Art of Gathering Exhibition

ART the

OF GATHERING new

craftsman / st

14.09.19

- 12.10.19

ives

please join us

OPENING RECEPTION

Saturday 14th September / 5.30 - 7pm RSVP : info@newcraftsmanstives.com

ART

OF GATHERING

Art of Gathering is a multi-disciplinary exhibition that brings together the work of eight artists and contemporary craft makers working in diverse mediums. Through their individual making processes the artists forge a deep connection to the landscape and share a respect for the materials they work with, gathered, collected and sourced from the land. From Irish basketmaker, Joe Hogan living in the wild ancient landscape of Co Galway and ceramicist, Patricia Shone’s workshop on the beautiful remote Isle of Skye in Scotland to London based collective Forest and Found and metalsmith Stuart Cairn’s urban studio in Belfast. The exhibition also includes paintings and photographs by local Cornish based painters Michael Porter and Francesca Owen.

As an extension of the gallery space, a specially commissioned installation, Fluent, by basketmaker Annemarie O’Sullivan, will be sited in the historic fishing cellar at Porthmeor Studios, where fishing nets are still set by hand today. Connecting to both the past and the present, the sculptural installation marks a shift away from the domestic scale of functional vernacular baskets once a vital trade and commodity of the fishing industry in St Ives. To make the woven structural framework Annemarie has combined basketmaking techniques with contemporary methods of construction and the technology of modern materials. Using machine-cut bands of steamed and finger jointed ash wood, secured, stitched and bound by hand. Imitating the undulating movement of drift fishing nets, the fluid energy of the open weave is free and yet contained; like a line drawing falling freeform to articulate the space.

Living and working from her Sussex based workshop Annemarie cultivates and harvests her own willow beds bringing her a deeper sense of belonging to the land and a visceral sense of joy at working with a sustainable material she has grown and processed by hand. It is also about hard graft and long-term commitment, working in rhythm with the seasons. Joe Hogan has worked as a basketmaker for over 35 years at Loch na Fooey, in the west of Ireland. There is a practical, down to earth, pragmatic and economic leveller to planting, growing and harvesting materials for use that is inseparable from his daily life. It is a grounding experience. Poetry is another source of inspiration in his work. “The world around us,” he says, “presents us with wonders every day.” In recent years he has become increasingly interested in making artistic baskets, finding and incorporating gathered wild materials with the cultivated willow, prompted by a desire to develop a closer, more compatible relationship with the world.

To be immersed in the landscape is also integral to the arts practice of these artists and makers. The physical act of walking, thinking, drawing and observing the natural environment are all absorbed through writing, philosophy and an engagement in the land, referencing the changing weather, tides and ancient pathways through the stories they tell. Modern wayfarer, Stuart Cairns is a silversmith and applied artist combining natural materials and man-made found objects alongside precious metals.

Intimately recording and photographing his local terrain in detail, he sees his studio practice as a holistic experience “not just about the landscape, but the experience of being within it, of being part of it.” He makes artefacts in the tradition of domestic tools, vessels or utensils, that have a reference to the experience of being human. The human connection and impact to landscape is also reflected in Patricia Shone’s handformed ceramic vessels. Her textural forms are influenced by the elemental landscape,

mountains and coast that surround her home-studio on the Isle of Skye but strongly resonate with a sense of community and the people who have inhabited the island.

She describes how the erosion of the hills by forces of climate and human intervention inform her work and how patterns of the past are drawn across the surfaces of her clay forms.

Working alongside one another in a creative partnership and influenced by their strong and complementary relationship to a sense of place, Abigail Booth and Max Bainbridge tread the line between art and craft. Based in the city they fluctuate between the urban and the rural to produce sculptural and wall-based works that look at landscape as a site of exchange to cross the boundaries of contemporary art practices and the traditions of craftsmanship. Abigail’s large, abstract textile wall piece made for Art of Gathering incorporates hand stitching and applique. It is painted with dyes made from ground mussel shells collected on Porthmeor Beach during a research trip to St Ives while Max’s sculptural wood-turned forms are hewn from Holm Oak sourced in Cornwall.

