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