Volunteering at the Cathedral

As usual its been ages since my last blog. My hours have soured at Starbucks and I'm currently working on two projects. Here I'm going to talk about the work I'm doing at the Cathedral.

The Cathedral has slots of time where artists and curators can hold exhibitions in some of their beautiful spaces. My dad is the Canon Treasurer at Wells Cathedral and put me in touch with one of the curators who is going to exhibit there in May. His name is Tom Bree and hes an extremely clever man who is currently working on a PHD in (as far as I can grasp) the connection between religion, numbers and religious art. His exhibition is called The Mystical Rose in the Month of May: An Art Exhibition about the Blessed Virgin Mary and number 5 (see first image) and it brings to your attention all those connections through paintings, iconic art, photography and the architecture of the Cathedral itself. 

The exhibition is being held at the Lady Chapel in the Cathedral which is in the shape of an opened pentagram (see second image) with the windows and other masonary decorations echoing the symbolism of the number 5. Five fold flowers like the rose on the poster (image 1) line the walls, and within nature you can see these patterns, relating to the golden ratio, which was famously explored by Leonardo Divinci.

Its great working with Tom, just for the challenge of understanding all the connections and ideas going on in his work! My main role is marketing, so I'm sending the word out on this blog to come see this fascinating exhibition!

I will blog again soon to talk about my other project!

 

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Black Swan Arts Volunteering

After finishing uni I finally managed to get a part time job, and started looking around for some volunteering work that could fill my days off. I looked up the galleries in Somerset and found one called Black Swan Arts. It appealed to me mainly because after doing so much job searching and CV writing, I was relieved to see somewhere where volunteering was easy to get into. They were looking for people to give a hand and had an email address where I could simply ask if I could help. If anyone out there is in the same situation as me, with a part time job wanting to do bits of vounteering on the side, I do suggest you look into working with the Black Swan Arts. They have recently lost all their funding so this year (their 25th Anniversairy) was geared towards an appeal to raise as much money for the next year as possible and keep their gallery running! Therefore they love people who are willing to volunteer, and were really appreciative of my interest. I was immediately put through to Amanda Sheridan- the curator for the upcoming exhibition called 'The 25 Years of Christmas', and she asked if I would be interested in working with her to organise the exhibition. Obviously this was a dream come true; direct work experience in curating a fundraising exhibition! I could already feel my CV start to glow!

 

The whole thing has been great fun. Being busy with my job and this exhibition I haven't had much time to keep an online update on things, so it's all coming out now. The open evening was on the 2nd on December, with all the other volunteers and trustees attending alongside the artists and everyones guests. It was a lovely night and Amanda seemed really happy with the exhibition. The Black Swan has guest curators for each exhibition, and since this exhibition was about fundraising and looking back at the history of The Black Swan Arts, Amanda had to work very hard to get donations from as many artists as possible. The artists were really generous, and there were some absolutely beautiful pieces in the show, with one selling even before the show was hung!

Working with The Black Swan Arts has been great. I got to know some of the community of artists in Somerset, became friends with lots of lovely people at the gallery, and had a great time with Amanda Sheridon who is a great mentor and just a lovely person generally. I was given the task of designing the poster/ leaflets, making labels and giving advice to Amanda when needed- she was very sweet in asking my opinion on things!

To sum up it was fab, and I'm looking into working with Amanda on other projects. I will provide some photos of the exhibition, and some I took of its preparation, as well as the poster I helped design. 

For more information on the Black Swan Arts Centre visit: http://www.blackswan.org.uk/

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4992_Black_Swan_25_Years_of_Christmas_poster_A3_V3.pdf Download this file

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Gifts and Cards

I'm afraid I didn't managed to get any pictures of Joes portfolio in end- however he did get the job he wanted so it obviously worked! I need to make myself one....

 

This blog is just giving a quick update on my activities. Mainly I have been working on making things for people. My sisters birthday has just been and gone and I made a her a card and a painting of a place where we live that we used to hang out at years ago. She lives near where the painting is of so she wanted me to make this for her- so I did! The other two pictures show the card and small painting I made for my gran recently. She had a large stroke about a month or so ago and shes really quite ill. I have been to see her recently but before I went I made a few things for her and was sending up photos of things I have been doing. The painting is from a photograph of her and me the last time I saw her before the stroke, when she was down at mine for my birthday in April. It's a lovely photograph and she has always been really supportive of my art. I'm looking forward to seeing her again soon!

 

Lastly I have been loving the 'Fake or Fortune' series on TV at the moment! It's great to see all the different ways they can explore a painting to find out exactly when it was painted and who by! I've been catching it online so I don't know when exactly its on but if you're interested in art and conservation its worth watching! 

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Portfolios and Pamphlets

Obviously since I finished working on my degree I haven't been making much art. Generally the creative stuff I have been doing is practical stuff, usually as favours or part of work. I have been working for an organisation in Bradford called Fabric. They have a lovely art space called Pop Up (Facebook profile can be viewed here: http://www.facebook.com/PopUpArtSpace) My main job is to invigilate but I have also been working on a pamphlet that promoted small, interesting venues in Bradford. I've been looking around to find these places, restaurants, bars, galleries and local shops, then adding them to the guide with pictures and descriptions in a nice design. It's been interesting doing design work as I usually try to avoid it. I also had to make a map which you can see on the back of the guide. These are meant to be simple folded pamphlets so the designs have been very free and unrestrained by the layout of the booklet.

The other work I have been doing is making portfolios. The picture I have attached shows one I am making for my friend Joe who is hoping to become a designer or design teacher having just finished a PGCE year. He hasn't got a website yet but when he does I will be linking it cos his work is great! I also made a teaching portfolio for my sister who managed to get the job she needed the portfolio for, so obviously very proud/ jealous of her! I don't have pictures of that portfolio yet but I will try and get some soon.

The portfolios are very simple, I just get some photos of fabrics from Leeds Market and send them to whoever I'm making the portfolio for, and they choose what design they want. I then use the chosen fabric to cover some A3 boards and a spine, attaching ribbons to the sides that can be tied to keep the loose boards inside. With my sister we spent a whole weekend going through all the photos and papers she wanted in her portfolio, organising it, sticking it onto the boards then annotating it. I expect something similar to happen with Joe's, currently it's just drying. I love making these as the result is usually very satisfying!

On a last note I found out I got a 2:1 for my degree which I am very happy about! Looking forward to seeing my family and celebrating with them, my Dad has the champagne ready!

 

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University of Leeds Degree Show Website

Here it is!! > http://www.leedsschoolofdesign.co.uk/

 

The pictures on there will probably be on here as well, but look out for my friends- Theo Durrant and Sarah Kaul in particular- but also all the other art students, lots of amazing work!

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Work submitted!

Heres a quick look at the submission set up of my work, a lot the books there I won't use for the final degree show to make sure its all good standard of work. I'm aiming to keep the simple layout though. Also I will have the projection all set up at the show. 

 

Finished my degree! Lets hope I do well enough to graduate :P 

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Show Me the Monet

A quick post just saying that anyone interested in art should watch this programme- on Mondays at 5.15pm, not sure how long for. It's a competition for artists to get an exhibition and sale in the Royal College of Art in London. Heres a link to the facebook page for more info- http://www.facebook.com/pages/Show-Me-the-Monet/104610129609798

Look out for Belinda Durrant who I know, her work is very good! http://www.belindadurrant.co.uk/

Not much happening with my own work right now. I'm thinking the next thing I will do (having pretty much finished my uni work now) is to make a sci-fi book for a show in Portland. Should be fun just to make even if I don't get in! 

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