V&A blogs
The weblog of Sue Lawty artist and weaver
The route to museumaker and Killhope can be tracked back to early research in the fabulous stores at the V&A.
Heavy Metal, Leaden, LEAD Too,
And even before that, to the Bankfield Museum in Halifax when I trialed the very first woven lead sample.
A short film by Jess James Hutchinson: Make it Work describes a part of that explorative process.
I was handed a hammer and encouraged to whack the rock hard. In an instant a startling starburst flash of light glanced from the interior as it fell open. This was Galena, the ore of lead.
I was standing with a bleak windswept vista over the wild moors at the head of Weardale in the heart of the Northern Pennines: Killhope Lead Mining Museum.
My humble piece of rock to the left and a perfect galena specimen courtesy of irocks.com to the right.
And this was pretty much the start of my museumaker journey.
The North of England Lead Mining Museum Killhope is one of sixteen museums that were selected from four participating regions for the prestigious national project, museumaker. Individual artists were partnered with each museum and commissioned to create new work in response to the venue and its collections.
The short film below made by The Proudfoot Company for museumaker documents museumaker at Killhope.
Click the image to view to the video.
From ceramic butterflies to architectural glass, fascinating work has been made across the country.
Read about all the museumaker projects here www.museumaker.com
tension immobilised cable elastic taught between caught
3pm warm gloom November run
running like waking from dream.. the half conscious clear lucid coherent thought tumbles in - everything dso clear .. ideas fall upon ideas… they sort themselves ans form into a plan that’s at once so obvious and clear .. absolute clarity .. course of action unfolds infront of me
strectche textiles museum linen weaving .. on to lead.. and stones.. land geology stone s rock earth science land works outside
have to scribble the moment `I return k know it woin’t hold can physically feel it slipping away almost by the second becoming foggy again forget gon e.. jumbled… lost like the dream barely remembered opaque veil of time clouding in veil of …
like adremnalin top of a climb – always been like this … the most exhilarating mind blowing experience heighteneds awareness physically stretched overcame fear strengrth poise etc.. and almost the moment I start to spull up and over the top of the crag I can feel the memorory sliding the experiwncvisibluy dulling as it slides back in time I want to kepp to hold I want to always remember this ..but knoe it will be gone
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I scribble typed this immediately after a run earlier in the week - not looking once at the screen.
As in those barely awake waking moments after rested sleep, when out solo running breathing hard through the landscape, thoughts are utterly clear and certain. I know that clarity will fall away the second I am fully awake or through the door. Why is that?
Despite strong hesitations about including it here (it is the complete antithesis of how I would normally allow anything I wrote to be seen), to leave it as written in that moment perhaps best describes the moment
I have mentioned previously about childhood coastal summers in Yorkshire. A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I walked a more northerly stretch from the magnificent pier at Saltburn by the Sea just east of Middlesbrough through the old fishing settlements of Staithes, Runswick Bay, Sandsend and Whitby to Robins Hood’s Bay in the south. Twenty-eight miles to fish and chips and a very welcome pint of Timothy Taylor’s.
The sands: not all sea, not all land… a place in between… marginal… a kind of ‘no mans land’ offering pockets of ephemeral opportunity between the tides for bright buckets and spades and faded stripy wind breaks, donkey rides, ice creams and candy floss. There were dads optimistically shouldering surfboards, tiny toddlers experiencing tentative first toe dips and grandparents passing on honed skills of fine sand-boat building.
And from cliff tops, distant figures rock-pooling, fishing and fossil hunting.
I had forgotten how energising it is to be high up, looking down on sparkling sea and the surface structure of our planet.
Margin… Boundary… Borderline… Periphery… Perimeter… Extremity… Limit… Coastlines are the selvedge edge to the fabric of our land and as such, have the unique and dual tasks of being both the point of containment and the point of departure. Structure is laid bare, time made visible.
