Feuer und Flamme

They've sent me some pictures of the opening of the show at the Hankwerkmuseum in Deggendorf where one of my Trees of Life is happily on display. I wish I could've been there.

I bet there is a great Christmas Market at the moment too. Boo.

November Show at Rowley Gallery

I am artist of the month at the great window of Rowley Gallery. Chris wrote a lovely post about it and I'm stealing his pictures to post them here.

I made especially for them a bunch of porcelain plaques that relate to my Georgian and Regency figurines. They seemed to be very well received so far by the respectable neighbours of Kensington.

 The Death of Munrow, my version of my favourite figurine at the Victoria & Albert museum.

Candlestick

Yay, this is great. One of my Trees of Life has been selected to be part of an exhibition of candlesticks at the Handwerkmuseum in Deggendorf.
The exhibition is in December, so I will be posting about it.

I've been making these Trees for a few months, inspired, of course, on the Trees of Life that are made in Puebla and in Metepec, Mexico. Mine are a hybrid as I don't make them in terracota, but in porcelain, and I've removed any catholic, biblical imagery and fill them with the worries and objects that surround our lives.

This is the tree going all the way to Deggendorf.

And below some samples of the magnificent Trees of Life made in Mexico.

mexicans in the garden

For a while I've been meaning to make stoneware figures for outside display. I've started with these two guys. I don't want them to compete with the colourful flowers so they only have very spare decoration with nickel oxide and a glaze recipe from Yo Thom.

VIVAN LAS MUJERES

The violence against women is risen to pandemic proportions recently in Mexico and other latinoamerican countries. Clarissa Moura and Abril Castillo are supporting a campaign of Amnesty International with an exhibition and a series of workshops and performances gathering 90 women, artists, musicians and writers from all over Iberoamerica.

I am taking part in the exhibition that you can see at the Centro Cultural España right in the center of Mexico city. Here is the LINK for you to visit the exhibition, see the concerts or to participate in the workshops.

Gill

This weekend we found ourselves in Sussex. Mr Moore had great success at the Open Studios in Brighton and as we went to pick up his earnings and some unsold pieces we also went to see the exhibition of Eric Gill at Ditchling Museum.

Gill was definitely mad, there is no excuse for what he did to his daughters, other female relatives and his dog, he would be in jail if he was alive now, and the Museum knowing this prepare the exhibition open to discuss and receive any feedback about our feelings. Because the crazy guy was also an amazing artist and craftsman.

I have always loved his work. I always use his fonts in any document or design I do, I've spent a fortune collecting Gill type and books of his engravings. I spent hours looking in detail at his sculptures and marvel at the softness of the trace of his drawings etc. I really like him. So I confess I was a bit scared to go to the exhibition. Would I end up hating him? Would knowing more creepy details of his creepiness affect my love for his work?

I confess I forgot about it right away. I ended up again just staring for ages at his sculptures, prints and drawings.

The Museum is small but great. Ditchling is a great little town too. 

Thank you Dempseys for your hospitality!

This is a doll that Gill made for his daughter Petra. With maybe one detail too many.

A poster for the 16th Exhibition of the Society of Wood Engravers. This year is our 80th!

New print: The Buskers

Morris Dancers print

It was my intention to wake up at 4 am on May Day and go climb the hill at Cerne Abbas to see the Wessex Morris Dancers dancing at sunrise. But I had terrible insomnia the night before and couldn't manage.  I was going to! honest.

There is always next year, but I really wanted to make a print about the dancers and most especially in the company of the Ooser, a Dorset giant whose work in the past was to humiliate villagers who have been naughty. So, to my annoyance I had to resource to the help of images in the internet.

The Ooser.

The Wessex Morris Dancers

Carving the dancers block, a beautiful Lemonwood block.

Choosing colours and composition

Choosing the type, Times, 14pts in this case.

And proofing it.

Figurines

My kiln is been the busiest machine in the house, more than the dishwasher or the washing machine.

 I have just finished a bunch of porcelain figurines for the forthcoming exhibition in Godalming, at Lingwood Samuel Art. Don't miss it if you live in Surrey!

Here is Admiral Lord Nelson, in all his golden glory, ready to travel to Godalming.

There are two new additions to the collection: Robert Burns and Bonnie Lassie; and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

And by the way, The Moore's exhibition is ongoing at the very beautiful Tincleton gallery. Prints and figurines. 

The Old School House is a great place to go for a musical evening too.

What have I been doing? II

I had the honour to be invited along with a bunch of other wood engravers to the Prints and Drawings Study Room at the British Museum and have a look and talk about the Dalziel Archive, a collection of thousands of Victorian wood engravings.

It was fascinating to see this prints in the flesh and hear what my colleagues and the curator had to observe and tell about the work we had in front of us, to compare it with our contemporary practice and to hear what the lady who is in charge of the project had to tell us of her discoveries and knowledge of the collection.

To be in that very special room where thousands and thousands of historic prints are drawing are kept was fascinating enough and the general merriment made the day go very quick.

You can see the collection online. It's been scanned and catalogued and can be seen HERE.

Or if you have an Alice in Wonderland copy with the victorian illustrations you will see in a corner of the image the Dalziel name along with Tenniel's.

What have I been doing?

The garden has called for my entire attention and energy for weeks and weeks. But still I've managed to keep printing and making my ceramic figurines and generally keeping the galleries well stocked.

I've also turned my attention to more 3D mediums. I got this crave to learn stone masonry, having the Purbeck quarries so close and several places where to learn, but for some reason I signed up to wood carving first. I guess I thought it was a gentler way to get into sculpture.

Thus I've been looking and been inspired by loads of artists. I didn't know for example that Alexander Calder had done wood sculpture:

And I discovered the work of Baselitz:

The amazing work of Feliciano Mejia:

And of course any African wood sculpture is a masterpiece.

And so I've sacrificed my meditation summer house into a new studio, my mini summer-wood- sculpture-studio. 

Any of this activities anyway (ceramic, wood sculpting...) are a kind of meditation and I always work in silence, no radio, no music, just the birds and my thoughts.