IC:Innovative Craft Blog

Spend time at Dovecot before 23 May…

Posted Wednesday 19 May 2010, 10:30am

Pebbles as part of Matter 2; photo by Nick Duxbury

Migration Necklace (foreground) and Jali Screen (background) by Charlotte de Syllas; photo by Nick Duxbury

Matter 2 has just opened, taking a more reflective step into the world of made things exploring, as it does, exquisite carved stone jewellery by Charlotte De Syllas.  Once again the rhythm of making is present but on this occasion it seems somehow weightless, infused with a different lightness of being.  Shadi Vossough’s photo essay on Charlotte’s studio is domestic, allusive, human.  We see hands at work sandwich making; glimpses of a workbench recently abandoned, scattered, with tools, books, pictures.

A slowly shifting projection of sky with a murmur of natural sounds permeating the gallery slows down our gaze and draws attention to the glowing detail of carved jade, tourmaline, nephrite.  We feel the concentration of those clever, practiced hands.  Paxon, by taking time with his subject (including drilling 180 beach pebbles to suspend in the space!) has created time for us to look anew at the detail of things.  As this recent visitor and jewellery collector comments:

‘I spent a quiet hour looking at the pieces and the set - I have to say that this was the first time that I have been persuaded to look at a group of Charlotte’s work together and see what I think she’s actually saying through these carvings (Adam’s term - the right one); the film and the suspended-pebble screen reflect this. So different from the crowded babble of some jewellery displays, which pile up far too much in the dark.  Your show thinks about light, air, rain,sky, birds, a natural time-cycle and so forth.’

Amanda

(Matter 2 is open 10:30-7:30 until Sunday 23rd May)

‘Matter 1’ - the producer’s view

Posted Monday 3 May 2010, 03:28pm

Matt Hulse trying out the Dunlop Pedal-Powered Record Player

Drummond Masterton hearing one of his records on the Dunlop Pedal-Powered Record Player

Amanda Game on ‘Drummond Masterton’, curated by Adam Paxon, with the help of Matt Hulse, Guy Bishop, IC:Innovative Craft and Dovecot:

Being hands off the curatorial process has been a challenge. Like teaching someone to ride a bike, there is always a temptation to demonstrate, to save time even, by grabbing the handlebars. But we have stepped back and watched the first wobbles, the odd grazed knee; tearful frustration and buckled mudguards transform into an extraordinary and exhilarating ride to the finish line.

‘Matter 1’ is installed. It is a visual feast, and for nine days only the North Gallery at Dovecot has become the place to get an introduction to digital maker Drummond Masterton, through the deft hands of our guest curator and jeweller Adam Paxon. ‘The Manual’, a new film made by Matt Hulse in collaboration with Adam, brings 20 minutes of poetry to process and allows Drummond’s articulate discussion of digital craft to be overlaid by brilliant action shots of cycle training; sawing and milling and strangely beguiling close ups of buttons, knobs, shelving systems and drills.

A billet of aluminium, two terrain bowls (one generously loaned by our colleagues at National Museums Scotland) and a group of jewel like test pieces by Drummond, draw the eye from sketchbook to finished works. The maker’s dramatic projected image of a French glacier hints at background inspiration, alongside boxes of a rare vinyl collection and the Dunlop Pedal-Powered Record Player (another special commission, courtesy of Guy Bishop and The Dick Institute, Kilmarnock).

Participation is possible – not through making a thing but pedaling a sound. Courtesy of the Dunlop Pedal-Power machine you can get on a bike to create your own sound with a version of ‘Jeff Mills: Waveform Transmission’ – amongst other rare finds of an internet vinyl trawl .Bring your own is also encouraged… find out how hard it is to keep an audible rhythm.

What Adam has managed, with the able help of Guy and Matt, is to tease out and explore the hidden foundation of Drummonds’ exceptional skill and knowledge. ‘Matter 1’ is a visually complex, poetic and all round stimulating orchestration of finished objects, film, photography, voice and sound. As Michael Polanyi wrote ‘it is impossible to learn to ride until we actually mount the bicycle and give it a try’. Come and enjoy the show, it’s as easy as riding a bike…

Amanda

Mr. McFall, Mr. Bennett and a unique Scottish craft

Posted Tuesday 6 April 2010, 02:18pm

Mr. McFall's Chamber's Su-a Lee (cello) and Rick Standley (bass) at Queens Hall, Edinburgh - photo taken from Queens Hall Flickr Feed

When I was taking my first baby steps into the world of folk music, whilst studying for my GCSEs, Martyn Bennett had a hugely significant role to play in the shaping of my scope of what was possible within the genre.  I was a non-traditional instrument player (bass guitar) and from a non-folk-centric family, so I had a certain outsider viewpoint from the start.  However, I had the misfortune of being English and playing music in English folk clubs.

