Undecided Artzine #1

undecided summer

2013

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The Undecided Art Collective *proudly present* *Undecided Mag #1* *August 2013* *First Edition*

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(c)2013 Undecided Art Collective - all rightts reserved.

Note that all printed words and images contained herein within the publication ‘Undecided’ remain the original intellectual property of their respective creator(s). This means no making duplications of any of said intellectual property and making a false claim regarding the ownership of said intellectual properties. Bad Karma!

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T

his is where it begins..

The Undecided Art Collective talked (and thought) hard and long about how to make edition #1 of Undecided. Indeed, we strived to bring to light a tangible, affordable, high quality publication profiling a myriad of local and international talent, and some of our activities too! In 1HR Art (6-7), Julie Barnes shares her enthusiastic journey bringing Undecided to fruition, from flashes of sparky inspiration on the bus, to a collaboration with the charity, Sturge Weber UK. Especially, take note of the details of our Ebay where we are auctioning original ‘one hour’ artworks to benefit the charity.

In addition, Stuart Harris (14-15) beguiles us with tales from the past; sweeping sawdust at the carpenter’s workshop belonging to his Grandfather (12-13). Rachael Berry (42-43) interviews Jack Whitewood, director of Ventnor Fringe, and also takes the time to share her passionate views

behind the Undiscovered Creatures Project (8-9) - An ecology themed collaboration between herself and artist, Scab (23-25) Meanwhile, French artist Cendrine Rovini (19-22) shares her thoughts on inspiration, the ethereal and Shamanism.

Finally, don’t miss the knitting instructions for an amazing beach leaf dishcloth, courtesy of Jake Packham (50-51).

There’s enough to keep you occupied in these here pages, but if you need addional dosages, check out our site www.uacoll.wordpress.com for more happenings and news.

This is a momento of this time now. Enjoy!

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CONTENTS 6-7 - feature :1hr art

Why this magazine? Who are Sturge Weber UK? What is 1HR Art anyway? Julie Barnes shares her enthused adventure and answers all of these burning questions right here..

8-11 - feature : Undiscovered Creature Project Artists Rachael Berry and Scab formed the Undiscovered Creature

Project to tackle the ecological disasters manifesting through humankinds ever insatiable appetite for the Earth’s natural resources.

19-22 - interview with Cendrine Rovini

Chris Jones interviews French artist, Cendrine Rovini who shares some of the processes which contribute to her beautiful visionnary worlds.

23-25 - artist profile : Scab 26-27 - Jessica Jumped Does anyone really know why Jessica Jumped?

12-13 - feature : The Sawdust Tide 28-29 - artist prfoile : Lamb Ninja Bleed Stuart Harris (aka The Pumpkin Tide) recalls a wistful tale of memories

being a boy and helping his Grandfather, James Harris in his woodwork shed.

30-31 - feature : Eccleston George What sparks imagination? What’s behind an idea that’s original to you?

14-15 - artist profile : The Pumpkin Tide What does creativity actually mean? Eccleston George founder Nigel George discuss16-18 - Interview with Jack Whitewood

Rachael Berry chats with Jack Whitewood, director of Ventnor Fringe about the evolution of the festival, the importance of teamwork, and what lies ahead for the team behind this much-loved event.

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es these questions and the ethos behind Eccleston George’s unique collaborative collective..

32-33 - Feature : Jude Crow

Jo Hummel-Newell - of Foal Arts - shares her respect and affection for local artist Jude Crow. Here she discusses some of Crow’s work, inparticular, 60

children lost; a collection of ceramics inspired by a tragic sea accident leaving 60 children drowned and unidentifed..

34-35 - Q&a : Doris Doolally Doris Doolally’s favourite animal is the cat, apparently. For obvious reasons, of course. But what else Doris..?

48-49 - Artist profile : Julie Barnes 50-51 - Jake Packham : Beach Leaf Pattern Dishcloths get ruined. Often. They are, however, so simple to make that

they lend themselves well to conversation-knitting, tired-knitting, telly-knitting and drunk-knitting. Intrigued? We do like to mix things up, y’see..

36-37 - Artist profile : Stevie Unknown

52-53 - Artist profile : Stephen Butterfield

38-39 - Artist profile : Steven Bone

54-55 - artist profile : John Armstrong &

Julian Winslow

42-43 - artist profile : Rachael Berry 33-45 - feature : Leela and The Kat

56-58 - artist profile : Chemical Gdns.

Collaborative jewellery makers, Leela and the Kat share their story; the past, the present, the future and those moments inbetween..

59-60 - artist profile : Holly Maslen

46-47 - artist profile : Lucie Francis

61 - Index of Contributors 5

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words: Julie Barnes

1HR ART

At the beginning of June, from the top of the bus, I was sat with trusty laptop, busily typing....

E

nergy was surging out of my fingertips and was expelled into describing one of the most exciting projects I've ever worked on; my passion for creating this magazine.

