David Cuthbert on Cecil Collins this Thursday 30 April at 7.30pm

By way of an introduction to Cecil Collins, Jane Milner-Barry has kindly given us some background to the man, and also had a chat with David Cuthbert, our speaker on Thursday evening, who is quoted below.
This promises to be an unmissable event, I do hope you can come along.
I will give you one image of a painting of his below, The Sleeping Fool, there are more appearing daily on our Facebook page at the moment, so if you click on Facebook page on the right hand side, you will see plenty more of his paintings.

In the Swindon Collection, we have The Sybil and Pastoral and several drawings which I hope we can see on Thursday evening.

Cecil Collins – Artist and Myth Maker 

A Talk at the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery

The artist Cecil Collins felt himself to be entirely at odds with “that vast desert of machines that has been called, rather ambitiously, civilisation”. 

On leaving school, Cecil was apprenticed to a motor engineering firm.  But he left after a couple of years to go to art school, and later won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art.  He died in 1989 at the age of 81, living just long enough to visit a retrospective exhibition of his work at the Tate Gallery.

Strange, mystical and obsessive, his work is well represented in the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery.  As well as two large paintings, the collection includes six drawings which Cecil’s widow Elisabeth kindly donated to the Gallery after his death.  An illustrated talk on Thursday 30^th April will  look at Collins’s relationship to the art and ideas of his time. 

Speaker David Cuthbert is himself a painter widely exhibited in the South-West.  He says:

 “Cecil Collins was one of my tutors when I was a painting student at the Central School in London in 1970s. He was alternately fascinating and infuriating, informative and secretive, mystical and a doughty fighter. Inspirational, he acquired a devoted band of loyal students. I was not one of these but nevertheless found him and his work fascinating and I engaged in many discussions (and arguments) with him during my three years at the Central. What I learned from him was to be open to a wide range of influences that were not necessarily visual. He encouraged me to examine ideas and that images can resonate on many levels”.

The talk will take place at the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery at 7.30 p.m. on Thursday 30^th April.  Tickets (£5.00, or £4.00 to Friends of the Museum) can be booked by phoning 01793 527149, or will be available on the door.

Grand Unveiling of New Ceramics

I was lucky enough to be invited to the unveiling of two ceramic pieces last Tuesday, it was a lovely event, with the ceramicists in attendance, ready to talk about their work. I wasn't able to be there for the speeches, but there were handouts, so I have explanations and quotes from the makers. Text below in inverted commas is taken directly from the handouts.
Firstly Fenella Elms' Large Flow Pot, c 2013

'Flow Pot is made in blended blue and white porcelain. A slab built pot has been covered with thousands of handmade porcelain petals or bead. These are arranged in spontaneous flows which echo the patterns of running water, feathers or scales. This pot was made over a long period of intense and absorbed work, with each petal placed individually onto the surface of the pot.'
And here's Grant Aston's Radioactivitat

'This hand built stoneware piece is carefully constructed using repeated forms, this is the oldest form of pottery, and is made by hand with simple tools, not by using a wheel. It is a highly sculptural technique and is often used by contemporary ceramicists to create complicated, abstract and sculptural work.'
After chatting to Grant about the piece, I asked him to stand in front of it:

 And then took one of Fenella and Grant chatting

 And a general view:

Both pieces are on display at the moment, in the Present Tense exhibition comes down after this Saturday, so hurry on in there. 

There's information about the donation of the Flow Pot by the contemporary Arts Society here  

NEW FLYERS for May - July 2015

Members will receive theirs in the post soon along with Journals and membership renewal forms.

Just finished envelope stuffing this evening.

James Russell is coming to talk to us in June

Three Peasants Lose a Shilling, Leon Underwood

James Russell has just provided via his blog an interesting connection from Leon Underwood, featured in Mike Yates article in the recent Journal, to Eric Ravilious. There are currently two exhibitions featuring these wonderful artists both are worth seeing.

