Lab Craft: Digital Adventures in Contemporary Craft

Lab Craft, the Crafts Council touring exhibition is in its final week at Oriel Myrddin Gallery. It's the last chance to see this extraordinary show as it ends its tour here. 

Here is a link to more images of the show.

Rose Wood

Image courtesy of Rose Wood

In conjunction with Oriel Myrddin Gallery's exhibition Lab Craft: Digital Adventures in Contemporary Craft, currently touring from The Craft Council, west Wales based accessories designer, Rose Wood will be showing a range of her laser cut leather jewellery in the gallery shop.

Rose works with laser cut components, slicing and slotting flat shapes to build into sculptural jewellery. Working predominantly in leather and textiles she enjoys the tactility of the making process. 

The jewellery pieces are made from soft leather and have a gestural, performative element to their design, they are sensuous in their physicality and designed to be enjoyed and experienced as tactile objects. 

Rose has also designed intriguing folded textiles that act as sculptural garments and performance pieces.

Untitled from rose wood on Vimeo.

Lab Craft: Digital Adventures in Contemporary Craft

Installation of Lab Craft at Oriel Myrddin Gallery

I'm really excited that we are currently in the process of installing The Crafts Council touring show, Lab Craft: Digital Adventures in Contemporary Craft at Oriel Myrddin Gallery. The work arrived with us yesterday and our colleagues from The Crafts Council arrived today to work with us on the installation.

We first saw the show at Tent London in 2010 and were really captured by the ideas and possibilites that the show present to the contemporary designer and craftsperson.

Lab Craft includes 26 makers who combine hand, mind, eye, technical mastery of tools and materials, and aesthetic sensibility, with cutting-edge digital technologies. Using rapid prototyping, laser cutting, laser scanning and digital printing, Lab Craft explores the use of technology as an extension to the capabilities of the human hand.

Curated by Max Fraser, the exhibition includes work by some of the most experimental names currently working in craft and design, including; Tord Boontje, Michael Eden, Gareth Neal, Timorous Beasties and Nina Tolstrup, with many showing innovative work previously unseen. Textiles, ceramics, furniture, jewellery, glass, lighting and much more are presented to engage and intrigue anyone with an interest in craft, materials, design, and technology.

Watch this space for more images and thoughts as the show comes together. There will be an opening event on Saturday 3 March at 2pm with a talk by craft practitioners Anna Lewis and Claire Savage Onstwedder called Crafting Technology. Both Anna and Claire work with CIRIC at Swansea Metropolitan Museum.

Lab Craft will run from 25 February - 7 April 2012.

Collect at Saatchi

Stefano Marchetti - seen here

I went along to The Saatchi Gallery last night for a preview of Collect: The International Art Fair for Contemporary Objects. I'll be going back today for a closer look, but here are a few of the makers that I enjoyed on first sight.

David Gates - seen here

Ike Junger - seen here

Ruthin Craft Centre

Nora Fok  - seen here

There's an interesting clutch of shows coming up at Ruthin Craft Centre in North Wales. Gallery 1 is showing Cloud Nylon: The Jewellery of Nora Fok - the first ever solo exhibition for the jeweller, textile artist and 3d designer. She meticulously creates wearable pieces from nylon monofilament.

Norman Makinson - Festival of Britain commemorative mug - seen here

Gallery 2 is showing a retrospective of the ceramic work of the late Norman Makinson who died last year at the age of 88. He was best known for his Wedgewood Queen's ware design for the Festival of Britain commemorative mug in 1951.

Stephen Farnan - Bowl (The Last Day) - seen here

Gallery 3 takes an overview of potters currently working in the ancient technique of slipware. The technique dates back to 17th Century, and has a strong history of use in Wales. Slip... celebrates the work of a number of contemporary makers including Stephen Farnan.

Buddug & Jessie - The Shop

I went up to east London on Saturday and had a stroll along Columbia Road, it's full of lovely little independent shops, but my favourite is run by Buddug Wyn Humphreys and her friend Jessie Chorley. We have been stocking Buddug's work in the shop at Oriel Myrddin Gallery for a while, and this year she is also part of our Christmas show, LUX. Using vintage finds along with her distinctive enamel work, Buddug makes quirky jewellery and housewares often with words and phrases in both English and Welsh. Although based in Hackney, Buddug originally comes from north Wales. 

