STEAM Powered Big Draw Festival at the De La Warr Pavilion

Yesterday I ran a session for teachers/creative practitioners at the Hastings Museum & Art Gallery during the Hastings & Rother Arts Education Network meeting. I'm working for the amazing De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, creating activities for the STEAM Powered Big Draw Festival (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Maths). We are offering a twilight CPD session for teachers on the 3rd October, 4pm-6pm, covering classroom activities, curriculum links & teachers notes using STEAM & Fiona Banner's Buoys Boys exhibition as stimulus.

Join us for the STEAM Powered Big Draw Festival drop-in, running Saturday 22nd & Sunday 23rd October from 12 noon - 4pm. 

 Drawing machines

Spin drawing

Lets go on a shape hunt!

 Engineered to perfection

Experimentation

  One minute to create a drawing machine - GO!

ink & acrylic paint

Submitted these paintings for the 2016 Open at The Old Station Gallery in Rowsley and they were accepted. 27 artists are exhibiting from the 24th September to 26th October. 

stitch

I've been stitching for months! In June I posted about the second embroidery in the series of four, feeling that the butterfly fabric had made the piece too cheerful. This feeling persisted while working on the third embroidery and when finished I restitched the second onto a plain handkerchief and was happy with the result.

I'm currently working on the fourth and final stitched drawing and aim to finish on the last day in September. This, as yet untitled series is to be box framed in oak and exhibited at the We Are Many Conference for childless-by-circumstance woman in Solihull 29th-30th October. Here is the text that accompanies the work: 

Landscape, family history and slow textile process meet within Karen’s practice. Showing at the We Are Many Conference is a new body of work, hand sewn handkerchiefs that belonged to her Auntie Jessie, some stained with use, all lovingly washed and ironed. The woodlands depicted are far from suburbia in parts of Derbyshire much walked by the artist, unpeopled sites with clear and hidden pathways, places between places where girls in red cloaks could encounter the wolf. 

For Karen these stitched drawings depict a particular solitude, a particular grief: grief for an imagined family. Alone and unsure of the path how do we move forward? What awaits beyond the woodlands edge? Can we see the wood for the trees? Karen takes her place alongside women who walk solo, who claim the rocky path, the quiet woods as theirs. Striding forward with reserves of inner strength, resourcefulness, sensitivity and intelligence while baring witness to the beauty in self and beyond. 

Karen lives in London and has an MA from Goldsmiths College, The University of London. Within her practice she is drawn to deepening meaning and value to overlooked textiles and textile processes, usually within forlorn sites: the graveyard, the underpass, the suburban woodland.

 Second attempt on the second embroidery - happy with this one

Fourth and final embroidery in the (as yet) untitled series

answers on a postcard

Joanna Rucklidge invited me to create a lowercase 'y' for Like-Letters, an exhibition at the Sheffield Institute of Arts this autumn. The brief was to respond to the design of the letter before mine (x) using yellow, red and blue. After a couple of false starts I stitched into the early hours and created this!

Reverse of card (hidden when stuck to another postcard for sending)

E11 to S1

PLAY / GROUND - ritual & intention

This workshop provided an opportunity to explore the forest site in considering ritual, consciousness and voicing intention. Participants were invited to hunker down, breathe in the space, to listen, to tune in/tune out and quietly ask, What do I need more of in my life? Using materials found onsite objects were assembled to represent desires and our ritual was completed by writing intentions on rice paper which was buried or placed meaningfully within the holly grove. 

Rice paper, made of potato starch and water would dissolve in the coming days, our written/drawn intentions melting into the forest floor. Our actions retained as memories accompanying us beyond the woods and into everyday life, I wonder if thoughts have returned to the forest site since, mine have.

The Leytonstone Arts Trail 2016 focused mine and Siobhan Davies collaboration, both of us testing ideas and playfully pushing boundaries. PLAY / GROUND is an ongoing invitation for others to invent happenings and adventures in E11.

Invitation

 Path

 Listening & mark making

 Object of desire

Interventions & tweaks within the space

summer term - year 5 at drew primary

My final half term at Drew Primary School was spent with the y5 pupils, so I ended my year as I began, in their classrooms. The city of London inspired our art exploration and Drew's young Londoners studied the iconic Tube map, considered our connections to the rest of the world from London City Airport (situated next to the school) and used memories and experiences to add depth to their work. We drew, painted, mark made, cut, collaged, looked, listened, learned tricks, short cuts and creative techniques, rising to the challenge of each activity.

My two years at Drew Primary have been full of learning, I've enjoyed working with the whole school and it's been a privilege to open the doorway into art/thinking/expressing/connecting with these precious children, the future creators of our city, our world. Thanks for having me!

 The London Eye in vibrant ink

 Firework!

 Tuning into our surroundings

 Mass drawing of London City Airport DLR station

 London landmarks

 Bold painting

dinosaur

Family felt making at The Hepworth Wakefield last Sunday, no photos of felt this time BUT this little lad created a picture on our magnetic wall - a dinosaur! He was one of the politest and clearest children I've ever met. Great boundaries wee one!