Kit Glaisyer is based at St Michael's Studios, which stands at the heart of the remarkable community of artists, writers, musicians, photographers, illustrators and designers in the Art & Vintage Quarter of Bridport, West Dorset, UK.
Just a few days to the start of the Bridport Open Studios event, taking place over the Bank Holiday weekend, Sat 28 to Mon 30 August.
The new Bridport Open Studios website is now up and running, and you can find out about participating artists and download a PDF of the event.
To kick things off we've got the official launch of the event at the Bull Hotel, Bridport, on Thursday 26th August, from 6-9pm, to which everyone is invited.
We will have an exhibition called "Six by Nine" in the Ball Room, showing examples of small works from many of the participating artists. Join us for a (discounted) drink in the Vena bar, and grab a bite to eat at their award-winning restaurant or get a freshly made pizza from their Stable Cider House.
Other art events worth checking out include an exhibiton of Walker Evans photographs, part of Burr Projects at Axen Farm, on until September 5.
Here's an introduction from the Real West Dorset Blog:
"The exhibition has around 40 black and white photographs taken by Walker Evans in the Deep South of the USA in 1935-36, during the Great Depression.
Evans was employed as an Information Specialist in President Franklin D Roosevelt’s Resettlement (later Farm Security) Administration. His job was to record the work of the FSA and document the lives of farmers and flood victims.
Evans travelled to Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina photographing sharecroppers’ homes, churches, graveyards, busy streets, shops, cafes, signs and billboards. He also took portraits.
The show is on tour from London’s Hayward Gallery. It’s accompanied by an exhibition book, with examples of Evans’ writing, interview excerpts and articles written by James Agee and Lincoln Kirstein."
Meanwhile, in Morecomblake, there's the Artwave West Summer Exhibition - Featuring work by Linda Mattock and gallery artists. It's on until 11th September, open Tuesday to Saturday 10-5pm.
Down the road in Sladers Yard there's the "Voyages" exhibition, on until Sept 12th. Artists include Simon Garden, Alfred Stockhamand Stephen Jacobsonpaintings with David Worthington sculpture.
Of course the other major local event is the Melphash Show, taking place at the Showground, West Bay, Bridport.
The Melplash Show is the premier agricultural show in the South West and is a great day out for the whole family. One child is admitted free for each adult ticket purchased. Public opening is 7.30am to 6.00pm. This year's show welcomes celebrity Guest Valentine Warner who amongst other things will be signing copies of his popular What to Eat Now books.
There's now only two weeks to go before our annual Bridport Open Studios event, which takes place from Saturday 28 to Monday 30 August 2010.
You can now view this PDF of this year's event catalogue, and it's also is available from the Bridport Open Studios page on www.bridport.org
The catalogue contains information about over 100 artists in 46 venues across West Dorset, with an image and short descriptions of their work, along with websites, telephone and email contacts.
We're still in the process of translating this information onto our new website, which you'll soon be able to find at www.bridportopenstudios.co.uk
You're also ALL invited to our launch party at the award-winning Bull Hotel, on East Street, Bridport, from 6-9pm on Thursday 26 August. Come along to have a drink and meet the artists, many of whom will be showing some examples of their works in the magnificent Ball Room. There's also freshly made pizzas and a wide range of pies and cider available from the Bull's new Stable block.
Meanwhile I've been busy working on my latest commission as well as a body of new work I've started in my studio. Last year I spent 8 months working on a commission showing a view from Lewesdon Hill across the Marshwood Vale, and this area of west Dorset has now inspired a whole new series of paintings.
A major source of inspiration has been a winding path that leads through a copice of young trees at the base of the hill, and up past a row of ancient twisted beech trees that are surrounded by bluebells in the spring. Look through these trees out across the panorama from Pilsden Pen to Charmouth Gap, a view that becomes gradually more obscured by leaves as spring turns into summer.
My landscape paintings are all about the feeling and memory of a place. I'm not in the least bit interested in the superficial appearance of a pretty scene, but in the deeper atmosphere and mood that a place evokes. Of course I love this beautiful countryside, the infinite subtleties of light and colour, as the sun begins to set over Pilsden Pen and light cascades through the canopy of entwined branches, but there seems to be a grander idyll, a sense of presence, perhaps of our forebears, and even before them, of forgotten times, somehow recorded in the soil and the rain carved hillsides.
A walk in the countryside offers a connection with nature that is both profound and sublime, and it also deserves to be savoured. Find a leafy bank to sit on, or a tree stump, and just watch the world go by. It's almost as if by relaxing and letting go of the modern world, we remember the part we play in nature, we merge back into the foliage and wildlife, and become invisible, like the hundreds of tiny animals going about their business all around us. This return to nature is something that is available to all of us, at any time, and is something we should all experience, and this is what my paintings are all about.
