Trainee Jewellery Maker

Today began my new employment at Alison Moore - a jewellery business whose workshop is based in Dounby, Orkney.

Link to the Alison Moore website to see the lovely pieces of jewellery designed and made in the workshop -

https://www.alisonmoore.co.uk/jewellery.html

I am excited to learn new skills in my new line of work, especially being something so hands-on and creative!

Unique Jewellery

If you are looking for inspiration for Christmas then how about a unique piece of jewellery....

Norna Sinclair recently won a competition run by Historic Scotland in collaboration with Ortak Jewellery to design a range of jewellery themed around Maeshowe, a historic site in Orkney.

I can assure you she put in a lot of thought and effort into creating these unique designs and it's fantastic that a local artist has won a competition based on a local landmark - fighting off, I have no doubt, fierce competition from various entries from all over Scotland.

To view the finished pieces please follow this link -
http://nornasinclair.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/its-arrived.html?m=1

And if you wish to see more about the process behind the design then view this link-
http://nornasinclair.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/maeshowe-jewellery-competition.html?m=1

Glasgow - Kelvingrove and the Hunterian Art Gallery and Museums

I was recently in Glasgow for the weekend and visited both the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and the Hunterian Art Gallery. 

Kelvingrove is a big place and spent a good few hours wandering around looking at the gallery exhibitions and the museum displays. Such a lot to see within this lovely building, including a working organ which you can see in the top of the picture above - was very atmospheric when it was being played. 

Grayson Perry - well known for his ceramic vases watched a documentary a while ago on how he approaches creating a new ceramic. His process is mostly about the gathering of stories behind people and these vases are to me, like a storyboard using symbols to recreate personal lives. This is the first encounter I have had with seeing his work in real-life, the ceramics are a lot larger than I had thought. 

                  'Floating heads' Sophie Cave

I will admit I struggled to find any information on this installation at the time, I've had to do my research since I came home. 

"Like a release of balloons, the heads bring lightness and humour to a grand building, lifting visitors heads and acting as a draw to the upstairs galleries" 

(Events team leader Esther Dugdale - http://www.creativematch.com/news/floating-heads-of-kelvingrove-signify/92612/)

Cave has 50 sculpted heads suspended in the space, each with different expressions all plain white but lit with changing colours from underneath. 

Also displayed within Kelvingrove Art Gallery is Salvador Dali's Christ of St. John of the Cross - Again I remembered reading about controversy over this painting and how it has been damaged twice by irritated members of the public. The reason for these attacks on the painting is due to the the feeling of Dali's reputation and artistic style was not suited to be painting religious subject matters. 

Also had a visit to the Hunterian Art Gallery - it's a lot smaller scale but has the additional add-on of the Mackintosh House. Unfortunately, photography was not permitted but there is photographs can view on this link - http://www.mackintosh-architecture.gla.ac.uk/catalogue/freetext/display/?rs=5&q=florentine%20terrace

The Mackintosh House within the Hunterian Art Gallery is the reassembled interiors from the original house that Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh designed and lived in themselves. The original house was demolished in the early 1960's but the gallery moved all the interiors 100 meters to be re-housed in their specifically designed 'house' to replicate the original! However, not each room was reconstructed, the: cloakroom, kitchen, bathroom and secondary bedrooms do not feature within the Hunterian's Mackintosh House. 

What I did view of the Dining Room, Studio-Drawing Room and Bedroom was unmistakably Mackintosh-esk. 

Custom House Christmas Open Exhibition 2016

Was only in the passing that I was made aware of this exhibition on display at the Custom house - a few pieces really caught my eye....

Rebecca Marr

                                   Rush

It is a photogram, but it really has not come out well in my iPhone image! I loved the composition and the overlay 

Ralph Robinson

                      Orkney Haiku 3#4, 6, 7 & 8

The presentation is effective in displaying these pieces

Jean Mallone

  

                     Egg Case Specimen #1

These works were displayed in box frames - reminded me very much of Joseph Cornell

Patty Boonstra 

Scapa Flow

The Ouse, Widewall Bay

Couldn't not look at these 2 pieces, very colourful and eye-catching. Very taken with the expressive nature of the combination of textures and colour to interpret the subject matter. 

Other artists featured

Moti - First exhibition at Tankerness House Museum

Moti -  A Norse word meaning 'toward' to 'meet' - is a collective group of post-graduate art students.

This is their first exhibition displayed in the Tankerness house museum with the running theme being 'Time'

Kristyn Grieve

                                            Boy

Painting onto baby wipes!! - Such a fantastic result, very outside-the-box in terms of alternative mediums

"This series embraces the all too familiar struggle with time. To balance the everyday necessities with the need to fulfil a creative urge and hold on to a sense of self."

Mary Grieve

Waiting 

"You wait and time slows down, you notice the small things and they become big. What you are waiting for doesn't matter, just enjoy the moment"

Frances Scott

               Seventy-Five hours, twenty-one minutes

"|This series meets the theme of this exhibition directly - dissecting the coastline of Orkney into small segments of time."