I was hyped. In the post I wrote the premise of the magazine being that of a UAC sketchpad, and that we were looking for help to fund our first print run.

When I arrived at work, I immediately posted the blog piece and then proceeded with the day job. After arriving home that evening, I had received a reply from an interested party. My most immediate thought was this was a person who wished to join the art collective, and asked him if he wanted to send me a link to the group’s work. “No”, he said, “I want to help you. I would like to sponsor your magazine.”

That weekend I told him our plans and he put forward his own idea. I thought it had legs. He wanted for members of the UAC to create a '1hr Art piece' to go to a public Ebay auction to raise awareness and funds for his chosen charity, Sturge Weber UK. In return, the magazine which you are holding right now, would become a Reality. At the next meeting the group agreed to it, and with that, the deal was done.

The UAC came together and made a video called 1 hr Art, and we have produced a superb collection of original artworks. The auction starts 19:00 - August 8th and shall run for ten days. Go into Ebay and type ‘1 HR ART UAC’ after this date.

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he Undecided Art Collective are supporting the Sturge Weber UK charity with an Art Auction to coincide with the Ventnor Fringe Festival as one of our little Islanders has Sturge Weber Syndrome, a rare neurological condition.

Sturge Weber is, in his case, characterised as a facial port wine stain birthmark, glaucoma and epilepsy. This means frequent hospital trips including to the Sturge Weber Clinic at Great Ormond Street Hospital and Moorfields Children’s Eye Hospital, plus daily regime of medicines and eye drops.

He copes well with all the issues that come with Sturge Weber supported by his Island school and friends. If you have a visible port wine stain sometimes children and strangers stare or make comment so we ask parents to explain it’s just a birthmark and for strangers not to be rude. The seizures with Sturge Weber can be subtle and not as you see on “Casualty” and often as with other neurological syndromes can affect behaviour so please consider this before you assume a child is naughty (but sometimes of course they are!).

Sturge Weber itself cannot be treated, but there are various options for treating the symptoms to control or slow the progression of its symptoms. The charity support adults and families affected by Sturge Weber, seeks to raise awareness and promotes medical research into the treatment of the various aspects of the condition; more information can be found at www.sturgeweber.org.uk

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The undiscovered creature project Co-creator of the Undiscovered Creature Project, Rachael Berry, on finding our place within nature.

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f you’re a regular follower of science and nature journals and related pages on social media you may have noticed the torrent of ‘new creatures’ discovered within the animal kingdom lately.

Sea slugs that look like little electric dragons, the fluorescent millipedes of Alcatraz, GIANT crickets living on tiny crags of rock in the middle of the ocean and deep sea acorn worms that (apparently) look like little pink yodas (to name a few).

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I love how these discoveries and associated trending articles seem to ignite wonder and a sense of awe for nature. We are devastatingly prone to complacency when it comes to the natural world and the down-right outrageous circumstance of chance that is our existence here in this unlikely universe so it’s refreshing to see people getting excited about, well, just how exciting it all is. It pleases me greatly and gives me much hope for humanity in general. But I can’t escape a serious and burgeoning unease at the fleeting nature of this engagement.

These creatures aren’t new. They are ancient parts of something that has come together completely of its own accord over millions of years. The fact that we only just noticed them actually serves to point out just how new WE are in terms of our understanding of the planet and its relationship to us.

Awareness and opinion of our place as a species within the eco system varies wildly. I can only speak for myself here but as far as I can see we are an ultimately infinitesimal part if something beyond our current understanding with an astronomical, unparalleled (and tragically ironic) impact upon that which we do not yet understand.

Our effect on the environment is so wildly disproportionate to our relative share in creation that any graph constructed to express it would be on a scale of nothing to everything and link the two points in the most direct way possible with one little line marked ‘humanity’.

Of course, there are people out there doing things to address our impact.

There are International movements within government to (apparently) change the way that we monopolise the Earth’s resources; There are fierce debates happening at the time of writing about GMO’s, their potential to change the very make up of creation; There is wide public support for initiatives to protect endangered species. Many people dedicate their lives to these causes and researching our effect on the planet.

But conservation shouldn’t be about saving species from extinction and how to best use the Earths remaining resources. It is, but only because species are threatened to a point of extinction and only because we are using up the

“These creatures aren't new. They are ancient parts of something that has come together completely of its own accord over millions of years.”

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Earth’s resources in an insatiable, selfish and irrevocable manner. It’s an end of the road response: the absolute last resort: a step that it should never be necessary to get to.

True, effective and sustainable conservation is about learning to, and finding ways to leave things alone in the first place. About re-connecting with our place within the eco system and understanding that we are not the only life forms that rely on the environment of planet earth to exist.

The Undiscovered Creature Project is part of my own commitment to influence our attitudes towards nature and conservation. It is essentially a modern day bestiary of ‘new discoveries’ detailing the exceptional wonders of creation yet to be unearthed by science.

