More BogArt

ew knows

More BogArt! The interesting and quirky Cinema & Co in Swansea is more than just a place that shows films, it is a space for comedy, music and art as well. The exhibitions in the main cinema change monthly but there is a great bit of exhibition space in the cinema’s two toilets (also known as the Bogs in British slang). So owner Anna Redfern offered me the space to curate BogArt and I jumped at the chance. It’s a captive audience for the art, after all. The one above is a mixed media piece, based on an original life drawing, called “I Knows ‘Ew Luvs Me Cos ‘Ew Buys Me Chips” which is a bit of a joke here in Swansea….

holocaust

And the one in the smaller bog is an ink drawing on Mylar film, inspired by my wintry visit to Berlin in the snow, where I saw the Holocaust Memorial under a layer of soft whiteness.

Crafty Cat

Sometimes I want to do something, keep my hands occupied, but I’m arted out, so I settle down to do a bit of crafting. Art is hard work for me, crafting, like baking, is very relaxing. I made a stack of origami lilies which will end up on a string of LED lights as fairy lights. I got the instructions from the new BBC series, MAKE! Craft Britain where this guy demonstrated a couple of different origami models. Just after I photographed them, Sparta Puss threw them on the floor. Because that’s what cats do.

Number 96

Voogd V 96

 

Almost three years ago, I decided to draw one hundred, thirty-minute sketches of Baby Boomers, people of my generation. I thought it would take me about a year. Wrong! Funny how life gets in the way. I did most of them in 2 years but got stuck on the last handful; it has been so hard to find mutually convenient times. So today I was delighted to draw Number 96! This is a fellow artist visiting from the USA, who is staying with friends nearby. She’s the right age and willing, so I paid her a visit, with home made cake (a jam and buttercream sponge, with home-made loganberry jam – home grown loganberries too) and had a chat about her life experience as a Baby Boomer and then drew her. It was interesting to talk with someone from a different culture because although we are the same generation, much of our experience has been very different.

Baby Boomers are the generation born between 1946 and 1964, a big bump working its way through time.  Eventually, I’m planning an installation featuring all the drawings I’ve done, but that’s a long way off yet. First of all, I have to get the last 4 Boomers into a room and draw them.

Layering

detail 3

I’ve been carrying on painting, I don’t normally paint but this is for a special someone. I don’t really know how to approach paint so I’ve come at it from the point of view of the printmaker that I am and I’m adapting a technique I use for monotypes, where I layer translucent glazes of yellow, red and blue, creating all the colours from the interplay of these colours on top of each other, adapted by the intensity of the brushstrokes. I think, if I remember correctly, that the Impressionists did something similar, they didn’t mix their colours before application to the canvas.

The monotype technique I use was taught to me by USA-based artist/printmaker Vinita Voogd, if you want to see how I do it please click here to my Tecchie section.

A Grand Night Out

Kathe
Image: Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945), Self-portrait with hand against cheek (before July 1906) © The Trustees of the British Museum

So this evening, Swansea was buzzing with crowds of arty types milling between no less than 5 galleries opening exhibitions on the same night. I dropped into the effervescent Galerie Simpson to start with, then up to the magnificent Glynn Vivian Art Gallery for the opening of “Portrait Of The Artist – Käthe Kollwitz”. I’ve been desperate to see this show, which had been at Ikon in Birmingham last year, in partnership with the British Museum and supported by the Dorset Foundation. She is one of my heroes and I love her work so much. I’m a total fangirl.

According to the gallery, “Kollwitz’s unique artistic talent, her technical prowess and intelligence, and above all her humanity, can be seen in this exhibition. There is much about the life and work of Kollwitz that instils hope, that is inspiring and life affirming, despite the burden of hardship and sorrow carried by so many of her figures and by herself. Her emphasis was often on what was distinctive about women’s experience, including the fundamental nature and potency of maternal love. She believed that art could be a force for good in society.”

And there’s a book! I had to have it. The exhibition carries on until the 17th of June and I might be running a weekend printmaking masterclass there, linked to the exhibition……. It’s worth a trip to Swansea to see this and the other shows on at the moment at Galerie Simpson, Volcano, Mission Gallery and Elysium, but not on Mondays.

