Exhibition and other Irons (in the fire).

I have been busy with a number of things over the last month, hence no activity on the blog front.  I have a new studio, the garage is now converted and I have light! I’ll post some photos at the moment I’m still cleaning up after the builders.  The second is a coop and compound for 3 saved battery hens who will be coming to live with us on Saturday. Lastly, I was invited by Ray Collins to join him and 2 fellow grads. of SMU to exhibit at Aberdulais Falls. This is the poster. I’m going to be making some new work for this, partly based on the waterfall and some I think based on Welsh Quilts, but we will see, I’ll post as I produce the work.

Tightrope walking – Poetry Friday

Over the last few months I have felt like the ‘Man on the wire’, anyone who has children will know how hard it is when they are adults and we can’t convince them that their actions will cause them unhappiness and pain.  This poem is supposed to be about romantic love (I think ) and was possibly meant to be taken literally but it describes how I feel about my children and my partner so I thought I would share.

Passion by Sue May

What does passion know?

Passion knows nothing

It is red and blind

And plays the congas

With the accuracy of a brain

surgeon.

Passion lives in the heat

It is Irish and confused

It wears a sodden shirt

And plays the double bass

With the fingers of an angel.

Passion speaks in gibberish

It is lost an lonely

It wears broken shoes

And plays the saxophone

With water streaming down its face.

Passion is clever

It is full up and hearty

It wears a leather belt

And sings like a face full of Sun

Passion knows everything.

Taken from ‘Dancing the Tightrope’.

On the other hand it may just describe the menopause.

Poetry Friday, in memorium

Merce Cunningham April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009, see here for more about this legendary choreographer http://www.merce.org/index-content.html

The Light of Life

Put out that Light,

Put out that bright Light,

Let darkness fall.

Put out that Day,

It is the time for nightfall.

Stevie Smith

Poetry FridayX2

 

 

I wasn’t around last week so didn’t post a poem, so this week I’ll post 2!! the first of which you should have got last week is by Walt Whitman and called Song of Myself, this is the first verse, its a celebration of being an American, but could be applied to anyone. I should post it on 4th of July but I’ll be in Indianapolis celebrating with Americans.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, 
And what I assume you shall assume, 
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. 

I loafe and invite my soul, 
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. 

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air, 
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their 
parents the same, 
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, 
Hoping to cease not till death. 

Creeds and schools in abeyance, 
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, 
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, 
Nature without check with original energy. 

 

Waltman age 37 when he wrote the poem. Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the 2nd poem is by John Dunne, you can hear Richard Burton read it here.

http://town.hall.org/radio/HarperAudio/013194_harp_01_ITH.au
The Relic
When my grave is broke up again

Some second guest to entertain,

(For graves have learn’d that woman head,

To be to more than one a bed)

And he that digs it, spies

A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,

Will he not let’us alone,

And think that there a loving couple lies,

Who thought that this device might be some way

To make their souls, at the last busy day,

Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?

If this fall in a time, or land,

Where mis-devotion doth command,

Then he, that digs us up, will bring

Us to the bishop, and the king,

To make us relics; then

Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen, and I

A something else thereby;

All women shall adore us, and some men;

And since at such time miracles are sought,

I would have that age by this paper taught

What miracles we harmless lovers wrought.

First, we lov’d well and faithfully,

Yet knew not what we lov’d, nor why;

Difference of sex no more we knew

Than our guardian angels do;

Coming and going, we

Perchance might kiss, but not between those meals;

Our hands ne’er touch’d the seals

Which nature, injur’d by late law, sets free;

These miracles we did, but now alas,

All measure, and all language, I should pass,

Should I tell what a miracle she was.

 

This reminds me of of Side by Side by Philip Larkin. Are they both about enduring/undying love?

Poetry Friday

I have decided to take part in ‘Poetry Friday’, I don’t know whether anyone can join, it may be a closed club but what can they do?

Here is my first poem which I downloaded from the Poetry Archive, if you are interested in poetry this is a good site, it has recordings too.

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/home.do   

Marigold by Vicki Feaver

Not the flowers men give women-

delicately scented freesias,

stiff red roses, carnations

the shades of bridemaids’ dresses,

almost sapless flowers,

drying and fading – but flowers

that wilt as soon as their stems 

are cut, leaves blackening

as if blighted by the enzymes

in our breath, rotting to a slime

we have to scour from the rims

of vases; flowers that burst

from tight, explosive buds, rayed

 

like the sun, that lit the path

up the Thracian mountain, that we wound

 

into our hair, stamped on

in ecstatic dance, that remind us

we are killers, can tear the heads

off men’s shoulders;

flowers we still bring

secretly and shamefully

into the house, stroking

our arms and breasts and legs

with their hot orange fringes,

the smell of arousal.

I’ve chosen this because I have some marigold seedlings waiting to be planted. Also because the poet talks about how women fade like flowers and I’m feeling a little faded just now. But I also like marigolds and orange, they make me think of July, the beginning of summer.D

On the Edge Exhibition part 2.

 

Moment-Sean Campbell

This is kiln fused glass, the photos don’t do the glass justice, there are layers of colour, possibly enamels. Look at the detail and you will have some idea of how much is going on.  Has anyone done tests using tin oxide between glass? Just a thought.

Sean Campbell- detail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Will Sheakspeare - Hot cast glass

Low Tide Quins (detail) Will Shakspeare

 

 

 

 

 

 

The detail on this hot casting by Will Shakspeare shows inclusions of copper wire and dichroic glass with glass trails (they look like worm casts) where the molten glass had started to cool when being poured. This process takes a long time and the glass has to be kept hot thru each successive layer.

