E 17 Art Trail part 2

Vestry House Museum was the scene for a drawing event on saturday that Julie Caves, Julian Beere and members of the Waltham Forest Art Club organised. It was a perfect afternoon, the sun was shining and the gardens were moving into Autumn with plenty of apples on the trees.




A number of younger visitors enjoyed themselves studing and drawing the plants. I got chance to make a quick sketch of one of the apple trees there.



I also had chance for a quick look at some of the art works on display in the museum as part of the Art Trail. I was attracted to the birds and feathers of Naomi Kane's work. Naomi writes that she is a scientist researching avian cognition, which sounds really interesting to me, with my own love of birds. Here she has persued her other interest in art with very dynamic images of crows.




Julia Spicer website doloresrocket .co.uk is showing some great collages, following the theme, on your marks, by using National Geographic magazines from Olympic years. The collages juxtapose landscapes and figures making new connections and creating new dynamics of form and playing with the picture plane.

Amy Blum's contribution is a draft selection of her work for Teal Heise on the Olympics, here on the theme of the Olympics. Amy is one of the new generation of American feminist artists, her work including the words, "Racing to Take Part- A Graphic History of Women in the Olympics," is particularly striking.

E17 Art Trail Art Grows on Trees part one

It was great yesterday to meet up with a group of fellow artists to hang our art offerings on the Lime trees near Walthamstow bus station. It was part of the E17 Art Trail, Art Grows on Trees.
I have been part of this from the beginning some years ago, and it was good to have some new artists involved this year, with even more art work on the trees.



I had been making lots of tiny Tree Spirit faces to put in the trees this year, (below)plaster, paint and pen work. More to follow for next Saturday, we arrive about 9.30am so you need to get there early to pick your own art work.



Amongst the artists taking part, Julie Cave put up delicate bird watercolours,(above) Julie's site here

Dean Roddick brought along a new variety of fruit his hairy pears, Deans site here. He also brought along one of his sparrows, there are more on display as part of the trail. That was snapped up with in minutes.



Katja Rosenberg included some cacti in great pots decorated with quotes among her offerings. Katja's exhibition site here.

Rachel L'Anson brought some lovely photographic prints, from urban scenes to trees and snakes.
Rachel's site here.

Alban Low brought more fridge magnets, this year with great birds and tweets on them.Alban's site here.



Valeria had some great climbing pictures colouful prints and bark, appreciated by one young art picker here. Valeria here


Helen Porter, used one of her umbrella frames to hang a variety of decorative and quirky prints.

E17 Art Trail, Art Grows On Trees.

I managed to have a look at a few more exhibitions last week, as part of the Art trail as well as putting up some more free art for Art Grows on Trees.

Dean had made some more of his great apples and bananas for the trees, and Alban had brought more of his fridge magnets for the trees and around the Trail.

Dean had some more of his work at the Vestry House Museum, Sculptures and drawings including a great piece Bogstack Blocks. Dean's site here



Alban was also showing Magnetic Walthamstow, featuring some of his drawings of Walthamstow, on fridge magnets.Alban's site hereAlso at Vestry House were New paintings by Andrea Humphries, bright still life paintings, and Scenes from The High Street:E17 by Joan Gibbins. I liked her screen prints of the fruit boxes from the market.

Raewyn Harrison was showing some of her architectural ceramics, themes included the Victoria and Albert Museum. With the peeling textured glazes and printed images the pieces were both mysterious and quirky. Reawyn's site here

E17 Art Trail and Illumini opening

Today I was putting up some more free art around the trees by the bus station in Walthamstow, with Dean, Dean putting up more of his great plaster fruit, his children helping out and Alban putting up some of his mini art works as fridge magnets. Alban's site here.



Quite a lot of people were looking and picking art as soon as they were going up.

I managed to have a look at the Walthamstow and District Photographic Society's exhibition in the Central Library, John Parish's Willow caught my eye with it's subtle sepia tones and texture.

Peter Hall's Flower Forest and Stefan's photograph of 2 birds, Looking Both Ways, also stood out for me.