Reinventing the traditional view of Cornish landscape painting, artist, Michael Porter paints highly innovative paintings that focus on detailed observations of natural ephemera that include found natural objects like seaweed, rocks and feathers collected from the shoreline around his Newlyn studio. His eyes are drawn to the ground rather than to the horizon line. Sods and clumps of dug earth, tangled roots and decaying leaves are the inspiration for his exquisite, minutely observed Dirt series. Painter, Francesca Owen is a specialist in raw pigments and plant-based dyes using minerals and oxides from abandoned mine waste to make her rich earthy palette of colour for her expressive abstract paintings. She collects her raw materials from the scarred industrial landscape along the coastal paths of West Penwith including iron oxide from the area around Geevor mine, white china clay from Leswidden clay pit, yellow ochre from the cliffs at Porthtowan Bay and a metallic grey from St Day. Throughout the exhibition there is a shaping physical and emotional connection made to celebrating landscape through poetry, personal enquiry and philosophy as well as the idea of a journey and sense of ritual rooted in heritage; the living environment becomes an extension of the studio. The practical engagement and application of materials and skills is explored through traditional techniques and contemporary art practices where the hedgerow, shore, woodland and moor are all inspiring sites and places of exchange.

Curator, Sarah Frangleton

.

ARTISTS

2. stuart cairns Silversmith & Applied Artist

1. forest & found Studio Collective

Working in both the visual arts and contemporary craft, Forest + Found’s practice draws upon a background in painting and sculpture, whilst looking towards a newly developed language of craft. Max Bainbridge and Abigail Booth work on objects independently, to produce installations and displays that form dialogues between landscape, material and process. Driven by a deep relationship to the land they work with raw materials sourced directly from landscapes in and around the UK. Wood, earth and iron are the reoccurring elements that ground their individual practices in a material investigation of form, composition and colour. The use of raw material is integral to the work, with wood transformed into objects symbolic of human ritual, and cloth saturated in iron and earth to produce images that conjure the monumental and meditative.

Using fire, earth and water to sculpt wood and build up colour on the surface of cloth, they produce objects that challenge the relationship between the imagined and the actual, where landscape occupies the critical space between thought and process.

Photo credit - Alun Callender

Stuart Cairns is an Irish artist and Silversmith based in Belfast whose practice has a focus on a love for materials, materiality and a sense of place. His work is concerned with investigating the environment and his relationship with his local landscape through walking, wild swimming, photography, drawing, making and the collection of found objects. He uses his metalsmith skills to make reimagined utensils and tools from gathered objects, integrating both natural and manmade materials combined with steel and patinated silver.

Stuart creates unique, small vessel forms, intimate in nature, translating elements of this personal journey through a sense of domestic ritual.

Photo credit - Tim Millen

3. joe hogan Basketmaker Joe Hogan has been making baskets from his studio in Loch na Fooey in Co Galway, West Ireland since 1978. He began by making indigenous Irish functional baskets for practical use such as the Creel, the Kerry Hamper and the Skib but over time he has become more interested in making sculptural or artistic baskets using traditional techniques in their method of construction. He cultivates and harvests his own willow as well as gathering other naturally occurring wild materials such as wood, bark, larch, birch, bog myrtle twigs, heather and catkins that he incorporates into his work. Joe Hogan is regarded as one of Ireland’s master craftsmen and has gained a worldwide reputation for his work. He was shortlisted for the prestigious Loewe Craft Prize in 2018 Photo credit - Peter Rowan, courtesy of the Design and Craft of Ireland

5. michael porter Painter

4 . p at r i c i a s h o n e Potter & Ceramic Artist Patricia Shone lives and works in Scotland on the Isle of Skye. Her work is informed by the powerful landscape surrounding her home studio. It has developed in response to the feeling of connection with its inhabitants and their passage across the land. The natural surface textures produced by clay reflect the formation and erosion in the geology of the wild landscape by forces of climate and human intervention; patterns of the past drawn across the surfaces. Patricia’s vessels are hand formed by texturing and stretching, throwing and carving using different clay bodies and firing processes such as Raku, Saggar and Wood.

