Moving

Hi

I've not been here much recently.  This is mostly because I have been working on a new website and blog.

I won't be blogging here any more.

From now on you can find my blog here. I'm very excited and feel very grown up to have my very own wordpress site.

I definitely won't miss Blogger's idiosyncratic formatting, but it's always a little sad to leave something behind, but it feels the right time to be moving forwards in a new direction.

Please do head over there it will be lovely to see you at my blog on clairebrewster.com

cx

The First Cut in Southampton

Can you believe it, it's been almost a year since The First Cut opened in Manchester and now it's on the last leg of it's tour in Southampton.

I've been down a couple of times to install my work.  Luckily they have the space to have both of my installations, which is great as I got to install the butterflies again.

Here are a few pics of my installation of The Harbingers.  I'll post some photos of the completed exhibition once I have them.

A nice surprise before I arrived to see my work on their posters

Nicola Dale's Tree in it's shipping boxes, a work of art in itself 

Making a start - my first of many ladders

I got to use a tower for the first time, which was very exciting

The view from the top of my tower - all the works were gradually being unwrapped

Me up my third and final ladder of the day - it felt like a chariot

And here is the completed installation (with ladder!)

It was quite a hard install as the slanted wall was very hard and the pins kept bouncing out, which involved much swearing on my part.

The exhibition opens on Friday, and runs until 12 January 2014.  It's well worth a trip if you haven't caught the exhibition before.

You can find full details here.  I am also giving a talk on 19 October in the Museum further details are here.

Hope to see you there.

cx

Zeitgeist Open 2013

I am honoured to say I was selected for the Zeitgeist Open 2013 (click here for more info). The exhibition was very short and I was away for most

It is an annual open exhibition, this year selected by Susan Collis, Graham Crowley, Rosalind Davis and Annabel Tilley.  They had over 300 submissions and somehow they managed to select 43 artists to exhibit.

And here's the piece that I had selected.

I'm very fascinated by textiles, particularly 18th and 19th Century ones.  This piece was based on a Japanese pattern cut from a map of Australia.  I imagined it as a fragment of a piece of textile that had been lost and once rediscovered was preserved in this way.

I am planning to make more of these pieces as they are something I really enjoy, so watch this space.

cx

Dilston Grove

Hi

I'm sorry I disappeared again.  I was very involved in making work and find it hard to focus on other things.  I have completed most of the work now so can be a bit more relaxed and get back to blogging as there are lots things I want to share.

First up is Dilston Grove.  Heard of it before? no me neither.  I discovered it as I took part in the National Trust Pre-Raphaelite Pilgrimage a couple of weeks ago.  I was one of the artists involved and was at the Way Point in Dilston grove, which is in Southwark Park.  I'd never been to either place before so was excited to discover somewhere new.

This was my first impression of Southwark park, not bad.

And then I went off to find Dilston Grove, which is not the easiest place to find and totally unexpected when you do.  I knew it was a deconsecrated church, but that was all.

And here it is.  It looks like a fairly conventional old church from the outside. But once inside it is an amazing building.

It's a former Clare College Mission Church, designed by Sir John Simpson and Maxwell Ayrton in 1911.  It is one of the earliest examples of poured concrete construction.  It became unoccupied in 1962 and was pretty much left to rot.  It is now run by CPG (who also run the Cafe Gallery in Southwark Park).  It is an artist run initiative.  The space was refurbished in 2010 by Walter Menteth Architects.

It is an amazing space, very raw and very unusual in London, in fact I can't really think of any other spaces like it in London.  You can see some great photos here and find some more information about the gallery here.

Here are a few of my snaps

Wouldn't be amazing to have an exhibition there, I'm thinking a large wall installation of a swarm or flock of birds.  There would need to be a lot of birds, but it would look really stunning.  What do you think? I'm putting that request out into the universe so watch this space.

 cx

The Red House

Have you been on any adventures recently?

I don't think I do it enough, mostly I spend my time bouncing around Islington (where I live), St John's Wood (where the BF lives) and Hackney (where I go to exercise and drink cocktails), with occasional trips to the west end.  But going outside Zone 2 well that is almost unheard of!

But not last weekend.  I had my parents to stay and my Mum being a big William Morris fan we thought it would be fun to go and visit the Red House, which is in Bexleyheath.  Upon investigation we realised we could get there in an hour using the excellent London Overground.  So with our Oyster cards at the ready we headed out.

The Red House was designed and built for William Morris, it was completed in 1860.  It is a really beautiful place, with an equally beautiful garden.  It is owned by the National Trust now, and they are gradually restoring it and discovering beautiful paintings on the walls.

It was a really lovely day out and I would recommend a trip, my only criticism would be of the explainers who worked there.  They were a little bit over enthusiastic in their desire to explain everything (but that may be just me). For more information and how to get there click here.

Here are some photos I took of the house and garden.

The exterior from the back

A beautiful fig tree

A panel of tiles

Wall paper

The stairs

hand painted stain glass window

The ceiling upstairs

Love these red flowers

A really long tunnel of roses

A rather lovely scarecrow

A beautiful cabbage.

love these light switches

I also have another connection with the Red House, as I am going to be taking part in a pilgrimage to the Red House, in September.  The pilgrimage starts at The George Inn on Borough High Street and ends at the Red House. The idea is to discover the pilgrim routes that inspired Chaucer and the Pre-Raphaelites. There will be sites along the way where the pilgrims will stop and take part in an activity with an artist.  I am proud to say I am one of those artists.  It's taking place on 7 September, find out 

more here.

