Thursday 11th November.

Last night was my last contribution to 'Is it madness. Is it beauty' by Clare Twomey at the Siobhan Davies Studios. Gill Clarke will take over until it finishes on Sunday at 6pm.

Look through the photos to go back in time to the beginning. Maybe someone will send me a picture of the last day to finish off the progression.

Two events happened last night:

After I'd been pouring water into vessels and mopping up the water as the vessels cracked and spilled their contents on the ground for about two hours, two women came into the room. They stood and watched and chatted, and sat and watched and chatted about monotony in general. About how my tasks were quite varied so maybe it wasn't so bad to be doing what I was doing... Then one woman started to relate to her friend the story of the dung beetle. How he gathered his ball of dung several times his own size and rolled it up a slope which took hours. As it reached the top he lost hold. The dung ball tumbled back to the bottom. The dung beetle collected his load and started up the slope...
They were in the room a long time, enjoying each others company, appreciating the piece, 'getting it'.


Later, when the room was completely empty, a man strode in. He looked around briefly and demanded that the invigilator tell him what it was all about. When he didn't get a reply that satisfied him, he turned to me as I mopped and asked "Why is it so wet in here?"
I continued mopping...

Week two. Wednesday 10th November.

The stack going down
4.30pm Wednesday 10th November

9pm

Alison helping to mop up the last breaks

Friday 5th November. collapsing and rebuilding.

9pm Friday

Thursday 4th November...

Before

After

Is it madness. Is it beauty. Ongoing diary. Day one, 2nd november 2010

4pm. Getting ready for day one.

Clare and Gill

As the water spills from the collapsing bowls, Gill or myself mop the water. The mop and bucket work like a cloak of invisibility. People carry on personal conversations a table width away. Even though it is clear we are facilitating the work, we vanish into our task.

9pm. End of day one.

Is it madness. Is it beauty

In rehearsal for 'Is it madness.Is it beauty'. 31 November 2010.

Gill Clarke and myself will be helping Clare Twomey realise her installation piece 'Is it madness. Is it beauty' at the Siobhan Davies Studios over the next two weeks. The piece will evolve over time and I will post regular photographs of its development and/or destruction.

The piece is described: "Futile actions of hope continue, unrelenting, despite their impending devastation..."

2nd November to 7th November and 10th November to 14th November to see it in action. 85 St George's Road, London, SE1 6ER. See www.siobhandavies.com for times.

1000 sketches

1000 sketches over 4 weeks from 3 minutes of choreographed movement... 2 pieces of jewellery completed, 8 to discover.

metal, movement and simplicity

I know its not new to wax lyrical over the beauty of Michael Good's jewellery forms, but in the middle of researching and designing a new collection of jewellery based around choreographed movement, I find myself returning to his pieces. He manages to capture flow and tension...

MADE10 Brighton

Brightons makers fair will be landing in November. Check them out.

Thanks to MADE10 for a Maker of the Week article

Straw Dogs

Karen Ryan
Custom Made in England
Vanity Series
2010

Spring Projects has an exhibition called Straw Dogs with Jason Brooks, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Karen Ryan and Hans Stofer.

This "is a group exhibition which presents second hand objects in a new light.On entering the gallery, a collection of cast-off paintings, furniture and objects are displayed which have been mutated, mediated and embellished."

Nice blogs... 8 July 2010

Sarah Warsop Portraits Brooch
2010
Silver

Discovered these sites have been kind enough to feature my jewellery. Linking back to their great sites here:


The Carrotbox

Iris Jewelry

Apparat

The Making Game, 7 July 2010

Excerpt from "The Making Game" Jeanette Winterson.
Jerwood Contemporary Makers, 16 June - 25 July 2010, Jerwood Space, London SE1 0LN.

The most satisfying thing a human being can do – and the sexiest – is to make something.

Life is about relationship – to each other – and to the material world. Making something is a relationship.

The verb is the clue. We make love, we make babies, we make dinner, we make sense, we make a difference, we make it up, we make it new…

True, we sometimes make a mess, but creativity never was a factory finish.

The wrestle with material isn’t about subduing; it is about making a third thing that didn’t exist before. The raw material was there, and you were there, but the relationship that happens between maker and material allows the finished piece to be what it is. And that allows a further relationship to develop between the piece and the viewer or the buyer.

Both relationships are in every way different from mass production or store bought objects that, however useful, are dead on arrival. Anyone who makes something finds its life, whether it’s Michelangelo releasing David from twenty tons of Carrara marble, or potter Jane Cox spinning me a plate using the power of her shoulders, the sureness of her hands, the concentration of her mind.

I have a set of silverware made by an eighteenth century silverworker called Hester Bateman, one of the very few women working in flatware at that time. When I eat with her spoons, I feel the work and the satisfaction that went into making them – the handle and bowl are in equal balance – and I feel a part of time as it really is – not chopped into little bits, but continuous. She made this beautiful thing, it’s still here, and I am here too, writing my books, eating my soup, two women making things across time. I feel connection, respect, delight. And it is just a spoon…

But the thing about craft, about the making of everyday objects that we can have around us, about the making of objects that are beautiful and/or useful, is that our everyday life is enriched.

How is it enriched? To make something is to be both conscious and concentrated – it is a fully alert state, but not one of anxious hyperarousal. We all know the flow we feel when we are absorbed in what we do. I find that by having a few things around me that have been made by someone’s hand and eye and imagination working together, I am prevented from passing through my daily life in a kind of blur. I have to notice what is in front of me – the table, the vase, the handblocked curtains, the thumb prints in the sculpture, the lettering block. I have some lamps made by Marianna Kennedy, and what I switch on is not a bulb on a stem; it is her sense of light...

Chien-wei Chang
One After Another
2008
silver, brass,ebony