Walk 8 - early morning walk

Very early morning walk

insomnia

restless

whirring mind

Blasted by sound and scent

Birdsong erupting from the riverbank

Bats still flying over the rooftops

 Wish I could capture the heady scent of early morning

Heightened senses

Dark Beauty

Walking home from the studio.

A week of darkness

Perhaps that is a little melodramatic, but it feels as though I hardly saw daylight last week. It was my first time visiting Lithuania and our time was divided between the capital Vilnius and the second city Kaunas. The country seems a mixture of beautiful historic buildings, crumbling soviet brutalism and a new era of western inspired commercial buildings. On the whole I found it beautiful and would love to see the old town areas of both cities during daylight to truly appreciate them.

My visit was on college business with my colleague Andrea, delivering five days of training to fashion and textile companies and academics. Determined to see something of the country while were there we tried to spend as much time as possible in the evenings (when not preparing work for the following day) walking about to see the sights.

All that darkness had some benefits. Lithuanians are justifiably proud of their historic buildings and they are beautifully illuminated at night. We also came across this stunning installation in Vilnius. Made up of thousands of votive candles, the installation stretched across the square in front of the cathedral. The installation is a sad reminder of the loss of lives from car accidents in Lithuania, one for each person killed each year for over 20 years. The entire work created a gigantic bar chart. It made us a little nervous being driven to Kaunas early the next day.

Fading / shimmering

a tissue of vague shapes

playing shadows

fleetingly illuminated

Playing with sunshine and shadows

On the way to the studio today I dawdled to play in the shadows, which cheered me up after a bad week.

This weekend I will be joined by a couple of other folks to play with making prints using sunshine and shadows. It should be the perfect weather for it.

Evening sun at the studio

After a horrendous day of rain I glanced up and to my surprise the sun was lighting up the roof tops most beautifully.

Don't worry though I haven't let the weather dampen my spirits there will still be plenty of sunprints to see in my studio. I hope a few folks will come along and see what I have been messing about at.

25th - 27th May 2013, 10am - 4pm 

upstairs at The Butterfly Rooms, 73 Bingley Road, Saltaire (M1 on the Saltaire Arts Trail Map)

Experiments in Light & Landscape

I hope you can join me...

You are warmly invited

to the Private View

of

Experiments in Light and Landscape

a showcase exhibition

by

Hannah Lamb

Thursday 7th March, 4 - 7pm

'Hannah Lamb takes inspiration from walking in the Aire valley. Observing and recording her experience of the landscape, Hannah works with stitch, photography, natural dye and found objects; materials and processes that connect her to the land. In this showcase exhibition Hannah experiments with the influence of light on transparent and textured surfaces, to preserve and capture something intangible, something of time and place.' 

Exhibition runs:

Friday 8th March - Tuesday 26th March 2013

Monday - Friday, 11am - 4 pm  

Admission free

Yorkshire Craft Centre

Lister Building, Bradford College

Carlton Street

Bradford

BD7 1AY

Tel: 01274 438965

Everyone welcome!

Light And Line

Last week I took a train to Barnsley to see Light & Line an exhibition by artists Anne Morrell and Polly Binns. Having read Alice's review here I was really excited as we share many similar interests in terms of landscape and textiles, what really surprised me was my response to the work. I have long been a fan of Polly Binns' work enjoying her sense of place and the way she seems to study and analyse surfaces. I was expecting to be utterly bowled over by her work, but as often happens with expectations I was disappointed. That isn't to say that Polly Binns is not a great artist, simply that these pieces on this occasion did not speak to me, they left me cold. Rather than the subtle, yet strong compositions and surfaces I am familiar with, the textile panels felt dead; flat, matte, surfaces with no sense of light or movement. I also felt the compositions looked uncomfortable, perhaps I was looking for something more dramatic.

Happily there were things to delight in the exhibition; I very much enjoyed the simplicity of Polly's etchings, which seemed more at ease with their scale and I loved the way the sequence of marks grew as a sequence of observations of the land.

What really surprised me though were some of Anne Morrell's works. My preference is normally for things with greater subtleties, but despite using bold colour I found her work interesting and engaging. The complexities of surface tension and layered colour were surprising and innovative, her use of textile transformative. Her textile pieces seem to act as a means of understanding the effects of light and water through an alternative media; working things out through making. The exploration of tension is very exciting, using stitch to stretch, pull and hold the fabric. Most of all though I enjoyed the small pieces mounted between perspex sheets and suspended in front of the window, the results being luminous even on a drab day. I really wish I had taken a photo of those.

