When fragments come together & become inspirational, ideas grow & new work is made. There are, however, definitely time, space and attitude weeds that get in the way and obscure the view and access to getting on with making.
Now the exhibition is up I notice maps and figures and a lightness of touch. There are themes but no big statements, a series of sight bites.
So far the exhibition is an airing of the collages over the past year presented on walls. It is still growing after the 50 plus people made small collages out of the seed packets. Some even came later by email – from visitors who took envelopes home with them. It has proved very popular and the good feedback continues. Over 30 children and parents added to this yesterday.
The plug on Radio Shropshire website and John Davall¹s programme helped – A big ‘Thank you’ to Genevieve Tudor who came to the launch & spread the word.
It is our turn now to review our work and decide what next. The work has fed into my work. My decision so far is to concentrate on making more landscape based mixed media work.
Back to the image of growing – growing new ideas from new collage materials. We have decided we must start anew as the old stuff is pretty well composted.
Angela
The family workshop today was busy – very busy. For over 2 hours children came & went & sometimes came back again. They drew all over the gallery windows and the windows in both entrances to the building with chalk pens. They filled their “window boxes” with flowers, trees, the occasional tank & aeroplane and some interesting semi abstract patterns. We should have said no to writing and we would have avoided a lot of “dudes” in speech bubbles and references to football teams. In the end we wiped away most of the writing and kept just the drawings.
The children also made a lot of small collages but not many made it onto the exhibition wall – most were taken home which is how it should be.
Art Allotments grows out of ripped up artwork …….
So begins the article appearing today on BBC radio Shropshire website.
….. Art Allotments was born out of the frustration that comes with artists block. In need of inspiration, Shropshire artists Angela Martin and Heather Prescott decided to send each other pieces of their artwork – to cut up. They added an assortment of other cuttings and materials and came up with a series of collages….
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/shropshire/hi/people_a…
The grand opening has happened. No time to update this blog before hand as too busy making cakes & seed packets. It was great to welcome 50 or more people. We can’t be sure of the exact numbers because we had forgotten to bring a number clicker & at some point fairly early on I lost the pen & list I started & gave up.
In order to have cake everyone had to first make a collage. We handed everyone a seed packet – an envelope full of random collage scraps – for the task. We didn’t make it compulsory but even so, half way through we needed to put out more tables. Many people made one or more collage postcards and some took extra packets home.
Gradually as the cakes disappeared, the notice board was filled with small pieces of Allotment Art. The results ranged from exuberant to restrained, witty, abstract, figurative and even a 3D thank-you collage bouquet.
The feed back has been so positive. Everyone found the gallery despite some of the posters/directions going astray. The whole event felt relaxed and everyone said it was fun. As fun was one of the aims from the very beginning we now both feel exhilarated & inspired. Several visitors want to join the project & so it will now move into the next phase but first we have a family workshop to run next week. ‘Art Window Boxes’.
Last few days have been hectic. Publicity is now distributed, framing done … It seemed odd to be framing ideas & unfinished work including pages ripped from sketchbooks. By Saturday lunchtime the exhibition was up. Thank you to helpers. Questions still surface. Is the work any good? Is it worth exhibiting?
I give myself the answer. It has to be yes & yes, but there remains a sense of apprehension & unease.
So we have to remind ourselves again that this is an exhibition about a process. “Finished” work will be for a future exhibition.
Next task is to plan for the “official opening” – Next Sat. March 6th.
