Fylde Students to Display Artworks in Mall Galleries, London

Madonna and Child by Jodie Leader

Students from two Fylde schools will have their artworks displayed alongside professional artists in The Royal Society of British Artists’ Annual Exhibition. The two winners are Jodie Leader from Lytham St Annes High School sixth form and Katie Hampson from Blackpool Sixth Form College. The winning artworks will be exhibited at the RBA’s 2012 show, at the Mall Galleries, London, in March next year.

First Cow of triptych by Katie Hampson

This year, the competition, which is organised by the RBA and NADFAS, attracted artworks from 54 Societies, who between them submitted 310 artworks from 83 schools. Some 41 works will be hung, with another 17 displayed as 10 x 8 reproductions. Given the huge number of entries this is very good news for the Fylde and a tremendous achievement for the two students, especially as the area had a winner last year – Catherine Latham, from KEQMS (scroll down to see the item on Catherine).

The two works to be hung in the 2012 exhibition are Jodie Leader’s Madonna & Child and Katie Hampson’s first cow painting from her triptych as a 10 x 8 reproduction.

Both winners are now continuing their art education in higher education. Jodie Leader is studying scientific illustration at Blackpool and Fylde College and Katie Hampson is studying fine art, animation and illustration at Bolton University. Further examples of Katie’s work can be seen on her website at http://www.outputt.com/.

Congratulations to both winners!

Mr Lowry in Lytham St Annes

The Fylde Young Arts Project, ‘Mr Lowry in Lytham St Annes’, was a cross-curricular project and art competition for Year 6 pupils in Fylde schools (10 to 11 year olds), held in 2011. There were two entry categories: Whole Class entry, and Individual entry.

Cross-Curricular Portfolio – Whole class entry:

First place: Weeton Primary School

The whole year 6 class was taken by coach to the Lowry Gallery, Salford for a full-day workshop with a a professional artist. The school also received books and art materials. (Total value £750.)

Lancs CC Advisor Jen Farrington, with DFAS competition organisers Barbara Weston & Gerry Corless

The Weeton School portfolio was unanimously judged to be outstanding. Jen Farrington, Lancashire CC Adviser, reporting on behalf of the judging team, said, ‘It is clear that this has been an experience the children will never forget. There were many ‘WOW’ factors but ‘A day in the life of a Lowry painting’, where they dramatised Lowry’s paintings is innovative, beautifully performed and very atmospheric, showing a real empathy for Lowry’s work. The overall context of the work was clearly explained and the overall presentation in all aspects covered was excellent. The children have acquired many new skills in the use of colour, pencil drawing, texture and tone, and applied these skills to their work. They participated in in-depth research to find out more about Lowry’s life and had the opportunity to work independently. The Lowry motifs were beautifully expressed and the one selected to enhance the portfolio was excellent.’

2nd place: Heyhouses Primary School

The prize was books and art materials (value £100). Michaela Gaston-Ross, Arts Co-ordinator at Heyhouses, said, ‘I’m absolutely thrilled to bits – a thoroughly worthwhile project, enjoyed by pupils and staff alike.’

3rd place: Mayfield County Primary School

Mayfield School entry

The Mayfield whole class entry included large sculptures that provided a real ‘WOW’ factor. The class interpreted the project in a variety of ways and there were clear links with literacy through newspaper reports, diary extracts and descriptive writing. The class also made clay models and wire people sculptures that they dressed in felt ‘Lowry’ clothing. The children said that they found some of the work difficult but had risen to the challenge and made something worthwhile. One pupil commented ‘it made me feel proud’.

The class portfolios from Bryning with Warton St Paul’s CE and Lytham CE School were highly commended.

St Paul’s pupil, Aaron said that it was one of the best projects he has ever done and he particularly enjoyed the song they sang dressed as mini Lowrys!

Individual entry category

Winning individual entry

Three prizes (books and art materials – worth £75, £50 and £25) were awarded for the Individual entry category:

1st Prize ‘A Summer Day’ by Ella-Grace Gregorie – St Paul’s School.

