The Lighthouse

Since the opening of my show, ‘Wasteware! in April I have had many 'gifts' donated to me. You might not see these items as gifts, but I certainly do. Finding that visitors had left me their price tags, train tickets (some from Paris and Amsterdam) and the odd sticker from a shopping trip certainly made my day.

Part of the initial proposal for my exhibition included this audience participation element. I usually generate my own inspiration with the help of family and friends saving up batches of stickers to give to me, but generally speaking I am so used to seeing these kinds of items lurking about that I'm in the habit of collecting them at any opportune moment.  The prospect of casting my net wider and seeing what the public- people I do not know- could provide me with, was rather an exciting and too good an opportunity to miss.

Excitingly, I have been offered a residency at Cove Park in July. I will be undertaking my month-long residency as part of the Emerging Designer/Maker and I am very much looking forward to having the time and space to be able to reflect on my Lighthouse show as well as develop new forms to work on. In preparation for my residency I have begun making moulds based on specific motifs used in my collage and ceramics. The hazard sign ‘X’ is a shape I tend to use again and again and so I have prepared a plaster mould that I will use to slip cast statement serving dishes. Watch this space…    http://covepark.org

The contributions of graphics left by my audience are my new starting point. I will sift through what has been given to me and will look for strong patterns and shapes that I can develop into new motifs for my surface decoration. As you can see I have had a wide variety of examples of everyday graphics left for me in my visitor’s book, which has been so amazing. Looking through my stash, I can already see motifs and patterns that I will be able to use in my ceramic compositions. 

I am very grateful to all the visitors who have left me a piece of everyday graphics, comments or praise. Thank you for taking the time to do so.

Wasteware! is on in until June 21st. Before I embark on my next body of work at Cove Park why not come along and leave me the gift of graphics, knowing that you are contributing to my next artwork.