Michael Porter has lived and worked in Newlyn, Cornwall since 1997. Using the coastline around his studio as an inspiration for his intricate and intimate paintings. For the Art of Gathering exhibition he presents a collection of exquisite gouache paintings on paper titled the Dirt Series that explore the minutiae of soil, plants and the natural world. We are also delighted to be showing a selection of previously unseen limited-edition photographs.

Photo courtesy of the artsit

7. annemarie o’s u l l i va n Basketmaker

Annemarie O’Sullivan’s work draws on the sturdiness of agricultural baskets, the curves of the landscape, and a deep respect for ancient crafts.

She is inspired by simple connections to basketmakers from the past. Growing around twenty different types of willow, Annemarie is passionate about seeing the making process through from source material to finished piece, creating smallscale domestic objects through to larger-scale architectural forms and installations. Her current work references traditional fishing baskets, traps, and lobster pots, employing weaving and binding techniques, which have been used for thousands of years.

Photo credit - Alun Callender

Photo credit - West Coast Media

6. francesca owen Painter Francesca Owen is a specialist in natural pigments and dyes, making traditional paints from tempura and oils. Painting en plein air and back in her studio at Trewidden Gardens. She is deeply influenced by the wild and rugged landscape of West Penwith, collecting earth, minerals and oxides from local disused industrial mine sites and gathering her raw materials directly from the Cornish coastal paths and coves.

Photo credit - Sarah Frangleton

F O R E S T

&

F O U N D

Studio Collective

between

land

and

tide

max bainbridge Woodturner and Sculptor My sculptural vessels hewn from wood, reflect a need to create a tangible and grounded presence in space though the physicality of the object. Taking the natural shape and form of the wood as a starting point, I use woodturning, hand carving and elemental processes to create objects that are reflective of the making process; each piece displaying the physical effort that goes into its conception through the marks left on the surface. For the vessel forms in the Art of Gathering exhibition I have been working with Holm Oak sourced directly from the Cornish landscape as well as Birch from Epping Forest and London Plane from the city street where our studio is located. My work forms a deep connection to place through the ritualistic relationships I build between objects and their origin.

abigail booth Textile Artist My practice as an artist is to work across textiles, drawing and painting.

My work has its roots in the traditions of piecework and quilting, while drawing upon my background as a painter. Evoking simplicity and minimalism in the gesture and movement of the hand, my work seeks a connection to expansive landscape through the reflective nature of natural colour and my psychological relationship to place. The timebased nature of my work produces large-scale, meditative images that explore spatial compositions and the abstract plane of the deconstructed canvas. I am currently developing pigments and dyes using ground mussel shell and seaweed ash; raw materials collected from Porthmeor Beach in St Ives for my latest work.

STUART CAIRNS Silversmith and Applied Artist

poems

to

the

landscape

Being immersed in the landscape is a physical sensation which can shape us. It is not just about the landscape but the experience of being within it, of being part of it, not separate. The walking, the collecting and even the swimming is all about immersion, of feeling fully connected as part of the ecosystem relating to the tides, the seasons and the swoop of seagull equally. My work can be seen as a series of visual poetry. Half sketched, traced with touches of making, these vessels and implements reflect a fleeting experience; of people passing through as the landscape endures. These quiet, small forms sit as poems to the landscape, suggesting stories of wanders by the sea, wonders in the forest and small moments in the city.

My vessel forms, alongside the shapes of utensils and tools, act as physical representations of a lived landscape, alive with memory. Objects are drawn out of the natural lines of grasslands and wetlands, combining with the marks of skeletal boat hulls, shattered jetties and fragmented fence lines, to summon a sense of the land, of a past and of our place within it. Structures are formed of found objects, precious and base metals, sitting in series and sets, as if in remembrance of a previous function and forgotten personal rituals. I explore the richness of materiality planted within the forms of domestic objects of silversmithing to reference the daily experience of being human.