One of the judges, Kerry Hunt of the Grundy Gallery, said, ‘A Summer Day’ is an outstanding piece of work which explores ideas put forward in Lowry’s work whilst experimenting with colour, media and perspective to such an extent it has created a very striking, visual composition’.

2nd Prize ‘A Day at Lytham’ by Anya Barlow – Weeton School.

3rd Prize ‘Fylde Collage’ by River Frankland – Lytham CE School.

Next Stage:

Winners receive their prizes

The schools enjoyed a prestigious exhibition of the winning and short-listed entries, which went on show in the Fylde Gallery for the whole of September 2011. Prizes were presented at a private viewing of the exhibition on 5th September.

Approximately 40 shortlisted individual entries were framed for the exhibition, which also included work from the best portfolio entries.

The judges for the Mr Lowry in Lytham St Annes competition were:

• Jen Farrington, Schools Adviser, Lancashire County Council
• Linda Tolson , Fylde DFAS member and former Primary School Headteacher
• Kate Cartmel Fylde DFAS Programme Secretary and former Primary School teacher/Ofsted Inspector
• Kerry Hunt, Education Officer, Grundy Gallery
• Ken Roberts, Artist and past President, Lytham St Annes Art Society

Funding for the competition

We are grateful to have received funding from St Annes Town Council and Fylde Local Strategic Partnership for the Mr Lowry in Lytham St Annes cross-curricular project and art competition.

We were committed to contributing additional funds to meet the full costs of the project. Our main fundraising event was held on the 19th November 2010. This was an Italian Evening with a lecture by Hugh Ellwood, which raised £762. Proceeds from our monthly raffle are also used to fund Young Arts Projects.

We would also like to thank the following for their generous support:

• Booths Supermarket, Haven Road, Lytham
• The Arts Working Group, Fylde Borough Council
• Community & Education Department, The Lowry, Salford Quays
• Steve Singleton, Editor, St Annes Express
• David Seidel of SIDES, Lytham

The Winter 2011 of the NADFAS Review, the Association’s quarterly magazine, includes an item, ’ Lowry in Lytham’, in its Societies News section, page 68. Alternatively, you can read it here.

Drawn From Youth: An Exhibition of Young Talent

Fylde Decorative and Fine Arts Society have just celebrated the launch of a new exhibition, ‘Drawn From Youth,’ at the Fylde Gallery at the Fylde Gallery at Booths in Lytham.

This combines the work of students from Blackpool Sixth Form College and King Edward and Queen Mary School, Lytham.

The work on display was originally submitted as part of a national competition to have student artworks displayed alongside professional artists in The Royal Society of British Artists’ Annual Exhibition. Only twenty students from across the UK were chosen. One of the successful entries was by Catherine Latham of KEQMs. This is a ceramic piece called ‘Harvested Cabbage,’ currently on display at the RBS London gallery.

‘The standard of entries was so exceptional we thought all the entries deserved to be seen so with the support of staff from the participating schools, the Fylde Gallery and Lancashire Conservation Manager Heather Davis, we decided to host our own exhibition of local Fylde students work. The exhibition has now closed but it provided a great opportunity to see this up and coming talent.

Photos of entries included in the exhibition can be seen at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fyldedfas/sets/72157626891142919/

We are delighted to have been able to facilitate this as part of our remit to encourage Young Arts to flourish.

Offering Support to Young Artists

We also wish to support talented local young artists at the outset of their career. We can do this in a variety of ways, for example:

• Providing exhibition space at our events
• Publicising work on our website
• Fundraising to enable financial contributions for materials and expenses.

We are pleased to offer our support to gifted young artist, Heather Leadbetter, who graduated last year with a first class honours degree in Textile Design.

Visit Heather’s dedicated page on our website to view some of her imaginative and intriguing work.