I'd love to hear about any adventures you have been on recently or places around London that you would recommend a day trip to.  Leave me a comment below!

cx

Owls on Boats

Hi

I've been a bit quiet here recently, I've been taking a bit of a summer break.  But am back now!

I'm starting with this lovely photo sent by someone who had seen my work in the Paper exhibition at CODA in Apeldoorn.

He actually posted an image of one of my birds on twitter, which i retweeted and then we struck up a conversation about what the piece was about.

We'd been discussing the idea that through global warming animals and humans find themselves in places that they might not expect to be or are really suited to be.

He sent me this photo of an owl, that he took whilst on a boat between Ireland and the Mediterranean, not a place you would really expect to find a Barn Owl.

Do you have any stories of birds in unusual places, please share them in the comments below if you do.

cx

Designer Days in Paris

I can't believe I haven't posted this before, my trip to Paris seems like a long time ago now, but I must share this beautiful work with you.

 My trip coincided with Designer Days in Paris, there were lots of exhibitions happening.  The best thing I saw, which was in the Museum of Decorative Arts (which I'm ashamed to say I hadn't been to before).

It was called Heros by Sabrina Transiskus and it was for Sevres Cite de la ceramique, you can read more about the project by clicking here.

I wasn't familiar with Sabrina's work, but I'm very glad I am now it was so beautiful and such a clever idea, yet had a sense of transience.  I love that about paper, it's sense of impermanence and fragility.

As everything was white it was rather difficult to photograph (that's my excuse anyway!)

the invigilator photo bombed me,  she just moved into shot as I took the picture and then stayed there, so I couldn't retake it

You can see she's still there

Ah finally she moved!

They are gorgeous aren't they, the paper and the porcelain work so well together, it was hard to tell at first what they were made of.

What do you think? do you love the fragility and impermanence of paper or is there another quality that appeals to you? Leave me a comment below, I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks for reading.

cx

Coda Paper Art - Part 2

As I said in my last post I would share some images of the other works in the exhibition.

Coda had brought together an international group of artists to be part of the exhibition.  Though there were only a few of there for the install.

Meeting the other artists is always one of the best things about installing my work.  It's always great to get together to share experiences and get to know some new people.

So without further ado here are some images of the other works in the exhibition.

First up - Peter Callesen.  I'm sure he doesn't need much introduction, his work is so well know.  It was very exciting to get to meet him.

He was showing his piece 'Transparent God', which is a large scale sculpture, as ever made from 1 (very large) sheet of paper.  It was interesting to see how the piece was installed.  It is very fragile, so had to very carefully unfurled.  You can see more images on his website.

Next is Li Hongbo, another artist who probably doesn't need much introduction, his work has been all over the internet, check out this video to see how they are made.  It was fantastic to meet him.  He didn't speak much English so all communication was through a translator.  His work is just amazing and it was great to get to see some in the flesh.  This piece is called Fairytale World.

Each piece when folded flat is in the shape of a country.  He made a piece for each country.  The countries are all mixed up and he couldn't remember which piece was which country, although we all asked him of course!

Next up is Alicia Martin, who makes large installations with books.  The books in the installation she made at Coda were all from the library at Coda. The installation was made in a day! You can see more images of her work here.

Next up is Clemens Behr, who made his piece on site as well.  He arrived at the same time as me and made the sculpture on site, it took him 2 and a half days.  His website is here.

Next are a few images of other works in the exhibition, though the artists weren't there.

I'm not sure who made this as there wasn't a name tag near it, but I rather liked it's chunky roughness.

Guggen 'Dizzy by Mia Wen-Hsuan Liu

Detail of Guggen 'Dizzy by Mia Wen-Hsuan Liu

Natasha Bowdoin 

I'd love to know if you have a favourite out of these, leave me a comment below to let me know.  If pushed I would  have to say Li Hongbo or Natasha Bowdoin, though I do like the others as well.

That's all for now cx

Hitomi Hosono - exhibition

I promise this will be the last time that I go on about how much champagne I've been drinking (well until September, but more of at then).

A couple of weeks ago was the opening of the Perrier-Jouet Arts Prize 2013.  As I posted before Hitomi Hosono won the prize and we had the honour of celebrating the opening of her first solo exhibition at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel.

As ever Perrier-Jouet were incredibly generous with the champagne, which certainly made the party a happy one!

Here are some images of Hitomi's Work, which is really magical and beautiful and it was so great to see so many of them.

The exhibition is in the Chambers Club, in the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, which is private members club, and rather nice.  Anyway I'll shut up now and share some images of Hitomi's beautiful work as that's what we're here for.

Wisteria Tower © Hitomi Hosono - a beautiful very large piece, I love they way the sprigs grow out of each other

Shirakawa Bowl © Hitomi Hosono - Hotomi wanted the sprigs to flow like a river, they certainly have that feeling to me

White Wisteria Box © Hitomi Hosono - this is not a great photo but I wanted to show the lovely gold inside of the box

White Wisteria Box © Hitomi Hosono - here is the box closed.

Black Wisteria Box © Hitomi Hosono - I love the black pieces, the mattness of them is very appealing

Black Wisteria Box © Hitomi Hosono - a close up, so you can see some of the detail

Large leaves Bowl © Hitomi Hosono - this features overy 500 sprigs!

It's a pretty amazing exhibition, worth a trip if you happen to be in London between now and 4 August. It is open by appointment only and I have struggled to find details of how you make that appointment the only details I have found is that you call Caroline on 07590262370 or I'm sure if you contact the St Pancras Renaissance directly they will be able to help.

I'd love to know what you think of Hitomi's work so do leave me a comment below with your thoughts. You can see more of her work on her website.

cx