J O E

H O G A N

Basketmaker

learning

from

the

earth

From about 2001, I have been harvesting wild material and collecting ‘found’ wood to incorporate into my baskets. I’ll use the roots of 3,000 year old bog pine from Dirk Lakes, where the peat has been cut away, and I’m fascinated by tree holes, oddly shaped branches and bark that’s healed after a wound. Once I began to experiment in this way the possibilities seemed endless. All of my artistic baskets were containers or vessels until I met a piece of wood that I could not incorporate into this form.

This branch of lichen encrusted beech wood led to the first closed sculptural pod form that I made.

I now look to nature for instruction and ideas, from stones eroded and carved by water to thorn trees sculpted by the wind. The world presents us with wonders everyday if we are open to seeing them and if we give ourselves the time and space to be open to them. When I make a sculptural basket I am trying to discover this sense of belonging, of being at home upon this earth.

PATRICIA SHONE Potter & Ceramic Artist

Ă ite

cruinneachaidh

| Gathering Place

(Scots Gaelic)

Gathering is such an evocative notion, especially here in the Highlands. Gathering together often meant walking many miles on narrow tracks. My journey has been more of a gathering of myself and what is important to me, and ultimately finding my place in the world. Working with clay, knowing the processes and history of the material and its domestic uses always brings me back to how it connects human beings, how it gathers us together in a common humanity.

On another level there are the influences from the land around me. I have always preferred wilder more challenging landscapes and seascapes. The visible presence of the rock beneath the thin soils of the Highlands reminds me of the real substance of life, and how fragile the veneer. There is the physicality of making, the bodily involvement of using clay to create something, the skills acquired and developed over years. The precedence physical process takes over and above intellectual reasoning, which allows the inner senses to give voice to the work.

I make mostly functional forms, boxes, bowls, jars, rather than direct representation of the landscape, because they are innately human vessels; they represent the human condition of surface and content.

M I C H A E L

P O R T E R

Painter

the

dirt

series

For me the landscape is not the vista across the valley but the ground on which I walk. From the clump of grass, to a fallen tree and the earth beneath my feet. For many years I have produced work by gathering photographic information along with actual physical material whilst walking in the landscape. In a way this brings me closer to the place I am attempting to describe. It is important to say that I am not painting the photograph, it is purely visual information, the starting point rather than the finished result.

I would like my work to take on the aspect of discovery.

What I am trying to achieve is a description of that which is often overlooked, the ordinary, the bits of ephemera we walk by without giving a second glance but, nevertheless, are intrinsic to the scene. There is usually something that catches the eye, a leaf, a twig, a stone. When observed more closely these objects can be seen to be extraordinary.

My works can be enjoyed by investing time in looking, they can also be enjoyed by a brief glimpse, as one would observe on a country walk, they incorporate both the glance and the gaze.

F R A N C E S C A

O W E N

Painter

for

the

love of

this

wildness

I go out into the landscape, carrying large, loose rolls of canvas, slung over the top of a rucksack full of brushes and pallets so that my hands are free to hold on when t he coast path narrows. I search for a place to paint.

There is a straightforward environmental ethos to my work, which is to gather and collect earth, connecting me with geology, history and the natural environment.

I gather pigments from the mine sites in West Penwith, these specific places between St Just and St Ives are a wealth of rich tonal colour. It is truly astonishing that the pigment deposits I use to paint with can be up to 350 million years old.

Place is integral to my work. I want to communicate a sense of ‘a greater connectedness’ by using pigment sourced directly from the ground that the painting is about. I gather it, I can touch it. I feel its moistness, the coarse or smooth textures and smell the earth. By painting with it, I put the place directly into the painting.