Hijacking the same fleeting interest the ‘new’ seems to inspire, we aim to ignite and foster an affecting sense of awe in creation and diversity. Our aim is to connect with people to celebrate the wonders of the natural world BEFORE we have a last-post obligation to protect them, to engage with the possibility that there are things that we don’t yet understand and to encourage people to embrace the unknown as something that needs our respect and support, giving every aspect of nature, known and unknown, a chance to thrive, unexploited.

Another practical impact of the project is as a trust. Through commercialising our creative efforts (through sales of the book and associated merchandise) we can make funding and creative support available to organisations and individuals working to protect specific habitats from the encroachment of human development.

We actively welcome and encourage engagement from individuals and organisations looking to make donations and/or applications for support.

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The Undiscovered Creature Project

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ind out more about the undiscovered creature project

undiscoveredcreatures.wordpress.com @CreatureProject scabberry@hotmail.com

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“Y

P

our time is up, come in, come in, ut by your oars. The shore

you’ve won.

W stormy sea s now as calm

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hat started as a

as calm can be.”

- James R. Harris

Words : Stuart Harris

The Sawdust Tide

M

y grandfather, Jim Harris, was a woodturner and when we went to visit I would always listen eagerly for the sound of his lathe as we approached the house. If I heard the lathe then it was going to be a good visit because if he was woodturning then he was making sawdust, and if he was making sawdust then he might, just might, need someone to clean it all up and, when I was a kid, vacuuming my grandfather’s shed was the best thing in the world.

My grandfather didn’t use a normal vacuum cleaner to clean the shed; it wouldn’t be big or powerful enough. So he made his own, an

enormous greedy elephant’s trunk that roared and leapt about making all the sawdust and smaller bits of wood disappear. I never knew where it all ended up.

An odd assortment of relics would emerge from the sawdust; long spirals of papery woodshavings, things that my grandfather had been making, broken or split, some almost finished, others barely started.

It was like finding fossils on a beach as the tide goes out. The relics would be examined, identified, categorised and set aside for firewood.

Then my grandfather would start up the lathe and get back to work replenishing the sawdust, making the tide come back in.

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Stuart Harris / The Pumpkin Tide uacoll.wordpress.com/artists/the-pumpkin-tide www.facebook.com/pumpkintide about.me/stuartdharris mooncat1977@hotmail.com

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ndecided Art Collective Artist Rachael Berry speaks to Jack Whitewood, Director of the Ventnor Fringe Festival about potential and the journey so far...

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hen did you first envision Fringe and what was it at the time of those first imaginings?

I’d spent my teenage years religiously attending the Isle of Wight Festival and Bestival which gave me the festival bug. I just love the atmosphere and energy they create and especially for the first few years it was just incredibly exciting to see something so vibrant and exciting on the Island. As I got older thought I become more and more interested in how festivals could offer something greater than just a fantastic party. Gathering so many creative people together seems to have so much potential for something more. I was also desperate to find a way to

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The first Fringe was held in 2010. I was 19 and I created it with the help of a small team of friends. I’d been running a little youth theatre group for a while and we just wanted to try something different. Edinburgh›s ‹fringe› model was our inspiration from the start. That began with a group of students and is now the largest arts festival in the world. Everything has to start somewhere!

Becky Boucherat

combine my love for festivals with my other great passion which is theatre.

What were your goals at the beginning?

Much the same as now. We wanted to promote Ventnor as a unique place to make, debate and celebrate new work in any creative discipline. We weren’t quite sure how, but we wanted to help support and foster a larger creative community here on the Island. We’ve also always been excited by the very intimate and one off unique experiences which for me are almost always the most memorable and inspiring. I think that’s actually easier in urban environments because towns are quite individual with many interesting spaces and buildings. Ventnor for example is very different to other island towns, each has its own feel and style. Field sites are effectively a blank canvas, and yet so often field based festivals become so similar to one another, be that a country fair or a music festival.

What motivated you to explore this potential?

I think seeing the missed opportunity of so many creative people without a platform to showcase themselves, combined with the number of buildings and spaces we felt were underused just seemed too significant to ignore. I’d like to think the growth of the event is proof that we were right and there is a need for a Fringe Festival on the Island.

Thinking back to the potential you saw in Ventnor and the Fringe event, and now seeing the results of your exploration of that potential, how do they compare?

No matter how precisely you plan something it never quite turns out how you imagined. The Fringe has definitely taken on a life of its own. Especially given that we promote very few events directly we never know what the programme

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There is a strong sense of community in Ventnor and a pride taken in being a little bit different, which is obviously something we subscribe to. I think there is a recognition amongst most people that small seaside towns like Ventnor need to find their niche, you can use the past for inspiration but you can’t usually repeat it.

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So, what’s next?

VENTNOR

vfringe.co.uk/thirteen

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Be prepared to fight your case and hold onto your principles. Not everyone trusted a group of teenagers with grand ambitions of running a festival to begin with!!