Yet again, as we passed the remnants of Ironstone mining at Skinningrove or Alum quarrying near Sandsend, I was reminded of how rock… geology underpins pretty well everything.
Back in the studio on the following Monday, I caught up with who had been doing what on the World Beach site and discovered a just posted entry from Whitby, probably made as we walked right by – they too inspired by these fabulous cliffs.
Tapestry Cartoon: The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, Luke 5: 1-11. Raphael (1483 - 1520).
Italy 1515-16. © Royal Collection / V&A
I will be running a three-day practical workshop at the V&A to coincide with the current exhibition Raphael: Cartoons and Tapestries for the Sistine Chapel.
Four of the ten tapestries designed by Raphael for the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City are displayed alongside the full-size designs for them – the famous Raphael Cartoons. ‘This is the first time that the designs and tapestries have been displayed together – something Raphael himself never witnessed. The tapestries have not been shown before in the UK.’
The workshop will include a curator talk on Renaissance methods and materials and during the course we will be exploring and experimenting with these fascinating techniques.
Wednesday 6 – Friday 8 October
Art Studio, Sackler Centre
10.30 -16.30
£180, £144 concessions (includes materials)
Book now: 020 7942 2211
More fantastic projects…
In April 2009, Ka’u Homeschool Art Class Keikis were World Beaching on Punalu’u Black Sand Beach, Big Island of Hawaii. They wrote:
‘ Mothers & Teacher Suzshi Lang made a large scale Honu. (top left) By Hawaiian law, it is a requirement to keep a distance of fifteen feet away from the turtles. The class ‘made a serene family of Honu resting on the beach out of smooth black lava rock. Some of the designs were so successful that one elderly tourist thought it was a real turtle!’ ‘The Honu installation showed both the creative force of the Keikis as well as the actual physical distance reminder of what fifteen feet looks like to the many visiting tourists.’
‘It was a jubilant, fun and informative project. Great job Sara, Derek, Emma, Sachi, Sammy, Luke and Gabriel!’
In November 2008, a very considered collection arrived from Karachi, Pakistan.
Here is a selection from Class lll of Beaconhouse School System along with some of their eloquent words. Top row:
Car by Hassan Tahir. ‘Cars take you places. The idea came to my mind while I was collecting the stones on the beach… I have placed them in a standing position to make them visible. When I grow up I will deal in cars and design them. I will hang this on the wall as my first model of a car.’
House by Fatima Khurazmi. ‘The stones I used.. were of different colour and sizes because I know while making the house, different colours and materials are used. I love my house it protects me from all the dangers and it is a safe place to live with my family.’
Umer Hussain kneeling behind his stone drawing of a rickshaw.
Neyhan Navaid made a star, ‘…my mother always calls me, “You are a bright star born to shine.”
New age Robot by Hamza Adnan. Flower by Zainab Qadeer. Giraffe by Sandesh Kumar.
And from Magoito, Sintra, Portugal. ‘Our teachers.. challenged us to accept this project. We went to the seaside near our school, Mestre Dom. Saraiva… The work represents our strength and means that united, we can create something beautiful, splendid.’ Carla, Sandra, Domingos, Elton, Isaac, Joao, Jorge, Ruben e Tiago - students of.. Artistic Painting and Ceramics.’
And back in the UK (almost exactly a year ago), a misty, murky, sea fret of a day only adding to the imposing sense of place at Boggle Hole on the Yorkshire coast.
Steven Donnachie’s pieces stand on shelves in the cliff. Daniel Teasdale balances a fine line of constructed towers, seen here marching into the fog.
Alec Briggs and his carefully coloured work, and the dramatic rock architecture of Boggle Hole.
It’s a fascinating byproduct of this project to be introduced to the vastly varied coastal landscapes of our planet: black volcanic sand and palm trees, expansive beaches, small intimate coves, cities and beach umbrellas, wilderness, heat, cold … and as I write a significant clutch pouring in from the strong clear light, open landscapes and white mountains around Anchorage. Alaska. Check out Nathan Greene’s piece from Matanuska Glacier - stunning.
