Glasgow 2

 I thought I had better post some pictures of a few of the galleries I went to in Glasgow, before I forget entirely! I don't know what happened to the pix I took from the first day (I was having a malfunction when working the camera I guess). After meeting at the edge of Kelvingrove Park, we headed to the Common Guild to see the Thomas Demand exhibition. We had a number of tours of Glasgow School of Art work areas throughout the city and GSA Reid Gallery, and also paid a visit to Transmission gallery for a very large group exhibition (many artists over two floors).

We started the second day (I think) with a visit to Mary Mary, a gallery a short walk away from Central Station, the group meeting point. The gallery is spread over 2 rooms, and a group show "I hope to God you're not as dumb as you make out" was on exhibit. The show consisted of individual pieces by Matthew Brannon, Milano Chow and Alan Reid and a bed installation by the three artists in collaboration.

The duvet cover on the bed was printed with recognisable portraits of contemporary thinkers.

We made our way to the gallery 16 Nicholson St where the group exhibition "That's Genetic" was on. The show included mixed media works by Jennifer Bailey, Lauren Hall, Tessa Lynch and Sarah Rose.

I was delighted to see the paintings of Adrian Morris (d. 2004), an artist of whom I was unfamiliar, at 42 Carlton Place. The gallery itself seemed such a respectful place with lighting from both windows and overhead fluorescents softened by translucent paper screens.

We saw a show at the Modern Institute entitled Electric Magnetic Installation, by Hayley Tomkins. The exhibition was a mix of made objects and found objects.

Tompkins is interested in diary and colour; the setting of wall works on angles is accidental in appearance but I think challenges the way one looks at 2D works.

In the afternoon we headed to the Glasgow Sculpture Studios for a tour around the facilities, and to see the current exhibition by Nicolas Dashayes, "Darling, Gutter". It was a pity that the heat was not turned on in the gallery, as these jesmonite sculptures were directly attached to the heating pipes within the building, so they should have had warmth radiating from them.

Hallowe'en!

As well as all the excitement of carving pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns every October,

it is the season for me to take out last year's pumpkin mush from the freezer and make a few batches of muffins. These get decorated as jack-o-lanterns too and get sent into school and/or Girl Guides with my daughter for her and her friends. If I have enough mush, I can make additional batches of muffins for sharing around elsewhere.

So after Hallowe'en night, the carved pumpkins get chopped and peeled and cut up into small cubes or rectangles.

A large orange (or several small ones or clementines) and a lemon are peeled and juiced. The juice and a tiny bit of water are added to the pot of pumpkin cubes (the pumpkin release a lot of water when cooking). The peel is cut into slivers

and added to the pot. Cook this gently on low-medium heat, stirring periodically, in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan.

When all the pumpkin is cooked, it is soft enough to be mashed. Tilt the pot a bit to see how much liquid there is; if there is a lot of liquid, raise the heat to boil some of it off,

The pumpkin mush needs to be moist in order to give moisture and flavour to future pumpkin muffins. I will give the recipe for the muffins in another post, but if you can't wait, use pumpkin mush in the same recipes that you use for carrot cake or banana bread. Compare the picture below to the picture above to get an idea of how much liquid should not be left in the final mush.

I packed the mush into equal size freezer bags. In the past I have used weights of 350 g and 500 g, which also work fine in my recipes for muffins, and also in pumpkin pie (I'll give a recipe for that in a future post too). So it is a little bit random that these packs are 450 g but I figured it was a reasonable amount when I was packing and weighing. I put the 3 bags of mush into an additional freezer bag but will only use one bag at a time. One bag of mush will happily be used in a recipe that makes about 5 dozen small muffins or 2 pies.

Glasgow - 1

 I was in Glasgow a week ago, on the class "getting to know you" trip (I have recently started the MA in Art & Research Collaboration programme through IADT Dún Laoghaire). I had the feet walked off me visiting art shows and artist studios over three days, but it was interesting and exhilarating. Every morning there was quite a fog, which burned off by the afternoon, so the weather was very pleasant and dry. Friday morning (Oct 16) was spent exploring the downtown area and soaking in the city atmosphere before meeting up with the group for our planned gallery visits. I am not sure if this photo gives a good enough indication of how hilly the streets are in the city, but they most certainly are steep!

One of the architectural features I thought very interesting was the street entrance stairs to buildings, almost like flying buttresses over dry moats -- there would be additional steps leading down to the lower level to gain access to the below-footpath-level premises.

Buchanan St. is a busy pedestrian street.

There are many contrasting buildings on Buchanan St. (and elsewhere) and often the ground floor is a high street shop.

I was fascinated by this decorative building. The shop below just happened to be Laura Ashley.

Though the windows of this build seem plain in comparison to the building above, I liked the top story decoration and the semi circular window and its accompanying arch work.

I didn't look to see what denomination this church represented, just focused on the decoration.

This clock tower is also part of the church.