Patience is vital, some ideas take time to turn into a reality, as is the ability to recover when things go wrong, which inevitably will sometimes happen. Ideas can come from individuals but to realise them will almost always require the support of a team, collaboration is vital in everything we have done. Most of all, at the risk of sounding a bit clichéd, be the change you want to see. After all, potential is nothing without action.

We need just 300 supporters to sign up to our membership scheme to raise the final funds we need. This costs just £20 a year a comes with loads of great benefits; 2 for 1 Tickets to lots of shows at the Festival, access to this year’s ‘Secret Bar’ with a whole programme of free events, access to our after show party on Sunday 18th August and lots more. We’re capping it at 300 people and its first come, first served so act quick! It will be amazing to be able to take the Fringe to the next step with a year round base in the town.

Building on the last four years we’re currently fundraising to open a permanent home for the Fringe in Ventnor. This will make a huge difference in finally giving us a base to work from as well as allowing us to look at developing other activities

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............

ISLE OF WIGHT

What has the act of exploring that potential taught you?

..........

throughout the year. We’ll start explaining more about that next month. Doubling up as a Box Office and a Record Store (with latest releases in vinyl!) as well as hosting a new type of social space, we think it will be something really special for Ventnor.

will look like, we’re always responding to the artists that come our way and that’s a really exciting process.

I always find it funny overhearing people talking about the Fringe, or even people asking me about it not knowing my involvement. Most people speak really positively about it, and often as if it’s been around forever. To become part of the fabric of the town so quickly is great and I’m really pleased to hear people say that they feel the Fringe is unique to Ventnor and genuinely different to other local events, both in the way it’s run through an ‘un-juried’ model with artists keeping all of their own ticket sales and with the feel of the event itself, which we spend a lot of time thinking about.

14TH 15TH 16TH 17TH AUGUST 2013

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WWW.VFRINGE.CO.UK

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endrine

am a

“S'accoupler à la montagne”

C Rovini

I

french artist, currently living and

working in Aurillac (Ca ntal,

France). My father, a scu lptor, provided me the way to look at my surroundings with an att entive eye and taught me various artistic techni ques.

My imagery comes from

don't make metaphors or

images really are, by the ms

territories of dream but

I symbolic representations - these

elves. They belong to the realm of metamorphosis, a recurr ent theme in the polytheis tic, animistic or shamanistic thoughts.

Cendrine Rovini: Ok, so art. Or Art ? That is the question.

UAC: Art as in freedom, expression! Inner worlds..

CR: Inner worlds who want to emerge - like the lava - and I agree with you about the freedom of it. Sometimes art can be free and wild even in the most delicate of tracks, I find.

UAC: Your work is very ethereal, a tangible sense of ‘otherness’ resonates I find. Where do you draw this inspiration from? Also, your work has a very

symbolic nature with many themes, how do you approach this?

CR: I never decide for symbols and choose or pick some of them here and there for a drawing like if I was with a catalog, for example when I draw a crown or a mountain or I choose red or blue, it is not on purpose, I would find the method consisting in reading books on symbols or archetypes and then place them in my work would be very superficial and would

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produce the exact inversion of what I think is art for me, and which effect it could produce on myself or on people. The images simply arrive to me, I see them; I never create them.

UAC: Like messengers?

CR: Another thing create them for us to see; we can call it gods, or nature or cosmos - I don’t know - it is like a sort of giant bath of images, instinct and sense.

Anima Mundi (I love to call it like this). Yes, messengers perhaps. I never really feel connected to this world, I just see the images, they are not constructions or interpretations, the only connection I have is through images.

“

I

t is perhaps a good way to be connected with something which has few to do with ego and, paradoxically, to find yourself in the source of inspiration. really like how you use various media to build upon the image.

CR: I think it is related with meditation and mindfulness. It all arrived slowly under my hands..

UAC: Was this work itself a meditation?

UAC: Can you tell me a bit more about Anima Mundi?

CR: She is a goddess, she is attraction between the whole living parts of the universe, not only on Earth perhaps, she is love, and the goddess of love. She needs the beauty of images and she creates too images for the human beings and also perhaps for the other elements, I don’t know. I just imagine.

UAC: Can I talk to you a bit about some of your recent work, some of the pieces you submitted for us?

CR: Oui, of course UAC: Ok, thanks. I have been looking at “Les Frissons.”

CR: Ok, so Les Frissons. This work is about a moment when I was able to feel again something sweet.

UAC: She is a pink lady, I love with this work, there is a sense of many layers. I

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CR: Oui ! C’est ça ! It was like diving into the joy to feel again the fresh, soft breeze of air, I started to draw her sad and then I erased parts of her, I made the sweetness of herbs and light wind caress her and treat her, all the layers perhaps mean the deep of what she was losing from sadness, we don’t see it no more, we just see her little greedy mouth for life, pulpy and gifted for life and enjoyment, without any thinking. It was a real joy to work on this one, I saw everything appearing and disappearing like if I was a spectator myself, involved.

