We always find something to give us the impression we exist...

Bumper post for you today! On Thursday, my good friend Chris and I had a bumper art tour of Leeds, taking in art, opera and theatre!

Glamourie at PSL

We started our tour at Project Space Leeds, for its Glamourie exhibition. The exhibition is focused on the common themes of ritual and ceremony, with artwork collected from a variety of little known British artists. It is a slightly disjointed exhibition, which doesn't always work as a whole, although there are a number of stand out pieces within it. It seems a little too like a graduate arts show, where not all of the work is of the same quality and not everything seems to link to the common theme. Not to be overly critical, as I did enjoy the majority, but this remained a minor criticism for me.

Below are a selection of my favourite pieces from the exhibition:

"Snap Like a Diva" workshop

"Nothing Here" - Kitty Clark

"I am a Real Artist" - Johannes Fa

"Zeco Sun" - Leon Sadler

"Super Supra" - Iona Smith

"Ruach Ha'Shem (Brain of God/Creation of Adam?) - Ant Macari

"The Law of Excluded Middle" - Ant Macari

My personal favourite, based on the work of Jorges Louis Borges.

Five Truths at Opera North

After finding a flyer at PSL we decided to investigate the new work at the Howard Assembly Rooms for Opera North. The work was a large video installation with numerous screens showing 5 different versions of Ophelia's mad scene from Hamlet. These were filmed in the style of 5 great film directors and overlapped the images and sounds so you were quite literally surrounded by the performance. I found this to be a really effective exploration of madness, and it was interesting to see the same scene and words interpreted in different ways.

Some images from the installation:

Waiting for Godot at WYP

To conclude our day of artfaggery, we went to see the newest production of Waiting for Godot at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. I am a big fan of Samuel Beckett, having based my MA dissertation and artwork on his plays, and performing the last scene from Waiting for Godot as part of my final exhibition. However, I had never seen it live.

The WYP version differed slightly from convention as it had an all black cast. Obviously there is no limitation to how the characters can be portrayed (they are, after all, only descried as wearing bowlers) but this was something slightly out of the ordinary.

I have to say that I enjoyed the performance very much. The set was very minimal as expected, with the tree bursting up from what appeared to be cracked judo mats. The background projection provided the difference in lighting, and added to the sense of nothingness about the scenery. The actors were very good, transposing Beckett's words into a Caribbean patois which worked surprisingly well. I particularly enjoyed the performance of Lucky and Pozzo (who I wasn't too fond of in my previous readings of the script). I was very pleased with the overall production, which had the right amount of humour and pathos, updating Beckett's words to a new audience.

Yet another example of the great Art on offer in Leeds. I often think how lucky I am to live somewhere with great artistic opportunities, and all this in one day really confirmed what the city has to offer! Even if all the walking around really takes it out of the knees!

Happy Birthday to You!

A friend of mine teaches Baby Sign Language and commissioned me to make a set of Happy Birthday bunting to use during her teaching.

I wanted to make a unisex string of bunting which could be used for any group of children, but which kept a home-made quality. After raiding my stash of randomly acquired fabrics and rummaging through the fabric offcuts in the local fabric shops, I had a pretty good selection of old and new fabric (including some amazing Cath Kidston star fabric, orange and yellow checks from an old vintage dress and the trusty recycled Ikea pillow cases rescued from Karl's old bed!)

I printed the required letters out (Arial font) and used these as templates to cut out the fabric. I decided to leave the edges raw as it would add to the old fashioned style of the bunting (and because I couldn't dream of creating seams which would allow you to still read the letter!).

Once these were cut out and paired with a contrasting background fabric, I hand sewed each letter onto the triangles which will make up the completed bunting. This was then sewn together on the machine and attached to the bunting cord ready for hanging. Two snazzy felt ends later and it was ready to go!

I was really pleased with how it turned out (and so was she!) but I was amazed at how long it was compared to my usual 9 flag bunting! I attempted to get an image of the whole thing, but it shows off more of the garden than the bunting!

Mouse Guard!

