We’d planned a mini-‘Raid’ this week, as Renée and Monique wanted to do some plate-painting before they head out of town to their respective rural studios and I was happy to have some more work to fill my kiln. I gather another Raid will take place in early May.
Eric had been working on a plate in his home at the Western Front but then found that the current Artist-in-Residence there, Ciara Phillips, would love to have a go at painting a plate as well, so Eric and Ciara joined the other two on a ‘raid’. Ciara had to take the Skytrain home at 2pm so that she could be back at work in the Western Front’s gallery for 4pm.
Ciara is a Canadian artist, who for the past fourteen years has lived in Glasgow, Scotland, and whose particular interests are painting and print-making, very often in a collaborative setting. In fact she is earning a reputation for this way of working and recently was short-listed (one of four) for England’s prestigious Turner Prize for her work in this vein.
For her current residency at Western Front she has chosen to explore how children will respond to ideas, and inspiration, specifically using print-making techniques, with the idea that they might be less inhibited by societal expectations of how collaborating can work. So children from ages six to ten were invited to register, and attend workshops in the gallery space on a regular basis. Ciara is encouraged by their work and I shall try to attend the ‘closing’ event on Saturday April 30th when the finished collaborations will be shown.
Her next projects will involve adults. First, back in the UK, an exciting huge commission will involve her design being painted on a 1914-18 ship in Scotland. The Dazzle ship project is launching on 25th May in Edinburgh. Then she will be starting another, longer residency in San Francisco. She has sent me this link for more information on the astonishing Dazzle ship project:
https://www.1418now.org.uk/dazzle/ships/mv-fingal/
For an article on her Western Front Residency click on this link. It will also lead you to other articles on her work and the rest of her website.
http://www.ciaraphillips.com/index.php/more/texts/Kids-printing.jpg
During Thursday’s Raid Renée finished a previously started plate, completed painting a large round one, another smaller, rimless one (a ‘coupe’ she tells me is the name for these new ones) and a tile. Monique painted soft colours and shapes on a long oval plate, and finished with a tile.
Eric completed a second plate, one of his favourite rimmed oval plates, to accompany the one he’d finished at home. They’re bold red and black on white with almost no curved lines.
Ciara used her limited time to jump right in and apply her pre-planned newsprint cut-out stencil on her first plate, showing us her familiarity with printing ideas. After lunch she decided to paint another very quickly and we were all delighted to see the assured patterns she applied, followed with masking tape resist. I found out a little more about her career and thoughts about her residencies and collaborations as I drove her down to Lougheed Town Centre to catch the Skytrain back to Vancouver, and am glad to have met a young, capable artist who has a great career ahead of her.
When the other three finished their work and we had had our traditional cup of tea, they carried their work down to the kiln shed. Although I haven’t described their work in detail I know that the plates painted by Monique, Renée and Eric will, as usual, be spectacular! Watch this space for photos soon. Meanwhile I painted jugbirds while they worked and yesterday completed the twelve I had started. Today I hope to load and start the bisque.