We have also supported a talented young photographic student, Ben Shilito, by enabling Ben to have some of his photographs published in the NADFAS Review. Photos of DFAS members in a recent addition of the Review were taken by Ben, as were some of the photos on this website.

28th January – 7th April 2012

An exhibition of chairs from the Design Museum collection. The chair has a simple function – to elevate and support the sitter whilst they eat or read, work or lounge. A chair usually has a seat, four legs, and a back. A chair without a back is a stool, when raised up this is a bar stool. A chair with arms is an armchair.

The different ways we use a chair, along with technological developments and cultural shifts, have influenced the vastly different designs found in this exhibition. As long as a chair fulfils its intended function, the designer is able to create it in any form, using any material and process available.

This scope for creative interpretation has made the chair a very desirable project for designers to undertake. They have transformed the simple chair from a humble resting place into a glamorous, and much sought after, sculptural commodity, and a design icon. Chairs fill the archives of design museums across the world, demanding more cultural space and higher prices than any other piece of furniture.

The chairs in this exhibition provide a condensed history of the past 100 years. In the early 1900s, expectations of what a chair looked like were based on traditional cabinet-making techniques. Impressionism had made Parisian café culture ‘de rigueur’, creating a demand for café style seating similar to that seen in paintings by Monet, Renoir, and Degas. In the 1920s, designers such as Le Corbusier, Charles & Ray Eames, and Marcel Breuer, used tubular steel, perfectly capturing the Modern Movement’s machine-age aesthetic. The Panton chair expresses the technocratic optimism of the 1960s, whilst Jane Atfield’s RCP2 Child’s Chair reflects our current desire to develop sustainable and ‘low impact’ design.

This exhibition encourages us to consider the significance of the chair. It illustrates how designers have responded to shifts in the way we choose to rest our legs, and how they have made use of new materials and technologies to create beautiful, sculptural forms.

Exhibition produced by Suzy Jones.

Further information:

• Opening hours: 11am – 5pm Tuesday to Saturday; late night until 8:30pm on Thursdays
• Tickets £2 each
• Location Storey Gallery, The Storey, Meeting House Lane, Lancaster LA1 1TH
• Further information Tel: 01524 509000

http://www.thestorey.co.uk/

21st January to 17th March 2012

The number 13 is considered unlucky for some but, for artist Matthew Roby, it has proved to be very lucky indeed. Born on Friday 13th Matthew has, through some luck but mostly sheer hard work and determination, become an artist with a considerable reputation. The Fateful Fable of 13, his latest body of work, explores the mystery and superstition that surrounds the number 13. Demonstrating Matthew’s dark and playful imagination, this exhibition of illustration and mixed-media sculpture is likely to prompt tears of laughter from those who visit.

Matthew graduated from The University of Central Lancashire in 2000 and, since then, he has worked as a designer, illustrator and sculptor exhibiting internationally and producing a variety of public artworks, storybooks and films. His influences are broad, with individuals such as Spike Milligan, Tim Burton, Guillem Del Toro, Roald Dahl and Edward Gorey proving to be potent inspirations. Popular culture in general is significant, with snatches of film, half remembered song lyrics and T.V. shows from childhood providing inspiration for many of the characters that populate his stories.

Poetry and prose are often Matthew’s point of departure creatively and The Fateful Fable of 13 is a fantastical tale brought to life through illustration and sculpture. In this tale, a cast of 13 weird and wonderful characters, all born in the fictitious month of Thirteenber, bring about each other’s grisly and untimely demise in a highly entertaining fashion.

The show brings with it resources for schools, including a free education pack to download and an activity trail is available for all visitors to the exhibition. This a great opportunity for families, schools and community groups to engage with galleries. Matthew will also be providing workshops, talks and tours at a number of the venues exhibiting the exhibition, so please contact the gallery for further details.

This is a national touring exhibition from the Chapel Gallery, West Lancs Borough Council. Supported by Arts Council Lottery Fund and Lancashire County Council.