School submissions to World Beach are always a delight.
Here, from students working in stunning and remote locations towards the extremities of our planet.
The Falkland Islands: wild, beautiful, isolated in the Southern Atlantic Ocean and within spitting distance of the Antarctic.
Karen, the teacher simply says ‘I took my small school on a field trip to make these pictures as part of the World Beach Project.’ The sun, as the landscape, is stark bright and clear. The adult gazes out to the horizon, the children - Kia Jack Rodrigo - chase, facing in to the detail of shore. The wind pushes and pulls at coats and hoods – you sense the cool clarity of the air and the scuffling of small stones against Wellington boot.
It’s always good to see the finished works but over the last couple of years the real joy for me has come from the images of people making, moments of intense concentration with rock and stone. Karen doesn’t need to say more, the images tell the story. Low Pass, Goose Green, Falklands 22 May 2010.
Way to the north, just shy of the Arctic Circle, two small islands off the Norwegian coast have also been touched by World Beach. On Sula (below), a series of sculptures and patterns made during the joint summer camp of Froya Havleirskole and Birralee International School, Trondheim. Sula, Norway 23 April 2008.
And from Soerburoey North, Soerburoey Skole uploaded a grid of their patterns on 12 June 2009.
I hope the children will forever keep the memory of these experiences.
World Beach Project hits the 1000 mark! Fantastic! I feel so proud.
(I’m never quite sure why pride is considered to be such a sin… just bubbling up, unbidden, as it does.) I think I can safely say it is shared by everyone at the V&A who is involved in the project and I hope equally by all who have taken part to date. Let us celebrate a truly collective pride in the achievement built together… and in an idea which continues to grow and develop.
Number 1000 made by four year 3 pupils from St Mary’s CEVA Primary School, Woodbridge.
In the context of the last and future postings it is fitting that the thousandth published entry is made by young school children who chose to take part in the project on their day out at Thorpeness Beach.
As an artist, I’m used to taking and having control. World Beach is completely out of my hands… it will be what it will be… it has its own momentum. It belongs to all.
Thank you for making it such a vibrant, exciting, expanding exhibition. Thank you for your creativity.
My father was from Hunmanby in the East Riding of Yorkshire and summer holidays as a young child were spent on the stretch of coast from Bridlington to Scarborough. We got there by steam train and double decker bus (dome roofed, dark blue). Sand in castles and sandwiches, donkey rides, rock pools, knickerbocker glories, prickly coconut mats on the helter-skelter, Filey Brigg and steep iron ladders up the cliff face. Good stuff.
As submissions to World Beach fast approached the 1000 mark, I recently enjoyed one of the best education days ever on the beach at Filey. Invited by Blackgates Primary School, Leeds to run a World Beach Project day with them, 20 children ages 7 - 11, staff and myself headed for the coast.
This was the first time I have had the pleasure of working with a school directly related to this project. I loved it. From the moment we set foot on the sand the children were engaged and focussed. I was impressed with their discernment, attention to detail and particularity in decision making - totally fascinating to witness their creative process in action. We found fossils, talked time, design and geology, felt the sun and breeze, moved stones around till our arms ached, walked steeply back uphill and ate ice creams…
It is a sad reality of our times that many great websites are blocked to schools including sometimes, it seems, the V&A… The brilliant thing is, that despite this, teachers all over the world are discovering World Beach and choosing to take their children out into this fantastic environment to create, learn, play, have a jolly good time and join in our project.
We have had entries from a school group (I suspect the whole school) on a remote peninsula on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, from the Falklands and from Pakistan… It has been a real joy to see and think of these nuggets of activity all over the globe. I’ll be highlighting these and many more in the next few postings.
On the long list but not the short.
Short listed artists are:
Alec Finlay, Lubaina Himid, David Jacques and Haroon Mirza.
A very warm good luck to all of them.
I look forward to seeing the show in Leeds in November.
