Interview with Karen Shapley

Here is our next interview with Karen Shapley… Find out what really inspires her!!!!

1. Describe yourself in five words and how would your friends describe you
(in five)!!
In five words I would describe myself as energtic, quirky, humourous, serious enthusiastic
friends would describe me as enthusiastic artistic a bit wacky  a horder and hopefully fun!

2. Your art concentrates mostly on landscapes and portraits what drives you
to create these images?
n/a

 

3. What is your favourite type media to work with and why?
clay and textiles.
I love the imediacy of building with clay, you can create something reasonably quickly with clay its flexible, fairly generous and allows me a certain freedom with form. Textiles I love for their tactile quality they add another dimension to the work enable it to become a sculpture rather than just a jug.

4. What type of processes do you employ to create your work?
With clay I use slabs of clay embossing with texture ,use of coloured slips and sprigs to add further detail. Vintage textiles are stitched and pressed and stuffed , using bonding of layers and frills to create  detail.

 

5. What and where are your favourite art galleries to visit?
I love the V&A the ceramics department with all its crazy ceramics. We used to be so inventive and imaginative adding flowers and palm trees to vases and jugs. I also like the textile department upstairs where you can ponder quietlt the old embroideries and stumpwork. Its old fashioned and allows you to escape the tourist and draw and marvel at old skills.

 

6. Are there other contemporary artists who captivate you right now? Whose
work inspires you?
I have always loved Juilie Arkell’s work it has that freedom to make items that have a childlike quality if thats what I want  attitude, as well as being humourous. I also like Tilke Schwarz for her observations on everyday life and her skill as an embroiderer. Also the french artist marie Ducate juts because of her inventivness and sheer determination not to conform…there is a theme appearing here!!!

 

7. What do you think the future has in store for your work, do you have
anything new you are working on you would like to mention?
I am working on a new collection and ethos called ‘Find nomore’ I have taken to vintage in a big way as well as upcycling . i scour charity shops and ebay for my clothes altering to fit and adding personal detail loving the quality of old tailoring. I have a new collection of characters which will be half ceramic and half textile . My work has always embodied the found fabric or objects loving the quality of the old . So its about finding no more as my clothes so you will find no more once one is made it is unique with its own person . Fabrics and details no longer available once used.

 

8. Where do you go for inspiration?
I find inspiration from collecting old ceramics, objects found in charity shops. Research on old ceramics and the craziness of past objects made. New work revolves more around story telling and creating something unique.

 

9. Where is your favourite place to create?
In my head , I am a day dreamer and can disappear into my own thoughts once inspired by something I have seen!

 

10. Do you have a favourite piece you’ve created? If so, why?
Yee Ha  he is not on show as yet. He was part of an exhibtion I did in the Spring at the Form Gallery. He is a donkey pulling a truck. He has ideas of granduer and  wants really to be a horse in the wild west hence his name yeeha. However  the sign on the truck says go slow as he is a donkey who goes slow ( there was also a clock in the truck and time often goes slow!)

 

11. What’s your ideal working day?
Walk my  jack russell cross Poppy in the woods dreaming of the character i am about to make. Arrive at work about 10 and then work solid no breaks till 3 when I will go home have food cuppa tea before back out for a walk thinking of the day …..

 

12. What would you like to be working on in 12 months time?
I am not sure I dont plan that far ahead. My work develops so I keep an open mind and let me see what unfolds next!

Interview with Clare Calfield

 

Here is our next interview with the talented painter Clare Calfield… Find out what really inspires her!!!!

1. Describe yourself in five words and how would your friends describe you (in five)!!

Always searching for interesting thing !

2. Your art concentrates mostly on landscapes and portraits what drives you to create these images?

I love the buzz of the city, there’s always so much happening & so much to inspire me.My painting allow me to document and record my experiences of the places I ve travelled to. It’s also great to see how other people relate to the scenes I ve created.

 

3. What is your favourite type media to work with and why?

I love mixed-me dig, avariety of watercolour, acrylic,dip pen & ink, pencil,pastel crayons……

I strive to create spontaneous lively linework and having a variety of media to hand helps me to achieve this.

