Taking a Break

After the solo show at Octavia View I felt the need to take a bit of a break. It's surprising how much admin you can fall behind with when working 60-70 hour weeks, and after producing so many paintings I was in need of time out and reflection from creating new artwork.

Not that I haven't been busy, my new job was and continues to be challenging and I've been busy working on my Sketchbook for the 2013 Sketchbook Project. This is almost finished and it might actually be the biggest artwork I've ever made. It's a bit different from the rest of my work and not very deep with concept but I was going for challenging scale rather than challenging concept. Of course the point of the Sketchbook project is to do something different from your usual work but more on that another day.

Unfortunately some things did fall by the wayside. 2012's photographic project on Flickr started to suffer from a lack of time invested into it and the results became so erratic and samey (really how many photographs of flowers and plant from ground level up could I do) that I let it die an early death. I still think it has possibilities, it just needed a bit more thought and time on a daily basis which I couldn't offer. Saying that I've not been stinting the photography, I just had to go back to basics a little, experimenting and getting accustomed to my new camera. Finally after years of saving I bought myself a DSLR and it's a revelation as to what can be done. The level of control over the image is so much greater than compact cameras.

I've also been away on a couple of trips, first to the Isle of Wight in August and then to Dublin in October which gave me lots of practice and inspiration for new paintings. Below is a selection of photos from both. Finally I'm planning on starting a weekly blog entry on a project you might have heard about a few blog entries ago.

Isle of Wight

Dublin

Beautiful Fenland

Beautiful Fenland, My solo exhibition opens this Friday at 7pm at Octavia View, Wisbech.

I spent 5 days in the fens taking photographs and exploring in preparation for this exhibition. 

While my work does not depend on a particular place, I do feel that it is important for people to connect with my work through seeing places they are familiar with.

Octavia View can be found just off Somers Road opposite the entrance to the public car park.

The exhibition is open from the 3rd August to 6th September.

A Catalogue can now be purchased via Blurb. Click the link below.

Beautiful Fenland by Gemma Cumming | Make Your Own Book

Exhibition update: Mis-InFormation

On Friday night I went to the Private View of this years Fringe Arts Bath the visual arts side of the Bath Fringe.

This year the Fringe has over 30 exhibitions, performances and open studios over 6-7 venues around the city.

I have 3 paintings in an exhibition in the Old Pet Shop at Pigeon Park called Mis-InFormation.
Curated by Diana Ali and featuring over 25 artists from around the globe. More information can be found here: http://www.fringeartsbath.co.uk/mis-information/

Taking the concept of hidden truths, misquotations, rumour and gossip, artists are now being selected to exhibit their work which investigates this avenue. Art works selected will give the audience the chance to be allured, intrigued, enticed and be flirtatious with its appearance and reality. Artworks will explore ideas of being out of the loop, lying, pseudoscience, factoids and conspiracy theories.

It was an interesting evening with many people enjoying the exhibition and other exhibitions within the building. The building itself was left much in the state it had been found in, which lent it an industrial and temporary air. A bold choice by the curator although a tricky space to take photographs. 

 The exhibition is on until the 10th June. 


I also saw a fabulous sunset on my way home.

Changes

It's been a month of changes for me, part time and freelance work has been replaced with an actual full time role. I've been working on a project and finding time to continue with my paintings for my upcoming solo show.

As well as that I have got into 2 new exhibitions and been busy getting paintings to places for them as well as those already booked in.

Currently I have work in Art at the Ark's Spring Open, Basingstoke
http://artintheark.wordpress.com/

and a month long exhibition at Woodley Library.

http://wokingham.gov.uk/libraries/libraries/art/

Which I am very pleased about.

Exhibition at Woodley Library

Next up I have three paintings in Mis-In-Formation an exhibition curated by Diana Ali as part of 2012 Fringe Arts Bath. Last time I was part of the Fringe Arts Bath was in 2008 where I showed a Bath location specific for the Locus exhibition. It's really nice to see the Bath Fringe Arts expand over the years and there is more going on this year than any previous year.