 

 

 

Off And On

collage 1

Sometimes the ideas flow and I don’t have enough hours in the day to get them down onto paper, other times I struggle for inspiration, ideas fall flat and I find it hard to do any artwork. Like many other artists, I have strategies to try and get through these lean times. One is to do lots of sketchbook work and another is to have something creative that I can pick up and put down. I’ve been working on this collage, off and on, for a few months now. When the ideas really dry up, I just get absorbed in this, it’s on a piece of A4 card and the visual matter is mostly from old landscape calendars and National Geographic magazines, ripped and stuck down with Pritt stick glue. It relieves the pressure of constantly trying to be creative.

Home Comfort

Sparta 2018

In times of stress and worry, I retreat into my home. It’s my cave, my fortress, my refuge and my comfort. I close the door on the bad old world outside and batten down the hatches to weather any storms that life throws at me. My chubby cat, Sparta Puss is an integral part of my home comfort. She sits and purrs and brings a feeling of peace and calm and normality.

I work part-time for the homelessness charity, Crisis, as a fine art tutor and I really appreciate how lucky I am to be able to go to my own home which is safe and secure and warm and dry. I am lucky that I don’t have to endure living in a war zone or a refugee camp. The insecurity and stress of not having anywhere to call your own, not being able to close your door onto the outside world and feel safe, it is awful.

To find out more about the work done by Crisis, please click here.

Colouring In

detail

I rarely paint, it’s not a medium I feel much affinity with but I’ve been working on a painting the past couple of days, it’s for someone special. The reason I don’t paint much is because I feel that all my creativity goes into drawing and once I’ve got the drawing as I want it, painting just seems like colouring in, which is quite nice but nowhere near as creative, in my opinion, as drawing. Although I know a lot of painters who wouldn”t agree with me on this.

I’m using acrylic paints, thinned with water, to paint translucent layers of pigment onto a white primed canvas. This is a small detail of the painting in progress.

 

 

So Many Creatives

Kat Ridgeway

 

The exhibition to celebrate International Women’s Day at Swansea’s Cinema & Co is coming to an end, just one more day. It’s been a privilege to work with such an amazing group of creative people. Here’s most of the wall-based art in the show – I didn’t manage to photograph a couple of the pieces. There were also films and entrepreneurs at the opening event, a real celebration of women’s achievements.

 

 

Artists, designers, performers and filmmakers are Aida Garton, Ally Jay Phillips, Alyson Williams, Amber Hiscott, Amelia Thomas (Unity), Amy Goldring, Angie Stevens, Ann Jordan, Ann Lucas, Avant Cymru, Carol Lawrence, Catrin Jones, Chris Bird-Jones, Claudia Mollzahn, Emma Cownie, Hana Scoular, Kara Seaman, Kat Ridgeway, Kate Bell, Laura Niehorster, Leila Bebb, Leanne Vaughan Phillips, Lynne Bebb, Nazma Botanica, Natie M Davies, Nicky Stitch, Patricia McKenna Jones, Rose Davies (Rosie Scribblah), Rhona Tooze, Rufus Mufasa, Sally Davies, Sally Price, Tina Wisby. Plus entrepreneurs Anna Redfern and Goggi Shazi.

Thank you, you are amazing women.

Here’s one of the films, featuring artwork by Aida Garton.

Mother And Daughter

Lynne B

I organised an exhibition and event for International Women’s Day last week at Swansea’s Cinema & Co, showcasing women artists, makers and entrepreneurs from the Swansea area. Mother and daughter Lynne and Leila Bebb are featured. Lynne Bebb is a sculptor and printmaker and has exhibited a trio of screenprinted monotypes with her daughter Leila as the subject. Leila is a performance artist and we showed this film of her contemporary dance piece, “Shattering“. So much talent in one family.

Shattering from Lynne Bebb on Vimeo.

 

The film was choreographed by Jessie Brett with original music by Jered Sorkin and supported by The Welfare, Ystradgynlais.