New Exhibitions: Pallant House, Fry, RWA, Ashmolean & Dulwich

Friends are organising a trip to Dulwich Picture Gallery to see the Eric Ravilious exhibition there on Friday 10 July (further details to come). The Leon Underwood exhibition is at Pallant House in Chichester, no Friends trip here but a suuny day out looking at pictures in this wonderful gallery, then the Marc Chagall windows in the cathedral followed by a seaside walk is recommended.

Sasha's Sell out Talk on her Kelmscott Residency

The talk last Thursday, 26 March, was by Sasha Ward on her residency at Kelmscott Manor, she talked about many aspects of this, including her selection from 500 applicants, saying she knew she was absolutely right for the job. Not only because of her love of coloured glass and her extensive experience of working with it, but because of her appreciation of the pre-Raphaelites, particularly of William Morris' work and attitude to work, his personal motto 'If I can' seemed to resonate with her, Sasha felt this would be a great experience.
She began by making a series of drawings of the house, garden and river, using the drawing as a response to the place, then moving on to designing something as a response to the place. There were 500 visitors when Kelmscott was open, and Sasha enjoyed working with them, whether it was holding a glass workshop, writing names on glass, or producing patterns which were repeated on foamboard.
I took a few photographs, setting up the computer:

 49 people came to hear the talk, it was great to see such a large audience:

 I photographed a few of the slides, the one below shows soldering lead around pieces of glass:

 Below the results of putting together various different pieces of glass together, a technique often used in church windows:

 I think the piece below is positioned in a window and is one of the rootftop patterns which could become a Ward Wallpaper!

 Here's the only photo taken of Sasha

 Above some glass and the glass in front of one of the windows

 Below a couple of pieces of coloured glass made by people working at Kelmscott, and installed in their kitchen

 There's lots more information on Sasha Ward on her website:www.sashaward.co.uk have a look at her many commissions, and read what she has to say about her time at Kelmscott.
Our next Friends' talk is by David Cuthbert on Cecil Collins on 30 April.

CHRISTMAS QUIZ ANSWERS & Journal No. 62

Tim Carroll's wonderful painting of Rodbourne Road graces the front of our new Journal the first edition with colour pages, members should be receiving one soon. If any Friends would like a PDF version please contact with your membership number via the email in the Journal and we'll send one to you.

Anyone with comments or contributions for the next Journal please write to friendsofsmag@gmail.com

For those waiting for the results of the Christmas Quiz they are here following the questions to give you all a second chance. The prize was won by Jill Sharp who was the first correct entry out of John Walsh's cap.

CHRISTMAS QUIZ QUESTIONS   The answers have something in common. 

1. A recitation of 32 points, one way or the other.
2. Ernie Bevin used this as a metaphor for the Council of Europe, and feared it might emit “Trojan ‘Orses”.
3. An eccentric gentleman chose to be buried vertically here, his head towards the centre of the Earth.
4. West of Swindon and just under three kilometres long.
5. Lord Brougham’s somewhat disparaging description of the English system of justice.
6. A comic opera by Sullivan without Gilbert.
7. An essential component of a multiple-choice quiz or survey.
8. He had 42 of them, but “they were all left behind on the beach”.
9. What followed the Midnight Folk?
10. A suitable day to do this quiz?

Before the answers here is a portrait by John Singer Sargent of Gabriel Fauré to find out more read John Walsh's fascinating feature in the new Journal.

 

THE ANSWERS


The theme was “box” and the individual answers were:

1. Boxing the compass.
2. The Foreign Secretary used the gloriously mixed metaphor of Trojan horses jumping out of an opened Pandora’s box.
3. Major Peter Labilliere was interred in this unusual way in 1800 on Box Hill, Surrey.
4. Brunel’s Box Tunnel on the Great Western railway.
5. “…the whole machinery of State, and its various workings, end in simply bringing twelve good men into a box.”
6. “Cox and Box”, using the idea of an earlier play by J M Morton, “Box and Cox”, that was itself based on a French comedy. Sullivan’s librettist was F C Burnand, a prolific writer for the stage and contributor to “Punch” magazine.
7. Tick-boxes (UK) or check-boxes(US).
8. In Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark”, it was the brave but forgetful Baker who left his sea-luggage behind.
9. Several characters from John Masefield’s “Midnight Folk” re-appear in his subsequent work “The Box of Delights”.
10. Boxing Day.

