IC:Innovative Craft Blog

Raising the Bar in Wales – and another exhibition looms in Edinburgh

Posted Monday 3 November 2008, 11:59am

Amanda Game writes:

Last weekend my colleague Elizabeth Goring and I dodged the Cumbrian rainstorms to drive down to North Wales for the installation and opening of Raising the Bar at the Gallery at Ruthin.  This, rather eccentrically, was my second visit to Wales in a week, as I had travelled to see the last day of the David Watkins jewellery show (discussed in the current issue of Crafts magazine) the weekend before at the same venue. 

The Watkins show was an impressive survey of 40 years of studio practice and convincingly confirmed for me the role his work has played in creating a benchmark for innovative studio jewellery from the 1970s onwards.The show marked the publication of a major monograph by Beatriz Chadour Sampson, which creates something of a benchmark for publications in the field (Arnoldsche 2008).  During the afternoon of setting up Raising the Bar, S4C, the Welsh language arm of Channel 4, spent more than four hours filming the show and interviewing local Welsh speakers about their reaction to it (favourable, I am glad to say!).  It will be broadcast this Wednesday and we’re hoping to access a subtitled version in due course. 

The new spaces at Ruthin are very beautiful.  For both visits the sun was shining in Wales and the Ruthin courtyard entrance, richly furnished with several variations of Jim Partridge and Liz Walmsleys’ seating designs casting shadows against the warm terracotta walls of the building, is very exciting and welcoming.  Partridge/Walmsley also designed the café furniture and the Reception desk. It’s a real delight to see craft as an embedded and substantial part of a new building, not an afterthought.  IC will be working with Jim and Liz on a new project for Edinburgh from next autumn – an exhibition and prototyping idea, which we hope will bear fruit in Spring 2010. 

Back in Edinburgh the dust is subsiding, the Victorian steps have had a final coat of red paint and the Reception Area is floored and fitted. Next week’s delicately-balanced schedule begins with Clare Twomey painting one wall gold and spraying it with clay dust and is followed by an influx of objects, display stands, vinyl panels and assorted installation teams from both Jerwood, Henry Moore Foundation and IC/Dovecot.  By 14th November the new exhibitions will be open and we shall be beginning another journey with Innovative Craft.  We look forward to welcoming you back. 

Please take a look at Past Events, ‘Raising the Bar’, where we have added some images of the Ruthin event to the Gallery.