18/02/2010 by James.

A few images of wrapped and bound objects that I’ve been gathering together for inspiration, as I return to work that combines found objects and materials as evidence of place, and of a multi-layered, multi-sensory experience of the world.

(left to right - Gail Rieke, Craig Roper, Chris Drury and Diana Cooper)

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15/10/2009 by James.

I’m doing some teaching as a visiting lecturer on this course. Its ideal for anyone looking to get into working in a participatory way in the arts. Here’s some more info from UWE and a link to the course pages…

 Graduate Certificate in Participatory Arts and Media Professional Practice

Earlier this year UWE launched new accredited continuing professional development courses aimed at arts graduates or those working in any art form with groups in education, healthcare or the community sectors.

Apply now! For the second module in Participatory Arts: Methods and Approaches -
Open for applications on the 19th October and closing on the 20th November 2009.

Each twelve week course is designed to fit around the practitioners’ lives and work, participants can take three modules in any order over the three years to obtain the Certificate, or take just one or two of the modules for their own personal development.

We’ve even found a way for you to get up to 50% off the price this year!
find out more at -

http://www.uwe.ac.uk/sca/courses/community_cpd.shtml?mxmroi=14861901/2237193/false

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03/09/2009 by James.

Here’s some information for your diaries on the Dia de los Muertos exhibition and auction; raising funds for the charity from the sale of artwork made by a group of invited artists, and based on the Mexican ‘Day of the Dead’ festival.

As you can see from the list of artists involved, mine will probably be a little more affordable than the rest.

Exhibition dates - 27th October to the 1st November 11.00 a.m to 5.00 p.m at The Proud Gallery, Camden

Artwork available to buy via the Mencap website, from the exhibition or by auction at Bonhams, Knightsbridge on 11th November

Other artists exhibiting include -  Craigie Aitchison, Tracey Emin, Gillian Ayres OBE, Martin Parr, David Birkin, Matthew Williamson, John Keane, Hilary Simon, Roberto Gonzalez Fernandez (RGF + DDT), Carlos Diez Bustos, David Trullo and Stephen Wright

Should be a wide range of interpretations on the theme, so worth a look even if you can’t afford to buy…

More info nearer the time on the Mencap website

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28/08/2009 by James.

Just framed my work for this exhibition. For more/larger information and directions, see the link below…

http://www.bathartistsstudios.co.uk/gallery.html

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27/08/2009 by James.

I went to see Kurt Jackson’s exhibition at The Victoria Art Gallery yesterday. I love the immediacy and energy of his work, the mixture of quick pencil text, paint and the odd found piece of rubbish mixed in. The exhibition documents the flow of the River Avon from Bath to Avonmouth, with Jackson’s paintings capturing snapshots of his time at each place. Its definitely worth a look if you are near.

 www.kurtjackson.co.uk

It made me think again about whether I want to use my work to document specific places in a more direct way too. I used to focus a lot more directly on particular places, for example by creating a book documenting a particular walk. Some pieces still draw directly from my relationship with areas such as Savernake Forest, Salisbury Plain etc, but generally I like to allow my experiences of those different places to mix and merge in my work as they do in life.

After all, when you go home to your garden, watch tv or walk the dog in the evening, you don’t build a wall between those experiences ones at work, you make connections between one experience and the next.

I want that sense of interconnection to pervade my artwork as it does my research within learning, creativity and ecology. ‘Nature’ is everywhere, and is everything, and as a part of that, I want to keep blurring boundaries and fusing materials and imagery, reaching through to an interconnected reality rather than representing some kind of distant ‘other’.

I suppose I feel torn between a need for my work to go beyond the specifics of place in communicating a sense of the bigger picture, and wanting to express the wonder of feeling a part of a place and setting up a dialogue with it through making. Maybe I don’t need to choose, maybe the way I think will always determine how I relate to the world around me, and will come out in my work anyway, whatever form that takes.

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06/04/2009 by James.

Just opened - an exhibition of PAWS community arts projects in Wiltshire and work by the artists who run them, including images of artwork by me and the participants on the Recycled Sculpture projects that I have run over the years through the PAWS scheme (set up and funded through the four Wilts District Councils).

1st April to 25th April 2009 - Arcadia Lounge, Arc Theatre, College Road, Trowbridge, Wilts. (Open during performances - phone box office 0845 299 0476)
www.arctheatre.org.uk

Also touring to The Pound Arts Centre in Corsham, Wilts from 1st May 2009.
poundarts.blogspot.com

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27/02/2009 by James.

With my new studio as a base to work from, I have been re-exploring the role that making plays in my practice, and how I can connect my everyday experience and my studio work in a direct way.

I have always valued the experience of handling and manipulating materials as an extension of my interaction with my local environment. After all, it is through the senses that we experience our environment and can develop a sense of self through relationship with it.

But a lot of contemporary art seems to dismiss making or crafts as a lesser form of creative practice, less thoughtful somehow. I am interested in how we have come to deny our own sensory consciousness as the source of our knowledge and come to rely on or react against existing theories and concepts instead.

As ‘fine art’ has become more conceptual, and society has continued to limit the role of the artist to some kind of conceptually reactionary genius, we have ended up with a system where art cuts itself off from a direct sensory appreciation of relevance to most people’s lives, and a wider society that cuts its people off from the benefits that such a creative experience could offer each of us.

I want to continue to use my sensory interaction with my local environment to learn about my place in the world and to reflect on those experiences through making, testing the knowledge that I have been given, and developing a new more direct awareness of the reality of my existence.

I know through my socially engaged work that I can support others to ‘reclaim’ their creativity and explore ways of learning that are based on direct subjective experience, but I still think that artists have an important role to play through the making and sharing of objects, offering a route to empathising with their own sensory experience.

So, for me, I continue to walk, write, take photos, pick up materials, make and think… then share my experience and support others to do the same in ways that are right for them.

I value dialogical ways of working but I don’t ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’. I make artworks that are drawn directly from my own experience, but I do it as an example and as a provocation, not presenting them as the right or only way to see the world. The object arises out of a dialogue between myself and my environment, and any meaning attached to it arises out of its relationship to the viewer.

Hand made art objects are valuable evidence of the interconnected nature of people and the material world, and the importance of a system of learning that is based on everyday creative sensory experience.

Artist, environment, materials, objects, participants and processes all combine together to play a role in encouraging the development of more creative, sustainable societies.

What is Craft ? Craft is remembering that art is seen, felt and heard as well as understood, knowing that not all ideas start with words, thinking with hands as well as head. ( Mark Jones - Director, Victoria & Albert Museum)

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21/01/2009 by James.

So, what is the role of the artist in all of this…. how can artists facilitate real change with benefits for society and the environment?

I think there is a potential for artists to both model ways of being with the world that are playful and explorative, and to act in ways which are more ‘practical’ too, that can be embedded within society and encourage real change - e.g. within education, and other work that has a life outside of the gallery or theatre.

I am starting to really appreciate how I can be a researcher, a maker, an exhibiting artist, a writer, a facilitator in schools and museums and day-centres… how all these link together and form a cycle of exploration, discovery, learning and sharing.

I am excited at how my arts practice both feeds me and can enable others to find their own ways of seeing and experiencing the world, allowing them to appreciate and value difference in themselves and others, and their place within the system that we call ‘nature’.

And this blog has become part of that experience of research and sharing… so please tell us what you think too.

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13/03/2008 by James.

Figures using materials, colours and imagery that reflect their culture and/or environment.

Australian Aboriginal Painted Figures.

Ah Xian - Chinese born artist living in Australia.

Julie Arkell - figures of folk origins made using domestic materials.

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