Taking the concept of hidden truths, misquotations, rumour and gossip, artists are now being selected to exhibit their work which investigates this avenue. Art works selected will give the audience the chance to be allured, intrigued, enticed and be flirtatious with its appearance and reality. Artworks will explore ideas of being out of the loop, lying, pseudoscience, factoids and conspiracy theories.

http://www.fringeartsbath.co.uk/mis-information/

Plus here's a sneak preview of one of the works going up in Wisbech in the summer.

I was also invited to show my painting “Welcome to Bracknell” at last weekend Bracknell Forest Mayors Civic Reception.

It was a nice event with many local organisations, including local arts groups, Bracknell Camera Club and Janet Curley Cannon (who has produced many works about Bracknell) from ReOrsa there. I was asked to be part of the South Hill Park stand as my work “Welcome to Bracknell” was recently exhibited at South Hill Park. 

Me and my painting at South Hill Park's stall at Mayors Civic reception

 

Finally I have grand plans for some online projects/versions of already completed work.

Oh and there is a book to be finished...............

Postcards from beyond the edge

This work was partially inspired by an article I read about sending postcards from space. Soon after I got the brief for the next ReOrsa artists project, dealing with notions around boundaries and the breaking of them. The two seemed to coalesce instantly into the beginnings of this work.

Boundaries and Beyond flyer

Thinking about the nature of boundaries and what boundaries mean from a tourist or postcard perspective, I decided that not only did I want to send postcards from space, I also wanted it to seem perfectly normal. I had also recently re-watched a episode of Horizon called The Core which talked about the interior of the Earth and how it may be the last place we ever explore due to its phenomenally inhospitable conditions.

This sounded like a challenge to me so I decided to create a series of postcards that infer that the current limits of human exploration and some of the most inhospitable and remote areas of the world are perfectly normal holidaying destinations. Creating, photographing and using free to access images I have produced 60 postcards with images from all around the globe and beyond. Jungles, Deserts, Arctic regions, Space and under the earth are all represented as well a a few other areas.

Original test postcard

Additionally many of the images are not of the places they say they are. I wanted to take to the extreme the postcard tradition of showing places in the best possible light, often to the point that they no longer look like the place they depict. I won't spoil here which ones are fake, I will leave that for you to work out.

I've always been interested with perception and the power of suggestion to produce views and ideas that are not true. This is one of the reasons that postcards interest me so. The idea that one or a few perfect images of perfect places can represent a place really fascinates me. 

 

Intital mocked up postmark

To accentuate this power of suggestion, I took all 60 postcards and created a universe where these cards were sent from one person to another, arranged them into series of cards from individual holidays and gave them an entire timeline and false history. The cards were written in order according to my timeline and frequently contain references to previous holidays or past unknown events much as a 11 year association via postcards would do. I created a false publishing company and a QR code, that when scanned should take you to my website. Finally I created fake stamps that referenced the general locations of the cards and 60 individual postmarks.

Final work

From my 6 years working with postcards I seem to be mainly producing works that cannot be touched and are quite traditional from a fine art aspect; paintings, drawings and prints. For a medium that is first visual but also quite tactile this can be odd. I have recently started archiving my collection so I have had a lot more tactile relationship with them in recent months which may be impacting in the scope of my work.

I liked the idea of creating actual postcards and of forming this entire new world where a weekend in space is as normal as a weekend in the south of France. The idea of looking into a future where the infrastructure to allow postcards to be sent exists everywhere seems both utopian and disturbing. Being able to go anywhere that easily seems amazing but also the idea of every wild and natural place becoming as false and uniform as most other highly touristy place goes against everything I believe.