Buddug Wyn Humphreys

Jessie Chorley is also from Snowdonia in north Wales, influenced by old books and  text, she combines stitch work with paper and found objects to make jewellery and housewares along with hand-made books and journals. Their shop (158a Columbia Road, London E2 7RG) is open on Saturday 12 - 4 pm and Sunday from 9 am - 4 pm, and during the run up to Christmas on Wednesday from 5 - 9 pm.

Jessie Chorley - seen here

A few doors down is Ryantown, the shop showing the work of paper cutting artist Rob Ryan. His beautifully intricate work has become incredibly popular lately with designs available as greetings cards, ceramics, skate boards, scarves...

Rob Ryan - seen here

I continued on to Brick Lane on my wander with the intention of visiting a few shops and galleries, but got caught up in a fantastic event - Santacon. I had no idea why there were hundreds of Santa's gathered for a carnival-like parade in the street - but I found out later it is a worldwide semi-spontaneous gathering of folk dressed as Santa intent on having a good time and spreading cheer and goodwill...excellent!

Made by Hand - Tredegar House

Julia Parry Jones - Embellishments - seen here

I went to visit Made By Hand, a brand new craft fair for Wales at Tredegar House in Newport today. Organised by the same folk who bring us The Contemporary Craft Fair at Bovey Tracey in Devon, it's  fabulous to find so many of Wales' and the UK's top makers showing their work under one roof. Definitely worth a visit if you can make it this weekend - it's on until 5 December, excellent opportunity to support the exceptional work of our craft community with your Christmas purchases. Congratulations to weaver Laura Thomas for being awarded Best Welsh Maker at the fair yesterday, and Cardiff's Ruth Harries for collecting Selvedge Magazine Award for Textiles - both members of Fibre Art Wales.

Origin - The London Craft Fair

Day two at Origin, and a closer look at the show, here's more images of makers whose work I enjoyed...

Nuntaka Nopkhun - seen here

SaPetra - seen here

Origin - The London Craft Show 2010

Seen here

I went to the opening of Origin at its new home in Spittalfields last night. The venue is fabulous, light and airy. At its previous home in the courtyard at Somerset House, the fair was spread over two weeks, in its new home - and in conjunction with London Design Week - it is being staged over a week. We caught up with lots of gallery friends and previous exhibitors...Tilla Waters, Justine Allison, Sara Moorhouse, Virginia Graham, Lowri Davies, Debbie Smyth...

We're visiting again today, but these are some of the makers which I enjoyed at the opening.

Andrea Walsh - seen here

Jeehyun Chung - seen here

Justine Allison - seen here

Debbie Smyth - seen here

Ainsley Hillard - Folds

Ainsley Hillard - Folds

I went to Newton House in Dinefwr Park, Llandeilo to see Ainsley Hillard's current show, Folds this afternoon. It is a site specific installation which is located in the Old Laundry of Newton House. The work is housed in the 'dry laundry' room, where the women ironed and folded the dry washing. Ainsley has researched into the history of the building and the people who would have worked there through the house archives. Having listened to an interview with the head laundry maid, Florie Keziah Hannell (1888-1985), Ainsley has made works that reflect her memories of the linens, damasks and dressing table linens that passed through her hands.

These fabrics and the repetitive processes involved in their care are explored in the exhibition. A series of doilies and fancy linens have been dipped in porcelain and fired - the firing process has burned off the material leaving a delicate porcelain ghost of their form. These are hung at table height from the original drying rack. A series of woven Jacquard panels are shown against the rough whitewashed walls, in which ghostly hands endlessly fold. A series of delicate prints - one-off pieces in which ghostly traces of handkerchiefs and embroidered cloth are printed and embossed into the paper are also shown.

It is a very evocative experience, the work inhabits the room naturally and respectfully - the intervention is considered and sensitive. The effect is ethereal and ghostly - it calls to life the actions of the many hands that worked in that space and their intimate relationship with the textiles they must have come to know so intimately.

The show runs until 19 September and is open Mon - Sun 11 - 5.

Ainsley Hillard - Folds

LUX

James Plumb - Cluster Chandelier - seen here

I've been entrusted at the gallery with a bit of curation...exciting and a bit scary! I'm putting together some artists and makers for our winter show. I'm absolutely delighted to say that James Plumb (Hannah Plumb and James Russell) will be the main focus of the show which will be called LUX. We will be showing their Cluster Chandelier along with some furniture similar to the Concrete Stitches range. I can't wait to visit their studio when we are next in London and see some of the work that might be available!