Using a selection of pigments which I pre-make or make outside on location. It is a lengthy process from collection to grinding up the raw earth with a pestle and mortar, sieving it into a fine powder and then adding a binder. Painting outside is elemental, expressive of feeling and emotion where my brushes are soon thrown down and my hands and feet go towards gestural mark-making.

A N N E M A R I E

O ’ S U L L I V A N

Basketmaker

I love the sense of connection to the past and the fact that people in rural Britain were inventing almost identical ways of catching fish to the people of Asia. Fish wives all over the country carried their fish to market in baskets and creels.

The type of funnels and non-return valves used in the British traps have been used since the Stone Age and are part of the family of fish traps found all over the world. The work I am presenting for the Art of Gathering exhibition is inspired by traditional British fishing baskets and fish traps such as the Line Scull, Putcher and Fish Kettle.

FLUENT I would love to live Like a river flows Carried by the surprise Of it’s own unfolding Fluent by John O’Donohue from his collection of poetry, Conamara Blues

In addition to her current work and interest around historic fishing baskets, their function and construction, Annemarie has devised a new work especially commissioned for the New Craftsman exhibition. Combining traditional basket making techniques with contemporary materials and methods of construction, the site sensitive installation, titled Fluent, will be situated in the working fishing cellar at the historic Porthmeor Studios for the duration of the September Arts Festival. The title for this sculptural work is borrowed from a poem by John O’Donahue.

E V E N T S

thursday 19th september

friday 13th, saturday 14th and sunday 15th september

1 – 2.15 pm, £5.50, St Ives Arts Club, Westcott’s Quay Poems to the Landscape / Artist Talk

10.30am – 4.30pm, 3 Day Willow Basketmaking - £300 (including all materials), Borlase Smart Room, Porthmeor Studios

Stuart Cairns Stuart Cairns is an Irish artist and silversmith whose practice is concerned with investigating the environment and his relationship with it through walking, photography, drawing, making and the collection of found objects.

6 – 7pm For the Love of this Wildness Gallery Talk with Francesca Owen Painter, Francesca Owen will talk about her practice of gathering and processing natural earth pigments and dyes from the Cornish coastline to incorporate into her painting.

3 Day Willow Basketmaking Workshop / with Annemarie O’Sullivan. Working with Annemarie in a stunning historic studio space overlooking Porthmeor Beach, learn to make a simple functional basket over three days using beautiful native willow.

Attach a leather or wooden handle. This is an immersive course for beginners or anyone wishing to improve their willow basketmaking skills.

saturday 14th september

5.30 – 7.00pm Art of Gathering / Opening Reception New Craftsman Gallery, St Ives

Forest and Found; artists Abigail Booth and Max Bainbridge will give an informal talk about the work they have made for the exhibition using materials inspired by the Cornish landscape.

Felix Kary - Woodcarver

Chris Care, Setting the Nets, Porthmeor Studios; fishing cellar 2019

saturday 14th – friday 26th september Fluent / installation by Annemarie O’Sullivan Fishing Cellar, Porthmeor Studios For opening times please see website As an extension of the gallery space, a specially commissioned installation, Fluent, will be sited in the historic fishing cellar at Porthmeor Studios, where fishing nets are still set by hand today. The installation will be on display for the duration of the September Festival only.

Annemarie O’Sullivan

Dandy Dick 1905 Archive image courtesy of St Ives Museum

wednesday 25th september

friday 27th september

6 – 7 pm, £5.50 Borlase Smart Room, Porthmeor Studios Ordinary / Extraordinary / Artist talk with Michael Porter

10.30am – 4.30pm, £45 (including materials) Surf House, The Island, St Ives Spoon Carving Workshop / with Felix Kary

Newlyn based painter, Michael Porter will talk about his most recent work, their origins and development.

From the highly innovative landscape paintings using unorthodox combinations of techniques and mediums to the more literal images of natural ephemera often overlooked within the landscape.

Spend the day carving your own spoon on this intensive course with skilled woodsman Felix Kary.

Using wood sustainably sourced from native Cornish trees, the entire process will be demonstrated, from selecting and cleaving greenwood to finishing, using traditional carving tools and techniques with their origins from Europe and Scandinavia.

