IC:Innovative Craft Blog

Down, out, up and up

Posted Thursday 21 January 2010, 03:02pm

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