Monet and London - Views of the Thames at The Courtauld, London

Monet - Charing Cross Bridge. Smoke in the Fog; Impression

The Courtauld Gallery in London is currently showing "Monet and London - Views of the Thames" until 19 January 2025.  These are views of the Thames painted mostly from Monet's balcony at The Savoy Hotel beginning in 1899.  They focus on the three sites of Charing Cross Bridge, Waterloo Bridge and the Houses of Parliament. He was fascinated by the mix of fog and sunlight, combined with the smoke from London's industry and how it affected the light, colours and clarity of the views.

Monet - Charing Cross Bridge. Fog on the Thames

Monet - The Houses of Parliament. Effect of Fog, London

Monet - The Houses of Parliament, Sunset

Monet completed 37 paintings of views of the Thames which were exhibited in Paris in 1904 to great critical acclaim and commercial success, confirming his reputation as France's leading artist.  He wanted to exhibit the series in London in 1905 but it never happened.  This exhibition reunites 21 of those works in London as Monet had hoped to do all those years ago.

Many of the paintings are largely in pink and purple shades and some are quite yellow.  As we no longer have the smogs of yesteryear we can't know how true to life they are but they certainly have plenty of atmosphere. To see the same views in different atmospheric conditions is really interesting...

Monet - Waterloo Bridge, Effect of Sunlight in the Fog

Monet - Waterloo Bridge, Overcast Weather

Monet - Waterloo Bridge, Sunlight Effect

As well as the Monet exhibition the Courtauld also has a permanent collection you can visit.  Here are some of my favourites. I love the angularity of Cezanne's painting of Lake Annecy...

Cezanne - Lac d'Annecy

and everything about The Card Players...

Cezanne - The Card Players

The texture in Van Gogh's painting and Frank Auerbach's make you want to run your fingers over the painted surface (but, of course, you can't!)...

Van Gogh - Peach Trees in Blossom (detail)

Frank Auerbach - Rebuilding the Cinema Leicester Square (detail)

Duncan Grant was apparently inspired by Cezanne - perhaps that's why I like this piece...

Duncan Grant - Still life - The Dinner Table

I'm drawn to the shape and colours of this painting, painted during the Second World War, offering a different view of the world but reminding us of the time with the poppies in the vase on the table... 

Ivon Hitchens - Balcony View, Iping Church

This is Lanyon's depiction of Halsetown, a village near St Ives in Cornwall.  Lanyon flew gliders.  Infact he died after a gliding accident.  I wonder if his view from above informs this abstract work...

Peter Lanyon - Halsetown

The Courtauld has an impressive staircase (lifts are also available)...

The Courtauld - Staircase

The Courtauld Gallery is part of Somerset House.  There are a number of cafes there including the Art Cafe at the Courtauld.  There are also lockers, toilets and a shop.  If you want to see the Monet exhibition, book well in advance as it is very popular.  Covent Garden, Charing Cross, Embankment and Temple Tube Stations are all quite close.  The Monet exhibition is in two rooms but there is also the permanent collection that you might like to visit while you're there.

Making As Learning - The Sixty Two Group - Salt's Mill, Saltaire

Jae Maries - Widening Horizons

 

The Sixty Two Group's recent exhibition Making as Learning has now finished in the roof space at Salt's Mill in Saltaire.  We are told that "The theme 'Making as Learning' was inspired by and dedicated to former 62 Group member Audrey Walker MBE (1928-2020), both as an educator and artist.  The exhibition explores the role of making and learning in our creative practice.  Members interrogate their textile practices, unravelling working processes and inspirations as part of a continuing journey of discovery." 

Jan Beaney - Transience

There was some great work on display and here are just some of my top picks.  I am drawn to mixed media pieces, assemblages and texture so expect to see a preponderance of such works.

Jae Maries's shoreline scene (top image) experiments with new techniques, materials and approaches to her textile art.  Off cuts from a visual diary and old work make up the boardwalk. I love the movement and texture in this piece.

