Nor are the patterns of old technology forgotten. In this age of new austerity we can enjoy the sustainable pattern of reanimating an old building using groundsource heating and hemp insulation and the sustainable creation of a superb, birchply display setbuild by Scottish sculptor Scott Laverie which we used for the displays in Raising the Bar in Edinburgh and in Wales. From February to May 2009 the exhibition, and Scott’s setbuild, will be shown in a third venue, at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. Simply designed and well constructed, the units show that craft is useful to the world of exhibition design as well as to the content.
New projects for 2009 include hosting the Age of Experience from Ruthin in May 2009. This is a superb celebration of established makers from the UK that shows the interconnected pattern of generations and includes new commissions from Caroline Broadhead alongside the eloquent patterns of the macrogauze hangings by the late Peter Collingwood, who sadly died earlier this year. There is also a rare chance to see a new collection from UK ceramist Elizabeth Fritsch in this exhibition. Fritsch’s poised, patterned forms are deeply inspired by her love, knowledge and practice of music.
Music is another potential pattern threaded through the IC/Dovecot activity. Young Scottish cellist Will Conway has been testing the acoustics; musical instrument maker and acoustic music composer Sarah Kenchington has been invited to created sound around stitch for the filmcraft weekend; and David Weir has kept tension at bay through rather effective riffs on the resident grand piano.
The lights are on in Princes Street, the Ferris wheel is turning and the Scott Monument stands stonily to attention over the skaters, the drinkers and the partygoers and another pattern occurs to me. The pattern of unstinting, often unseen but unswervingly generous time given by my colleagues Roanne Dods and Elizabeth Goring at IC to help all these other patterns take shape.
With thanks and see you all next year.
* Full details of this ‘drawing, making, looking’ evening can be found on our events page.
The IC/Dovecot autumn season is under way. Installation of Jerwood Contemporary Makers was achieved through a brilliant scratch combination of C’Art, Julia Ravenscroft from Jerwood, IC Directors and Joel Kaplan, our newly arrived Guggenheim-trained technician. Slightly too much time up 12-foot ladders but I think I have cracked the rather grand ERCO lighting system – only one exploding bulb so far.
Press for the shows has included a slot on BBC Scotland Radio Café with Mark Crossan and a four-star review from Duncan MacMillan in The Scotsman. There’s been a good mix of visitors, including a group of eight- and nine-year olds from Queensferry Primary School, whose beautiful coloured drawings of the Nick Rena and Deirdre Nelson exhibits are inspiring and confirm the value of the show for all ages.
IC has been joined for a few months by a new administrator Jenny Findlay and the IC office is suddenly showing signs of moving from chaotic adolescence to calm, filed, adult order.
‘Thinking through Craft’, our new programme of talks and events for December/January, supported by the SAC, launches with Sara Brennan this Thursday and rolls through a lively season finishing with a grand finale of Matt Hulse’s FilmCraft weekend. See our Events page for details, or download a ‘Thinking through Craft’ leaflet.
Scottish Opera singers and leading Scottish cellist Will Conway have been testing the acoustics. Anita Feldman gives a guided tour of Henry Moore Textiles this Friday and Dovecot, once again, is showing its colours as a great, creative melting pot for contemporary culture.
Come and join in!
]]>Clare Twomey (www.claretwomey.com) installed her wall piece at Dovecot on Thursday and Friday. The shift of scale from Jerwood Space to Edinburgh has been fascinating – there is an elongated band of porcelain dust rather than a complete wall and subtler details of texture are already apparent. It will be interesting to see what Edinburgh hands make of it. Both Clare and I feel excited by the result. Also read her printed Conversations. Apparently we speak on average 9,000 words in an hour. This statistic haunts me – quite a sizeable essay being lost into the ether. Except she captured it. We plan to explore the spoken word in Edinburgh in December too. The Scottish potter Will Levi Marshall has been invited to talk about the work of the Edward Marshall Trust on 9 December: other ideas in the planning.
