More Glimpses of Dreams

At the moment I am dividing my time between the Burslem Park project(See previous post) and my new collection of paintings 'Glimpses of Dreams'. My last post 'Cathedrals of Time' was from that series and here is a sneaky peek at a few more that are hot off the studio desk! 

"Wild Fragility"

"Finding Direction"

"In The Soft Sands"

Cathedrals Of Time

 Setting forth in the universe, an unrelenting movement of passing time. Crumbling Cathedrals of memory with only one certainty on the road ahead, that nothing is ever the same. We find our way through the ruins, letting go, reclaiming and rebuilding.

Measuring Trees Again!

Well today has seen me out and about in Burslem Park and once again I find myself measuring trees - or this time to be more accurate it's measuring the GAP between trees.

I have been commissioned to work with young people and park users to create four fabric banners that will celebrate movement through the seasons and around the park,  these will be tied between four Birch trees in Burslem Park during it's grand opening on June 23rd 2012.

The park has undergone a massive restoration programme which you can read more about here
 http://www.stoke.gov.uk/ccm/cms-service/stream/asset/?asset_id=103379

Glimpses of Dreams

The last month seems to have flown by in a whirl of projects and it's been a struggle trying to completely absorb myself in the new series.

However, bit by bit bases are beginning to be worked, imagery created and screens exposed and printed.

Today I finished the very first piece in the series. It's composition is based on a piece I did last year called 'Hold on Hope'.
For this series I'm going to be using a lot of circular motifs and working them into designs to give a sense of 'capturing' within a bubble.
To capture a moment, to seal a vision, a dream, to encapsulate something. To find a way to halt the inevitable movement of time.

"Fallen" Copyright Rachel Grant 2012

Darkness and Light

The last few months have seen me busy with Godiva and her HUGE coat(see post below) but as this project draws to a close over the next few months my thoughts are beginning to turn to - what next?
My practice has always been divided between projects that are essentially public pieces of art and those that are led by more private, personal inspiration. Of course the nature of art means that these personal, almost autobiographical creations still ultimately arrive at a public forum eventually but their beginnings are quite different.
I find that organising my practice in this way gives me a balance between inward searching and expressing, and outward reflection and interpretation. Normally at the end of a big commission I will try and organise my schedule so that I can create a new collection of pieces that are more inward looking. From the end of April I will be doing just that. I have a few exhibitions coming up and so will have a good focus and purpose for the new collections.
The last series I produced during one of these times was entitled 'Hopes and Dreams'. These pieces were created for the Christmas 2011 exhibitions in various galleries across the UK. The theme sprung from a commission that I had been working on in the form of a residency for the Growing Hearts and Minds project. The pieces focussed on creating visual metaphors between planting, growing, nurturing and human behaviour, relationships and well being. Their purpose was to be reflective and uplifting.

"With The Birds I'll Share" 40x40cm £150

With the new series, which at the moment has a (possibly temporary) title of "glimpses of dreams", I would like to be able to include some darker pieces. Perhaps ambiguous in nature, as a dream can often be, confused and a little lost in it's meaning. Something I began to explore tentatively for the 'Finding Echoes' exhibition in 2010, this is one of the pieces from that series....

"Beyond The Horizon" 40x40cms N.F.S.

I have been interested for a while now in apocalyptic landscape scenes, ever since a dream I had about three years ago that has remained vivid in my mind's eye. Sometimes I stumble upon images that remind me of the dream and I am curiously drawn to their desolate glimpse of a suggested future. At the moment I am particularly loving the work of artist Suzanne Moxhay 

 

Copyright Suzanne Moxhay

I love the telegraph poles and have used them quite a lot in past work to represent the juxtaposition of isolation and connection. In the Place, Space and Identity programme in 2009 they featured in an installation I created within an empty terraced house in Fegg Hayes, Stoke-on-Trent.....

 "Living Room" Rachel Grant Installation 2009

As well as in gallery work, the pieces below were exhibited in the 'Finding Echoes' exhibition in 2010 at the Burslem School of Art and later moved onto Sevens of Macclesfield where they sold in 2011........

"Before It Breaks" 40x40cms Sold.

 

After The Storm 40x40cms Sold.

