Wide open studios
Nov. 27th, 2013 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustLast weekend was the annual open studios event in the Ouseburn, Newcastle's "creative quarter" where derelict warehouses have gradually been converted into artists' and designers' studios (not to mention Seven Stories). There must be a limit to how far it can grow, how many paintings and pots, how much hand-made furniture and architectural glass the city can sustain: but new studios keep opening, so apparently we're not there yet. Many of the studios and workshops are extremely smart, yet the area retains an air of semi-dereliction: there's a lot of mural art, mostly rather well done.
We were meeting friends, and since Gail had arrived early and gone for coffee at the City Farm, we started our visit there, enjoying the sunshine, and the golden foliage, and the giraffes and other livestock (there was a very fluffy Shetland pony). The photo is taken from one of the Lime Street studios, though.
Our first stop was Northern Print, where there was much to like (although mostly I had already liked it last year), then Lime Street, where much the same applied. I liked Zoe Garner's glass work, especially the piece illustrated on the home page of her website, vertical rods of differing lengths, each somehow glowing at the tip - in fact it may be a theme of the day that I liked the glass, since another artist who stood out for me was Effie Burns, who has been casting romescu cauliflowers in glass (her website shows mainly much larger work, though the strawberry is rather fine).
Up in the attic I was interested to see Stevie Ronnie's photographs of his recent trip to the arctic, but unsatisfied by them. Perhaps when he's written something about it... The first time I met Stevie, he talked about Gontran De Poncins' book Kabloona about life in the arctic, and I reminded him of this - at which he fetched out the book and we both enthused over it. Much of the current work he was showing was book sculpture, which tends to make me uneasy. Here's an example of the sort of thing (though not one I've seen): "A poem, composed in a new form which utilises the structures of rope, has been twisted into a paper rope and mounted onto a salvaged Arctic weather balloon winch" - which makes a pretty object, but how do you read the poem? I liked some little pictures which had been made by tracing the outlines of geographical features from Google maps, then cutting them out of coloured paper: Kielder reservoir, Seaham harbour, the line of Newcastle's city wall... They made pleasing, almost abstract shapes.
We hadn't planned to eat at the Cluny - in fact, we had actively planned not to eat at the Cluny - but although the Open Studios didn't seem very busy, it was still standing room only at the Ship, and we tumbled back into the Cluny almost by default. We won't do it again: they have succumbed to the tyranny of the Sunday roast, and weren't doing it very well. I enjoyed the beer, but it's not a place to eat. Gentrification still has a little way to go, clearly.
That's all, folks.
We were meeting friends, and since Gail had arrived early and gone for coffee at the City Farm, we started our visit there, enjoying the sunshine, and the golden foliage, and the giraffes and other livestock (there was a very fluffy Shetland pony). The photo is taken from one of the Lime Street studios, though.Our first stop was Northern Print, where there was much to like (although mostly I had already liked it last year), then Lime Street, where much the same applied. I liked Zoe Garner's glass work, especially the piece illustrated on the home page of her website, vertical rods of differing lengths, each somehow glowing at the tip - in fact it may be a theme of the day that I liked the glass, since another artist who stood out for me was Effie Burns, who has been casting romescu cauliflowers in glass (her website shows mainly much larger work, though the strawberry is rather fine).
Up in the attic I was interested to see Stevie Ronnie's photographs of his recent trip to the arctic, but unsatisfied by them. Perhaps when he's written something about it... The first time I met Stevie, he talked about Gontran De Poncins' book Kabloona about life in the arctic, and I reminded him of this - at which he fetched out the book and we both enthused over it. Much of the current work he was showing was book sculpture, which tends to make me uneasy. Here's an example of the sort of thing (though not one I've seen): "A poem, composed in a new form which utilises the structures of rope, has been twisted into a paper rope and mounted onto a salvaged Arctic weather balloon winch" - which makes a pretty object, but how do you read the poem? I liked some little pictures which had been made by tracing the outlines of geographical features from Google maps, then cutting them out of coloured paper: Kielder reservoir, Seaham harbour, the line of Newcastle's city wall... They made pleasing, almost abstract shapes.
We hadn't planned to eat at the Cluny - in fact, we had actively planned not to eat at the Cluny - but although the Open Studios didn't seem very busy, it was still standing room only at the Ship, and we tumbled back into the Cluny almost by default. We won't do it again: they have succumbed to the tyranny of the Sunday roast, and weren't doing it very well. I enjoyed the beer, but it's not a place to eat. Gentrification still has a little way to go, clearly.
That's all, folks.
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no subject
Date: 2013-11-28 06:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-28 11:20 am (UTC)If 'having an aesthetic problem with' means not liking it, oh, I only like a tiny proportion of what I see! And often the things I like are made by people who describe themselves as 'craft workers' rather than artists.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-28 02:46 pm (UTC)There are far too many pots here too, much in use, but it´s kind of sweet to be with a man who´d rather invest money on such things than what some others spend their money on!
no subject
Date: 2013-11-28 08:35 am (UTC)That wall art is influenced by Nationalist/Republican art as still seen in Belfast but I like the reversal even though as a military historian, it disturbs me- but I guess it's supposed to.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-28 11:22 am (UTC)And yes, I think I'd worry if the image didn't disturb you. It's maybe a little knowing, too...
no subject
Date: 2013-11-28 12:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-29 03:23 pm (UTC)Oddly, I have a similae family connection: my father's family lived in Sunderland. But although we visited my grandmother there during my childhood (she died when I was seven), I don't think we ever went to Newcastle. Then again, I don't think we came to Durham, either, so don't over-interpret that!