Example of one of the finished cards (text side)

At the end of the day there are not (quite yet) shuttles to hotels on the Moon, but I am interested to what level visitors believe what they are given. And I like that they have to rifle through the postcards. I'd want to see how many people feel the need to read from start to finish and how many pick up the first one they see. I had a great time making up this character writing the postcards, who is effectively me, but me writing from a position I could only imagine rather than experience.

As to the addressee, which I really agonised over, I decided that I would have to take inspiration from a fictional explorer. Hopefully before I said that most of you didn't work out which one immediately.

Example of a finished card (image side)

Often the ReOrsa space is only accessible by looking in through the windows. I was highly aware of this when I was planning the work so I wanted my work to be at least partially readable through the windows. So far every time I have gone past the Gallery@49 windows I have seen at least one person trying to read my work. Additionally it seems every time I have gone past more and more of the postcards have escaped from their box. As well as a few originally scattered on the plinth they have seemed to explode exponentially with masses on the plinth and many now sitting on the nearby window ledge. It seems the postcards themselves want to take their own journey.

Boundaries and Beyond is on from 15^th - 31^st March at Gallery@49 in Bracknell Town Centre. It will be open 12 – 4 on the 31^st March and I will be there from 2 – 4 pm. 

 Check out the news: http://www.bracknellnews.co.uk/news/bracknell/articles/2012/03/19/58017-taking-art-to-the-town/ 

Installed work at ReOrsa Gallery@49

Links:

Horizon: The Core - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0148vph

Postcards from space - http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/usa/china/2011-12/02/content_14199778.htm

Underwater post box - http://rainbowstampclub.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/underwater-post-office-at-bahamas.html

ReOrsa and Gallery@49 - http://www.reorsa.org/Activities/activity6.html

Sketchbook project 2012

For those of you that don't know, ArtHouse Co-Op in Brooklyn, New York has been doing a yearly sketchbook project, where for a relatively small fee (compared to the usual entry fee for UK exhibitions) they send you a A5ish sized sketchbook which you can alter almost anyway you like, a project title and will then exhibit the sketchbook around the USA and store it in the Brooklyn Art Library forever for people to look at.

For 2012 the project is also getting toured overseas, so my sketchbook should be available to view not only throughout the USA but back here in Blighty as well.

Pages 6 and 7

There were a selection of topics to choose from, with my love of postcards and subverting the traditional postcard image I chose “It's Summer Where You Are”. I intentionally wanted it to be quite free flowing like a sketchbook should be, also like a journey and work with images and postcards that were from places I had travelled. I was tempted to use postcards I owned to present some kind of story from a fictional person on a journey but felt that it seemed a little forced for the idea of the sketchbook. It is after all meant to be an exploration of ideas as well as a body of work. There needs to be some experimentation. Additionally I'd tried previously to produce my painted postcards with reverses, this seemed like a good idea but in the end it just served to make my point about these paintings being postcards too bull headed. Of course there is always a exception to the rule as Greetings from the Mantelpiece showed.

Pages 8 and 9

In the end I dumped the writing idea completely leaving just a few examples on pages that were meant to be more about unformed ideas than actual semi finished work. Which in the end was just some musings on all the various ice cream trucks I had encountered on my travels over the last 5 years. The rest became a mix of small scale biro drawings, a few unusual or interesting photographs and printed on postcards.

Roughly the sketchbooks journey started with an exploration of places around the coast. I'd been to Southwold very recently on a summer holiday and as one that reminisced heavily from my childhood holidays with my parents it seemed an obvious place to start and spend some time/pages on. Moving on, the sketchbook visits Portsmouth (including Portchester), Cowes and from the boats of Cowes to the boats of Venice then through other foreign places including India and Tenerife. Returning back to London and following a route west towards my home, through Kew Gardens, Windsor and Virginia Water.

Pages 16 and 17

The inside back cover and front cover are the same image done using two different methods that both had heavy use in the sketchbook. This image of Brooklyn Bridge was taken by me when I visited New York in 2005 and is one of my favourite images from the trip. I wanted to include it as a homage to the sketchbooks final resting location and organisation that created the project. The original idea for the book was to have the book reflect the actual physical journey it would go on but I felt uncomfortable trying to reproduce images of places I had never been. Nor at that time did I know if I had postcards from each of these places. I still am unsure but thats a story for another day.