I am hoping that the new work will be a coherent collection of darkness and light, a true reflection of dreams, sometimes dark, lonely, frightening and other times more hopeful, aspirational and uplifting. Glimpses of our own minds, our sub-concious stuggling to process the barrage of emotion we experience throughout our daily lives. "Glimpses of Dreams" should begin appearing here from May onwards - exhibition dates coming soon.

Godiva Awakes

For over a year now I have been working on the exciting 2012 Cultural Olympiad project 'Godiva Awakes' with the Coventry based company Imagineer Productions. You can read more about that here Godiva Awakes

I am part of the Coat Team designing and creating the coat for a ten metre high Godiva, working under lead artist Julia O'Connell and with a team of another three textile artists and a glass artist.
In preparation for designing the coat each artist has researched a specific industry from around the West Midlands. Being based in Stoke-on-Trent the pottery industry was an obvious choice for me and I was particularly interested in the women of the Potteries.

The great female designers Susie Cooper and Clarice Cliff became a focal point of my research but equally I was interested in the everyday woman in the industry. The paintresses, the office clerks, the glazers and fettlers. The kind of women who worked long hours in the factory and returned home to children and husbands to feed and clean up after. Some of these women were unlucky enough to do these jobs before the public health acts of the late 1800's and were exposed to lead and dust that caused Silicosis, commonly named 'Potters Rot'.

In the 1920's ceramic designers Susie Cooper and Clarice Cliff established role models for women of the Potteries to aspire to. Their stories suggested that women no longer had to conform to the pre-defined notions of gender or even social status within the Pottery industry, or to consider their creative endeavours in the industry to be of lesser importance than their domestic role within the home.

  The final designs for my sections of Godiva's coat are to be an amalgamation of all the roles and influences on women throughout the Potteries history.
Beautiful surface patterns inspired by art deco designs, repeated circles suggesting the thousands of plates that would pass through workers hands every day, domestic chores that must have been running through their minds daily and the secret affairs of the heart and soul that form the core of our humanity whether a poorly paid paintress or a company art director who’s become a household name like Clarice Cliff.

 
Whilst carrying out my early research, I collected ‘visual fragments’ of my findings in a sketchbook. 

These fragments of text, images and photographs aim to illustrate the disparity between the raw process of pottery production and the polished product that is presented at the end. I have used these collections of fragments in my final designs as a metaphor for the barriers to aspiration that existed in the Potteries past. 
By layering fragments one over another, abstracting shapes, designs, stories and facts, I hope to establish these as layers of history, no longer disparate but united in memory. A solid ground to build on for a fairer and more equal future.  A future that strives to raise aspirations above and beyond our industrial past.

Every day the Godiva Awakes twitter feed posts a photo of the day and today they chose a section of a sample from my coat designs you can see it here: GODIVA IMAGES


It's a really exciting project to be part of and such a joy to work on so I'm sure I'll be posting a lot more about it here soon.

Image Above: Digital sketchbook page.
                       (Copyright Rachel Grant)

A visitor to the studio....

Having taken a few weeks off between my Poland trip and the Christmas fun that is the school holidays I was totally ready to see in the New Year with a clear out in the studio. I LOVE having a good tidy up and a de-clutter it's always so cathartic to fill a load of bin bags and have a good re-organisation. I find neat organised boxes a joy to be honest!!!! This year's studio clean up was made all the more appealing with the knowledge that Deborah from Dappled Sky was going to be coming to visit the studio in the New Year to interview me and my partner, artist Paine Proffitt (who also works under the name Nicholas Hudson Paine)about our work, our rather humble studio space and what it's like to share this space with each other.
So I tidied up my shelves and my desk area....and Paine kinda tidied his....in a kind of male way....but hey it was a tidy up all the same!!!! Our afternoon with Deborah was just lovely, we rarely have visitors....possibly because if we did we'd have to tidy up more.....but it was interesting to talk to her and then most interesting to read her write up of our interview. Reading someonelses' interpretation of your life is a strange sensation and gives you an interesting perspective, almost like stepping out of yourself and looking in. It was a good experience to have at the beginning of the year as it helped me to re-align myself with my practice and prepare my mind for the coming year of busy creativity I have ahead.
You can read the Dappled Sky interview here and yes, that really is the tidy version of the studio!!!!

Image: Deborah Nicklin/DappledSky