Of course it's different back in my studio. I sometimes work outside (plein air), but I'm quite happy to work in my studio, and with much of my work it's vital, as I spend weeks building up subtle glazes, rather than simply trying to spontaneously respond to nature. And if you think about it, every painting is really an expression of what the artist sees and feels in their mind. A landscape is always our translation of our perceptions onto canvas. I remember one visitor saying to me that she'd never seen the landscape as I showed it until she saw my paintings. I believe the same is true for all of us, that we see the world around us through the eyes of all the artists in history, we see the drama that Turner saw, the light that Monet saw, and we can find eauty in a clump of weeds because Albrecht Durer first saw it 500 years ago.
I'm hoping to show both finished works and works-in-progress at the Open Studios event, so I look forward to seeing you there.
One of my favorite subjects for my paintings are the views across the Marshwood Vale, in the far west of Dorset, leading up to the Devon border. There's a row of three hills - Lamberts Castle, Pilsden Pen and Lewesdon Hill that lead up from the coast towards the village of Broadwindsor. You can see these three hills as you drive over the ridgeway along the A35 from Dorchester towards Bridport, and when you climb the hills themselves, you can clearly see far across towards Chesil Beach and Portland.
These three hills each have a very different feeling. To me it feels like Lewesdon was the Druid hill, as it's got a mysterious and magical feeling. Pilsden Pen feels bleaker to me, like a military stronghold, and at Lamberts Castle I can almost see the ancient settlements, a community of families, soldiers, traders and children.
It's also easy to imagine everyone sat round camp fires at night, under the stars, talking, eating, making music and dancing. What's remarkable about this is that we can have exactly the same experience today, and for sheer pleasure it still beats all our technological distractions. Frankly I'd far rather be sat round a fire with friends on a clear summers night, than watching a movie, or playing on the computer.
Anyway, there's a camp organised by a local family that takes place over a week in July, just to the west of Bridport, near Whitchurch Cannonicorum. A dozen or so families decamp to a field and set up tends, yerts and bell tents. Here's a taste of a summer evening sat round the fire...
Lovely.
Some thoughts on creativity and perception I sometimes feel that our accomplishments in life are laid out before us like a row of choices, each leading to the next, and when we're 'in the flow', we naturally and easily glide from one to the next.
What tends to impede the flow is when we procrastinate, and avoid doing something that might not be as exciting or entertaining as we would wish. But it is only when we finally follow through with the 'natural' action that it transpires that our entire destiny was lined up beyond that event.
I had one of these moments a few days ago. I'd been wanting to rearrange my studio for a while, but could not seem to even get started. So it remained in it's current state, with paintings stacking up, as if waiting for me to resolve the situation. Meanwhile, there was a large painting on one wall that I've been working on and off for a couple of years now. I'd been thinking about the painting recently, considering the next layer, but because it was now several months since I'd touched it, I didn't feel sufficient urgency to tackle it. Finally one evening I decided to set to work on it, partly helped by some new paints I bought in Bath, which I was eager to try out. I worked on the painting for a while (Marshwood Sunburst, 72"x48"), not long, perhaps an hour or so, and then I sat down to look at it. All of a sudden it occurred to me exactly what I needed to do in order to rearrange my studio. It was a very obvious and simple change that I'd not remotely considered before, but it only happened when I got on with the task at hand.
If you imagine that everything you want to achieve is available to you, and laid out before you, then accomplishment only requires a state of 'allowing', rather than a 'plan of action'. Just look at how many people give up on their dreams because they just don't seem to get that 'lucky break' or figure out 'how' to achieve it. Perhaps those opportunities were there all along, but they were disguised as apparently ordinary decisions that they had considered and then dismissed? We have to reach an understanding that rather than working 'harder' and 'trying' to realise our dreams, perhaps these dreams are actually trying to get to us, and all we need to do is to allow our ideal life to unfold is to follow through on these simple ideas that occur to us.
This reminds me of the way that artistic progress seem to occur. It seems to be the result of a combination of very ordinary decisions, alongside the 'big' ideas. Being a successful creative person really isn't about trying to be 'amazing' every moment of the day, but instead, of trusting in the small decisions that allow us to build momentum and confidence, without being distracted by the countless rational excuses we might have.
I think that hesitation and procrastination are particular embodiments of our rational, or left-brain way of thinking. In our increasingly secular and logically/scientific society we're encouraged to explain, justify and quantify everything we do. The problem with this is that it neglects the right-brain 'intuitive' mind, and in fact many creative (and scientific) solutions are only discovered when chance has intervened, or seemingly illogical decisions have been made.
I experienced a fine example of this recently when I was looking at a couple of small recent paintings I'd made (of paths up Lewesdon Hill). They were lying next to each other on the floor, and the outer edges were obscured by furniture, so all I could see was a combination of the left side of one painting and the right of the other. The resulting configuration appeared like a new painting that I had unintentionally made - the unlikely fusion of two different projects.