Pages 18 and 19

Many of the methods used you will recognise. The biro drawings I have been doing for a few years now. I was interested however if I could do them that small and in trying to push myself technically.

The photographs were chosen because of an inherent oddness or importance to the visit I made. For example on page 9 I have a photograph of a sunny Southwold with an obvious and somewhat ominous rainstorm on its way (No photoshop by me, this was real and I got very wet that day). On page 16 there is photograph of a pair of entertainers in Cowes week, dressed as sailors they arrived and created an utterly surreal air about the place. It was fantastic and really set the tone for the rest of the day.

Pages 20 and 21

The printed on postcards embraced a number of methods depending if I already had produced a plate for another purpose of that place. There is a postcard of Southwold beach huts that has on the reverse a print from my Southwold Beach Huts etching. There is a postcard from Tenerife that I have printed on using a solar plate of Tenerife and there are a number of postcards that I have used the polymer plate lithographic process on including Venice and the front cover showing Brooklyn Bridge.

The method of printing was fairly immaterial, polymer plate won out with the newest plates only because it was cheap, quick and very graphic. Mainly I was interested in the idea of printing imagery on the reverse rather than words. It seems subversive and can produce some aesthetically interesting combinations. While imagery, it still retains this contrast from the highly detailed photograph.

The tour starts in April in New York. http://www.arthousecoop.com/projects/sketchbookproject2012

Images are my actual sketchbook.

Pages 24 and 25

Printmaking updated

Does anyone remember the blog post way back in February, where I explained the current series of prints? If not feel free to read it again: link

It's now December and I recently put the last of my monthly prints up on the website. An image of Cowes, it's original photograph was taken in June 2008 during Cowes week.

Sunny Cowes 2011 drypoint on tissue paper, handcoloured

Since starting printmaking at South Hill Park I've learnt a great deal. I've had to put it on hold during the last term due to financial and time pressures, but hope to get back to it in the near future.

Since last I spoke about it, the reasoning behind the prints has not changed at all. However after doing 14 different images I felt I wanted to explore other ways print could be used within my practice. Print after all has a great variety of processes, some of which suited the postcards on tissue and others that didn't but had other intriguing qualities.

As well as drypoint, I learnt how to etch plates which was one of the few processes I had done once previously at University. It worked quite nicely for the postcard prints, two plates were made using this method, a Venice and a Southwold image.

Beautiful Venice 2011 etching on tissue paper, handcoloured

The display of the tissue prints was an issue until I came across clear frameless acrylic frames from Muji that are both extremely unobtrusive and very clever. I would have them suspended in front of a window allowing the transparent qualities to shine through. Obviously in a home setting this isn't always entirely possible, after exhibiting them recently in this fashion I now understand the rate that the inks lose their colour. This can be only a matter of months for obvious discolouration, so in a home setting you might want to actually hang them out of direct sunlight, maybe even in a different sort of frame that has UV protective glass.

Southwold Beach Huts 2011 etching on tissue paper, handcoloured

There were two other print processes that while they didn't work for the postcards on tissue were very interesting nevertheless.

Solar plate is a process that uses a photo sensitive layer on a metal plate. It is then exposed to light through a transparency printed with your design. The black areas on the transparency stop the light while the pale areas let light through. When gently washed in warm water the areas that were protected from the light wash away, leaving an indentation. In many ways the process is like etching and drypoint, where it is the worn away areas that hold the ink and produce the black areas.

The results tend to be a very close to a photographic reproduction of the original image, and it was for this reason that it didn't suit the tissue paper postcards. When shrinking the original A4 drawings down to A6 size, then computer printing for the transparency, the small imperfections that make it look like a drawing are lost. When printed as a solar plate, while beautiful, they looked too much like a computer manipulation rather than a drawing. This was too close to the mass produced nature of the postcard for me.