UAC: There is this sense like she is poised, some moment in time where a great moment of clarity is occurring. Also, I like the colours - which is a pretty banal thing to say in the context of the interview - but I’ve always appreciated the mood you create with subtle or more dramatic colourising. There is a very slight shift in your recent work; using colour as a messenger in its own way. For example, “S’accoupler à la montagne”. To me, it seems she may wear the colour as a mask?

CR: Yes, I think her face is covered by a mask, a blue one, I think it is related with gods, ancient ones. Sometimes I see the blue as a man, sometimes it is more gods,

“Les Frissons”

and some other times, both can be the two at the same time.

UAC: And in this case, she is feminine?

CR: the mask is a man and some gods, and her body is female, yes. I did not know she was going to wear the mask when I began the drawing, I just wanted her to make love with the mountains. I am like the other spectators of my own work - it is only after seeing it finished that I can try to understand, or feel.

UAC: I think many artists can feel that way about the process.

CR: Oui.

UAC: When you look at much older works you have created, do you still connect with the imagery in the same way as when you created it?

CR: Formally I recognize myself less and I feel slightly disturbed by the way I was drawing, but the mere feeling of the work still make sense in me. I think I still can connect with them yes, but I was less deeply involved in this inner world I think.

UAC: Has this world of images altered at all as you have progressed as an artist? As you have said, the imagery is an unconscious moment. What I mean to say is : has the vibrancy of this place you draw your inspiration from evolved as you have evolved?

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CR: I don’t think that I am all in the work, this is not about me, or my unconscious, or not only, I don’t want to depict myself and my feelings (except for some precise artworks like Les frissons which is clearly a selfportrait at the moment) but I prefer to tell that I depict other worlds which can speak to our earthily world, its materiality, and our soul and the one of the world, and me in this, I am present yes, but just as a tiny part. So yes, those works evolved with my own gaze upon the world, my gaze evolved perhaps, but not the inner eyes I think.

UAC: You have a loyal following and currently hold a residency with Da-End gallerie in Paris. What are your future plans?

CR: Da-End Gallery is the first place where I really had a solo exhibition, Liquide Vermeil, in 2012. We keep indeed working together since 2011, and another solo show will be held in this gallery for the Winter 2014. I am as well very happy to be soon part of a collective show - Making Tracks - in Brighton, with ONCA Gallery, from 4th july to 15th eptember 2013. And there is a project I started working on some times ago : with two other french artists we began a collaborative work which will form like a “dance” between a selected corpus of our works, each other responding to one another. We still don’t know where this exhibition will be hosted but we keep in mind this exciting project !

UAC: Is there any words of wisdom you could offer a young artist starting out?

CR: I don’t know if I am of good advice, so I think I just would tell him/her to stop thinking, and let the images flow from the inner eyes on the paper. It is perhaps a good way to be connected with something which has few to do with ego and, paradoxically, to find yourself in the source of inspiration. I think that the occidental thinking, including in the artistic areas, are like traps.

UAC: Enfin, je tu remercie beaucoup d’avoir accepté d’être interviewée pour le

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magazine UAC. Aussi, pour nous parler en anglais.

CR: I love the English language and it is a pleasure for me to write it. Merci beaucoup de m’avoir proposé cet interview, j’aime beaucoup l’esprit et le travail de UAC, I wish you all many wonderful moments ahead !

cargocollective.com/cendrinerovini

Scab

facebook.com/SCABbage.doom www.scabbage.com

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24

25

26

dns.

Chemical G

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Lamb Ninja Bleed

www.facebook.com/pages/Lamb-Ninja-Bleed

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Julian Winslow

Eccleston George www.ecclestongeorge.co.uk

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W

hat sparks imagination? What’s behind an idea that’s original to you? What does creativity actually mean?

By founder Nigel George For us the inevitable answer to all the above questions involves using the word ‘potential’. We call ourselves Eccleston George, it’s a name that tells you nothing about what we do or who we are, and, we like it that way for the simple reason that whilst we know a bit about who we are, we’re only just beginning to understand ourselves just what we do.

Julian Winslow

E

ccleston George is a collective, a gaggle of professional creative practitioners who work

together on all kinds of projects. This is what we do for a living.

A

mongst our core members we have a musician, several sculptors, an

inventor, a fine artist and a metalworker all of whom have created their own ‘jobs’ by using their brains and hands in equal measures.

T

o date together we’ve deployed our creative abilities in prisons, primary schools, universities, tourist attractions, museums, libraries, art galleries, towns, cities, beaches, meadows, woodlands, estuaries, and we even done the odd team building event for money munching corporations. We make public art, private art, displays and exhibits. We deliver creative education projects, community art, public consultation and environmental projects but none of that describes what actually we do. There exists a common thread that runs through all of the stuff we do and that thread is our desire to seek creative potential, not just our own potential as individuals or as a group but also that of the people we work with and for.

like a utopian dream doesn’t it?... perhaps it is but after thirteen years, long days

Eccleston George is a lifestyle endeavour and isn’t motivated by financial profit; we want to make a living whilst taking our social responsibility seriously and have a jolly good laugh while we’re doing it. We want to enjoy and be stimulated by our working lives; we want seek out our own and each other’s potentials and, whenever possible, pass on our ideas and sensibilities to others. Sounds a lot

problem.

and lots of graft, we’re still going and most days it all feels real enough to us!