As I was enjoying this 3rd painting that I'd inadvertently created, I became acutely aware of my rational mind trying to explain what I was seeing. It was obviously confused by this new discovery, and was urgently trying to tell me what was happening. If it had had the chance it would have pointed to the various parts of each painting and told me what they really were. But I didn't want to know what they were, I was too busy enjoying what they had become, and one of the greatest pleasures of being an artist is when you are pleasantly surprised by your own work.
Anyway, I managed to keep my logical brain at bay long enough to allow my creative or imaginative brain to enjoy and remember the experience, but it was my clearest indication yet of the 'yin and yang' of perception that we utilise. To function at our best we need to balance both sides of our brains, so that we can enjoy both structure and discovery.
See for yourself There's actually a great way that we can all experience our two left/right perspectives. Have a look at this image of a spinning girl. At first she looks as if she is just spinning round and round in one direction, but then, all of a sudden you will probably see her change direction. You might think this is just a random series of clockwise and counter-clockwise rotations, but in fact there's an easy way that you can change her direction whenever you want...
Here's what you do - look at the shadow of her pointed foot at the bottom of the image. You'll notice it seems to either move from left to right or from right to left. If you just relax for a moment and watch the shadow, you can begin to see how it is actually going from right to left to right to left, a movement that corresponds to your brain also switching right to left to right to left. In order to make the girl spin clockwise you simply wait for the shadow to start moving from right to left, and then lift your eyes to see the movement continued in the spin of the girl. Likewise, to make the girl spin counter-clockwise, catch the shadow as it begins to move from left to right and then lift your eyes to see her keep spinning in that direction.
My appologies for not having blogged for a while, I've been so busy, though I've been meaning to post the pictures I put up from the recent Vintage Market on the St Michael's Trading Estate, Bridport.
As you probably know, there's an amazing Vintge Market that takes place on the last Sunday of the month, and the next one is on during the Bridport Open Studios weekend, on Sunday 29th August.
I went to the one in June and it was really buzzing, so I ended up staying there all day, enjoying the sunshine and taking photos.
Meanwhile the new brochures for the Bridport Open Studios 2010 (28-30 August) event have now been printed, and will be picked up by artists later this week. I'm still busy organising lots of PR and Advertising across the West Country. Our first piece is a double-page spread in this month's Dorset Magazine. Check it out!
It's all happening at Bridport's 'Art & Vintage Quarter' on the St Michael's Trading Estate.
Last night I went down to the weekly Friday night 'Pizza by the River', just down the lane from my studio. Pizza's are delicious freshly baked in the Jalopy Pizza Van, and served on wooden plates. It's becoming quite a bustling event now, and last night was the busiest I've seen it yet, with dozens of people chatting and kids playing. Tomorrow it's the monthly Vintage Market (Sun 25th July) down there, and this has also been rapidly growing in popularity. There's a great sense of community at the market, and I imagine it must feel like it did 50 years ago, across the UK, before the awful re-development of towns started, as clueless town planners and short-sighted developers began to rip out the older quarters of our towns, driving out all these amazing grass-roots communities.
But not in Bridport! No! It's great to think that this time last year we were fighting to save the trading estate from becoming a massive housing estate, and now this entire Vintage Quarter has sprung up here. It just goes to prove what we were saying all along, that the old rope-making district of Bridport is a huge asset to the town and should be protected and appreciated as a brilliant venue for small businesses and the creative industries.
Last weekend I went to the opening of "Voyages" at Sladers Yard Gallery in West Bay. There's some great art on show, and I particularly enjoyed the highly polished sculptures by David Worthington (one of the artists in my book "Portrait of the Artist". David was actually an assistant to Anish Kapoor in the 90's, and there's definitely a 'spiritual' similarity in the work.
I met Sladers artist Alex Lowery, who's paintings brilliantly capture the bleakness of West Bay. He also shows at Art First, in Cork Street, London.
I also talked with artist Amanda Wallwork, Director at Sherborne House, and Lindsay Brookes, who has resigned from being Director of Bridport Arts Centre after three years. She's going to become a consultant instead, so I hope we get someone equally accomplished and enthusiastic to replace her.
Meanwhile I've been busy getting on with my own work, a number of landscapes including a 4-foot high commission on another view from Lewesdon Hill. It's still early days on this new body of work, as I start mapping out the foundations of the paintings, which will soon disappear under dozens of glazes of oil paint.