Jan Beaney's Transience (above) is inspired by Charmouth beach and the eroding and etched stone surfaces revealed at low tide.  You just want to run your hands over this to feel the uneven surfaces.

Ann Goddard - Collection #2 (Collaged Constructions) detail

Ann makes constructions from rusty objects, natural materials, recycled artworks and other items from her stash.  She experiments with these materials and I am fascinated by the results.

Eszter Bornemisza - Delve and Discover

Eszter experiemnts with new materials and techniques as a matter of course to turn her ideas into something tangible.  Distortion, layering and transparency are all techniques employed in her joined up samples here.

Gavin Fry - Unfinished Symphony II

Gavin's assemblage of handstitching and found objects is an expression of the foregrounding of touch over practicality.  This is a particularly pleasing, curious piece.

Jane McKeating - Flight Path

Jane McKeating's work is a connection between the story she is telling (what is happening in the world beneath a flight path) and the materials she chooses to experiment with to tell it (roller blind fabric, printing, gouache and inks)

Hannah Lamb - Inheritance

Hannah's cyanotypes and textile making is something she has learned through making, through watching others, through doing and undoing to gain knowledge which she can now pass on to her students whilst also recognising that she can also learn things from them.

Helen Yardley - Cerise Wall Felt & Cornish Grey Wall Felt

Helen Yardley's colourful wall felts are decorative acoustic wallhangings inspired by Matisse's collage with added paint, print and stitch.  I love the stitched elements of these simple abstract pieces.  They are quite wonderful.

Debbie Lydon - Findings (out)

Debbie Lydon collects found objects with which she experiments through manipulation, treatments and reworking.  They may be stitched, waxed, painted, glued, bound, suspended or contained and remain her learning experiments rather than finished pieces.  I love them.

Shuna Rendel - Spinning out of control

Experimenting with apple prunings, bark and maize husks, Shuna has experimented with her materials to create a piece inspired by the mill setting in which it is exhibited.  She is hoping to evoke a picture of bobbins of wool with trailing threads.

Sue Stone - Integrated detail

Sue's piece, Integrated, is a collage of digital prints of previous works which have then been worked on with hand and machine stitching to provide extra detail. A combination of traditional and modern techniques, they are hung so you can see this stitching clearly on the reverse as another layer, and almost another work. 

Lucy Brown - Loss (Ball 'n' Tress) detail

Made from the artist's hand spun hair tresses and handmade hairballs, Lucy Brown's piece references the mill's spinning room.  In fact Lucy taught herself to spin using her own hair to create the piece.

A selection of pieces from this exhibition will be on display at the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate so you may have seen them there if you missed them at Salt's Mill.

York Makers Winter Fair - Saturday 23 November 2024

Designed by Lucy Monkman

 

It's that time of year again, the York Makers Winter Fair will soon be here.  It's a lovely event with lots of interesting local artists and makers who will be exhibiting.  There will be all sorts of jewellery, textiles, art, cards and prints, ceramics, clothing, leather goods, candles, stained glass, felted items, wooden birds and animals, wildlife sculptures in paper clay and baked goods. Entry is free and there's a cafe.  It's all happening at Clements Hall, Nunthorpe Road, York, YO23 1BW on Saturday 23 November 2024 from 10am to 4pm.  Do come along!

Hippystitch Fabric Necklaces

I shall be there and I thought I'd give you a sneaky peak at some of the things I'll be bringing.  I will, of course, have lots of fabric necklaces in gorgeous Liberty prints.  I have some new vintage tin brooches...

Vintage tin brooches

I also have a large range of new button brooches...

Hippystitch mother of pearl button brooches with ceramic thread labels

Hippystitch new vintage button brooches

Hippystitch button brooches for dog lovers

Hippystitch etched button brooches with mother of pearl

Hippystitch button brooches with stitching

And because Christmas is on the horizon and you might have some parties lined up...

Hippystitch button brooches with a touch of gold and silver

or you might want something with a nod to the festive season but that you can wear all year round...

