Victoria Square, Leeds

My Walk this Week – Art and Design in Leeds

My walk this week in Leeds is my vehicle for showcasing my daughter’s work as a jewellery artist – Hannah Duncan Creations. I say “artist” because the work she designs is her means of expression, but she is a great craftsperson as well. The collection she delivered recently to the Craft Centre and Design Gallery includes work based on the rocky coastlines of Britain and in some pieces the very sand from the beaches forms a part of the work.

Leeds Art Gallery

The image below is an example of Hannah’s work and if you would like to see more please visit her website at Hannah Duncan Creations.

Hannah Duncan Creations

Hannah Duncan Creations

Our recent travels to York (see last weeks walk posts) allowed us to help Hannah out and visit Leeds on our way home.  The day was beautifully sunny and our walk to the City Art Gallery and the Design Centre below it was brightContinue reading

Swansea urban scene

Urban Walk – Second Side of the Triangle

Looking at some of the patterns and features on my triangular urban walk this week, the second side of the triangle provided me with a number of everyday aspects of the city with, to me, points of visual interest. The angles and perspectives of architectural features, when looked at on their own and viewed without the context of the wider urban environment, become simply lines, shapes and patterns and can be seen as works of abstract art.

angled steps

Those lines and shapes are reflected in the design of murals on the walls of the Elysium artists’ studios but opposite this is an apparent anomaly – Continue reading

A lifetime of cars

My Walk this Week – Travelling in Time

My walk this week is a little bit abstract in walking terms. There was some actual walking involved but I will get to that later in the week. Today I want to walk back in time first of all to 1915 and then 1942 and 1963.

by Alastair Duncan 1942

by Alastair Duncan 1942

In York recently I added a few items to my growing archive of images of my family. My intention is to digitise them over time but there is a huge collection going back many years.

Below are two photos of my Grandfather (known as Tiger) – one from each end of his life. It can be seen that in 1915 he was a soldier and in 1963 he was an artist. The next photo is of my namesake, Alastair, who died of septicaemia in 1942 – from the art and design work he had done that year at school, it can be seen that there was the potential for him also to go into the arts.

An finally another reference to travelling in time – a list of all the cars my father has had from the first to the last.

Steel Perspective

But Is It Art?

On my walk this week I found myself in one of the upper floor rooms of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and enjoyed looking at works by well known artists of the past such as Ceri Richards, Paul Nash, Henry Moore and others. In this room I was also struck by the effect of the translucent screen hanging in front of the floor to ceiling window. It changed my perception of the building opposite and for a few moments I thought I was looking at another work of art – so I took some photos!

Looking Out

Directly below, on the ground floor, is the room used for talks, presentations, etc.,  In here I spotted a stack of seats in the corner and I was again persuaded to take some photos. The clean, bright patterns of stainless steel really appealed to me ….. but is it art?Continue reading

Glynn Vivian Art Gallery

Art and History at The Glynn Vivian Gallery and Museum

On my walk this week around the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and Museum in Swansea, I looked in a number of the rooms. In the main gallery I observed, listened to and contemplated the various abstract and video art works to be experienced in the current exhibition – “These Waters Have Stories To Tell”.

Art at the Glynn Vivian

This exhibition is part of the Ephemeral Coast series of touring exhibitions and includes six different artists. The first of the works I have shown below is one of the most deceptive – this (apparent) swimming float is in fact made of concrete and knowing this, my perception of it becomes confused. I am being deliberately deceived, and this brings to mind so many parallels in todays society that I have to start thinking more deeply about it in an effort to figure out my understanding of the themes of the exhibition and the connections the works have to us and the relationship we have with the/our environment.

On the top floor I enjoyed some of the older works in the museum – not just the works themselves but also the displays and the patterns of light and reflection created.

red red rose

A Red Red Rose – Reviewing the Walk

I selected a very beautiful deep red rose as my featured image for this post but if you first see the post in an email, you will have to click through to see the image which comes at the end of the selected images for my review of the walk.

Museum in the Park

The rose itself I found in the orangery which was being restored at the back of the Museum in the Park in Stratford Park, Stroud. I was visiting the museum to see the exhibition of knotted tapestries by Anne Jackson but I also plannedContinue reading

Stratford Park - Stroud

My Walk this Week – A Walk in the Park

The park in question on my walk this week is Stratford Park in Stroud, England. I’d driven up there to see a friend’s exhibition of knotted tapestries – Anne Jackson in the Museum in the Park. It was well worth the drive and having spent an hour enjoying the exhibition in detail, I still had time to take a walk in the park.

Stratford Park Autumn Leaves

All the classic features of a British urban/suburban park were thereContinue reading

Bath City Centre

Bath – Reviewing the Walk

Bath Abbey sits, as you might expect, in the centre of the city. The Roman Baths are next to it and while I took a shot of the baths ceiling with its dome, I didn’t have the time to justify the cost of entry and I am sorry to say I didn’t go into the abbey either. So now I have an excellent excuse to revisit the place, and next time I will take my family – and if that’s not a good recommendation of the place, I don’t don’t what is!

Bath Abbey

So my original reason for going to Bath was to see the Contemporary Tapestry: Here and Now exhibition at the Holburne Museum. I was able to take a very enjoyable look at the city as well – its parks and architecture, its quiet and more noisy areas. On my home, prompted by my viewing of the tapestry exhibition,Continue reading