I'm also thinking of making a larger version of "Dorset Clouds", one of my favorite and most popular paintings showing the view from the top of Allington Hill, looking west across the Marshwood Vale towards the row of hills - Lamberts Castle, Pilsden Pen and Lewesdon Hill. It's really the skies that excite me in this project, and I want to further develop the drama from the first painting, with the sun breaking out from the thunderous clouds and rain falling in the distance, with shadows from the clouds drifting across the valley. I grew up in Dorset, so I have strong memories of how the weather influenced the light and colour and atmosphere throughout the day. The original is 4ft wide, and I'm thinking of doing one 6-8ft wide, maybe with a bigger sky...
It's been a while since my last post, mainly because we've been busy preparing for the Bridport Open Studios event on the August Bank Holiday Weekend.
Once again this year there will be over 100 artists taking part, showing in 45 venues across West Dorset.
We've also got our launch night at the Bull Hotel,Bridport, so please come and join the artists in celebrating this great event!
I must also mention a great exhibition that is only on for a couple more days. It's called "New Paintings by Jon Adam & SuchiChidambaram" at Artwave West Gallery, in Morecombelake, from 19th June - 17th July, open Tuesday to Saturday 10-5pm. I've long been a fan of Jon Adam's paintings, so I was looking forward to this exhibition of his new work. He didn't disappoint. We often meet up and talk about our work, but Jon hadn't allowed me to see what he was working on for a few months, mainly because he just needed to get on with it without letting anyone else's opinions distract him.
The result is a body of brilliant, experiemental work, highly accomplished paintings that explore a range of ideas from the optical-abstract techniques of his "Dredger" series, to new realist paintings of the "Dark Seas".
You can see a number of these paintings on his page at the Artwave West website. I believe the show finishes on Saturday, so catch it while you can!
It's a short post this week as I've now got to get back to my own new work. I've recently started a new commission as well as a number of other works and a series of smaller paintings. I'm hoping to start posting a series of photos to show the progress of some paintings over the weeks and months... that's the plan anyway!
I've just realised that I've not talked much about my own work on this blog, so I'll now do so!
It's been such a sunny week that I've not been in the studio at all, but I've thinking a lot about how I'm going to approach my next commission, and now I'm back in the studio keen to get on with it. The size has been agreed at 42"x56" and I've already made a stretcher so as to give myself some idea of the size, possibilities and challenges of the project. I imagine the painting will take about 6 months to make, as it's a challenging piece with a great deal of complexity and subtlety involved.
My landscape paintings are all very ambitious in terms of the complexities and subtleties I want to achieve, and they require quite a different approach than my Cafe Royal paintings. The Cafe Royal is set in an 'urban' environment (in Bridport), and are concerned with architecture, surface, modernity and depicting an environment in which most things are designed and built by man, making very specific and clearly defined spaces. What I found most interesting about painting the Cafe was the variety of light effects at work, from both inside and outside the building, as well as the reflections in the wet road and the movement of the cars across them.
While the man-made landscape can appear extremely complex, nature is even more so, containing structures and patterns that are timeless and profound, spanning centuries, even millennia of history, with incredible complexities of light, the rhythms of natural forms, and the chaotic growth and interactions of the organic environment.
I would therefore almost describe my urban paintings as 'warm-up' pieces for my landscapes, where I could gain confidence in learning to achieve the sensation of light and to balance several different dynamics within the composition.
In my landscapes I want to do justice to nature, and every one of my recent series of landscape paintings has helped me to develop my confidence in tackling ever-more ambitious subjects, and to pursue ever greater subtleties of light, space, atmosphere and mood.
I want to create highly ambitious paintings that can stand alongside the great artists I admire, and this requires a combination of experience and adventure - the ability to create works that incorporate complex traditional techniques alongside an innovative contemporary edge. I also try to retain a sense of personal challenge and surprise in my work, attempting things that are new to me and that keep me on my toes, and which continue to push the boundaries of painting.
This next "Lewesdon Tree" project is based on a subject and source material that both challenges and inspires me. Since working on the "Lewesdon View" painting last year, I've continued to visit and document Lewesdon Hill, throughout the seasons, in order to try to capture moments that evoke the feelings I want to express. As I followed the landscape through winter and into spring I noted where and when the sun would set, in order to form an understanding of the dynamics of the gradually changing light and ever-growing foliage.
I'm really looking forward to making the "Lewesdon Tree" painting, as it will be the culmination of all this preparation, drawing from my experience of those 'idyllic' evenings when the light and foliage and view across the Marshwood Vale came together in perfect harmony.
Just a few days to the start of the Bridport Open Studios event, taking place over the Bank Holiday weekend, Sat 28 to Mon 30 August.
Other art events worth checking out include an exhibiton of Walker Evans photographs, part of Burr Projects at Axen Farm, on until September 5.
Meanwhile, in Morecomblake, there's the Artwave West Summer Exhibition - Featuring work by Linda Mattock and gallery artists. It's on until 11th September, open Tuesday to Saturday 10-5pm.
