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Artists at home
Nov. 29th, 2009 11:07 pmIt was Open Studios Weekend in the Ouseburn valley, and we went along to have a look. This is the same thing as we did last year, only completely different. Last year was clear, bright, icy cold, and we drifted from gallery to gallery; today was mild dark and wet, and we visited locations with large numbers of studios concentrated in a single building. We also spent more time than we'd intended over lunch: in theory we know that the Cluny is always ridiculously slow, but they weren't busy, and it was late enough that we sat down and ordered drinks, and only then did ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler ascertain that there was a wait of an hour. I was glad of a rest, but maybe not that long.
We started at the new Biscuit Tin Studios (no website of its own, but here's the Google cache of an article in The Journal): a large building, once a print works, near the Biscuit Factory (I'll come to the later) hence the name. Purely as rooms to be in, these were the nicest studios, with full length windows and plenty of natural light - and we felt that overall, this was where we saw the best work, too. Favourites were:
Next stop was The Biscuit Factory. This is a selling craft gallery (in a converted biscuit factory), very smart, though most of what they sell doesn't appeal to me (it's all a bit décor for my taste) and - no doubt as a result - seems very overpriced. The last couple of times we've been there, it's been as the venue for wine tastings, where the art on show provides an agreeable backdrop to the serious business of tasting wine (and the wine helps remove the inhibitions when it comes to art appreciation). Anyway, because we can visit the Biscuit Factory at other times, we tend to give it a miss on Open Studios weekends, so I hadn't realised that below the galleries, stairs lead down to two floors of studios. There are not entirely subterranean - the building clings to the side of a hill - but they weren't as light and open as those at the Biscuit Tin, either.
I don't think that's why we were less impressed with what we saw. Highlight was probably Roy Kirton, and although I like his paintings well enough, the real pleasure was in catching up with his wife, Dot (here she is singing The Seaham Harbour Lifeboat Disaster).
After a diversion to the Cluny, and a quick visit to the bookshop at Seven Stories, we moved on to the Lime Street Studios, but whether because we were running out of steam or because the event was, this was a little dispiriting. We were by now into the last couple of hours of a three day event, and I don't blame anyone who had decided to pack up and go home, but the corridors of closed doors were sad. So were the number of people who were showing exactly the same work as we had seen not only last year, but the year before. There was one glowing exception, showing paintings of boats in bright colours, stylised almost, but not quite, to the point of abstraction, but I've mislaid his name, and even Google does not remedy the loss.
Time to call it a day, then -
durham_rambler ascertain that there was a wait of an hour. I was glad of a rest, but maybe not that long.We started at the new Biscuit Tin Studios (no website of its own, but here's the Google cache of an article in The Journal): a large building, once a print works, near the Biscuit Factory (I'll come to the later) hence the name. Purely as rooms to be in, these were the nicest studios, with full length windows and plenty of natural light - and we felt that overall, this was where we saw the best work, too. Favourites were:
- Daniel Evans Furniture, beautiful individual pieces, small tables and shelf units made from silky polished wood, ingeniously detailed (drawers whose 'handle' was a vertical rod threaded through a circular hole) and very reasonably priced.
- Sculptor Allan Scott has some wonderfully mythic dancing figures - also a large plaster horse's head on the windowsill (it reminded me of Valerie Laws' horse's skull, the sheer surprising size of it). He told us cheerfully that a small visitor yesterday had been thrilled with it: "Look! A dragon's head!"
- Creative Ginger had made ginger beer for the event, and had interesting things for us to look at while we drank it - I liked best his portrait of Terry Pratchett
- Photographer Doug Hall was generous with postcards of his excellent photos, and not only talked about how he gets some of his effects but gave me a quick demonstration (Photoshop can do some very clever stuff, brightening or darkening sections of an image to bring out the detail). I wwas already going to buy a print anyway. It's the one in his Newcastle / Gateshead gallery which shows Grey's Monument through a window (people who are familiar with my photos will not be surpised at this).
Next stop was The Biscuit Factory. This is a selling craft gallery (in a converted biscuit factory), very smart, though most of what they sell doesn't appeal to me (it's all a bit décor for my taste) and - no doubt as a result - seems very overpriced. The last couple of times we've been there, it's been as the venue for wine tastings, where the art on show provides an agreeable backdrop to the serious business of tasting wine (and the wine helps remove the inhibitions when it comes to art appreciation). Anyway, because we can visit the Biscuit Factory at other times, we tend to give it a miss on Open Studios weekends, so I hadn't realised that below the galleries, stairs lead down to two floors of studios. There are not entirely subterranean - the building clings to the side of a hill - but they weren't as light and open as those at the Biscuit Tin, either.
I don't think that's why we were less impressed with what we saw. Highlight was probably Roy Kirton, and although I like his paintings well enough, the real pleasure was in catching up with his wife, Dot (here she is singing The Seaham Harbour Lifeboat Disaster).
After a diversion to the Cluny, and a quick visit to the bookshop at Seven Stories, we moved on to the Lime Street Studios, but whether because we were running out of steam or because the event was, this was a little dispiriting. We were by now into the last couple of hours of a three day event, and I don't blame anyone who had decided to pack up and go home, but the corridors of closed doors were sad. So were the number of people who were showing exactly the same work as we had seen not only last year, but the year before. There was one glowing exception, showing paintings of boats in bright colours, stylised almost, but not quite, to the point of abstraction, but I've mislaid his name, and even Google does not remedy the loss.
Time to call it a day, then -
