A gallery in a garage

Gallage is the meeting of concepts:

Garage / Gallery
Crafter / Artist
Utilitarian / Aesthetic
Disregarded / Beauty

A gallery inside a garage. It was a simple answer to a problem. 

After I had parted ways with Bob and Roberta Smith’s Coventry Centre for Contemporary Art I needed a new place to exhibit. So it was interesting that when the ‘shed’ left my garage (where it had resided for the majority of time since moving into my house) suddenly a new space opened up - a white (ish) cube with a few extra cobwebs and some old rotting carpets on the floor.

I have used the garage as a starting point to guide the sort of work I've chosen to exhibit. The garage is a place where tinkerings take place and where everything that won't fit anywhere else resides. 
I've tried to encorporate as much of the original unique character of my specific garage as possible. There are traces of its life and those who lived here – remnants of old carpets, labelling, shelving. At the same time I have sought to balance this with the presentation of my exhibition as a genuine gallery space. 

The Shed is Shed

Shed - Collect - Shed finished at the weekend. The exhibition has provided many amazing opportunities for me to show and share my work, to collaborate with two excellent artists, to meet new people - Herbert staff, volunteers and visitors. As always it's been the opportunity to connect with people that has really made the whole thing worthwhile.

The completion of the exhibition marks the end of my involvement with the Coventry Centre for Contemporary Art. I'm passing this on to The Pod who are working with Fargo to ensure this great resource can continue to propagate art projects and ventures. Many thanks to everyone who has been involved with the CCCA over the last 5 years.

Now onto the next thing...!

Printmaking Workshop

Joanna Rucklidge ran two printmaking workshops on 18th October, using found objects and reclaimed materials. Adults and children alike left with great art works under their arms, big smiles and messy hands!

The 79.7% of the way through party

Unusually for a Private View the celebration of our exhibition Shed - Collect - Shed came 79.7% of the way through it's duration. This gave visitors an opportunity to look at some of the items that members of the public have collected over the last 8 weeks and a few extra works and items added since the opening day. It was a great evening and lovely to see so many familiar faces. Thanks to the Herbert Art Gallery and Arts Council England / Lottery funding for making it all possible.  

Workshops (Part 2)

A second Saturday of workshops (4th October 2014) produced more wonderful work by some incredibly inventive and creative children. Here's a few of the photos from the day  ...

 

 

 

Found Object Workshops

On Saturday 27th September I ran a day of drop-in workshops at The Herbert for anyone who wanted to take part. It was a great day of creative play using found oject photographs as the stimulus. The idea was to consider the objects more; to add worth and value to these discarded things; to allow them to spark creativity and imagination; to have fun.

There were 5 different activities people could take part in, here are some example pictures of what was produced:

1) Using a found object as a starting point for a drawing or picture. 

2) Creating a display case and showing objects inside.

3) Producing Found Object Top Trumps.

4) Making a story board narrative involving the objects.

5) Found object equations - considering the subjective value of an item.

It was a lot of fun and some really inventive work was produced. What struck me was the lack of fear that children have when they set out to create something. So often adults can be paralysed with a sense of worry or fear about messing up a drawing or not knowing how to start. And yet the children who took part weren't phased by drawing a dragon or whatever; they just went for it - and usually they turned out brilliantly. It's a good thing to learn from.

Voluntary Poetry

David Hurt, one of the many excellent and very necessary volunteers at The Herbert Art Gallery & Museum who have been looking after Shed - Collect - Shed, has written a number of poems inspired by the exhibition. Here's a couple:

The Artefacts Story (inspired by Shed-Collect-Shed: Coventry's Lost and Found)

Alive
With colour,
Waiting to inspire,
Passionately crafted
Into art.
Connecting their world
To ours,
Shedding their secrets.
Secrets once whispered
From beneath foliage,
By the roadside and
Teetering drains.
Their new refuge,
Gives them hope.

Trodden Rainbow Putty (inspired by the video projection piece "...and then I found..." (2014).

Flecked with spectrum rays,
Pulped by rushing feet,
Once a child's sculpture
Dropped in sudden fleet.

The collection continues...

Although the intensity of the collecting for Shed - Collect - Shed has reduced I'm still scanning the streets for the treasures it can yield. Here are my latest finds from the last weeks: