Pauline Hughes Ceramics
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Medicine Jar

Discovering and exploring the work of glass artist William Morris has been a deeply moving experience for me. He is a creative visionary who helps us understand and, connect to our humanity making him an ‘artist’ in the truest sense of the word. After extensive research I was just about to start writing when I came across this short clip, Creative Nature on you tube. It is concise and elegant and I cannot add anything of more value than what is contained there. Please take three minutes out of your day to watch it. I hope it moves you too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZPeqwFG-oQ

Scoop

Cinerary Urn

Rattle

This picture is how I remember Julia Carter Preston, who sadly passed away earlier this month. Always wearing a smile, Julia was one of the most dedicated artists I have ever known and one who tirelessly aimed for perfection in every piece she made. Using the delicate art of sgraffito she etched the most beautiful and elaborate designs onto her pieces that, even on a tiny bowl would take weeks to complete.  Demand for her work was immense and, when I worked as a gallery assistant at the Bluecoat, a week would never pass by without a couple of hopeful phone calls enquiring if we had any pieces available. I would soon become accustomed to the dissapointed sigh that would inevitably follow my ‘no’. It was not just the outstanding quality of Julias’ work that made it so desirable but more the fact that she put her heart and soul into every piece whether it was destined for a royal collection or, a humble button. There are no images available of her work  that can do them justice however, you can experience them in all their glory at the Walker Art Gallery and, in a guide written by Myra Brown.

Finally, I could not write a piece about Julia without commenting on just how stylish and elegant she was. With her signature pillar box red hair and colourful dress sense she was like a peacock strutting across the Bluecoat gardens . I often thought as I watched her making her colourful way that she was dressed more for a vogue fashion shoot than a day in a dusty, ceramic studio. It was this strong sense of style and individuality that set Julia apart from the crowd and, has flowed into her work to make her pieces so highly distinctive and instantly recognisable as she herself was.

Red Head

For 2012 I plan to focus my line of enquiry on the human head and have started experimenting with print, drawings and sculpture in an attempt to realise these new works. My aim is to also take you, the viewer with me on this particular journey. To experience the intense gratification of the creative process through the form and to share in the intimate relationships I build with each new piece.

I will be documenting this journey through words and images which you can follow by signing up via the ‘subscibe me by e mail’ link. I also wish to thank everybody who followed my work last year, your presence was invaluable. 

Large Sgraffito Head

I love the process of sgraffito, it feels so primal. Scratching at a surface to create a mark is like returning to the cave and picking up where our ancestors left off. The cool inky black  surface of the sgraffito tile resembling the dark depths of underground.  You have to scratch to reveal  the light and, the image that lies mysteriously beneath the surface. It is totally addictive. Once the first mark has been drawn it is difficult to stop. Delicate lines are created by the circular motion of sandpaper, as fine and as complex as a spiders web. Needle files ‘bite’ crisp, luminous grooves that glow from the darkness. Everyday objects beg the question, what mark would that make ?. As a result  forks, toothpicks, skewers and nails all find their way into the studio to experiment, explore and excavate with. Surprise and dissapointment present themselves in equal measure. The pieces shown here are just beginning to ‘scratch the surface’ of this ancient technique. Not yet fired and, still raw they are as inviting as an expanse of cave wall itself.

Two Sgraffito Heads

Sgraffito Tiles

Emily Young Sculpture

One of  Emily Youngs claims to fame is having inspired Syd Barrett (of Pink Floyd) to write ‘see Emily play’ after he dreamt about her dancing. Not that this remarkable women requires any reflected glory, being a hugely talented individual in her own right and the creator of startling works of  beauty. Commencing  as a painter she arrived at sculpture by experimenting with a few pieces of stray marble left over from a kitchen re- fit and within that process found her true passion. She is driven to reveal the deep mysteries held within the material that have formed by ‘dust settling, water dripping, forces pushing and minerals growing’ over the ages. It is amazing to think how long these stones have taken to form. One hundred and forty million years for Dorset stone whilst others, a staggering three and a half billion years.  These stones that tell the story of the earth she shapes to also tell the story of humanity. ‘We can only put our thoughts, desires and passion and pain onto our chosen materials and they will tell future generations how we felt.’

Emily Young Sculpture

Her heart and soul lie in these pieces. The stones are her messengers. Complex, multi-layered and enduring like human nature itself.  Through stone we become immortal, our voices carried into the future.   A visitor to one of her exhibitions wrote;

Tread silently here

And think softly

Lest you disturb the presences

That Gaze back to the beginning

And look forward to the end.