Further information:

• Opening hours: Tuesday – Saturday  10.00 am – 16.30 pm;  closed Monday, Sunday & all Bank Holidays
• Free admission
• Location Platform Gallery, Station Rd, Clitheroe, Lancs BB7 2JT
• Directions: Car – Junction 8 off the M65 - follow signs to Clitheroe A671 (A59) – disabled parking is available in Booths supermarket car park - long stay parking is available on Chester Ave, behind the rail interchange; Train to Clitheroe – Manchester Victoria, Bolton, Blackburn direct to Clitheroe
• Further information: Tel. 01200 443071

http://www.ribblevalley.gov.uk/platformgallery

21st January to 17th March 2012

‘Smile’ is a simple but emotive word, and it’s this little word with the big connotations that links works by fourteen leading contemporary applied artists in this group show.
This is a witty, warm and playful exhibition; in fact, we challenge you not to break into a grin while exploring Smile.

Smile is a national touring exhibition organised by Ruthin Craft Centre.

A Chapel Gallery exhibition programme for 2012 is available to download here.

Further information:

• Opening hours: Tuesday – Saturday  10.00 am – 16.30 pm;  closed Monday, Sunday & all Bank Holidays
• Free admission
• Disabled access
• Location Chapel Gallery, St Helens Road, Ormskirk, Lancashire L39 4QR.
• Directions: Train to Ormskirk – head towards Ormskirk Bus Station, cross on to St. Helen’s Road at the cycle shop and follow to old chapel (approx. 5 mins); Bus to Ormskirk – cross on to St. Helen’s Road at the cycle shop and follow to old chapel (approx. 2 mins); car – click here for directions
• Further information Tel: 01695 571328

http://www.chapelgallery.org.uk/

21st January to 17th March 2012

Lucy Elsie Harvey studied and received First Class BA (HONS) in Three Dimensional Design from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2007 and MA (Distinction) in Jewellery, Silversmithing and Related Products, BIAD School of Jewellery, Birmingham in 2008.

She is a visual artist who responds to our narrative relationship with objects through craft processes and assemblage. Her small scale sculptures and jewellery re-appropriate objects and historical forms through metalwork techniques and mixed media installation. By subverting the function of the artefact she creates ambiguous forms which explore our anxieties and desires.

Her work is held in the permanent Contemporary Crafts collection at Middlesborough Institute of Modern Art (mima) and she has undertaken residencies and commissions for Aberystwyth Arts Centre, National Glass Centre, and The Art Fund. She holds an associate lecturer post at the Lincoln School of Art & Design and was shortlisted for the Jerwood Visual Arts Maker’s Open in 2011.

Further information:

• Opening hours: Tuesday – Saturday  10.00 am – 16.30 pm;  closed Monday, Sunday & all Bank Holidays
• Free admission
• Location Platform Gallery, Station Rd, Clitheroe, Lancs BB7 2JT
• Directions: Car – Junction 8 off the M65 – follow signs to Clitheroe A671 (A59) – disabled parking is available in Booths supermarket car park – long stay parking is available on Chester Ave, behind the rail interchange; Train to Clitheroe – Manchester Victoria, Bolton, Blackburn direct to Clitheroe
• Further information: Tel. 01200 443071

http://www.ribblevalley.gov.uk/platformgallery

Waiting for the lecture to begin

Our Special Interest Day on glass with Andy McConnell

Our first overseas trip to Krakow

14th January – 10th June 2012

Things are not what they seem in Michael Shaw’s world. Luminous sculptural forms change colour and shape to create the illusion that each is something beyond its material confines. The highlight of this show is a giant sinuous inflatable that winds its way around the Gallery’s central lighting rig, descending in places like molten lava or alien stalactites. Whatever it may be, it seems on the brink of overpowering the architecture like a giant intestinal parasite.

Elsewhere organic sculptures use ‘live edge’ acrylic which glows brightly without mains power. Other works exploit electricity to change the intensity and tone of their colour, affecting their shadows and reflected auras. These chameleonic qualities can also be seen in sculptures made of plastic that change colour as the viewer moves around them.

