Shot - Lucy Harvey

Found objects artist Lucy Harvey is currently in residence at Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales, exploring rural legend and creating an outdoor site-specific installation.  

The Black Knight necklace from Harvey's jewellery enterprise Elsie Owl Adornment

 
I've been following Harvey's work since I discovered her extraordinary "Science and Superstition" collection and something in her work grabbed me.  I don't now what it is about found object pieces, but it's something I find myself looking out for and devouring avidly.  I haven't really done any myself, I don't feel I need to explore it, but something in it fascinates me.  It's been great to see her recent posts accumulating objects beachcombed from the surrounding area, combing the archives of fishing paraphenalia at the local museum and considering the function or otherwise of objects.

"My work explores the psychological necessity for narrative structure and how anxieties are sublimated through the mundane and extraordinary. I use craft processes as a vehicle to speak of the unknown, the uncanny and the melancholy. I manipulate the pre-existing to create enigmatic artefacts which toy with our longing to believe in the fantastic."

Lucey Harvey

 These four recent untitled pieces hit me and I had to share.  Take a look at the full image to see the diversity of objects combined:

Four new pieces from the Aberystwith Primitive series by Lucy Harvey

 I can't wait to see more.

Sculpting metal - Melissa Manley

I'd forgotten about the metalwork techniques of chasing and repousse - forming metal by working it from front and back with punches and hammers.  It struck me as having huge possibilities for sculptural excitement, deforming malleable metal to combine my love of curve and shape with exciting techniques such as etching and soldering, and one day perhaps even enamel.  Unfortunately however it's a bit antisocial - bashing something with a hammer for hours on end isn't appreciated in my livingroom, not to mention that my table-from-ikea workbench might not take well to it.  Thus it was relegated to the dream pile.
 

Caught in the Current by Melissa Manley

 
Today however I discovered Melissa Manley's beautiful chased and raised sculptural bowls.  The contrast between smooth, translucent, bright vitreous enamel over shapley forms and the grungy, organic texture grown by electroforming on copper 'branches' gives her raised vessels uniquely submarine feel that I love.  

 "...the copper branches I made which I later threaded  through the holes at the edge..." from The Making of a Vessel

Even more wonderfully, she's shared the process used to create the piece Caught in the Current, from copper sheet and rod to finished piece.  I find seeing how others create hugely inspiring - not only are they showing you the techniques and how to apply them, but seeing it from the artist's eye view brings the creative process down from the exalted clouds of imagined studios to the familiar world of banged fingers, firescale and grot.  To me, showing how a piece came into being doesn't detract from the impact of its 'glamour shots' but gives me a deeper appreciation accompanied by a huge burst of admiration for the artist's skill and ingenuity . 
 

 

Robert's Belt Buckle by Melissa Manley

The strange thing however was that it was this relatively simple little piece that clouted me upside the head and said "get some pitch and start hammering!"  Perhaps it's that it represents something achievable to someone starting out, with a little dedication - smaller scale, less specialised equipment required, generally a lower threshold to getting started.  Perhaps also it's the idea that you can incorporate it into other projects while perfecting your technique, rather than creating something that must stand alone.  Perhaps though it's because I've had some really exciting ideas wibbling about in my head for making similar deformed-surface graphical work, and it reminded me of that.  I think it might be a good direction to go in next.

In any case, I had to write this little piece not just to share Melissa Manley's beautiful work, but to remind me to ask if I could have some tools made for my birthday!

Botanical Beads of the World by Ruth J. Smith

 

Melon seed purse from  Botanical Beads of the World by Ruth J. Smith

While searching for a reviewer today, I stumbled across a compilation of jewellery and other items from around the world that incorporate botanical bead elements.  Primarily seeds, nuts, and fruits, there's incredible variety and subtlety shown in the images.  I love the story about how she got started:

"From childhood I have been fascinated by nature’s infinite variety of forms, colors, textures, shapes and sizes.  Seeds display this amazing diversity, and over the years I have accumulated a sizeable collection of botanical necklaces.  These “beads” consist of seeds, fruits, stems, roots, arils (seed appendages) and rhizomes (underground stems).  I admired them, I wore them and I wondered about them.  Where had the seed come from and which plant produced it?  When I tried to learn something about these “beads” I discovered there were no books that dealt with the subject."

Extract from Introduction from  Botanical Beads of the World by Ruth J. Smith

 

Datura seed necklace from Botanical Beads of the World by Ruth J. Smith

 She went on to work with botanists to identify her collection, and explore the cultural significance of each element of it.  I can't wait to look through the book in more detail, and read this interview and feature on her collection over at The Herb Companion.

A new start, and amazing artist of the day: Mike Lythgo

  Diving Gannet and Wee Fish by Mike Lythgoe

I've been trying to read Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit for a while now, but was a bit put off by feeling vuagely embarassed or unworthy.  I'm glad I picked it up again yesterday though - something in it really made me reconsider what I want to be doing with my art, what my inspirations are, what I'm good at, where I come from.  Me, me me, it sounds so self-centered!  However, I think trying to work it out is a worthwhile exercise, especially if I can become less frustrated and miserable with my art.  Hopefully I'll be able to puzzle out where I should be directing and focussing my urgent, constant and sometimes overwhelming need to create.

I covet images and inspirations, hoarding them like Smaug, which isn't particularly healthy.  I can't print and pin all of them to my wall, but perhaps presenting and analysing them here will allow my thoughts to crystalise and I'll find some peace.  If I can introduce people to some of the stunning work that finds its way through my eyeballs every day, that further validates the exercise.  I'll try and avoid making this too heavy, but it's primarily an exercise in untangling my thoughts - edited and audited, but still thinking out loud.  It might not be the best reading, but pretty pictures are guaranteed.

Five Sanderlings Resting by Mike Lythgoe

Searching for the Mike Lythgoe (who presented the Radio 4 programme I'm writing about at the moment), I came across his namesake's incredible bird sculptures.  Something in them really speaks to me, and has shaken the dust off some sculptures I've had kicking around in my head for quite a while now.

I think it's the purity and simplicity of form, not sacrificing the beauty of the curves for the sake of realism, but capturing the motion and character of the subject.   He compliments the creatures using the matt, rugged, quiet forms of driftwood as incredibly unobtrusive stands and backdrops, be it for individual figures or for his utterly delightful tableau of predatory bird and bright, fleeing fish.

A year or so ago I spent a fascinating afternoon in the library, devouring a book on carving accurate and realistic life-size replicas of various birds, right down to individual feather-barbs.  I found the artist's work beautiful and incredible, but though stunning in its execution of carving, paint and pose, it didn't move me the way that Lythgoe's work does. 

Five Sanderlings Resting makes me homesick for the Essex marshes, long for the sea, and feel utterly at home.  Thinking about it along with Tharp's comments on artistic scope and scale is making me reconsider why I've been having such trouble with the carving I've been working on for the past two years.  Existing halfway between the extreme detail I can't seem to avoid in painting or drawing, and the extreme abstraction I long to sculpt in stone, it's fallen in a hinterland, a morass of conflicting desires and designs.  I'll persevere with it, but I think this revalation is going to be helpful not just in finishing it but in recognising and discarding or redeveloping dead-end ideas in future.