 There was a lot of carved stone decoration on buildings. This may have been at the entrance to a sports shop.

I think this man may have been on the other side of the sports shop entrance.

Gare d'Antibes - finished painting!

I was away in the US & Canada towards the end of June and beginning of July so I had to leave my painting till my return. I worked on it on my return in July and in August finally put my signature to the completed painting.

My husband took lots of detail photos for me. Where mountains meet sky.

Sunset sky.

Antibes train station.

Tree branches with mountain background.

Treeline, mountains and sky.

Here is the complete painting: Gare d'Antibes, acrylic on paper, approx 220 cm x 267 cm, triptych, 2015.

More Bells!

As I mentioned in a previous post, my husband, sculptor James Hayes, has been experimenting with making bells. Although also working on these at home, he usually gets more concentrated time to focus on the annual Umha Aois (bronze age) experimental bronze casting symposium. This summer it was held in Skibbereen, West Cork. Still in a bell frame of mind, a recent trip to the National Museum of Ireland got us looking at different bells, especially noticing their handles. I have previously posted pictures of the 2-loop handled bells, but this bell also struck us because it was so curvy.

The handle on this bell seems to be a simple coil.

This bell was notable because it was sheet iron riveted together and possibly brazed.

While at Dublinia a few weeks back, there was a lovely rounded Viking hand bell in a display. The clapper can be seen in the photo, and this is worth noting as the typical Irish bells did not have clappers but were tapped like an instrument.

Here is a selection of bells my husband has made and a leather-wrapped bronze tool to sound a bell. The smaller flattish bell in the centre rear is made of sheet iron and has been folded and riveted together; a leather thong has been threaded through holes to make a handle. James plans to braze (bronze coat) that bell. The other bells are cast bronze.

Gare d'Antibes - new painting in progress

This is the view from the third floor apartment in Antibes, where we have stayed a few times with relatives. This is looking to the left, north. at the maritime alps at sunset over Gare d'Antibes. The view right is gorgeous too, looking south the harbour is only a 5-10 minute walk away with the scultpure, Le Nomade looking out over the Mediterranean. This picture was taken last August.

 If I had turned the camera left at the time, the picture would have been of yachts and a floodlit Le Nomade. 

But I digress. I did a quick sketch last August of the parts of the view that intrigued me: the line of the mountains and the large tree in front of the station. The sketchbook I was using at the time is one of my own, pocket sized using recycled materials.

A few months ago my husband was assisting me in putting up some kraft paper so that I could start a new painting of the sunset over Gare d'Antibes.

I first did a preliminary chalk drawing. Immediate changes are apparent once I started to add paint. 

And so the process of painting begins with some blocks of colour...

What We Call Love Part 2

The "What We Call Love" exhibition at IMMA in Dublin is so large, and there is much to remember about it. I particularly liked this delicate piece by Louise Bourgeois. As I said previously, I am more familiar with her large-scale works, but the small works are just as powerful in their expression of intimacy. The embracing figures are hand sewn soft sculptures and this looks to be a hand blown glass enclosure, reminding one of a bell jar.

 Again in another small piece by Bourgeois, the embracing figures are surrounded by another material. This soft gauze can be seen as a cocoon-like protective enclosure.

I personally don't think any discussion of love can take place without a mention of John & Yoko, so I was pleased to see a few photos of them in a political section of the exhibition -- from the Montreal bed-in, their wedding at Gibraltar and a picture from The Acorn Project.

 There were Irish artists also included in the show. I have long admired the work of sculptor Dorothy Walker, so was delighted to see some of her work that I hadn't seen before. The Passion Bed, 1993, is a delicate piece made of steel wire and sandblasted wine glasses.

Here is a detail of it:

Garrett Phelan is another Irish artist whose work I am familiar with. I first met Garrett when he was working in Temple Bar Gallery & Studios at the time of my first solo exhibition, and have bumped into him a few times over the past 20 or so years. It was delightful to meet him again at the IMMA launch. Below is one of his pieces that were included in the show, New Faith Love Song. Unfortunately the other other piece, a gorgeous gold reliquary specially commissioned for this show is too new to find its image on the web, and the launch was too crowded for me to get a good photo of it!

I can't remember when or where I saw a whole exhibition of Rebecca Horn's complex machine installations (The Tate Modern or IMMA?) but I enjoyed seeing her work again. The photo of course cannot show the sound and movement in the piece -- the steel "arrow" tapping against one of the glass funnels, the guns moving until they randomly face each other perfectly and shoot liquid at each other.

IMMA touts this as its "most ambitious exhibition to date" and it most definitely is. I am only skimming the top of the barrel with my blog. The exhibition includes nearly 200 works of national and international importance and interest. In addition to the artists that I have highlighted there is also work by Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Nan Goldin, Marina Abramovich, Meret Oppenheim, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Jean Genet -- the list goes on. The exhibition continues to Feb 7 2016, see it if you can! Further information at imma.ie.