So let’s see if we can answer those questions on the opposite page – Q. What’s sparks imagination? A. Perhaps a novel idea and a desire to unlock that idea’s potential.

Q. What’s behind an idea that’s original to you? A. Usually a problem that needs a solution we’d say, an idea is a reaction that has potential to solve the

Q. What does creativity actually mean? A. We think creativity is what happens when imagination and a new idea get together and have a baby. Of course their new baby contains lots of lovely potential.

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Jude Crow Written by Jo Hummel-Newell / Foal Arts

J

ude Crow is an artist who creates messages. She tells stories about peoples lives.

On first discovering Judes Crow’s work the initial attraction was a simple one, I was attracted to her quirky visual aesthetics and I felt that she was enjoying the act of making. A scribble here, a tea pot there, the work had a sophisticated naivety which made me happy.

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However, this aspect of her image making is just one dimension to a multitude of stories and messages dealing with emotionally charged questions on subjects such as death, loss and childhood memory.

‘Objects’ are an important reference in Judes’ work. If we want to understand the artist we must look closely at the objects. They are placed in both her painting and ceramic installations and sit quietly like secrets under the tongue.

Judes maintains an honesty to the material in her firing by choosing not to use glazes or surfaces which detract from the clays original nature. The surfaces are raw, unfussy and irregular. This way of working is most evident in what is for me one of Judes’ most powerful pieces of work, Sixty children Lost.

beach, the artist created sixty children’s heads. Some faces are deformed from the firing - they are broken and damaged - a reference I feel to the the fragility of a child and the fragility of life itself. Each seems to be made from a different clay, but all share one thing, they are all from the same mould, they are all frozen in time by the same fate.

As in much of Jude’ s work there is a strong element of categorization in the way the work is displayed, much like a museum display. This form of presentation means that we respond to the work as we would to an ancient artifact. It is precious. It is important. If we look closely It can tell us something about ourselves.

www.judescrow.com

This small ceramic installation was made to commemorate sixty children drowned and washed ashore in 1782 on Ryde & Portsmouth beaches. No records are kept of their names. They were visiting the vessel HMS Royal George situated in the Solent when it went down as a result of poor maintenance.

Using one mould made from a plastic dolls head found washed up on the

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Q

&A

Doris Doolally How do ideas come to you?

Ideas come all the time; they only get used if I remember to note them down visually at the time or if they are pertinent enough to stick. The best ideas seem to come through stressful situations or as products of other works.

Can you recall any significant breakthrough moments in your work/practice?

Haha! Yea! When I was at Art College. After three months of grating soap, it suddenly occurred to me that I had no idea what I was doing any more and just felt like throwing it all at a wall. My tutor said I should do this and after several feeble attempts at venting my frustration I realised I needed help to throw the soap. From this Alexander the Great a 4.7 metre high (ironically obsolete) catapult was born from a mass of reclaimed wood and concrete.

When did you realise you were an artist? Is it something you chose? Did you choose art or did art choose you?

What an awful question! This is the kind of question that makes me feel uncomfortable. Being an artist is a subjective thing to describe, much like art in

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itself. Being a creative individual however, I feel that art pulls you in, so I guess I feel like it chooses you.

What's your favourite animal?

Obviously, the cat. Enough said! I have nothing else to say about that.

How would you describe your style?

My style? Absolutely incredibly messy, disorganised but organised all at the same time. My work often explores the extremes and my style probably mirrors that.

Who inspires you; artists/or otherwise?

So many artists! So many! Outside of artists like really old stuff like typewriters, post-boxes, lots of like letters and correspondence all the little things that you don't necessarily pick up on but are maybe dying out a little bit. I am interested in objects that need human interaction.

What advice would you give to a young creative looking to make a start in the world-de-art?

Keep making, keep doing, and keep creating! Art College! Do it! Be incredibly selfish; take a loan and three years out JUST to study art. You get to go there and try out everything, and it doesn't matter, because you are still making art.

The most important thing though is to immerse oneself amongst creative people, like-minded individuals, to talk about art and never stop doing it. Sketch!

Paint! Draw! Record! Create!