Jo Pond - Brooch with Brush - seen here

I'm also really pleased that jeweller, Jo Pond will be showing with us. I've liked her work for a while now and it's a real pleasure to have her work included in the show.

Hetty Rose - Mami - seen here

Another designer/maker I've admired for ages since I saw her work in a gallery in Surrey is shoe maker Hetty Rose - she uses vintage Japanese kimono fabric to create her exquisite handmade shoes. We'll have a small collection of as part of the show.

Artists, makers and designers in the exhibition reflect on the domestic, the beautiful and the well crafted. Some use up-cycled and reclaimed materials in their work, bringing discarded pieces back into the spotlight in a new form. Other work celebrates the simple and the functional in daily life. I'll write more about the other artists taking part soon...in the meantime - wish me luck!

Ainsley Hillard

Ainsley Hillard - Folds - seen here

I'm looking forward to seeing textile artist, Ainsley Hillard's installation, Folds, a site specific installation tracing the social and architectural history of the Old Laundry, Newton House, Dinefwr Park & Castle, Carmarthenshire. I'm not sure what to expect yet, but these images are really enticing. The exhibition opens on 28 August and runs until 19 September.

We will also be showing woven textiles by Ainsley at Oriel Myrddin Gallery as part of warp+weft: contemporary woven textiles, a major exhibition of weaving curated by Laura Thomas - opens on 11 September.

Ainsley Hillard - Folds (bone china ceramic) - seen here

Ainsley Hillard - Folds (embossed print series 2010) - seen here

Galerie S O at The Glynn Vivian Gallery

Christian Gozenbach - Erasers - seen here

The Craft space at the Glynn Vivian Gallery in Swansea is hosting a lovely show at the moment, Contemporary Collections: New Work from Galerie S O. A selection of work from the cutting edge Swiss gallery, Galerie S O which has recently opened a London gallery in Brick Lane, representing some great makers including silver smith David Clarke - I really like his work.

Galerie S O is involved with representing and exploring the cross-over between art and design, an area that often seems to be difficult territory for British tastes: "The gallery's main focus is the contemporary object, which through an inherent grace of form and materials is able to convey diverse narratives to reflect, not trends and styles, but the attitudes and expressive intentions of the artist/maker". Seen here.

Hans Stofer - I have not got a clue - seen here

Helen Britton - Nighttime - seen here

Collect 2010

Collect 2010 international art fair for contemporary objects was held at the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea for the second year over the weekend. I really enjoy the event, it's great to get this international perspective on craft objects. I'm not terribly keen on the Saatchi Gallery as a venue for the fair, the grand vision of the space is quite hard edged and somehow felt at odds with the intimacy of looking at beautifully crafted work. The event is unashamedly about selling however, and the work is expensive - so perhaps the Saatchi venue ultimately lends a bit of a hard-sell business edge to the proceedings. Being a complete pauper however, I am in no danger of being seduced into buying, so I am free to simply enjoy the work in and of itself!

Iris Eichenberg - Tranenmeer - seen here

One of the galleries that has stayed in my mind is Galerie Louise Smit based in Amsterdam. I liked a number of the makers, especially a very conceptual collection, Pink years later by Iris Eichenberg. Influenced, I would imagine by Louise Bourgeois, the work teeters between sexiness and repulsiveness using materials like fleshy pink plastic, gold, copper-plated silver, wool, rose quartz, tiny beads, ladies tights and girly ribbons. The elegant woman manning the stand showed us how to wear the pieces; with her elegant slim neck she could make a pair of flesh colour tights look amazingly glamorous!

Atelier NL

Modern Painters May 2010 - seen here

I used to subscribe to Modern Painters magazine, but I gave it up a while back - it seemed to get less and less relevant to me. This month's cover really tweaked my interest however both the objects shown in the image and the painterly treatment of the shot.

The pots shown here are part of a collection called Drawn from Clay, made by Nadine Sterk and Lonny Van Ryswyck of Atelier NL in the Netherlands, the winners of the inaugural 2010 re:vision Design Award, set up by Modern Painters. The award seeks to address "...the disjunction between our material culture and the resources exploited to support it..." The magazine sees 'design' as the perfect intermediary discipline through which to consider these issues without adopting a "...Luddite attitude toward consumption."