Make the time to go and experience the pieces that inspired these words. Go to  http://www.emilyyoung.com/ and immerse yourself in the breathtaking beauty of these sculptures and feel a sense of belonging not only to the earth and the universe but to humanity itself.

Emily Young Sculpture

Frida Kahlo

This week I had the pleasure of discovering the poetry of Pascale Petite and, hear her recite one of the poems from her  ‘What The Water Gave Me’ collection. This series of fifty-two poems explores the paintings of Frida Kahlo and gives a voice to their emotional landscapes.  The intensity and beauty of her words reveal Frida’s physical and emotional pain so acutely that it takes your breath away. Pascale unflinchingly removes each painful layer of Frida’s life and lays it bare on the page, exposing the bruised and broken heart that her paintings sprang from. Frida painted her pain beautifully, with ’the blue sting, the red ache’. Pascale’s words  bring the woman behind the painting alive and in doing so makes the painting ever more human and heartfelt .  I have chosen the first and last poem from the collection. The beginning of life and, death.

What The Water Gave Me (I)

I am what the water gave me,

a smoke-ring in a jar,

the braided rope

my ladder to-the-light

my shivering bird-heart

caught,

my mouth a bubble

of not-yet-breath,

while in my nuclei

two spirals dance,

my budding body sheathed in pearl

as I learn,

even before birth,

to doodle in the dark.

What The Water Gave Me (VI)

This is how it is at the end-

me lying in the bath while the waters break,

my skin glistening with amnion, streaks of starlight.

And the waters keep on breaking

as I reverse out of my body.

My life dances on the silver surface

Where cacti flower.

The ceiling opens and I float up on fire.

Rain pierces me like thorns. I have a steam veil.

I sit bolt upright as the sun’s rays embrace me.

Water, you are a lace wedding-gown

I slip over my head, giving birth to my death.

I wear you tightly as I burn-

don’t make me come back. 

Lucian Freud

It was my boyfriend who told me that Lucian Freud had passed away. He had heard it on the late news and had woken me up to tell me as he climbed into bed. He fell asleep, I lay awake. In the darkness it felt like the world had somehow slightly diminished, narrowed. I closed my eyes and imagined myself  lilliputian size so that I could explore the fleshy landscapes of his subjects. Sue Tilley came into view. A glorious island of flesh with her broad bodily acres contrasting beautifully with her mysterious, sensual clefts and folds. Her skin tones changing from pinks to mauves to blue impasto ridges to be read by the hand like braille.

From front to back I travel. 

Naked Man, Back View. Leigh Bowery

To the back of  Leigh Bowery. In my diminuative guise it is imposing. A muscular glacier, its sinews standing proud and defensive.  An active, rippling  land mass that  wrong foots me at every turn. Overpowering and expansive it is a relief to feel the stubble that crowns the smooth, bald head. To take refuge in the hollow at the nape of the neck. This is how I  travel Freud’s paintings alone in the dark. This is how I understand the pure physicality of his work. This is how I hope to fill and, expand the diminished space that his passing has left .

Piet Mondrian

I have a huge liking for Piet Mondrians work. With its pure colour and ordered lines it has a purity of vision that offers the mind a calm sanctuary from the chaos of 21st century living.  That was until Mondrian set foot in New York in 1940. He had left Europe to escape the political storm clouds that were gathering in the hope of finding a new land of optimisim and energy that would inspire his work. Taking up residence in the centre of Manhatten Mondrian forgot his ill health and advancing years and threw himself open to all the city had to offer. By day he soaked up the sights and, by night its sounds in the Jazz clubs. This serious man who was often mistaken for a priest or, a scientist would dance all night to the disjointed music only sitting down when ‘ he heard a melody’. In the early hours he would walk back to his studio filled with the strident and boisterous sounds and translate it all onto canvas.  Broadway Boogie Woogie was born .

Broadway Boogie Woogie

This painting represents the vibrant, beating heart of modern New York and Mondrian had his finger firmly on its pulse.  Along the grid flows the life blood of the city. The cars bumper to bumper, bathed in a yellow neon glow. This is how New York  ’feels’ when you walk its streets and how it ’looks’ as you peer down from vertiginous buildings. Mondrian’s vision of New York dances before our eyes just as he danced and found his Broadway Boogie Woogie groove.