Sunny Brighton framed at South Hill Park Student Open exhibition

Polymer Plate Lithography uses a plasticised paper that you can transfer an image onto. The action and method of transfer changes how areas of the plate react to water and oil. On the transferred image water is repelled and the oil based ink can adhere to the surface, while on the white portions the water stops the ink from sticking. (This may be a little inaccurate, I'm only just getting my head around the concept).

Like solar plate, the images are photographic transfers, rather than hand “drawn” like etching and drypoint. Unlike solar plate the images have to be far more graphic and less tonal. This method does not deal with grey areas well at all.

Beautiful Venice framed at South Hill Park Student Open exhibition

Both of these processes have some very interesting qualities, so some of my most recent prints have been looking at starting a new series that uses these photographic qualities along with the notion/subversion of the postcard. I also have another project in mind that will utilise the polymer litho but both projects are in very early stages. Another development has been the use of coloured inks as well as black.

I have however used all of the above processes in my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project, which is nearing completion and will require it's own blog entry very soon.

Photos: "Summer is Coming"

Last week I put Summer is Coming up in the window of an Empty Shop in Maiden Place shopping centre, Lower Earley, Reading. It will be there till about the beginning of January and while we were putting the work up we already got some good comments. Hopefully the shoppers will appreciate a little reminder of summer in these dark winter days.

Here is a selection of photographs from the install.

If you would like to visit this link should get you close: Link

Exhibition Update: Summer is Coming.

I was asked just over a month ago if I would like to exhibit in an empty shop in a local shopping centre. I'm always keen to exhibit locally as I am a strong advocate of community engagement and the ethos of the empty shop movement in this time of economic downturn. The shop is in the Maiden Place shopping centre, a pedestrianised area in Lower Earley, Reading on a road called Maiden Place. It will be a shop window display of some recent works for the whole of December.

Press release below.

 

Back from the East - part 3

After leaving the fens region I had another stop on my holiday to make.

Travelling from flat Fenland to the Suffolk/Essex borders was an interesting experience. First of all I really enjoyed the drive, even though I was constantly getting lost or being redirected due to road closures. It almost felt like the fens weren't going to let me go for a while there. Secondly I chose to drive via Theford Forest and after days of huge skies, it was a revelation to be amongst trees again.

Dedham Vale nr East Bergholt

 

It was really nice to see trees and hills again, apparently I had been unknowingly missing them. Though I would soon enough change my mind. After quite an extensive drive I arrived at my second home away from home, which would be mine for two nights. A Travellodge on the A12.

I had initially decided to stay in a Travellodge for this part of my trip for two reasons:
1. It was really, really near where I was going to the next day.
2. Having never stayed in a B&B before and yet knowing how many horror stories there are out there I wanted somewhere where experience told me I could be sure of a clean room, clean sheets and a decent shower.

Public footpaths East Bergholt

It was very convenient, only 5 miles from my location for the next day. However, it was also on the A12, which I had somehow forgotten was a busy road. All in all it wasn't nearly as nice as the other Travellodges I had stayed in and not as nice as where I had just come from. But enough of a grump, back to the real story.

After a passable night's sleep I went down to start my Constable adventure. I had grand plans for the day, wanting to try to spy out as many of Constable's views that became paintings as I could, hopefully with an intention to paint them myself. I certainly wanted to get a photograph of the Haywain location as well as take in one of the walks on the map. 

Row boats on the River Stour, Dedham

Deciding to start in East Bergholt I had a mooch around the town and started on one of the walks from my map, one that covered as many of the painting views that I could. It was a pleasant walk, but far longer and intense than I was expecting. I got mildly lost a few times, which is often fun but by about the halfway point I was very tired and quite footsore. Unfortunately it was a circular all or nothing type of walk so I had to keep going. Right at the end of the walk, apparently within spitting distance of the end, I seemed to get very lost, which was quite scary as I'd been going for about 4 hours at this point and really needed food and a sit down. I'd almost gone very wrong a few times before then, but somehow had made the right call, this time I didn't and ended up on footpaths my map didn't know existed. Happily after a lot of reading and a lot of guessing I ended up back at the car.