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Stevie Unknown

www.unknown.xxx

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enoB nevetS

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Dixcey www.facebook.com/Dixceyartwork uacoll.wordpress.com/artists/dixcey

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Rachael Berry rachaelberry.wordpress.com facebook/RachaelBerryArt

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Leela and the kat

How we got started Leela: A friend had asked if I would like to sell my silver jewellery at an artisan market which she was setting up at the Quay Arts. I had initially thought it would be too much work to get enough pieces made and wouldn’t be able to take part, as I had only just had my son Victor. Then one evening at Kat’s, I mentioned Pedlars; as I thought her embroidered jewellery and pictures would be perfect and she suggested that we share a stall, and it has grown from there.

What we have been up to so far Kat: Since our first Pedlars market in December 2012, we have designed 3 collections, attended 2 further Pedlars markets, exhibited with the Undecided Art Collective and had our work in a fashion show. To date we stock 5 shops, including Honeybourne Jewellery, Quay Arts gift shop and most recently in Theodosia. Our work is also now available online through our Etsy shop. We are really proud of what we have achieved in the small amount of time we have been together and really excited about what the future may hold.

How we come up with our collections and concepts Leela: We probably should lie and say that we meet up in tulip fields and

leelaandthekat@yahoo.com leelaandthekat.blogspot.com

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spend hours sketching designs, but we have come up with most of our ideas while sharing a bottle of wine. We have so much fun developing each collection, which usually starts with a silly conversation in a noisy pub and

is then grown and evolved. There is never a dull moment

especially their clothes and jewellery. Fingers crossed, I will be going to

and we have to make sure we don’t get too carried away,

Navajoland next year and get to fulfil a lifelong ambition.

otherwise we might end up running round an exhibition scalping people (we only joked about this, of cause we never would!).

Why we love displaying our work at markets and exhibitions Kat: We really enjoy creating our sets to display our collections and we like to inject a bit of fun and humour to hopefully make us stand

Why we love working together Leela: Our completely different personalities and styles seem to really complement one another when working together, which has inspired us to create some of our best work, both in our individual crafts and when we collaborate. We laugh a lot and get to do lots of fun stuff together, so it never feels like work. It’s also great

out and make people smile. For

to be able to play on each other’s

Christmas we made a living room

strengths and share the work load.

complete with wallpapered walls, vintage HMV record player and Christmas tree; our Dutch collection was displayed in a bedroom setting with lingerie hanging out of dressing table draws, and our latest set design has a desert back drop and tipi to showcase our Native Indian inspired collection. Luckily my dad helps to design and make stage sets, so he helps us with our displays. ...thank you Daddy x

What’s next Leela: We are really excited about exhibiting with the Undecided Art Collective again and getting to take part in the Fringe for the first time. Along with our work being at Dixcey Studios, we will also have a display at ‘Art in the Park’. For later in the year, we are organising something special with Ventnor Art Club and will be able

What inspired our latest collection

to reveal more about this soon. We have just started a blog and Facebook

Kat: Ever since I was a little girl, I have been completely fascinated by

page, so we will be developing these, and we also have plans for taking Leela

everything American Indian; their culture and their amazing crafts, but

& the Kat as far away as Lymington too, so watch this space!

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Lucie Francis

uacoll.wordpress.com/artists/lucie-francis

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Julie Barnes / Ivy’s Table about.me/julie.barnes ivys.table@gmail.com

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by Jake Packham.

I

Requirements . Will 100g of Cotton Stringa pinch. make two or three at e 11) A pair of 3mm (old siz ger. ATTN. needles, 20cm orwolon make a Gents; 3.25mm uld No slightly larger clos.th. more excuse

Personal Requirements.

Three cups of sugar ) and a beteefa ( milk, no and sandwich. salad Someone to goss ip with.

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sland born, Jake Packham picked up knitting from casual encounters and has received no formal textile training since middle school.

Beach Leaf Dishcloth

N

ow teaching throughout Europe, he cites prereformation clothing as his primary influence. Other hobbies include Nahlbinding, steel-work and martial arts. His initial interest in knitting stemmed from a need for bigger socks. At the moment he is approaching thirty, has recently been domesticated, learnt to make a mean Tiramisu and spends and great deal of time doing the dishes.

D

ishcloths get ruined. Often. They are, however, so simple to make that they lend themselves well to conversation-knitting, tired-knitting, telly-knitting and drunk knitting. Be safe!

This is a modified form of Turk-Stitch, over a modified form of Domino Knitting. Stitches are constantly removed, so the work gets progressively easier to complete. Although it is easy to produce it looks suitably impressive. This formation also limits the degree of laddering when the dishcloth reaches the end of working life.

Row 1: CO 89 Row 2: K43, s1, k2tog, psso, p to end. (87sts) Row 3: S1, K1 *yo, k4. K2tog* rept. x6, k4, s1, k2tog, psso, p to end. (85sts remaining, 2 less) Row 4: S1, K1 *yo, k4. K2tog* rept. x6, k3, s1, k2tog, psso, p to end.

Row 5: S1, K1 *yo, k4. K2tog* rept. x6, k2, s1, k2tog, psso, p to end.

Row 6: S1, K1 *yo, k4. K2tog* rept. x6, k1, s1, k2tog, psso, p to end.