Further information:

• Open Monday – Saturday, 10am – 5pm. (Last admission to the galleries 4.30pm),; Sunday 10am – 4pm (Last admission to the galleries 3.30pm)
• Location Gallery Oldham, Oldham Cultural Quarter, Greaves Street, Oldham OL1 1AL
• Free admission
• Contact 0161 770 4653

http://www.galleryoldham.org.uk/

26 November  2011 – 11 March 2012

Come along and say hello to Alfie, Duck in a Truck, Fleabag and many other much-loved characters. This family friendly exhibition features illustrations from children’s books and fun creative activities. Household names in children’s book illustration such as Shirley Hughes, Anthony Browne, Jez Alborough and Helen Stephens are displayed alongside new work from emerging illustrators including Katie Viggers. Sketchbooks and working drawings will give visitors an insight into the process of creating children’s books.

The exhibition also features a selection of work by the winners of Best New Illustrators 2011 award. Picture books by artists included in the exhibition are available to buy from the Gallery Shop. Keep an eye out for other related activities and events.

Further information:

• Open Monday – Saturday, 10am – 5pm. (Last admission to the galleries 4.30pm),; Sunday 10am – 4pm (Last admission to the galleries 3.30pm)
• Location Gallery Oldham, Oldham Cultural Quarter, Greaves Street, Oldham OL1 1AL
• Free admission
• Contact 0161 770 4653

http://www.galleryoldham.org.uk/

21st January –  7th April 2012

Homeward, Darcy Lever, Bolton 1959, by Harold Crompton Robinson

Turn back the clocks; it’s 1950s season at Bolton Museums!! To celebrate the Queens Diamond Jubilee next year all our exhibitions in 2012 will have a 1950s theme.
We begin the year by celebrating the work of photographer Harold Crompton Robinson, whose photographs, taken in the 1950s in Northern England, provide memories of a bygone era.

Harold’s preference for working in black and white film perfectly captures the stark realism of the industrial landscape depicted in many of his photos.

Leica and Rolleiflex cameras, dark room prints and newspaper cuttings will also be on display.  Harold won many prizes for his work and is the only person to win the Bolton Evening News award in Bolton Camera Club’s annual exhibition three times in succession.

Copies of the prints will be available for sale at the Museum Shop.

Further information:

• Opening times Monday to Saturday 9.00am to 5.00pm; closed Sundays and Bank Holidays
• Location: Bolton Museum and Archive Service, Le Mans Crescent, Bolton BL1 1SE
• This is a free exhibition
• Further information: Tel: 01204 332211

http://www.boltonmuseums.org.uk/exhibitions/

28th January to 5th May 2012

A major exhibition series focusing on the people and the stories behind collections – from private collectors to those individuals whose donations and vision founded museum collections such as the Harris’ for the enjoyment of all.

Firstly, A Private Affair tells the personal stories behind private collections of contemporary art asking; why do people collect contemporary art, what influences decisions on collecting, and how does it affect or enhance their lives? The artworks are on loan from private collectors in the North of England, who have generously agreed to live without some of their favourite items for a while. The exhibition highlights a strong interest in supporting artists and the fascinating journeys undertaken by the collectors. A Private Affair demonstrates a variety of artistic styles from the past 40 years, and includes artists of regional and national importance.

In the summer, A Public Affair will celebrate 130 years of fine art collecting by the Harris. The exhibition will chart the growth of the Harris collection, changing tastes, and the enduring principles of the founders in acquiring new works by artists of the day.

Further information

• Opening hours Monday – Saturday 10.00am – 5.00pm -except Tuesday 11.00am – 5.00pm
• Closed Sundays and Bank Holidays
• Location: Market Square, Preston, Lancashire PR1 2PP
• The museum is a short walk from Preston bus and train stations
• Contact tel 01772 258248
• Admission free

http://www.harrismuseum.org.uk/