Turnaround at Wood Street Market and theFourth Plinth

I went down to Wood Street market, to put out a few more cards at our Arts Club gallery Turnaround yesterday. It was good to meet Pauline Evans and Nicolette Murin who have Turnaround 6. Turnaround website here

Their private view is on Thursday 6-8pm. It is good to see all the vibrant new units and have all that creative energy around. I hope people will support these new ventures.
Nicolette has a sound installation running so great music is happening there too.


While I was there I met up with Catherine of Significant Seams her website here.

Catherine has some great workshops running and projects, as well as quirky items for sale and materials. She is really enthusiastic about sewing and crafting and sharing her skills. Which I've noticed is a feature of lots of crafts people I recommend a visit.

Shirley Pountney was in her gallery/studio too and it was great to catch up with her, as she has not been well and not able to get to Wood Street as often as she would like. I really like a lot of her mystical paintings. Shirley usually has her front room open in Walthamstow village for the E17 Art trail each year.

I had gone over to Trafalgar Square a few days earlier to see the new sculpture on the Fourth Plinth. The latest commission is Elmgreen and Dragset's Powerless Structures, Fig. 101
Which is a bronze coloured gold of a child on a rocking horse. It is meant to celebrate the heroism of growing up and not glorify the past.
I can see the contrast with the usual generals on horseback, and I like the rocking horse for that reason. Though the rocking horse is rather a cypher than a well worn child's toy, which would have worked to give more feeling I think. But the face of the child seems to have too much of the Roman warrior about it to engage me emotionally with the idea of a child growing up or a sense of vulnerability.

Turnaround exhibitions in Wood Street Market

The opening of Turnaround exhibitions and the other art and craft stalls seemed to go well on Saturday. At Turnaround we had great poetry and music and masks to wear.


The market was busier than I'd ever seen it,hundreds of people came along which was great to see. There was a good sense of energy and dynamism in the market that all the units seemed to be benefitting from.

Quite a number of new busineses have taken up the indoor stands including the East London Craft Guerrilla, their site here Significant Seams have a shop, workspace and exhibition space in one. Their facebook page here

The Wood Street market blog has photos from the launch day here


I hope it continues to be busy, there doesn't seem like a lot of passing trade along Wood street, though quite a lot of new housing has been and still is being built just back from the street. It is known that quirky and unusual shops and art and designer craft busineses can draw people into an area. There aree so many similar high streets that we are all on the look out for something different. There is also a growing appreciation of the hand made again, though I am still surprised by the high cost mass produced objects can fetch, compared with designer hand made products.

I wonder what has lead us to value the factory produced over the artist/craftsperson?

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.

Friends of the Earth Exhibition and last of the Art Trail

Yesterday I took my work down to the Changing Room Gallery for the Friends of the Earth exhibition. I am showing some photo collages called Windmills In My Mind, they are exploring the ideas about micro-electric generation. Part of my thinking is about how, in this case wind turbines, could look more fun interesting and colourful, if they were on ordinary homes and town buildings.

I took photos along a few local streets and used colourful children's windmill toys as the wind turbines on the buildings and some lampposts and added some text about micro wind generation. I also added some home made paper windmills to the collages, and made a couple for added interest.

In the gallery extra windmills have appeared decorating the walls around my work, it seems other people like these windmills too.

The exhibition is on till Sunday 27th with a party on Sunday from noon till 4pm

I just wanted to mention a couple more exhibitions that I had chance to see at the end of the E17 Art Trail.

Lino Cut at Ye Olde Rose and Crown, had a good selection of Martin Adams, martin's site here and Anna Alcock's prints. Anna's site here. Martin had added a William Morris border to the walls and included his well cut and detailed Darwin lino cut that I'd seen as work in progress earlier in the year.

In the old Crawford building lower down on Hoe Street, Image 17 were showing photographs in an exhibition called Meet. This was something I had intended to be part of earlier in the year but had proved too much for me to do in the end. Members had taken photos of various clubs and societies held in Waltham Forest. Sean Pines had some great images from the pigeon racers club, and Katherine Green's images from the cacti and succulants society were a glimpse into a different world. Image 17 website here.

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.

The Art of Politics

The Art of Politics exhibition has opened at The Changing Room gallery.


There is some great work on show, Martin Adams has several pieces that deal with the local political situation with wit and invention. His mixed media piece "Sweet Temptation" had edible sweet treats in a box,with piped lettering on the sweets including "Influence", "Power" and "Renumeration" As the text concluded "Get elected get appointed and dig into the box of delights" You can see more of Martin's work here.



May Ayers had two pieces of ceramic sculptures that dealt with government policies of locking up vulnerable young people, "Zero Tolerance, in dedication to Joseph Scholes" and human indifference, "Indifference" "Zero Tolerance" is a large piece made up of several sections. The base sections have text around them and incised images. The top section is a torso, hands wrapped around the body and the head is split to show other faces inside. It is a powerful piece and addresses real issues in government policies that have lethal consequences. You can see more of May's work here.

In "this space has been left intentionally blank", people from the fight the height campaign had gathered together the ideas people had put forward for the space at the top of the high street in Walthamstow. These are on postcards and paper and form an installation on one of the walls. Visitors to the gallery are asked to contribute as well.


I was pleased to see that visitors had also been responding to my "The pound in your pocket"installation piece, writing their ideas of how they would spend their Waltham Forest pounds.