Meawhile, I contrasted, in my mind, Clare’s exploration of porcelain in space with a very different exploration by the older Australian artist Gwynn Hanssen Piggott. Having finally unpacked three beautiful bowls acquired from the recent Scottish Gallery show, I positioned them carefully under an attic window. I was rewarded this morning by brilliant winter sunlight lifting and animating each shade of white, creating a mesmerising symphony of tone. I found the following words written by Gwynn on the web (www.ceramicstoday.com):
‘Beauty, and our response to it, remains a mystery.But, it seems to me that, in the alchemy of making, the pot becomes subtly humanised. It is as though a kind of knowing – a history of understanding, and a sort of longing is translated, through care and consideration, and an intimate connecting with the stuff under our fingers…into a form with an independent life. With its own power to move.’
Not a bad thought to carry forward as we install the rest of Jerwood Contemporary Makers.
]]>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.
]]>Autumn has reached Edinburgh. Cold, but brilliantly sunny throwing the city architecture into sharp and extraordinary definition. All the summer exhibitions are dispatched following an exceptional final day on 27 September which saw 2,600 people flow through the doors at Dovecot in six hours.
Weavers, invigilators, Directors and friends were all pressed into service to act as guides and helpers as our visitors patiently queued through all areas of the building. By the following Wednesday Dovecot had returned to its familiar status as a building site. Wisely, I left the all too dusty corridors for London, managing to visit both the Rothko and Bacon exhibitions. The late Rothko at Tate Modern was a revelation. The final room of Black and Grey paintings was emotionally powerful, magnetic and fascinating. Painting rarely gets better than this.
A quick Italian trip also meant a chance to see the Piero della Francesca frescoes at Arezzo. There is something in the way this Renaissance master uses space that reminded me of the American modern master. A spatial clarity. You get it in great objects too. The Nick Rena exhibition currently at the Scottish Gallery demonstrates the same powerful quality: partly predicated on the balance between line, edge and void. That was also very striking in some of the Henry Moore sculptures we looked at in Indian summer sunshine this week after viewing the Textile show at Perry Green. It is exciting that we are showing Rena’s work in Jerwood Contemporary Makers later this month alongside the Henry Moore Textiles.
Back at Dovecot we have taken delivery of a grand piano; a compressed air gun tufter and a great quantity of fine white dust. More muck than clarity at the moment but hopefully November will change all that.
]]>I’m currently spending the hours between going to bed and sleeping (approximately 15 minutes per night) in reading the Charles Leadbeater book We-Think. In a month dominated by news of the failure, or temporary shutdown, of grand scale human structures (Large Hadron Collider; international capitalism), it is reassuring to read positive stories of human structures thriving courtesy of a more collaborative, communitarian approach.
Structures, Leadbeater argues convincingly, at least by page 79, that are encouraged by the opportunities of virtual technologies. Mass innovation not mass production, as the book’s strapline has it. It’s interesting to consider the new Dovecot building in this light. In the past month we have welcomed groups of visitors from schools; German high finance; Scottish historical societies; our neighbours from Edinburgh Council and Edinburgh University; representatives of the Scottish business community, courtesy of the Art and Business reception last week and a group of specialist decorative arts curators from Shetland to East Kilbride.
The latter group joined us today at a Scottish Arts Council-sponsored networking opportunity – it was very stimulating to hear of all the creative projects being quietly steered into existence to celebrate craft and design across the country. On Saturday we end the current crop of exhibitions (last to chance to see them!) with an active participation in Doors Open Day, the Cockburn Association-sponsored celebration of architecture here in Edinburgh. We are particularly delighted to be testing the acoustics of the Weaving Floor with a 53-strong Australian girls choir.
It seems to me that mass collaboration is an active part of Dovecot – a fact that will be reflected yet again in our next pair of exhibitions, Henry Moore Textiles and Jerwood Contemporary Makers, which will open on 14 November. I think Charles Leadbeater might approve.
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Transparencies – Glass in Architecture
4 September at the Dovecot Studios
The South Gallery space was transformed through the addition of some simple corrugated paper blinds and some chairs hired from Andrew Wilson into a very practical, small lecture room. WarPro hired us the projection equipment and patiently set it up as we transferred the lectures from the artists’ sophisticated but incompatible laptops to my clearly very idiosyncratic old Sony which made all the architectural images look cropped. Some 30 attendees including glass makers, artists, architects and general visitors joined us for a glass of pink Prosecco and a very stimulating talk (see Alison McConachie’s comment below). The general buzz of conversation afterwards demonstrated the positive response to the talks, which combined confident presentation, clarity of thought and inspiring images. Thank you to all concerned.