For those of you outside the English folk music world, this is a world where innovation is frowned upon and questioned, in the first instance, and reluctantly accepted over time.  It is also a world where, in 2003, when I was just starting university, the most significant step forward had come in 1969 with the ‘electrifying’ of folk music on Fairport Convention’s Liege and Lief.  It was also a world shocked by Jim Moray’s Sweet England (released in the middle of 2003) that took electric drumbeats, guitar effects and synthesisers to traditional English folk songs and split opinion completely in two.

However, as young artists trying to do something different we could all cast an envious and hopeful glance north at the likes of Martyn Bennett, Peatbog Faeries and Shooglenifty who seemed to be celebrated for their unique Celtic fusion rather than chastised. 

This year I was lucky enough to see Peatbog Faeries plying their craft as part of Celtic Connections in Glasgow’s Old Fruitmarket, sustaining strained foot muscles through over enthusiastic dancing in the melee of partying audience members of all ages (another rarity at English folk concerts), then on Good Friday seeing Mr. McFall’s Chamber playing their new Birds and Beasts album celebrating the work of Martyn Bennett at Edinburgh’s Queens Hall.

Being a classically trained ensemble and in a seated venue this was obviously a little bit more subdued than one of Bennett’s notorious gig/raves out on the Scottish islands, however the complexity of his arrangements was made plain to see and I wished I’d been able to see Bennett live during his lifetime.  Celtic music is allowed to shift and evolve without the scrutiny that English folk music seems to have and the musicians, the genre and the craft benefits from this unique nature.

Nick

Thinking of India…

Posted Thursday 11 February 2010, 03:22pm

Humayans Tomb, Delhi

The Thar Desert and camel

Remembering India is constant at the moment.  For those who haven’t already had 4 hours of holiday snaps and excited chat, I was lucky enough to spend 3 weeks traveling in Delhi and Rajasthan over Xmas, New Year, which I found inspiring, unsettling and wonderful in turn. Craft followed me everywhere – the intricate saddles of the camels we were riding in the Thar desert reminded me of the wonderful Peter Collingwood book, ‘The Maker’s Hand, A Close Look at Textile Structures’ (ISBN 1-85725-134-2).  A fascinating market celebrating hand-weaving in the centre of Mehrengarh Fort in Jodphur linked me straight back to Dovecot Studios – although Douglas and his team haven’t yet dug a sandpit to sit in to weave!  The carved stone screens in the magnificent Rajput palaces cast mesmerising patterns of light and colour across stone floors (as some 40 images show!)– which reminded me of Jo Barker’s brilliantly coloured tapestries inspired by Cairo which were on show in Follow A Thread.  I had a go at Hand Block Printing in the Anokhi Museum; got seduced by the different cutting techniques of sapphires and rubies in the shops of Muslim stone cutters in Jaipur.  Even wandering round a remote Jain temple site in Ossian, I found a craft familiar.  The British jeweller Ruth Tomlinson (whose current work is on show courtesy of Bishopsland at Dovecot) hailed me from behind a carved stone elephant.  She was traveling with the furniture designer Gareth Neal and (once we had overcome the confusion of strange meetings) they asked me whether I was traveling for work.  I stressed that this was strictly holiday, but on reflection I suppose the answer is not that simple…………

Amanda

Down, out, up and up

Posted Thursday 21 January 2010, 03:02pm

Steam Shoes (detail) by Craig Mitchell

It’s almost the last week of January and already Christmas seems a very long time ago.  For those of you with a keen eye on the Twitter feed you may have caught an insight into everything that goes on behind the scenes over the last couple of weeks.  With Amanda in India (more of that in another blog) for the Christmas period and then down in London to set-up a new exhibition at the Jerwood Space, it was left to me to steer the IC exhibitions in the right directions.

Follow A Thread had to come down and be shipped out to the Harley Gallery in Nottinghamshire where it will spend the next two and a bit months in their lovely spaces and while it was travelling south, Taking Time was travelling north (luckily the weather had abated by now).  Luckily this transit period allowed us to make the South Gallery good again and prepare the storage spaces for the touring show’s packaging.

However, just before Taking Time went up we also had delivery of work from the makers at Edinburgh Ceramic Studio for Frontroom Showcase and I had to poke my toe into the world of curation (albeit on a small scale) for the first time. Having been down to Coburg House and seen all the items I had all the knowledge I could have, but I don’t think anything quite prepares you for that moment when you unwrap them and see them side-by-side with the colours playing with one another and the bright lights casting strange shadows.  There are photos up on the Frontroom Showcase page and also on our new Facebook page.

Then came the slow process of piecing together Taking Time.  Having seen it in Birmingham and with the time to reflect on all the pieces it could have been a lot worse, but in it’s entirety filling the whole South Gallery it did seem a bit daunting with the nagging question ‘where is it all going to go?’ being applicable to the pieces and the packaging.  You can see a brief overview of the exhibition through photos on the Taking Time event page and again through our Facebook page.

Up next at Dovecot is the Bishopsland silversmithing and jewellery show with upwards of 60 pieces… I now have a much greater understanding of what goes into these things so I offer them all my best wishes.

Nick