Upstairs there were some colourful canvas's by Sonia, Masks in Every Day Life where faces/masks were intertwined in complex shapes and forms.

Downstairs Ronald Bowman was showing a large series of watercolours, painting animals, birds and flowers, which were proving popular by the visitors.




On Friday Illumini held their opening at Shoreditch Town Hall. I really enjoyed the atmosphere, the variety of illuminated art works and performances. The event is on now info at Illumini

E17 Art Trail and Art on Trees

On Saturday I went armed with prints and badges to the Lime trees outside the bus station in Walthamstow to put up some free art work.
I always really enjoy putting it up and having passers by surprised by the gifts offered. The work didn't stay there long, I enjoyed seeing one young woman hugging a print to her chest looking really happy. I had a bit of time on Sunday to go exploring some of the art trail in Walthamstow. I went to Dolores Rocket in Shaftsbury road, Dolore's site here where she had laid out a really vaired exhibition including artists responses to designing a dog kennel. Examples here and her lovely dog who came out to the garden with me. In the tiny garden gallery Amy Blum had some photo and text work that I liked listing shops in given areas in London.
Along Grosvenor Park road was Mantle Piece and Street view. Artist Paul Lindt was outside to talk about his work photographing all the houses in his road. Paul's site here There are some really lovely buildings, I hadn't been up that road before. One thing about the Art Trail is that you end up in places you didn't know before.
Walking round to Orford road I called in Curnucopia where Fiona McGregor's bright abstract paintings hung from the washing line and on the garden chair and mugs stood on the garden table.

I enjoyed Kitty Brown's photographs, Merry England in the Queens Arms Pub and Matt Taylors new photographs Secret in the Village Bakery.
As usual Penny Fieldings was full of great works including Max Bainbridge's furniture light box which I would love in my flat if I had the room and Clive Mahoney's bath converted to a sofa with mosaic and cushions. Paul Tucker was also showing some atmospheric local photgraphs and Johanna Melvin had some striking abstract paintings on the walls.

I hope to be able to see more this week.

Private View, Common Grounds, E17 Art Trail and Visitors Exhibition.

I am hanging my work tonight at the Hornbeam Environmental Centre and Cafe, ready for the private view and press event tomorrow as part of the E17 Art Trail info about the trail here The exhibition Common Grounds is a group show at the Hornbeam and FRP, the recycling project next door. There is some great work on show including painting, photography, textiles, artists books and mixed media pieces.

My original work based on a photograph of mine, a close up of a dandelion seed head, has included painting but not the textile work I had envisaged. But the work Natures Clock has expanded to include another small painting looking at the nature of time and the moon. In particular the evocative names for the moon from a number of traditions, like Wolf Moon, for the full moon in January from Medieval and native American traditions The Harvest Moon, October in a number of traditions including Celtic traditions and September's Nut Moon from the Cherokee tradition.

It's funny how work changes as you carry on working on a piece, I should have realised that writing about a piece before finishing it would prove tricky!




The private view is Wednesday 1st September 6.30-9pm at the Hornbeam and recycling project next door.458 Hoe St, E17 9AH Hornbeam info here
I have also put in a visitor to the Art Trail. A friend of mine Katja Rosenberg is curating the exhibition in the gardens around the Vestry House Museum. She has also put up a great little website for the show here.

My visitor is the Little Blue Bird of Happiness, here and I will be helping Katja install the exhibition tomorrow at Vestry House. More visitors can be added to the installation during the Art Trail.

E17 Art Trail part 3

I was in the Central library in Walthamstow for the artists books event with Laura yesterday. It was great to see Laura's collection of artists books, I added a few myself and we put out the collection on tables for people to browse through.

We also had a good selection of materials for people if they wanted to try making a simple book themselves. Although we didn't get a huge amount of people passing through, we did have some good conversations with people and some people tried their hands at making books. I found more ideas for books to make myself and really liked the artists book as sculpture, a ball of twisted newspaper twine with some tags of print left on that Julian Beere brought in. Julien's blog here

In the library itself were a number of small exhibitions, Dan Green's The Frozen Lake, was a series of winter landscapes taken in the cold winter earlier in the year. They were atmospheric images, the sun low in the sky and the sense of cold palpable. The lakes had a quality of stillness and other worldliness.