The makers met in 1999 at the Design Academy Eindhoven and after graduation launched Atelier NL in 2006 to pursue their interests in local resources for clay. To make the Drawn from Clay series they studied geological soil maps and set about visiting and seeking the permission of landowners to collect buckets of particular soil types from Dutch regions to make clay. They have discovered 14 clay types from different regions (Polders) of the Netherlands. Nadine Sterk says of the project "What I really like about this material is that so many details, so much history, jump out from a little piece of soil...the surviving brick factories still use natural clay, but they mix it with all different minerals to get the perfect colour"...because of this homogenisation, plus the prevalence of white-glazed porcelain, we tend to forget that ceramics are made of earth or that towns and nations have forged identities through architecture, tools and tableware whose peculiar characteristics owe much to the dirt beneath the inhabitants' feet.' P.65 May edition of Modern Painters

There is a beautiful balance between the rustic simplicity of the form and materials and the contemporary additions of pewter and glass; both elegant and earthy.

Atelier NL - Drawn from Clay - seen here

Carol Kingsbury Gwizdak

We went to the National Botanic Gardens of Wales on Thursday. The current show in the gallery Delicate Balance is by jeweller, Carol Kingsbury Gwizdak. Carol exhibited with Oriel Myrddin Gallery in 2009 as part of Crafted: Contemporary Craft and Fine Art.

There is a particular poignancy to Carol showing in this space as she previously lived in the courtyard of Middleton Hall before it became the National Botanic Gardens in 2000. The show includes a comprehensive collection of work including drawings and prints as well as some quite conceptual images based on a historical collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Carol's work takes "...unorthodox materials and traditional techniques to draw attention to our idea of what is precious..."

Crafts curator, Ralph Turner has said of the work: " Carol Gwizdak's Jewellery focuses on ecological issues that draw on the visual and conceptual language of the natural world and in so doing reinstates nature in its purist form as the most precious of all commodities."

The fact that much of it is displayed under glass domes like a rare Victorian collection; that the natural objects incorporated into the pieces are held in stasis, impotently isolated from the natural environment, colourless; I was struck by the dark undercurrents to the work. There is something slightly horrific, slightly romantic, slightly Gothic; and the setting of the Botanic Gardens and its historical legacy added to the feeling.

Carol Kingsbury Gwizdak - Valued

A new series of framed works Valued, are based on the Bollinger collection of diamond necklaces in the V&A Museum. The pieces are made from burrs which are held in place on a background of wool fabric as a "...metaphor for society's dependence on wealth and status."

Mizuyo Yamashita

Mizuyo Yamashita

Our new show Reap & Sew is now open at Oriel Myrddin Gallery. London based ceramic artist, Mizuyo Yamashita spent two days with us last week to install an especially made miniature town-scape in the gallery. It is an exquisitely imagined and realised piece. Ceramic sections of houses, gardens, tower blocks, cars, parks, ponds and trees have been meticulously placed alongside textiles and found objects with a ceramic church at its centre. A serene scene made rather more bizarre by the dinosaurs and the giant giraffe roaming the streets!

We really enjoyed having Mizuyo with us and are delighted with the result. A strange little world seemingly tranquil but at the same time unsettling...it's too quiet, too orderly - those dinosaurs bring an eccentric tension to the scene that disconcert expectations and introduce quirky little sub-plots to the narratives.

Mizuyo Yamashita (detail)

Mizuyo Yamashita (detail)

Reap & Sew is a light, fun, mixed craft and contemporary design show reminding the winter-weary that the days are longer and spring is just about here.

Basketry

Jenny Crisp - Oval Frame Basket - seen here

Our next show at Oriel Myrddin Gallery will be Reap & Sew, a contemporary craft and design show inspired by gardens and growing things. We were looking at basket makers today, here are a few of my favourites.

Susie Vaughan - Apple Basket - seen here

Joe Hogan - Pods, at back Birth, at front Saved from the Saw - seen here

Dail Behennah - Blackthorn Bowl - seen here

Rupert Spira

Rupert Spira - seen here

I can't think of white, minimalist ceramics without thinking of Rupert Spira. We were lucky enough to have a piece of his (very similar to this one) in the gallery last year as part of our Focus Ceramics show. I don't mind admitting to suffering a severe dose of covetousness!

The lettering artist in me delights in this series of white pieces and also more recent dark glazed work textured with dense scribbled text.