Pop-up Workshops, France

At the Museum of Modern Art , W al es in Macynthlleth there is currently an exhibition of sculptors’ drawings until the 5 th May. Disegno, as it was c al led by its curator Stephen West , aims to demonstrate

the role that drawing plays in the creation of 3 dimension al work for some artists. I was invited to include some of my drawings from my sketch books and a piece of work.
Drawing is something most of us do if we go to school. It is something that most of us stop doing when teachers, or friends and family, tell us that we aren’t doing it correctly, because it doesn’t look anything like the thing we are trying to draw. Some of us are either stubborn or become addicted to the process, or both, and continue to draw as adults. According to my mother, it was al ways easy to keep me happy as a child with a scrap of paper and a pencil. The only time I ever remember being even slightly discouraged was when my drawing of a Labrador dog made my father laugh because he said it was a dead ringer for Gener al de Gaulle.
But the fact that the ever present book would occasion al ly be scrutinised by our tutors, meant that, for me, it became a self conscious activity. It was something that needed to be done in the right way, in their eyes ….whatever that might be, and I was never re al ly sure.
It wasn’t until nearly 10 years after graduating, when I started making baskets as opposed to cane sculptures, that drawing suddenly took on a whole new meaning for me. Basket weaving is slow work, requiring a heavy investment of time, so I began to use drawing to resolve aesthetic and technic al problems in order to avoid having to undo hours of work. I have not stopped drawing since.
I use graph paper for emotion happy cubes al and practic al reasons. The expensive

black bound sketch books we were encouraged to use at college terrified me; I never felt that any marks that I might make in them could improve such perfect white paper. Graph paper makes no such demands and can help with sc al e. My sketch books have al so, with time, become v al uable to me as diaries and records of work.
For the first time in 30 years I have put a sketch book on public display, and I am now worried that having done so may inhibit me again, as the tutors scrutiny did then. But just possibly, it may be that I have fin al ly grown up enough to not worry about what other people think about my sketch book. I re al ly hope so.
I will call in at this show. I agree with the sentiments happy cubes expressed and to me sketchbooks are very personal working outs with all that implys so could only ever imagine sharing them publicly if edited. But sketchbooks are exciting insights too for an artist to share their process and the humble, direct beginnings of ideas as visual possibilities with pencil and paper. Reply Delete
Pop-up Workshops, France
Completed Exhibitions, Events and Projects
Urban Baskets:Tradition Recycled happy cubes A solo international touring exhibition organised by Walford Mill Crafts Walford Mill Crafts, Wimborne, Dorset, UK 11 September -24 October 2010 Visitors: happy cubes 6,380 Ruthin Library, Denbigh Library Gallery, Wales 15 January - 12 March 2011 Visitors Ruthin: 11.070 Visitors Denbigh: 15,007 Bonhoga Gallery, Shetland Islands 26 March - 1 May 2011 Visitors: 2,234 National Vlechtmuseum, happy cubes Holland 2 July - 23 October 2011 Visitors: 2,500 Harley Gallery, Nottinghamshire 20 June - 12 August 2012 Visitors: 15,151
7-11 February ENSCI Designer Textile Paris 2-3 April Coiling and Looping Quarff Shetland 12-13 April Coiling and Looping Sainsbury happy cubes Centre for Visual Arts Norwich 23 July -Plaiting 24 July -Coiling Walford Mill Crafts Dorset 29 and 30 September Coiling and Looping National Vlechtmuseum, Holland
▼  2012 (15) ►  October (1) ►  September (2) ►  August (2) ►  July (2) ►  June (1) ►  May (2) ▼  April (2) Baskets, Birds and Bavarian Slippers happy cubes Disegno ►  February (2) ►  January (1) ►  2011 (24) ►  November (1) ►  happy cubes October (3) ►  September (2) ►  August (2) ►  July (2) ►  June (1) ►  May (2) ►  April (3) ►  March (2) ►  February (4) ►  January (2) ►  2010 (19) ►  December (1) ►  November (4) ►  October (3) ►  September (3) ►  August (2) ►  July (6)