Susan Boyd

                               Holidays Sooth

                       The Lodge at Geramount

                                      Billy

                      Grandfather and Daughter

                                    Baby

                    Linda 1 1/2 Years Old June 1965

"These images began as old discarded family photos of people I had heard of or were a distant memory. I was intrigued by the way each photo had been documented with a date, names, and a place written on the back. 

After degrading and changing the photos I projected them back into their nearest place of origin and so the memories were brought into the present, giving them a new life."

Louise Barrington

                                        Mu - 5

                                       Mu - 6

"Between the space there is energy; there are things we see, and there are things that we feel, things that are invisible when we feel harmony and a deep unknowing and unknowing of our time here."

Sigurd Smith

Fragmentation I

Fragmentation Collection

Fragmentation IV

View

"My work explores concepts relating to the destruction and reconstruction of identity. This process uses a mixture of traditional and modern mediums in pursuit towards abstraction. More recently, landscape has been the main focus of my practice. Rather than drawing directly from the subject, I rely principally on the free-flowing processes of memory and creative imagination to re-imagine the landscape. 

Open Exhibitions 2016

I have works entered into both the Pier Arts Centre and For Arts Sake Christmas Open Exhibitions.

Pier Arts Centre runs from 19th November - 24th December with the For Arts Sake running from 24th November - 14th January

Pier Arts Centre entries:

'Chemotherapy' 

2016 

Photograph

'Untitled 5' 

2016

Scanned Photogram

For Arts Sake entries:

'Tumour' 

2016

Photograph

'Handprint' 

2015

Photograph

Illuminate exhibition

There is still time to see this exhibition out in St. Margarets Hope of a mixed selection of pieces from the current Fine Art Textiles students at the college  - encourage everyone to support their effort of having this mini exhibition. 

Featured artists:

Norna Sinclair

Beccy May

Sarah Wylie

Jean Tulloch

Ruth Tait

Wendy Barker

Sue Whittingham

Catherine Diaper

Its a lovely space and works well for everyones selection of works

Officially graduated

The only Art and Design Students to Graduate this year from Orkney College UHI was myself and Jenny Stone, she was gaining her Degree and myself was the Honours Degree.

We are pictured here on the day of graduation in the Art and Design department at the Orkney College UHI

© Orkney Photographic

The graduation ceremony took place at the St. Magnus Cathedral on the 30th September 

©Orkney Photographic

Me being conferred with my Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours in Fine Art Textiles

 ©Orkney Photographic

Pictured: Stuart Sim, Myself and Anne Bevan 

Me with my 2 lecturers from Orkney College UHI - they supported me through a lot of deadlines over the years!

©Orkney Photographic

I was also awarded the Pier Arts Centre Higher Education Art and Design Student of the Year, which was an extra honour for myself 

3 year anniversary

...I set up this blog! 

This blog has documented many challenges I have had over the years and I have always found it very useful to reflect back on to see how far I have progressed. 

I have no plans to stop updating posts now that I have finished my course. Although I am aware there has not been a great deal of regular posts. Behind the scenes I am in the middle of digitising my sketchbooks from over the years at Orkney College. So watch this space...

RSA open exhibition Edinburgh

I went along to see this exhibition while down a visit to Edinburgh, which if I had been more organised could have also entered into! 

Was spread out over several rooms and covered a wide selection of mediums and subjects. 

The following images were of works that stood out to me but all works were impressive but would have been there all day documenting each work individually!! 

Keiko Mukaide Dawn no2 (wood and glass) 

Lynn Cowan - Drainscape Drains and Blue Squares (Parts 1 & 2) (MDF & Digital print on vinyl) 

Howard Ashton-Jones - Splash Art (print) 

Mark Osborne Suspended (Photography)

Sophia Banou - Draw of a drawing (Laser engraved wooden box with golden leaf, brass and acrylic details) 

Jacquelyn Pearce - WARD-2 (Film) 

Rachel Gibson - Falling (Oil paint on board) 

Alice Mara - New Utopia (Digitally printed ceramic) 

Fiona Dean - Head over heels (Taxidermy) 

Melanie Lewin - Words fail me- in memory of the children of the Army Public School, Peshawar, Pakistan, 16th December 2014  (Book, wood, paper, linen thread & pencils) 

Pete Randall - After Mallad  (Oil on canvas) 

Di McGhee - Rested (photograph of beach installation) 

Sarah Nesbitt - Migration (Photography) 

Malize McBride - South East Harris (Watercolour and graphite) 

Rhona Fleming - Stratum 2 (Found paper, plaster, sterling silver, resin and graphite)

Rhona Fleming - Stratum 1 (Found paper, plaster, sterling silver, resin and graphite)

Jo McIntosh - Fragments (Artist books and objects) 

Sam Bain - Speedlimit (Oil pastel and screen print) 

Rachel Gibson - Bundle #8 (Oil on board)

Liz Douglas - Mire Poem (Mixed media)