 

Cello-Colin Reid

 

Colin Reid-Cello (duplication of copper oxide cast)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colin Reids work is exceptional, the photos aren’t wonderful but you can just see the suggestion of the veil running thru. the piece the second photo shows how the polished glass mirrors the image in the copper oxide casting, there are more duplications according to where you stand. You can just make out the scroll work from the neck of the violin he cast and part of the sound box. I wish I were rich I’d go to one of his workshops, oh for money!

‘On the Edge’ exhibition

We don’t get national glass exhibitions here in Wales very often so this was a big treat. There were lots of pieces I liked but the cast glass was what I went for. Working by myself and seeing other glass makers rarely I forget how wonderful and varied the work can be, and there is nothing like seeing the real thing, photos just aren’t the same. The show continues at Swansea Waterfront Museum until the end of May, so if you can get there go and take a look. Ray Collins has posted lots of photos here  http://glassartswansea.wordpress.com/2009/04/20/on-the-edge-5-april-31-may-09/ and here http://glassartbyraycollins.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/glass-exhibition-in-swansea/

There was a peice by Joseph Harrington called ‘I See’ which used the lost ice technique to make the mould, you can see this and more of his work here http://www.josephharrington.co.uk/3.html frm_data1=2&frm_data1_type=large He has some photographs of his salt & ice sculptures at St Pancras which are worth looking at to. I didn’t get a decent photo so can’t show an image, but I had been interested in the the technique after hearing a Bullseye lecture on glass casting at the Welsh School of Architectural glass in February so it was useful seeing the end result.  He uses salt to erode the ice and this results in interesting textures and opacity in the glass.

The work I’m showing isn’t necessarily the best but its what I found most interesting and it would be difficult to choose a favourite as they were all very different, but I did like this a lot! 

Parallel Verve-Fiaz Elson

Cast glass-Fiaz Elson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These pieces by Chinks Grylls were as interesting for their reflection as the glass themselves, they had been mounted on hinges so that the glass could be angled to change the way the reflection fell and really did appear to be a reflexion of a blood red sunset.

Chinks Grylls

Glass panels Chinks Grylls

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wish I had thought of this title, the glass has been painted & sandblasted. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sea Shushed-Mary Mackey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

detail of In Sea-Shushed Secret Places- Mary Mackey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were 3 light boxes by Debbie Dawson, they were the only leaded pieces in the exhibition, one of which wasn’t lit.

 

Like a door opening- Debbie Dawson

Turner Prize 2009

Good news, Roger Hiorns has been short listed for the 2009 Turner prize, fingers crossed!

Read more about it here http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/apr/28/turner-prize-shortlist

 

and feast your eyes on this photo taken from the Guardian, I love it.

 

Time

 

Pwll-Y-Myn

I haven’t posted for ages, not because I’m working on my glass but because I have been working on the garden (more later), allotment and helping my son Aaron to decorate while my partner made the curtains, Aaron and his family moved recently. Amelie (Grandaughter age5) has a pink room (of course) she decorated foam butterflies with glitter and they are now flying all over her walls, this was a success.   The sitting room less so but I’ll not go into that. I have also helped start a Stitch n’ Bitch group with my partner & daughter, this is going well and I have started to get involved with a local ‘Transition Town’ group so I haven’t been ‘losicking.  Although I have  taken time out to look at some local architecture that I thought people might be interested in,  these photos are of some houses in Peterston Super Ely that I thought were Art Deco but turned out to be something else.  This is what The Buildings of Wales (Glamorgan) says about them p515

Wyndham Park (or Glyn Cory Garden Village)

  “John & Reginald Cory, the coal magnates, began a garden village here in 1909…    

… a most surprising terrace of ten flat-roofed houses,nos. 1-10 Pwll-Y-Myn Crescent. Each house has a turret feature, canted window bays, and a tympanum of brightly coloured mosaic over the front door. Sadly, only one house retains its original fenestration. Who was the architect of this paradoxically early essay in the modernistic?”

I think the green windows are original

 

another view

 

 

 

 

 

 

and possibly the best bit, the doors with their mosaic tympanum, only one house holder has interferred with this, they put a porch over the front.

 

 

 

 

The final 2 doors look original but what were the other two thinking of?

 

 

 

 

I keep thinking, where does the time go?  I still haven’t got my head around text/image layout on WordPress. Does anyone know more about these houses?

Wedding panels

I promised some friends 2 panels for a wedding present. This was sometime ago but I have become bogged down in the designs, the biggest problem has been the text. They want people to really have to look to be able to read the text and I’m not getting this right. 

 

This is Valeria’s panel its based on a Monarch butterfly wing, Valeria is Mexican. The poem will be etched onto a second sheet of glass in front of the fused panel or if I decide to encapsulate the frit I will etch onto the front, I’ll have to use a dremel for this, I wish I still had access to acid. The verse is taken from ‘Te Quiro’ by Mario Benedetti.

si te quiero es porque sos

mi amor mi cómplice y todo

y en la calle codo a codo

somos mucho más que dos

 (translation)

If I love you, it’s because you are

my love my accomplice and all

and in the street elbow to elbow [arm in arm]

we are much more than two

 

Derek’s panel is based on a heat map of the city of York, Valeria & Derek live there, they were married there and Derek studied at York university so it seems fitting.

His text is taken from a Philip Larkin poem, I can’t make up my mind which verse to use.

Side by side, their faces blurred,

The earl and countess lie in stone,

Their proper habits vaguely shown

As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,

And that faint hint of the absurd–

The little dogs under their feet.

 or

Time has transfigured them into

Untruth. The stone finality

They hardly meant has come to be

Their final blazon, and to prove

Our almost-instinct almost true:

What will survive of us is love.

 

Both poems were read at the wedding and are very beautiful. I hope to finish them by the end of April so will show the final panels here. I have also decided the text will follow the black & cobalt lines.