from lines of fishing wire hung from acrylic rods.
Its finished!
Me pretending to be a film star with my entourage
Once installed I spent three days doing lots of media interviews for newspapers, magazines and TV – more on this later. I can now say Happy Chinese New Year in both Mandarin and Cantonese!
Pointing out Pacific Place from ‘The Peak’
- The six metre Fantail fish made from almost 5000 origami fish
Royal Brompton Hospital – mosaic commission
Having completed two sets of workshops at the Royal Brompton Hospital in June, I trotted off to London this week to pick up the final completed mosaics and to present the final designs to rb&h Arts.
For the workshops, I spent two days working with patients, visitors, staff and passers-by to develop designs and ideas for the final artwork and then two days making mosaics, using a leaf shape as a basic template. During the workshops we made over 70 mosaic leaves which will all be incorporated into the final artwork.
I also created 50 mosaic ‘packs’ for people to take away and use or for people that couldn’t make it down to the workshops. These consisted of a bag of mosaics, a leaf template on brown paper, a pot of PVA, a glue brush and a set of mosaic instructions. The packs proved really popular and they were all used which was fantastic!
I’ve created a design based on the same leaf template but at a much larger scale. Each ‘leaf’ incorporates the mosaics created during the workshops and these leaves will be displayed around the courtyard. I’ve used every single one of the mosaics made which at the last count was 93 individual pieces.
Next job – reverse the mosaics made during the workshops as these were made using the double indirect method. I’ll use the indirect method to make the larger pieces.
I also delivered some of my leaf prints to the hospital as they are being used for a small exhibition in the foyer there alongside promoting the mosaic project.
Images © rb&hArts at Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust
Waste Creative – an award-winning success!
Waste Creative, the recycling project run by Woodend Artists and funded by Recycle for Greater Manchester has come to the end of it’s first phase. The project consisted of a series of workshops based around using rubbish creatively and culminated in the production of an information pack and DVD about recycling. The project also included a visit to the Materials Recovery Facility in Manchester, composting workshops and choosing some local recycling champions.
The project was launched at New Charter’s head offices in Ashton-under-Lyne where we had an exhibition of all the artwork created, gave out the completed packs and had a film premiere with the animations the group created. All the groups and their parents were invited to the launch along with the press and the funders.
A week later the project won the ‘Love where you live’ award from national organisation and environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy.
Below are some images of the artwork created during the project…
Have a look at the animations the kids created here…
<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/53216286″>Waste Creative The Movie</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user14369968″>Woodend Artists</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>My post ends here. If you can see an advert under this text – please ignore it. It is WordPress’ policy to ‘occasionally’ place ads on blogs. This advert is inappropriate to my readers and blog content and I am currently trying to get WordPress to remove it. If you have time, please email support@wordpress.com to complain. Thankyou!
Woodend Artists Winter Exhibition
Woodend Artists Winter Exhibition is a group show of work being exhibited at the Riverside Cafe in Uppermill from 30th November – 28th December. The cafe is open from Wednesday to Sunday every week.
This is the poster I designed for the Exhibition, alongisde a flyer and e-flyer.
Day Out at the Beach
Just a quick one this week…some of the Woodend Artists went on a trip to Formby yesterday for a walk on the beach with the dogs (that’s Harvey, Meg, Lara and Sir Percival Fuzzington), a third or fourth look at Antony Gormley’s Another Place (in the dark as it turned out!) and the preview of ‘The Imaginarium of The Bizarre and The Mysterious’ an exhibition by Woodend Artist member, Sue Platt.
Antony Gormley’s ‘Another Place’
Thanks to Pat Baker for the images!
Being A Freelance Artist 