Alison McConachie writes:
‘These combined presentations gave a rare insight into an architect’s vision for a building as an ever-changing multi-layered 3D canvas and how this has created a dynamic living and working environment for the artist Ann Wolff.
I have a great deal of respect for the many ways in which Ann Wolff uses glass in a most expressive way. I responded very much to what she said about the inherent beauty of glass and the need to go beyond what can be a barrier to make it work for you as a medium. I enjoyed her description of the ambiguity of glass and its ability to deceive the eye. She celebrated the versatility of glass, as compared with the canvas, as one can always go back to the previous layers that combine to create the whole picture.
The cast works that she showed were lovely examples of her ability to capture the gestural movement of her instinctive drawings in a very natural way, drawing with line and form but also with the control of colour density through the varying thicknesses of the glass to great effect.
Alison McConachie
eca glass
Reaction to One Eco Home’s beautiful, sustainable furniture has been good too, with several direct sales and good orders. An immediate outcome has been the contact Helen Mudie of One Eco Home has made with new Scottish designers for her stable. Don’t forget to go and look at their full product list at www.onecohome.co.uk. Also any purchases of display items at Dovecot are subject to special discount – don’t miss the chance to visit, see and buy!
We’ve had our second party here too, with the Scottish Arts Council’s annual gathering up of arts professionals here on 9 August and a special visit of international cultural attachés – projects from Venezuela to Japan are now in the planning.
The Olympics are over, but the international, Olympic standards remain here in Edinburgh!
]]>‘Seeing the work out on display for the opening night of “Raising the Bar” was, and will remain, a strong and powerful memory to me. It looked impressive, a visually appetising array of objects. It was great seeing the exhibition three or four times, as well as spending some good times talking with colleagues. Each person’s work demonstrates a clear, enriched story that begins through shared common knowledge about making. What is amazing is how each of us has evolved our own personal expression – pushing through the boundaries of technique and developing deep into the nature of material. There is a great variety of exploration about the value of material, and the contemporary role the material plays and what makes it valuable, re-interpreting the notion of preciousness.
‘I really enjoyed the resolute and clear nature of a lot of the work, but was charmed by the camouflage of real skill and in-depth understanding that it took to make each piece convincing. It was great to be part of “Raising the Bar”. I hope the show will continue to educate public about the importance of crafts knowledge about supporting the growth and progression of mastering skill.’
]]>I confess that my expectations for this exhibition were high. Amanda had shared much of her enthusiasm through the preparation stages. We had that day heard Richard Sennett’s lecture where amongst other gems he spoke about how he felt that we were currently culturally judged on what we consume rather than what we make, and of how the authority and importance of making was becoming lost. How interesting to move immediately, with reparation for lunch, from that experience to witness the work of twelve makers very much on their mettle.
I recall being a little startled at the space afforded to this exhibition. Perhaps we have become too used to seeing craft work in somehow secondary, small and poorly lit spaces; an experience not endured by the more esteemed fine arts. This work very much benefited from being so confidently shown. The twelve bodies of work laid out on simple trestle tables, were mostly unclothed of their too familiar plastic shrouds, which so inhibit our touching of the work in all senses, and naked to the eye of the viewer. The only additional visual stimulus being 12 images of the makers, seductively unnamed. In this environment with little else to clutter the mind how easy it was to let yourself drift into the work. To take up the invitation to enter the worlds of these makers, share their enquiries, and marvel at their virtuosity.
In all work presented the dextrous intelligence of the maker is very much in evidence. The pieces however, which remain most vividly in mind are the bowls of Rudolf Bott. It seemed I could almost hear the sound of the production of these pieces. I felt prepared for the sudden and clamorous powerful ram, could almost smell lubricant, yet my eyes marvelled at their sensitivity. They have not been made by an engineer, who we more readily associate with these large-scale powerful industrial processes, but by a maker more governed by the slower speed and smaller scale of the hand; inquisitive, sensitive and delicate.
This was an exhibition that raised many questions, and further fuelled ongoing discussions and debate. It would appear that indeed the bar has been raised…what next?
