Pebble

Apologies for the quality of the image. It was taken about 5 years ago, before I got my trusty little Canon ixus 70, and I wasn't taking lots of images of my work. the previous post prompted me to look for any record of the "pebbles" that was part of the ongoing mould making, multiples and repeats theme.
I made a couple of moulds to make batches of resin stones that were all treated differently and had slices and laminations to show the "made" aspect. I also worked backwards. so to speak, in terms of making by slicing and laminating blocks of wood before hand shaping/sarving/slicing them into the pebble shape. I used various interesting woods (able to get off-cuts easily as dad is a cabinet-maker). Again, the idea was all about creating many of these similar shapes but in contrasting finishes, all made and treated as "jewels" but to make a whole load of them to pile up in quantity.
I must route out what I have left from that time, I know I kept a collection of them. I ended up giving quite a few away as gifts. If I find them I will post some superior images!
 

Beach

So, Tuesday was (mostly) sunny. Having a free day, we chose to do our annual visit to  Llandudno.
A Victorian sea-side town worthy of multiple posts.
Here I will focus on one jewel in her crown Oriel Mostyn Gallery;

Behind an impressive 1901 terra cota façade in the strikingly beautiful seaside town of Llandudno is Wales’ leading gallery of contemporary art – MOSTYN. Topped with a landmark gold spire, in 2010 it completed an expansion in which old and new buidlings are integrated in a stunning design by architect Dominic Williams.


 I have never been let down by any spontaneous visit to this gallery. There has always been some sort of lingering thoughts provoked by work seen there, discussions had on the train journey back home.
This time, we wandered into one of it's large rooms to see a load of rocks piled up at one end. If a visitor hadn't had their curiosity piqued, hadn't wandered over for a closer look, they would have failed to be surprised when it dawned on them that they weren't "real"! *

The work was "Raised Beach" by Alex Duncan.

It seems his work plays with fascinating ideas regarding what is "real", "natural", "made". It's worth clicking on the artist link above for a better summary than I can give here.

It was a good to go to the gallery en route to a care-free afternoon spent between Llandudno's North and West shores.  See if you can distinguish between gallery and beach shots in the photos above.


*overheard by retreating gallery visitor, who we surmised had merely glimpsed at the room without investigating further,
"And they call that art".

Connections

I think it's good when you step back from your work for a while. I've been looking back over images of work from the last couple of years (or more). This photograph is from a time when I was (obsessively?) making and re-making from moulds made from a cockle shell (from Llandudno beach I think). You can see the links with the earliest human adornment, of course  But the ideas of the time were more to do with repeats and use of moulds - using them in a "natural" way, and by this I mean not in the industrial way whereby the idea is to get identical repeats (sterile?) but in the way I understand nature which is all about repeat patterns which connect but with the capacity to be slightly changed in some way. Without change there would be no life on earth.

Well, if that's getting a bit too thoughtful, I will just say - I saw this image and it reminded me of a previous post! Pennies from Heaven

Neo Geo slices go Knit.

Can definitely see influence of last collection on these knitted squares (probably to be cushion covers) I combined various yarns to get the mix of shades and weight. Actually, think I will be tempted to push that technique of mixing yarns, and make a throw with the 2 tones melting into each other effect, see - lichen - like' it! A mix of whites (snow, cotton, milk, alabaster, chalk, moon,) and black (charcoal, soot, tar, kohl, shadow, night)