Gravity - Simone Ten Homple

Today was gravity day and we were visited by metal worker Simone Ten Homple. Simone's specifically works to make utensils like vessel and spoons. Simone's work doesn't particularly appeal to me and my craft but what I did pick up from the lecture was that it's important to learn by the process of asking questions and finding out whether it works or not, otherwise we'd never know. Simone is a strong believer of this and carries this out within her own work. What I also liked about her work is that during her process of making her utensils she will look at the design of the it and pick out the main elements and play with that to redesign it. She made a teapot without a handle and surrounded the hole where the water goes in with stone to be able to pick it up. I'm also quite fond of how she will make multiples of things and having them together as a collection with each piece being something different to the next.

Gravity - Paddy Hartley

Another gravity lecture, this week from Paddy Hartley. From looking at his work previous to the lecture I was unsure I was really going to be interested in his work as it seemed they outrageous and obscure. During the lecture I found it to very interesting to see the ideas behind the work, which really changed my perspective of his work. After the lecture I noticed that his work really focuses on body adornment and thinking of it in this sense made it more appealing to me. I liked his face corsets work that focused on the idea of body manipulation. I like how he took this idea and saw a great deal of potential in it with the exploration of it in materials and shape. His work relating to the patient records of the First World War's Servicemen about the origins and development of surgical facial reconstruction pioneered by New Zealander Sir Harold Gillies was really his most popular of work. This was also focusing on the face but swayed from the face adornments to making uniforms decorated with personal documents and information about the surgery they undertaken. I thought this was something very sentimental and delicate issue and make it into something beautiful. It was very well done with relation to how the surgery worked and replicated it in the work.

Made In The Middle: Jennifer Collier and Imogen Luddy

Today we had lectures for Discourse from artists Jennifer Collier & Imogen Luddy exhibiting at the touring Made in the Middle exhibition. The exhibition considers the ‘Pathways to Craft’ by picking out artists as case studies to show the various routes to careers in making. This then was the theme for which Jennifer Collier & Imogen Luddy talked about in their lectures. They Started with what they did at university and followed with their series of work that led from that and how it changed at got them work. They also talked about what other work they do alongside their career in making. Collier discussed her work spaces that she rents out to other makers and Luddy expressed her fondness of teaching that assists with her own making. As I am considering going into teaching myself I related to Luddy's talk and agreed with her reasons of teaching as they are very much like my own. After the talks I got to look at Luddy's sketch books that were incredibly beautiful with a mix of delicateness and dark themes, an interesting contrast like her use of techniques of working that are traditional crafts with technology and digital process.

Jennifer Collier

Imogen Luddy

Wally Gilbert

Today we had a gravity lecture from Wally Gilbert. I wasn't to interested in the process of jewellery making and how complicated it must be to make it but I really liked the patterns he made in his work. I specifically liked the natural shapes in some of this work. I was quite interested how he had touched on so many different areas, whether it was print making or iron casting. I really liked his unique style that you can see in each piece of his work. I also liked in the lecture how he mentioned all the people he'd met on his journey of being a maker and the places he had visited. I thought that was quite nice and sentimental.

Anne Gibbs

Yet again another lecture from a ceramics artist. I wasn't too interested in her ceramic work I found it a bit plain with not a lot happening. I liked the idea of having a collection of items together but I found Anne's collection uninteresting. I liked the places Anne visited whilst on her artist residential  I would find these places very inspirational. Her lecture showed me what artist residentials could entail giving me a better idea of what they are and give you.