Many of the painting views were possible to work out where they were but impossible to get to, due to land having become private over the intervening years or time encouraging the growth of trees and bushes. But I found and photographed a few views on my walk and saw many great modern views.

After the immense walk (which I had never expected to take that long) and fuelled by a jam doughnut I still had the main focus of the day to do. Slightly regretting that I had not done it in the morning as the sunshine of the morning had become a cloudy and cold afternoon, I headed to Flatford mill.

Footpath through grounds of Langham Hall

It was really pretty around there, it was just a shame that I was too tired and grumpy not to appreciate it more. I did get some good images, especially as this place seems to have changed little since Constable's day. Boat-building near Flatford Mill was easy to spot, even if the dock was no longer dry.

On one hand it was a good job that I was so grumpy, to top everything off the spot where Constable painted the Haywain is behind a big “Private” sign. The buildings belong to the National Trust and the Field Studies Council and are used for residential scientific study. Indeed while I was there there were many students doing research by the pond. Needless to say I ignored the sign and took the photo anyway, which I hope most people do as it seems ridiculous to have the the most famous landmark in that area behind a private sign.

Flatford Mill

My day complete I went back to the Travellodge and then headed home the next day.

A Picture Postcard World

I was directed earlier this week by the always wonderful Katie Smith to the Time Shift programme on BBC 4 about postcards. Titled “The Picture Postcard world of Nigel Walmsley” it's a nice little jaunt though the history and uses of the postcard. Do forgive it's beginning and apparent grumpy old man character, it soon warms up and is filled with all sorts of nuggets of information, including some I didn't know.

Running the history of the postcard from it's heyday in 1902 to 1919 (ish), delving into the variety of cards available, talking about collecting, the resurgence of card usage in the 1960's to 1980's as well as a fair sprinkling of information about postcards as art, which is always something I enjoy (though I'll take mail art over Gilbert and George any day), it covers the social issues and changes throughout this century.

Also worth a look is the postcard blog from Daniel Weir which can only be described as a celebration of John Hinde and a huge nostalgia trip. Not only do I adore the aesthetic qualities in a John Hinde postcard but the subjects covered are hugely reminiscent and often downright exact to how I remember my summer holidays growing up and never stepping foot outside the UK.

http://wishingiwashere.wordpress.com/

It also finally forced me to start the process of archiving my own collection. But I'm not sure any of those will end up online for all to see. After a day of work I've scanned 60 and am currently trying to put those first 60 in a database.

Back from the East - part 2

On the day I went to March (another of the 4) it was annoyingly grey and dull. I took a number of photos but the clouds showed no sign of breaking. March was interesting anyway with many fab buildings including a museum and a pub called the Ship Inn right by the canal. It also had a wrought iron and gaily painted memorial (I think for the queens silver jubilee) that was called the Fountain. It didn't seem very fountain like, until I found out that at some point the fountain bit that should sit in the middle of the structure had been sold many years ago to someone in a neighbouring village, and was currently sitting in their garden. 

 

March Museum

I also went to Whittlesey (the last of the 4 major fen towns) on the same day as March. The grey day didn't help all the grey stonework. But there were many interesting things to see, including the buttercross which is used as an undercover bus stop mostly, but still seems to be a hub of town activity. Also a pair of impressive churches and a pub by the canal called the Hero of Aliwal. After Whittlesey I trekked up to Thorney to check out the abbey, or rather the remains of it, which is mostly some buildings that are now private houses, the impressive church and a big and inaccessible field. After Thorney I took decided to go even further north and check out Crowland. It had started to rain so my day was looking less and less good for photos. This was until on the horizon I saw the monster that was ruined Crowland Abbey.