Row 7: S1, K1 *yo, k4. K2tog* rept. x6, s1, k2tog, psso, p to end.

Row 8: S1, K1 *yo, k4. K2tog* rept. x5, k5, s1, k2tog, psso, p to end. (75sts remaining)

K = Knit S = slip k2tog = knit two together psso = pass slip stitch over st = stitch Sts = stitches P = purl Rept. = repeat p1sso = pass the last slip stitch over.

Download and help available through jakepackham.com

CO = Cast on

Row 9: S1, K1 *yo, k4. K2tog* rept. x5, k4, s1, k2tog, psso, p to end.

Row 10: S1, K1 *yo, k4. K2tog* rept. x5, k3, s1, k2tog, psso, p to end.

Each row shall be two stitches shorter than the last. Note that the last section , in between the repeats and the middle decrease contains no yarn over.

Continue in this manner till 19 stitches remain.

Row 37: S1, k1, yo, k4, s1, k2tog, psso, p to end. (17sts, 2 less) Row 38: S1, k1, k5, s1, k2tog, psso, p to end. (15sts, 2 less) Row 39: S2, k1, p1sso, k3, s1, k2tog, psso, p to end. (12sts, now 3 less) Row 40: S2, K1, p1sso, k2, s1, k2tog, psso, p to end. (9sts, and again, three less than previous row) Row 41 : S2, K1, p1sso, s1, k2tog, psso, p to end. (6sts, 3 less) ROW 42 : k2tog, s1, k2tog, psso, p to end (3sts) Row 43. Final ď Š: sl k2tog, psso. Now draw a loop through the final stitch, and another loop through that. Break thread and pull end through last loop. Pull tight.

Done.

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Stephen Butterfield

www.stormlantern art/facebook.com

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Julian Winslow & John Armstrong www.julianwinslow.com www.chorderize.com

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Chemical Gdns. www.facebook.com/Chemical.Gdns uacoll.wordpress.com/artists/chemical-gdnns christopher.gdns@gmail.com

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Heavy morning head Dew laden webs Prisms of gold Keep Autumnal secrets In the key of C One for you, and one for me

Holly Maslen www.hollyvmaslen.com www.facebook.com/pages/Holly-V-Maslen-Design-Illustration

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Peppermint City line to Bank, black Northern line to Angel.

Following the coloured routes which sprawl like tangled ribbons across the City.

Stairwells which are impossibly deep.

The truth of various interactions revealed to me late at night.

The comfort of fruitless options and the affirmation of what I’ve always suspected.

Friendship is less complicated than love.

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index John Armstrong www.chorderize.com

Rachael Berry

rachaelberry.wordpress.com

Steven Bone

(contact via undecidedart@gmail.com)

Stephen Butterfield

facebook.com/stormlantern art

Chemical Gdns.

Eccleston George

www.ecclestongeorge.co.uk

Foal Arts

foalarts.org.uk

Lucie Francis

Jake Packham

www.jakepackham.com

Cendrine Rovini

cargocollective.com/cendrinerovini

Scab

uacoll.wordpress.com/artists/lucie-francis

www.scabbage.com

Stuart Harris

Stevie Unknown

about.me/stuartdharris

www.unknown.xxx

about.me/christopher.gdns

www.joannehummelnewell.com

Jo Hummel-Newell

Sturge Weber UK

Jude Crow

Ivy’s Table / Julie Barnes

Undecided Art Collective

Mark Dickson

Lamb Ninja Bleed / Ben DaBell

The Undiscovered Creature Project

Dixcey

Leela & The Kat

Ventnor Fringe

www.judescrow.com www.facebook.com/Grickonel www.facebook.com/Dixceyartwork

Doris Doolally

(contact via undecidedart@gmail.com)

about.me/julie.barnes

www.facebook.com/Lamb-Ninja-Bleed Via UAC.

Holly Maslen

www.hollyvmaslen.com

www.sturgeweber.org.uk about.me/undecidedart

undiscoveredcreatures.wordpress.com vfringe.co.uk

Julian Winslow

www.julianwinslow.com

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notes

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Jeff Jones / Jefmity9

Thanks for reading Thank you to : Sturge Weber UK, Dixcey Art Studio, Elmstone Design,Ventnor Fringe Festival, Chorderize, Eccleston George, Foal Arts, Onthewight Island News, Isle of Wight Artists and Musicians, ExWhyZed printers, Jeff and Alex Jones for their patience, and Santa Spirita for the music. The Supporters, The Movers, The Shakers, The Artists and Contributors, Those who help, enthuse and Those who keep the river free flowing, Those who share and Those who tweet. The visitors, The perusers, The spaced, The thinkers, The rock ‘n’ rollers and The quietly contemplative. Finally; The music, The Love, The diamonds in the sky and the Quiet dawn...

Big Love.

The UAC x

Undecided #1 Layout and Design - Chemical Gdns. - about.me/christopher.gdns

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