Hippystitch star button brooches

and if you want something super colourful...

Hippystitch flower button brooches

I will have my flower button bracelets...

Hippystitch flower button bracelets

Not to mention stitched cords, which have a myriad of uses...

Hippystitch Stitched Cords

And more, including some felt necklaces...  

Hippystitch Felt Necklace

Do come along there'll be lots to choose from.

Supporter of the JUST A CARD campaign.

Material Worlds: Contemporary Artists and Textiles - Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre

Rae-Yen Song - song dynasty

On until Sunday 15 December 2024 at the Mead Gallery in Warwick Arts Centre, this exhibition features 15 UK based artists who use textiles in their art in interesting or radical ways.  It is a Hayward Gallery touring exhibition curated by artist Caroline Achaintre.  Here is my selection of the works...

Song dynasty (above) relates to family and identity and was made by Rae-Yen Song for five members of the Song family.  The costume resembles a green, scaly, conjoined creature.  We are told it is a futuristic garment where family, memory and imagination converge.

These beautiful tapestries (below) by Yelena Popova are woven on a mechanised Jacquard loom from her digital designs.  Although seemingly abstract they are based on her research into first generation nuclear power plants around the UK...

Yelena Popova - Keepsafe l & ll

Anna Perach used a rug tufting technique to create her Venus which can also be worn as a costume.  Her reference point for this is the 18th century hyper-real waxwork models of women's anatomy, designed for examination and disassembly for the study of anatomy. They were called "anatomical Venuses".  Her work relates to gender issues and the partriarchy...

Anna Perach - Venus

Paul Maheke's pieces are based on his drawings that have been bleached into fabric.  The drawings were loosely based on a fortune telling session using coffee grounds. We are told much of his work relates to what's absent, what's unseen and what's left untold...

Paul Maheke - We Took a Sip from the Devil's Cup

Of Marc Camille Chaimowicz's three pieces that are shown here, it is Dual that appealed to me particularly.  Each item can either be a chair or a sort of chaise longue depending whether they are upright or horizontal.  Chaimowicz liked to explore dualities and the fluidity of identity.  I think this is ingenius...

Marc Camille Chaimowicz - Dual, Malevolent Coat Hook, Cluny (wallpaper)

Alexandre da Cunha's piece looks like a geometric hanging but is in fact made from umbrellas. I think this gives it added interest. Da Cunha likes to collect everyday objects to use in his art.  He hopes that once you realise what his art is made from it will prompt you to question where the items come from, who made them and how they are used...

Alexandre da Cunha - Arena

Tenant of Culture or Henrickje Schimmel, who I have written about before here, disassembles and reassembles fashion items with a view to looking into supply chains and questioning design intentions...

Tenant of Culture - Puzzlecut Boot Brown 

Tonico Lemos Auad was known initially for making sculptures of animals using carpet fluff and hairspray.  I was really hoping to see one of these as I couldn't quite imagine it but there was only a photographic print...

Tonico Lemos Auad - Fox (Moonbeam Carpet)

He now makes more traditional woven works based on landscape and architectural forms...

Tonico Lemos Auad - Paisagem Vermelha (Red Landscape)

I found the construction of Paloma Proudfoot's piece interesting as a combination of ceramic and textile. Proudfoot explores the relationship between the body and the garment and how that affects our perceptions of identity and power..

Paloma Proudfoot - The Mannequins Reply (detail)

In the Make Space, designed for engagement with visitors, Mixed Rage Collective had made a Sticks and Stones piece using wrapping techniques, cord and pompoms which I thought was very effective. It relates to the lived experience of being "othered" - lack of representation, daily microaggressions and displacement felt by people of mixed ethnicities.  I liked some of the messages visitors had left behind too.

Mixed Rage Collective & the Community

There is a very small cafe and dining area in the Arts Centre and if you have parked in one of the nearby carparks you can pay for your parking at a machine near the entrance of the Arts Centre.  The parking app and parking website don't appear to work but you will need your car registration number to pay!