Looking back at my walk this week I thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Kunsthuis Gallery, it’s garden and cafe. We’ll be back again there in November as well to attend an exhibition opening in which Julie Brunskill has a collection of her ceramic work. The garden will look different by then as it will be late Autumn rather than late Summer. While our focus will be on the exhibition, I may try to get some more photos of the garden to compare to those below and if so, I will make a point of recording the sounds of the garden as well. Sorry there is no soundscape for this weeks walk.
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Returning from the wildflower garden to the children garden on my walk this week at Kunsthuis Gallery I explored one of its features. The willow tunnel entrance to this natural / man-made “dwelling” was too enticing not to do so. Bending down to child height I entered the dome shaped structure and enjoyed the changed and semi-secretive space with its growing willow walls and willow roof creating patterns and textures as it changed the sunlight from above.
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The word “recognition” has two senses to it and they are both relevant to this post and my walk through Swansea Marina. Firstly, I recognise, in particular the old pump house on the left, the Seamen’s Chapel (Mission Gallery – see below) on the right and, most significantly to me, the building in which my wife and I had a studio which looked out over the marina as it changed from disused docks to the flourishing Maritime Quarter.
Recognition can also mean an acknowledgement of remembrance and in the photos below you will see black flags flying from some of the boats. Their ragged appearance has a haunting effect in amongst all the masts and rigging. My assumption is that they were there in recognition of David Bowie’s death a week earlier. That was just over a month ago now – R.I.P. David Bowie, I have enjoyed your music throughout my life.
A few weeks ago I took a tapestry weaving workshop over the weekend for the Crickhowell Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers. They had asked me if I could do a version of my workshop “Sounding out Colour and Texture”.
The workshop focus was sound and the intention was to help everyone to develop ideas for tapestry weaving by using a medium that may not have occurred to them previously. It wasn’t going to be possible in the time allowed to produce finished tapestries but we were able to experiment with different techniques and materials as a means of interpreting different aspects of sound.
The language used in describing sound relates very well to the language used in the visual arts and crafts. I am not talking of the technical terms connected to audio and tapestry weaving, but rather the interpretive, emotional terms used. Colour and texture, rhythm and melody.
We often hear the term “the tapestry of life” – the wide range of techniques and materials it is possible to use within tapestry weaving make it possible to represent any number of aspects of our emotional and physical lives and sound can be an excellent starting point for exploring those possibilities.
In these workshops I would also ask people to close their eyes and imagine what colour a sound might be or what it would feel like in their hands if they could grab a hold of it. The sound editing program I use, Adobe Audition, can show us the wave form of the sound and it can show us the “shape” of the sound in the spectral display, but it cannot tell us its texture and the colour it shows is only that selected by the user in the program’s preferences.
This is where the imagination comes in and helps us to develop the designs we may use to present an interpretation of a subject that could be said to have an extra dimension to it.
apart from looking at how different sounds appear visually on the spectral display of an editing program like Adobe Audition,
There is a range of wood grown and used at Coeden Fach Woodland.
Here you can see the different stages of material and product with the wood growing, cut and layer in stacks ready for use and then the final product in the form of chairs.
Not all the material in the chairs is the same wood as is evident from the the different colours. My favourite is definitely the dogwood chair with its beautiful range of reds, greens, browns and yellows.
This week’s featured StillWalks video is from the south west of Scotland. This medium resolution full length version will be here all week and will then revert to the sample.
The video above is in 480p quality. You can use the Donate button below to pay however much you want and receive a high quality (720HD) download of this week’s featured StillWalks video – “Coastal Walk – Spring” which features part of the Galloway coastline in Scotland. Click the image above to watch the video. DVD Collections are also available to order in the StillWalks Shop.
Light plays an important part in all art work and its display. Despite the display and this photograph revealing the shadows and surfaces of this piece of work by Duncan Ayscough, when seeing it last week at Craft in the Bay, Cardiff, it was difficult to describe just what the ceramic form was doing with the light in the gallery other than absorbing it – like a Black Hole.
The photo cannot do it justice – the matt black surface seemed to negate the existence of light and in other pieces (not those shown here), the form seemed to be a “normal” vessel but when taking a closer look, we realised that the black surface of the interior was deceiving us! If I had taken a closer look still, I fear I too would have been absorbed into that Black Hole.
Fascinating work and well worth a visit if you’re in the area – or even if you’re not! This work must be new as it does not appear on his website yet.
Last week’s fair at The National Botanic Garden of Wales was a bit of a wash out for StillWalks as was the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations. On a sunny Monday, however, we were in Cardiff at the Welsh Makers Guild Gallery, Craft in the Bay, in Cardiff Bay where there was an exhibition by the International Feltmakers Association. The exhibition was called “The Climate is Changing” and, along with all the other exhibits in the Makers Guild shop, was fascinating and enjoyable to see. Now back to the rain!
99 Pieces of Driftwood by Marianne Sogaard Sorensen of Denmark