On the theme of money Chandra Mora, showed "Veni, Vidi, Depradavi, I came , I saw, I plundered" A large copy of A Zimbabwe million dollar note, and text citing the corruption and exploitation of the Zimbabwe government, as well as drawing parallels closer to home.




The exhibition continues till Sunday 6th of September and is part of the E17 Art Trail which starts on Saturday 5th.

The Art of Politics

I'm just starting with a bit of a season of exhibitions, the first one being part of The Art of Politics, at The Changing Room Gallery. I'm working on a piece called The Pound in Your Pocket, which is exploring the ideas of local currencies such as the Totnes Pound,details here. the Lewis Pound and the Brixton Pound.

The idea of having local currencies is to benefit the local community by spending money locally and keeping the money in circulation.( The money given to national and international companies and businesses is more usually siphoned away from the local community) There are also environmental benefits in keeping carbon footprints low.

I'm using images of altered notes (altered £20 note with portarait of William Morris above) and asking people to imagine that they had unlimited local Waltham Forest Pounds and to write on the new bank note how they would spend their Waltham Forest Pounds. These ideas will be part of the exhibition and I will also document the results.

The exhibition runs from Monday 31st August till Sunday 6th,(overlapping with the first weekend of the E17 Art Trail,the private view is Tuesday 1st 4-7pm.

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/

Exhibitions and Leytonstone car free day

After the inspired by William Morris exhibition, I have a painting in The annual Arts Club exhibition at the Changing room Gallery. It is a painting of an angel, the "Angel of Dusk Lunden "




After painting in acrylic for a while, I had forgotten how long oil paints take to dry! and my painting was still slightly tacky 5 days after I'd stopped painting. I am using the new water mixable oil paints from Winsor and Newton and I am pleased with them. There is very little smell to them, the texture is like traditional oils and It means I can paint in my flat with them now.

Last weekend was the Leytonstone car free day, I hadn't been for a couple of years, and the event had grown, there were a lot of stalls up and down the roads near the tube station, a french market ( where I had gone to look for a particular soap) and lots of childrens activities.

E17 Art Trail, Art Grows on Trees

Yesterday was the start of the E17 Art trail, we had a launch at Vestry House Museum on Friday night, which went well. Laura and Chris spoke of their enthusiasm and pleasure that the art trail has being going from strength to strength and the sense of giving that was part of the trail which inspired their title, "with love from Walthamstow"
It was good to meet fellow artists again and share in the anticipation of the trail. This year I am part of a number of group shows and activities. Yesterday was our first Art Grows on Trees event, where we hang small art works on the Lime trees near the bus station and town square in Walthamstow. These are free for people to take away with them and it was great to tell people they could have one of the pieces.

.Dean had brought some of his great fruit sculptures this year apples with a bite out of them, Michael had brought some amazing ice sculptures with vegetables that dripped red and orange colouring as they melted, and one that contained a string of beads and objects inside.


Some lovely salt dough shapes decorated and ready to hang on the trees were supplied by the artist's children, which made a great addition. Some images of abandoned umbrellas of Walthamstow by Kathryn Kirton were a topical addition and I put up digital prints of urban scenes and from some of my paintings.



We had someone from the BBC filming, good to know that the trail is getting known more widely.

New work and E17 Designers fair, Lloyd Park

I carried on with more of my small paintings, a secondary theme of butterflies emerging as I was painting. Some of the images, like the Buddha with butterflies I will develop as a larger painting and the unicorn too.

E17 Designers were part of the Green Fair and new symphony inspired by work by William Morris at Lloyd and Avelling park in Walthamstow a short while ago. We were lucky with the weather, in that it only rained for moments, though it was very cold for July! It probably wasn't the best idea by the council to split the events so distinctly across the parks, but we had a fair number of visitors to our stalls. I am trying out new ranges of prints and ideas for these events, and it's good to get feedback from the public, and that a number of people recognised my work from local exhibitions.



There was an exhibition of art work in the theatre and these fish on the windows threw out lovely reflections on the corridor.

E17 Designers Fair

I took part in one of the E17 Designers events, for the first time last Friday. I took my cards, the new eco cards as well, photographic prints, badges and mirrors and my new sticker range. I enjoy looking for new ways to use my images and the stickers are made up of dozens of my photos.

The Fair was very good, excellent organization, live music and wine all adding to a great atmosphere. The range of items people were selling was a good mix, and there was a wealth of design talent on show.

Getting out and meeting people with my work is always enjoyable. feedback is really important and I have a bit of a market girl in me. I will definitely be attending the next event in July at the Green Fair.

Oxfam Windows Exhibition

These last few weeks have seen me busy working on some pictures for the Oxfam windows in Walthamstow. I had originally intended to show some local photographs, but then began working on other areas as well, triggered by the place ( a charity shop ) and recycling christmas paper.

What emerged was the symbol of the Buddha on wrapping paper of part made of wrapping paper, and a local image of the High street with wrapping paper and paint. Some images of work in progress here.
I haven't got all the written work together yet, but the issues and ideas are about the environment re-using items and objects and the Buddha and Buddhist teachings if you like being re-used here in the West. There is also something about finding beauty in what is discarded and that we use the materials of our life as part of our spiritual path.

The exhibition goes up next week, and I'll have more info on my main site.