The two artists clearly have much in common and this dialogue between them has been fascinating. The accompanying catalogue (from which I have added these photos) is also well written and provides useful insights that help us understand the artists motivations. Light & Line is a touring exhibition by Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery and the exhibition will now be touring to the following locations:

2 February 2013 - 16 March 2013
Turnpike Gallery, Leigh

11 May 2013 - 7 July 2013
Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery

You can read another interesting review from Alternative Barnsley here.

On the edge of vision

"And often when I wake at night, and listen to the silence, or wander far from people, in the greyness of the evening, or stand and look at quiet water having shadows over it, some vague image seems to hover on the skirt of vision, ever changing place and outline, ever flitting as I follow. This so moves me and hurries me in the eagerness and longing, that straightway all my chance is lost; and memory, scared like a wild bird, flies."

Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore

Capturing the moment

Despite a cold blue sky today, as the sun lit the landscape it warmed everything with a sepia glow. The colours I see inside my magic box reminded me of vintage film as I was watching True Grit (original version) snuggled up on the sofa this afternoon. It made an interesting contrast with a snatch of BBC news about the latest developments in new digital film and media. It made me wonder if by trying to make everything appear so real this looses something else that film and photography captures? I love the old Technicolour films, with their saturated colour that seems to create something beyond reality, or perhaps something straight from the imagination. In the last few years I have discovered just how much qualities of light effect me both emotionally and physically, I wonder if this is something I should explore further in my own practice?

shadows and stars

an exercise in surface and light

A 'new' toy

Taking my 'new' Ful-Vue vintage camera for a walk along the river bank.

Night Night

In case you missed it last night BBC 4 had a series of excellent programs on the theme of Night, it being the longest night or shortest day. The main event of the evening was The Art Of The Night in which Waldemar Januszczak explores the influence of night time on artists ancient and modern, and I thoroughly recommend watching it. I was particularly struck by Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels in Utah for it's simplicity yet other worldliness. This modern day Stonehenge could only be sited in the epic landscapes of the American west, it needs the space to exist without interruptions. Below is a video of the Sun Tunnels from You Tube by Andy & Lance Olsen although not as spectacular as watching it at sunrise or sunset.

A Golden Leaf...

... caught my eye as the October sun lit it on fire high in the sky. I followed it as it fluttered down and it became my prize!

Bat For Lashes - Daniel

Running through twilight

reflections in water

smoke mixed with rain

uncertain terrain

... and this is what I was listening to

Sax Impey

While in Cornwall I visited Millennium gallery in St Ives and saw Sax Impey's wonderful exhibition of painting and mixed media works titled 'Voyage'. I didn't know his work previously but was struck by the eerie quality of the works and their luminosity.

This body of work explores a voyage made from Australia to Singapore and is a personal voyage of discovery investigating man's primal connection to the sea and the wider universe.

I found his use of painting and photography combined especially well to create a really evocative effect. The works are atmospheric and almost seem to be illuminated. I think the works also reference a very personal take on experiencing a place, which is an idea I have been trying to explore in my own work.

light installations

Today I went to Scarborough to visit some open studio events. I was particularly interested to see the Dome d'Ombre installation called 'Source' at St Martin on-the-hill. Set in the crypt of the church, in complete darkness the installation was comprised of three elements:

The first was a tunnel-like structure, set into a doorway, made of crinkled fabric with a light projection onto it. The film varied from softly dappled light moving gently, to something more like flashes of lightening. It gave me a very strange sensation of relaxation and excitement.

The largest installation used a tree stump or branches (not sure which) sitting in a shallow pool of water. This was then used to project onto a fabric hung in space as a screen. The projected image did not really look like the subject matter but still liquid and fluid. The sound of dribbling water echoed around the crypt. It was utterly mesmerising.

The final piece was a series of three 'streams' of fine white sand, illuminated as they trickle steadily to the floor. This piece seemed to demonstrate the passage of time.

I really enjoyed seeing the work and found it quite inspirational. It reminded me of the emotional responses I feel to various light conditions; in fact light qualities have a direct bearing on my mood and emotional state.

Talking briefly to one of the artists she suggested that I could look at altering the surface of the fabric as a way of creating 'shadows' on cloth. I thought this was a really interesting suggestion and I really like the idea of creating different surfaces and densities that could be used as screens for projection.