IC:Innovative Craft Blog

The lost weekend

Posted Monday 16 November 2009, 12:48pm

As many of you will have read in January we are having a Craftspace touring exhibition called Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution at the Dovecot building, so a few weekends ago myself, Amanda and David Weir took the train down to Birmingham to see the private view.  A very long and drawn out train journey it must be said, but with some stunning scenery along the south-east Scotland coast and then the dramatic entrance into England across the Tweed – quite a way to return to England for me having not been down for 3 months.  I would be interested in doing the journey we did as our return in the daytime as it snaked through the Pennines and the Lake District – Oxenholme The Lake District railway station name just conjures a great image, a shame it was pitch black yet only half 5 when we stopped there!

It was lovely to spend some time getting to know the artists involved in the Taking Time exhibition (and there are a lot) and putting some faces to email correspondences both from artists and from Craftspace.  It was only as I said to Neil Brownsword, ‘I’m very familiar with your face’, that I realised how much like a stalker I may sound – luckily I was able to explain my familiarity as his picture is featured in our Image/Craft exhibition – phew!

On the Saturday we went off in our different directions to see friends, relatives and, in my case, people I worked with and grew-up with – Amanda to Coventry to see the wonderful cathedral and me to Worcester to visit the Gallery at Bevere, where, shameless self-promotion time, some of my paintings are being sold.  In amongst the usual craft and art I came across a few Fran Priest boxes and some ceramics by Will Levi Marshall, which let me put work to familiar names, and then I saw some stunning pieces by an American, Thomas Hoadley (pictured above).  If I had the money I think I would have bought something… c’est la vie.  There were some very interesting pieces by Dan Stafford (also pictured above) and Vicky Shaw that I was particularly taken with.

And then it was time to come back to Dovecot… so I seemed to loose the weekend through the professional danger of spending time looking at interesting craft only to come back to work and a host of craft, images and objects again on the Monday!

Nick