St Andrews Church, Whittlesey

I was really taken aback by Crowland Abbey, I was driving along and it suddenly loomed up and proceeded to play hide and seek with me behind trees and houses. It doesn't have the most delicate of profiles either, so it was quite a shock to appear so suddenly. It didn't even look ruined until I got to it, where you can see that part of the abbey has collapsed away. This has been a theme throughout the fens, the churches and cathedrals are some of the most ornate I've ever seen. Tiny villages have churches that date way back and far outstrip churches in my locality. 

Crowland Abbey

I went back to the B&B via a number of interestingly named farms, Gothic Hall Farm and Malice Farm. Other places I visited included; Welches Dam a RSPB reserve, Upwell, Outwell, Manae, Three Holes, Welney, Pymoor and Flag Fen, a Stone/Bronze Age reconstruction village.

Welches Dam RSPB reserve

All in all I had a lovely time. I can only praise Sean at Woodlands B&B in Witchford, near Ely for making my first stay in a B&B and first holiday on my own a good experience. I saw many new things, including a barn owl in the wild and many strange and interesting things. I really enjoyed being in a place where the countryside was only a stones throw away and where you often felt like the only person in the world. I also learnt how much I enjoyed just driving around, racing down empty roads, splashing puddles and getting mildly lost. I had hoped that it would sate my desire for the VW camper van and the idea of doing this on a much larger scale, in the end it only heightened it and after about 24 hours home with a good meal in me I wanted to be back out there.

Storm and sunshine

However home wasn't to be my destination for a few more days.....

Back from the East - part 1

Back from my holiday a few weeks now and it was quite an experience. I didn't get the best weather, but I think I made the most of the sunshine I had. What I did get was a similar experience to last years “Summer Holiday” to Southwold, which I was kind of expecting. The Fens are hardly a great distance from Southwold and they both share some pretty flat ground. I wasn't sure that that would have the same effect on the weather and as I'm no meteorologist, I'm still not. What I do know is that on more than one occasion, I had days where it was bright sunshine with immense black clouds on the horizon. To be honest it's probably the flatness of the land that does this more than anything else. I could see the weather coming, when my usual experience is of a place with more hills and a lot more trees.

Middle of nowhere

Having the fun of driving around the M25 and the M11, I got into the borders of the fens on Thursday lunchtime. Having been sunny all the morning, it clouded over by the time I got to my destination. It was in fact so sunny on the drive that I actually got unexpectedly burnt and developed a bit of a truckers tan. This I didn't see as a particularly good sign for my weeks weather. However it soon cleared up and I got lots of photographs of Ely.

Ely Cathedral

 Ely is pronounced Eelee, and named supposedly for the large quantities of eels that were once caught in the marshes around the town. Before the fens were drained, the area was mostly marshy and underwater land with a few drier islands of slightly higher ground where people lived. As such there are many depictions of eels around the town. While not one of the 4 Fenland major towns I was aiming to visit, it was very near to where my B&B accommodation was and has an amazing cathedral.

Ely eel sculpture

Wisbech (pronounced Wizbeech) is “The Capital of the Fens” and was an odd place to visit. I say odd because due to weather patterns I went on a Sunday to try to get this potential photo hotspot on a sunny day, and like many a Sunday in many a place it was dead quiet. It also meant that I stood out a lot as a tourist and got plenty of funny looks. However from an uninspiring wet and grey start, the sun came out and I got some really useful photos. Of all the tourist sights in Wisbech, the gardens of Peckover House (a NT property) were a real treat. Not only were they beautiful to look at but full of really interesting nooks and crannies, including; a cat cemetery, a tiny wooded hut with amazing stained glass windows and a Victorian Orangery. The abundance of flowers also meant there were lots of insects and I could indulge my passion for stalking butterflies. They also had a couple of honeybee hives, which were wonderfully busy if quite scary to try to get close to and take photos.