]]>Contrast the frantic last-minute painting we showed in the last blog with the calmness of this photo taken in the Raising the Bar exhibition.
Do drop in and see us!
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Week plan: to arrive on Monday 28 July to instal two major exhibitions at Dovecot and to organise the Reception display area with One Eco Home. Beautiful objects and their artists had arrived from around the world. Text panels, set build, labels all ready and waiting. 400 guests had positively responded to the opening on 2 August.
Week reality: Dovecot from Monday 28 July to Friday 1 August inclusive was a hard hat building site, with no front to one half of the building, filled with well over 100 workmen, awash with dust, mud, flailing wires, burst pipes and no lights.
Somehow mid week we manage to convince all contractors that nothing mattered as much as getting this building open on time. Somehow throughout the week international artists exercised patience and nerve as their objects nestled in their packing amidst the chaos. Somehow we managed to get delivery of 300 light fittings and employ, at 24 hours notice, 6 professional fitters from Tower Productions to fit 300 lamps in them. Somehow we managed to call in emergency night security at 6 hours notice. Somehow a combination of weavers, friends, relatives and paid helpers became a professional installation team who, in 24 hours, installed 3 major spaces in hard hats and yellow high visibility vests: 80% of whom had never put up a shelf before. Somehow we got a Temporary Occupation Certificate at 5.25pm on Saturday 2 August and somehow, at 5.30pm the doors opened to the new exhibition spaces at Dovecot with three outstanding exhibitions, looking beautiful, professional and ready. From then on it was pink champagne, delighted guests and oblivion.
This week I got my old job back.
]]>Feel some sympathy with the last frame of the Idle Prentice as he goes on a cart, through chaos, to certain execution. Next two weeks will undoubtedly feel like this final journey through madness.
Seems impossible that Infirmary Street will be ready. Blind faith, vodka and chocolate are the only way forward. Try to learn from the calm indifference of the house cat. Spend most daylight hours (which in Scotland at this time of year are of course almost continuous) in front of the computer, encouraging, hassling and cajoling to get people and objects in the same place at the same time. Feel that future generations will have specially adapted text/keyboard hands. Like the St Kildans who apparently developed prehensile toes for climbing up cliffs to catch gannets.
Many objects have now arrived. Stunning Japanese work. The awe one feels in front of truly exceptional work. Remember why I do this. Spent the weekend catalogue proofing for Raising the Bar - fabulous design by Lisa at Lawn Creative in Liverpool - endlessly checking and re-checking text. Think it will look great. So, there will be a book. And an opening. Checking, re-checking invitation lists.
Hope tomorrow that there may be glass and doors on the new building. See that the efficient Francesca from Dovecot has produced a wonderful task list for the next two weeks which includes the blissful words ‘25th July - Nuala cleans galleries.’ No idea who Nuala is, but I am indebted already.
]]>The floor tiles were being installed last week and are looking good! The shade of paint that was agreed, Ice Mountain, looks perfect as a flexible hanging surface.
The two exhibitions of international contemporary metal and Dovecot tapestries are shaping up well. Set build and graphic design for both shows is well underway and the final list of works is looking very strong. This new building has such potential as an exhibition space - an astonishing 6600 square feet of it, right in the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town.
It is professionally exciting, and challenging, to have the responsibility for creating the launch events and exhibitions with David Weir of Dovecot Studios. For me, it’s a new experience to be starting with such a blank canvas before an exhibition. All those years of exhibition organising at the Scottish Gallery and I knew the spaces and how they worked intimately. As the Dovecot spaces are only going to be revealed, fully, at the moment of installation, a degree of intelligent guess work is required. Also, how all the visitors will actually circulate in the space will only be apparent on the day!
At this stage in exhibition preparation I am immersed in the endless detail of practical delivery (transport, insurance, staffing etc) while trying to keep sight of the final vision of the installed exhibitions. The plans for the Reception Area are also going well, with a great list of furniture coming from One Eco Home – all pieces which demonstrate good sustainable design credentials.
Invitations now printed; catalogues at the designers; opening party planned. Each day more things ticked off and more (usually more) added.
Eight of the 12 international makers from Raising the Bar are going to be at the opening which is fantastic news, except I must now find them all accommodation during the International Festival…
Amanda Game, Lead Director, IC:Innovative Craft.
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