Felix makes individual, hand carved functional vessels, such as bowls, cups and spoons using a variety of hardwoods sourced from the native woodland surrounding his Devon workshop.

His work will be available for sale throughout the exhibition. See a demonstration of his green woodworking skills in the gallery on Thursday 26th September.

D E T A I L S

O F

W O R K S

The full ‘Art of Gathering’ collection is available to view on our website - www.newcraftsmanstives.com

1. forest & found Max Bainbridge Between Land and Tide Tenanted Cornish Holm Oak Vessel H 30cm x W 36cm - £2800 Abigail Booth Appliqued Textile Detail of work Natural dye, ground mussel shell POA

2. stuart cairns Gathered Set (From Left - Right) Utensil I Oxidised silver, thorn, 20cm - £350 Utensil II Oxidised silver, twig, 27cm - £350 Pod spoon III Oxidised silver, thorn, 35cm - £380 Pod spoon IV Oxidised silver, thorn, 23cm - £380

3. joe hogan Reclining Pod Willow rod form Embedded lichened stone from Maumtrasna, Co Galway 20 x 62 cm - £1,400

4. patricia shone Earth Jar 7 | Pale Light Raku fired earthenware Hand-formed, textured and stretched H 31cm - £2,000 Photo Credit Rebecca Peters

5. michael porter Dirt series I - IX Gouache on Heritage Paper 45 x 32 cm - £1,250 Seashore Series Gouache, acrylic and oil on paper on canvas 120 x 110 cm - £12,500

6. francesca owen For the Love of this Wildness is Hers Tresco, Isles of Scilly Earth pigments on canvas £1,250 Photo credit Joanna Nataljia

7. a n n e m a r i e o’ s u l l i v a n Fish Kettle The Fish Kettle is a play on a traditional pan or kettle for poaching fish. The base is steam bent willow, with the main body of the piece woven in a traditional English ‘Rand’ weave L: 77cm H: 30cm W:22cm. - £900.00 Line Scull This large frame basket is based on forms that were traditionally used for holding fishing line.

This piece is woven in Sussex Willow and Sweet Chestnut.

L: 77cm H: 29cm W: 75cm. - £1,450.00 Photo Credit – Jonathan Basset

This 2019 September Festival exhibition showcases the work of eight artists who use the act of gathering, collecting or harvesting materials as an integral part of their arts practice. Continuing a history of excellence in craft and the applied arts at New Craftsman Gallery, this special exhibition includes sculptural and functional baskets by Annemarie O’Sullivan, and by Joe Hogan, who was shortlisted for the 2018 Loewe Foundation Craft Prize; ceramic vessels by Patricia Shone, who was awarded by the V&A at Ceramic Art London 2019; jewellery and gathered objects by silversmith Stuart Cairns; wild pigment paintings

by Francesca Owen; applied textiles by Abigail Booth and sculpted wood vessels by Max Bainbridge of studio collective Forest and Found, who have been selected for the Jerwood Makers Open bursary prize 2019; and work by Michael Porter, including his Dirt Series of paintings and a selection of previously unseen limited-edition photographs. The exhibition also includes a specially commissioned, site-specific installation titled Fluent, which will be open to the public throughout the festival.

Constructed by Annemarie O’Sullivan, it will be sited in the historic Fishing Cellar at Porthmeor Studios.

with thanks to porthmeor studios, st ives museum

&

bsjw trust for their contributions

The exhibition is curated by Sarah Frangleton

w w w. n e w c r a f t s m a n s t i v e s . c o m / i n f o @ n e w c r a f t s m a n s t i v e s . c o m / 0 1 7 3 6 7 9 5 6 5 2 24

f o r e s t r e e t , s t . i v e s , c o r n wa l l t r 2 6 1 h e

Front - Melmore Path, photographed by Stuart Cairns. Printd on recycled paper design by martha holmes studio isbn : 978-0-9934009-8-8