Carole Kirk

I brought my work home from Rochdale yesterday. The art trail attracted a lot of visitors who wouldn’t normally look at art, and there were some great comments in the book. People seemed to appreciate having something different to look at in the shopping centre rather than the same old shops. There were over 600 visitors during the two days, and many comments about doing the same again next year. I enjoyed the opportunity to have my work viewed by a new audience, and hope they enjoyed my work.

Beehive Art Trail, Rochdale Feel Good Festival 2010

I am now preparing for the next exhibition of my BA group at Bankfield Museum in Halifax, which will be opening on 4th September.  I’ve made a painting especially for this exhibition, and I am even beginning to have faith that it might dry!  The folks at Winsor and Newton technical department have been very helpful when I had a query about drying time.  I just realise how much there still is to learn about the technical properties of the materials we use.

Until now, I have resisted entering any competitions – let alone those where you have to lug your work in, only to have to lug it home again when they don’t select it.  However, I have finally decided that it is important to at least try.  If I don’t work at ways of getting my work out there, no-one will ever see it.  So yesterday, I took this painting for a ride on the train to Leeds, and we walked together in the rain up to Leeds Art Gallery to enter it into their Open Competition.  It may not be selected, but I am recording it here because I think the ‘backshop’ work we do to get our work out there (whether it is writing, art, music or whatever) should be celebrated.  So let’s hear it for doing those irritating jobs and taking a few risks.

'Bathtime', Oil on canvas, 2ft x 2ft 6"

Thompson Park Burnley

Brilliant day today walking the Wayside Arts Trail around Burnley, taking in two of the pianos as part of the ‘Play me I’m yours’ project in Burnley and Blackburn – www.bbstreetpianos.com.  One of the pianos is sited by the amazing Singing Ringing Tree which  makes haunting music as the wind blows through it.  There was also a bird’s nest wedged at the top of the tree (well, that’s where birds do nest after all).

After our walk, we travelled to a third piano at Thomson Park.  This was a bit of a pilgrimage, as until about three weeks ago this piano was in our living room.  For a few years, it had been relegated to a kind of badly-designed piece of storage furniture.  So when I heard about this project, I decided to give it a new (albeit temporary) home.

Thank you to everyone who came to the Open Studios.  I hope you enjoyed it!  We did well as a studio group, making sales from our exhibition downstairs, and selling lots of the ceramic Christmas decorations that we had made during one of our group artists’ evenings.  As promised, I had my new paintings on display, and was encouraged by the amount of interest that people showed.  Making work is rewarding, but being able to discuss it with other people is even more rewarding.  Many of my visitors saw their own childhood photos in my paintings, and quite a few people commented that the lack of face makes them more universal.  More paintings soon – I’m experimenting with a change in scale – you can just about see a sneak preview to the left of the photograph below (beside ‘Nets’).

Hebden Bridge

Do you fancy a weekend in the gorgeous surroundings of Hebden Bridge, with an intensive two days of landscape painting and drawing workshops?

Northlight Studios are running their first Summer School starting Friday 31st July in the evening.  Mary and Perri who are the two tutors are great at sharing creative new approaches to painting and drawing, and are also very good with beginners (I know – Mary taught me for a while!)

You will also get an opportunity to look around the studios and meet some of the other artists on the Friday evening.   Maybe see you there!

It has been very quiet here of late, mainly because I’ve been very busy preparing for various shows.  At the beginning of April, I decided to make a completely new body of work for my final HND show, and I’ve painted 10 paintings in the space of two months.  This has been a great experience, as that kind of intense and focused activity has increased my confidence in painting considerably.  I can see why it is such good practice to do something every single day, as it trains the eye and the part of you that links what you see to what your hand is doing with the paint brush.

Here are some details of the shows I’m involved with:-

Currently exhibting at ArtsMill ‘Spring Open’ until 21st June.

Forthcoming HND Final Show ‘Mixed Response’ at Todmorden College.  Opening on Friday 19th June 6pm – 9pm, and then open 11-4 Monday 22nd – Thursday 25th June.

Hebden Bridge Open Studios - a chance to come and look at where I make work!  Studios in and around Hebden Bridge will open their doors to the public on 3rd, 4th and 5th July 2009.  As part of the Open Studios at Northlight Art Studios, we will be having a group exhibition – 20:20 – in celebration of the studios’ 20th birthday.

I’m also involved with the Handmade Parade again this year, which is shaping up to be a lot of fun.  Last week I helped design and make a ‘punk slug’.   There are workshops which you can join in to make your own costume, and the parade day is on 20th June and should be quite a spectacle. 

So as you can see, lots on at the moment!

5b pencil drawing in sketchbook

I’ve been having a bit of a fallow period art-wise, having been busy with other things, and with less going on at college.  I’m having to learn how to pick myself up, and work out what things will get me making art again.  Drawing in my sketchbook seems to work – my sketchbook is like a cosy room where I can go and draw in privacy, and I don’t have to show anyone if I don’t want to.  Another activity which is getting me inspired to start ‘doing’ again is reading about art.  I picked up my copy of Artists’ Newsletter and started to read some articles, and that’s doing the trick nicely.

What kinds of things get you making art again after a fallow period?

Yesterday morning, a friend took me up to the Bronte Parsonage Museum to see an exhibition by Annelies Strba.   Strba had produced a series of haunting images in response to the Brontes and their home.  The images are digitally manipulated photographs of her daughters and granddaughters (I believe), and they have a fairy tale quality to them.  They are displayed on small canvases, carefully placed throughout the rooms of the museum, as if they were objects that could have been owned by the Brontes.  I found that these small, luminous images added a feminine spirit to the rooms, as if they were the spirits of the Bronte girls themselves.  In fact, I think they represent dreams – actually, Strba’s dreams but they could be the dreams of poor Emily Bronte who died on the sofa in the house.  The story of the Brontes is actually quite sad – the last remaining daughter, Charlotte, was only 38 when she died in childbirth – a death tragically prophesied by her Father who didn’t want her to marry her curate husband as he was afraid he would kill her.  Some of Strba’s pictures are quite dark, possibly in response.  Others explore feminine experience in quite an imaginative way, particularly one positioned over one of Branwell’s paintings of Madonna and Child, which I think explores what Mary’s actual experience might have been. 

Overall, an extremely rewarding exhibition, and I would definitely recommend a visit.  It’s on until 31 October this year.