Ron Bowman has a show of his watercolours in the main entrance, he is a photographer more recently moving into watercolours. Neon Nature, Jakie Whalen's paintings in the main library held their own in the busy space. Her designs and bright colours were being enjoyed by the visitors.

There was a range of photographs from the Walthamstow & district Photographic Society in the corridors, and With my love of birds I was taken by the great photo of a Jay facing a squirrel on a bird table by Trevor Weatherley. Peter Tomlinson was also showing a series of portraits, Lochkamera Portraits, exploring the use of a lensless camera. The images were soft and had a subtle quality of colours and they invited you in for a closer look.

E17 Art Trail Part 2

This year I am trying to see some parts of the trail that I haven't had chance to look at before and one of them was the privet view where Michael T. Holland shows his photography and this year Virginia Cucchi and friends were showing Naturalist Evolution. The weather was hot and sunny so the outdoor gallery was safe on Michael's hedge. He was still putting up some work when I was there, a great selection of images including insects and landscapes.
Just up the road, Virginia was also assembling her piece using white flowers in a work inspired by Arabic gardens.

Walking back up Hoe Street I diverted to see Alice Mara's ceramics up Aubrey road. The good thing about the Trail that others have said as well, is that it takes you to parts of the area you haven't been to before. I really like Alice's ceramics, her use of urban scenes, supermarkets and the old Dog Track in Walthamstow.

Further up the road, saving 2 major venues for later in the week, I just had chance to call into the Quaker Meeting House to see Witness by Alke Schmidt. Alke has a sure touch in bringing a political consciousness and artistic sensibility together. The factory chimneys in the bottom of the traditional Chinese scroll paintings caught my eye, their presence an ominous shadow on the traditional landscape. Her use of the more feminine work of crochet spread across the walls and on some of the images, brought a new sense of possibilities or potential into the themes of oppression and environmental issues.

The Trail continues this week and weekend find out more here

E17 Art Trail Part One

Well the Art trail is definitely underway. I put up my exhibition in the window of Waterstones book shop on Friday with the help of my sister Pauline. I always find it daunting, the first part, starting to place the items in an exhibition, so it was great to have her skills.
The staff in Waterstones were a real help too, finding us a background poster and fixing it up. I am happy with the results and hope people enjoy the different sorts of books on show.

From my exhibition I went up to the launch party at the Vestry House Museum, I was feeling rather tired after my busy week, but was glad to stay a while meet some folks and look at some of the work on show around the museum.
Valerie Grove's installation, Baggage Claim, was intriguing, a number of suitcases placed around the museum gardens whose contents you were invited to see and I was pleased to find I had a conker in my bag to add to the contents of one suitcase. Dean Reddick had a lovely pencil drawing of an oak tree, and Sba Shaikh was showing work The Personas of Mehraj with beautiful colours, textiles and photographs. Mencap artists were again showing their skills in a range of mediums.
Saturday morning found me putting up free work for Art Grows on Trees, Katja and Dean and his family brought really great stuff to hang. It's always a real pleasure to say to people yes you can take it away with you.

Launch of the E17 Art Trail Guide

Tonight was the start of the build up to the 5th E17 Art Trail with the launch of the guide. It is a guide this year rather than a map as there are over 350 artists and local people showing work.

The trail runs from the 5th till the 13th September, and I'm taking part in a number of events. I have an exhibition in Waterstones Selbourne walk, Walthamstow of my new Artists Books. Books I have been producing over the last few years, in a variety of forms. I'm also having a stall at the E17 Designers market on Sunday 13th. With a number of other artists I will also be hanging art work on the trees by the Central Bus station, Sat 5th and Sat 12th 9.30 am that you can take for free. Come early to pick your artwork.

Details of all the E17 events and exhibitions can be found at http://www.e17arttrail.co.uk/