For a while, my boyfriend has been asking me to make him some felties of the characters from the Mouse Guard series of comics. They had been on my radar for a while, but with Valentines day looming I decided to get on with making them.

I started by drawing up some templates based on the characters, using mainly trial and error to get the sizes in proportion. The first template mice had massive heads, but this was easly rectified. First I made the ears, by glueing two contrasting pieces of tear drop shaped felt together and squashing underneath some heavy books until dry. I then squeezed them in the middle to create the 3D shape of the ears. I modelled these on my own rats, Basil and Loki, aiming to get the angled look of their ears.

Next I sewed black seed beads on as eyes and started to oversew around the edges of the head, trapping the ears inside. Once this was completed and stuffed with toy filling, I started to make the bodies. These were based on the Zombie Felties I have made before, so I simply drew around the body of the zombie to create the mouse template.

I adapted the arms slightly, as the lopsided zombie arms didn't look right for the mice. I sewed and stuffed the body in the same way as the head, adding a string of embroidery thread in the same colour as the inner ear pieces for the tail. I then sewed the head and body together. Lastly I made up a cloak shape with long thin strips at either side. These were then knotted around the mouse's neck to hide the join.

And here is the full set!

Saxon

Lieam

Kenzie

Utopia/Dystopia at the Hepworth

I was lucky enough to get myself put on the guest list for the opening of the new exhibition at the Hepworth gallery (Thanks Hayley!). Despite the 2-pairs of gloves temperatures, and much faffing trying to find the car park (no thanks Sat Nav) I made it in. After claiming my free drink (part of the art fag tradition) I went straight up to the exhibition, ignoring the speeches so I could get a good un-interrupted look at the work.

Walking into the space you are met with a series of what appears to be antique fabrics. On closer inspection, these are painted, ceramic and had cut leather representations of fabric. I was very taken with the leather versions, which you really did have to get very close to before you could figure out what they were!

I then went in to watch the Ben Rivers film. He has put together 4 short films about islands and fictional islands to look at the idea of utopia. I will admit that I didn't watch the whole 4, coming in halfway through the screening. You are handed a set of wireless headphones with the films soundtrack playing and go into the space filled with beanbags, cushions and folding chairs (I managed to claim an empty bean bag - left empty as it was directly in front of the projector meaning I had to slump in the chair to avoid projecting my giant head over the screen).

The first film I saw was documenting a Japanese psychiatric centre on an island which was starting to decay (your usual art film gubbins, but not too interesting). The second film was about the fictional island of 'Somerset' which was inhabited by primitive natives in creepy wooden/found object masks. The soundtrack discussed the history and traditions of these people and was a much more successful piece in my view. I later found out that the soundtrack was written without seeing the finished film, which explains the disjointed elements of the film, but also added a sense of confusion which was in keeping with the images on screen.

By far and away my favourite was the collaboration between Heather and Ivan Morrison, who were exhibiting a collection of objects which are complimented and used as part of a puppet show. The objects all appear to document some form of decay, from a collection of carved animal bones to paintings created with burnt bone dust and soot. There is also a metal stool which is being slowly dripped with water from above which will gradually rust over the course of the exhibition. This is quite startling at first, as my first impression was that something must be leaking from my bag! The story of the objects will be shown through interaction with the puppets, and is a story about the loss of a child, who is represented here by a giant floating ball of light filled with helium.

(Image taken from the Hepworth Facebook page, where you can find full images of the exhibition set up)

Sadly the puppets weren't in action on the night, but were hanging up in the Hepworth reception area. They have been hand carved, and correlate to the massive paintings displayed in the gallery space (grey for Anna the protagonist and Black for the man).

I will be going back to see the puppet show in a few weeks so will be able to expand on this review then. At the moment, I think that the objects are very interesting apart from the puppets, and am intrigued to see how these creations interact.

Overall, this is a very different show to the Eva Rothschild exhibition which opened the Hepworth. It is unified by the themes of utopia/dystopia, but without the additional explanations I had before and after looking at the work I think that this may be missed by some visitors. However, I would definitely recommend it!