Tame Peacock butterflies at Peckover House

I visited Chatteris twice while I was away. The first time I got drenched within 5 mins of stepping out of my car. I got so wet that I just drove all the way back to the B&B to change and wait for the worst to pass. Luckily by about 3pm the rain seemed to be going away and this time, dressed in my waterproof trousers and still slightly squidgy leather jacket, I took another stab at it. By the time I got there however it was blue skies, sunshine and mid twenties temperature. Chatteris didn't seem much like your usual tourist destination even though it is one of the 4 major towns in the fens. It certainly had a small town air and I felt very out of place. However it has a gorgeous church and an interesting graveyard.

Broken Tomb in Chatteris church graveyard

Once the rain had stopped I also took a trip to Stonea Camp, which is a prehistoric camp that was at one point entirely razed for farmland. Its earthworks have since been rebuilt and was home to many grazing sheep when I got there. It also allowed some impressive views of the surrounding land and the rainstorms that were coming and going. Be warned, the road to the camp is one of the most challenging and scary I have been along. Basically single track with ditches either side, I wouldn't want to meet anything coming the other way. Much of it is not tarmaced and obviously has some heavy farm traffic moving along it. It also has some huge dips and bumps, a real adventure for my little VW polo and one that had me fearing for its underside and wishing I had a 4by4, although I was very proud of my car, managing it with no apparent issues.

Stonea Camp

Photos from my Flickr feed, more at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/noblueskies/sets/72157627135849157/

Part Two: More of the Fens.

Bracknell's Giant Postcard

Been really busy over the last few months.

• There is a new secret project getting started right now, a project that I fervently hope will become less secret over the next few days. I am itching to tell everyone!

• The 6 weeks prior to Easter holidays were spent doing some creative partnerships work at Ashmead Combined School in Buckinghamshire. I plan to blog about that soon. It needs a separate post.

• However last weekend I got involved with a community art project in Bracknell Town Centre.

It was a little last minute but so much fun! 

Original constructed image of Bracknell

So the story goes:

In March a friend of mine, fellow intern at South Hill Park and all round fab arty graduate Sophie Williams spent a weekend creating and teaching others to up-cycle clothes. In this case taking old, donated and charity shop clothes and embellishing, cutting up to add to other clothes and generally making the old, dilapidated and unfashionable exciting and cool again.

The project entitled Fashion Fixers aimed to get the youth (14-18) of Bracknell to be creative and think about ways to turn old stuff they no longer like into new stuff. A really great ethos especially in this time of financial crisis. 

Setting up with the Water Clock Fountain in the background

Everything made over that weekend was then exhibited and sold last Saturday in a generously donated empty shop in Bracknell Town Centre. The project was partially made possible due to an initiative called ITVFixers (yes the TV station!) along with a lot of hard work by Sophie and some really generous donations. All the proceeds from the sale of the clothes went to Project 125.

Sophie is part of South Hill Park's young producers board “Missed Out” and there were plenty of others from that group who helped both in the lead up and subsequent clean up as well as on the day.

They even got an article in this weeks Bracknell Forest Standard!

Mayor of Bracknell Forest painting

So where do I come in???

Well I'd seen all the build up to the exhibition, so knew exactly what ITV fixers were talking about when I got an email from them via ReOrsa, the Thames Valley Artists group I am a part of. They wanted to involve the community in a project on the Saturday as well as having the exhibition and were looking for a professional artist (painter) to do something. So I proposed a giant postcard of Bracknell and that's what we did.

Many young helpers

We had lots of support from both “Missed Out” and the people of Bracknell, including Bracknell Forest Mayor Cllr Ian Leake, all helping to paint the image side of the “postcard”. Everyone who painted was asked to write something about Bracknell, generally what they liked about it, which would then be added to the reverse of the “postcard”. 

 

Final painted image

Reverse of giant postcard

More photos on my Flickr page here.