Sasha Ward and her Kelmscott Residency - a talk on 26 March at 7.30pm

I am very grateful to Jane Milner-Barry for her superb writing, which is featured below, on Sasha Ward and Kelmscott To hear about the residency from Sasha Ward herself, come along to the Swindon Museum and Art gallery on Thursday 26 March for a 7.30pm start. Tickets £5 and £4 to Friends.

100 years on, Morris’s Kelmscott still inspires artists and visitors

William Morris, artist, writer, manufacturer and utopian socialist, died in 1896. But his overcoat is still hanging behind a door in the entrance hall at Kelmscott Manor.  For many years Morris rented the beautiful old house, over the Thames from Buscot, as a retreat for himself, his wife Janey and their daughters Jenny and May.  They loved to escape to Kelmscott from their busy life in London.  The well-worn coat was one of the many evocative objects that caught Sasha Ward’s eye when she arrived at Kelmscott in May 2014 as the first Artist in Residence.   “The house is full of personal belongings, and fabrics embroidered by Janey and May” says Sasha.  “And there are places you recognise from Morris’s letters.  It can be quite spooky sometimes”.

The opportunity to spend the summer as Artist in Residence at Kelmscott attracted a great deal of interest and the trustees chose stained glass artist Sasha from 150 applicants, all artists of standing.  “I was thrilled to be picked” says Sasha. “Of course I share William Morris’s obsession with stained glass.  But also I loved the idea of being part of the life of Kelmscott.  It’s an incredibly busy place with up to 500 visitors a day.”

Sasha fell in love with stained glass as a teenager, when three friends visiting Chartres Cathedral sent her postcards of the windows.  She lives in Marlborough, where she has a studio and the all-important kiln in which she can fire sheets of glass up to a metre wide and two metres long. 

 Sasha has completed over 70 projects and commissions in the UK and abroad, including a window for the Chaplaincy at Swindon’s Great Western Hospital.   She likes to work on a grand scale and her biggest commission to date has been a dramatic stairwell window for the Premier Inn in Liverpool, which comprises eighty square metres of glass.  “But I’d love to work on an even bigger scale” says Sasha.  “Maybe a project for a cathedral . . . ”

At Kelmscott, Sasha set up a workshop in the Brewhouse.   There she worked on a series of small stained glass panels, explaining the process to the visitors and encouraging them to take part.  One project was inspired by a window pane on which May Morris and her friends had scratched their names.  Sasha invited people to sign their names on scraps of glass with a diamond-tipped pen, and assembled the pieces – bearing 103 signatures  - into a window which has now been installed at Kelmscott.   Visiting children were given pencils and paper and encouraged to draw things that appealed to them, and there were workshops for adults and children.   A tiny “box cottage” belonging to May Morris is on show at Kelmscott; it was discovered in one of the attics.  Now the visitors made “stained glass” windows and block-printed wallpaper, and used them to turn cardboard play-houses into richly patterned Arts and Crafts residences.   Polystyrene tiles made excellent wallpaper blocks!

For the second year running, Kelmscott Manor has been shortlisted for the title of “Most Inspiring Heritage Attraction”.  The house is currently closed for the winter but will be open to the public on Wednesdays and Saturdays from the beginning of April.

Here is a copy of the poster, much higher resolution ones are available:

 Here's the massive kiln:

Below some glass in Sasha's studio:

 Above Sasha's drawing of Kelmscott Manor, and below a child's drawing inspired by a William Morris peacock:

Sasha's drawing of  the WM overcoat still on the back of the door!

Below a model of Kelmscott house:

And the lovely Swindon Advertiser article:

Tickets for the talk can be reserved by ringing the Museum on 01793 466556, from the Museum during opening hours Wed-Sat 11am-3pm, or turn up from 7pm on the night.