 

4. What type of processes do you employ to create your work?

I combine the processes of  drawing, painting & collage I am also a printmaker too,creating original screenprints and drypoints.

 

5. What and where are your favourite art galleries to visit?

The craft centre + design gallery,Leeds 1853 Gallery Salts Mill, Saltaire Cambridge Contemporary Art / The Red Door Gallery Edinborough

 

6. Are there other contemporary artists who captivate you right now? Whose work inspires you?

Peter Clarkes quirky dog collages beautifully made out of collaged ephemera. –The illustration work of Emily Sutton – Sue Blackwell

 

7. What do you think the future has in store for your work, do you have anything new you are working on you would like to mention?

Hopefully I’ll continue producing paintings on my favourite cities –Paris.New York&Venice, as well as travelling to lots of new I locations to inspire me again and again!

 

8. Where do you go for inspiration?

Vintage fairs, Antique Shop, My book case,Venice,Paris&New Yorkand (Discovering New Cities I’ve not been too…..)

 

9. Where is your favourite place to create?

My studio is where I feel most at home and able to create, but producing those initial drawings in my sketch book whilst in a city is really exciting.

 

10. Do you have a favourite piece you’ve created? If so, why?

“Skating in central park” This piece was a challenage for me, to do aManhattanpainting but without putting in a mass of New York Yellow Taxis, I got round this by having a bustling ice rink full of little skaters instead!

11. What’s your ideal working day?

Working away in my studio on a specially commissioned painting, I love the challenge of working to a client’s brief knowing how much the piece will mean to them when it’s complete.

12. What would you like to be working on in 12 months time?

I am going to Norway in 2012 to visit the world’s most northern city – tromso I’m excited about what direction this may take my work in…………

Interview with the talented painter Carol Saunderson

Here is our next interview with the talented painter Carol Saunderson… Find out what really inspires her!!!!

1 Describe yourself in five words and how would your friends describe you (in five)!!

 Me

 Interested, enthusiastic, eccentric, diverse, imaginative

 Friends

(These are the polite ones they came up with)  – Eclectic, Humorous, Passionate, Visionary, Generous

2 Your art concentrates mostly on landscapes and portraits.  What drives you to create these images?

 I paint portraits because it is a privilege. I find people amazing and intriguing.  Each subject is unique and painting a person captures them in a way that a photograph doesn’t, in that it isn’t a snapshot of one moment in time but rather a collection of thoughts and observations of that individual.  I discovered as early as art college that however I see that person will be portrayed in the finished work.  Somehow the painter’s thoughts are translated in to the painting at a sub-conscious level.  I like that.  It seems almost alchemical!

 The abstract landscapes which I will be showing at the Fulham Palace Art Fair are straight out of my subconscious.  They are an amalgamation of places in which I have lived or to which I have travelled.  They feature characters, buildings and events from my life in symbolic form and tell stories based on those elements. Through this work I am able to explore my love of colour and endless fascination with the way that different colours interact.

3 What is your favourite type of media to work with and why?

 At the moment it’s acrylic paint as it dries so quickly and means that I can use multiple layers, thus intensifying the colour and creating interesting pattern effects.  It is also very forgiving for techniques such as scratching and sanding, meaning I can experiment with different textures.

 4 What type of processes do you employ to create your work?

 All sorts and I’m always experimenting to come up with more!  I have a large range of brushes in all different sizes and textures, but also numerous implements that I collect with which to scratch, scrape, drag and draw on the painting.  I put paint on and rub it off with rags, I flick paint at it and throw water at it on occasion.

5 What and where are your favourite art galleries to visit?

I did my Foundation at the art college in Cambridge and two of my favourite galleries are there.  Kettles Yard is on Castle Street in Cambridge. It is a beautiful and unique house containing a wonderful collection of 20th century art. It was founded by Jim Ede as a place where visitors would ‘find a home and a welcome, a refuge of peace and order, of the visual arts and of music.’  I’ve loved it ever since I was taken there as a student.  It’s packed full of treasures!

The Fitzwilliam Museum was my other regular haunt as a student.  I can spend happily spend an afternoon there anytime.  It has a wonderful permanent collection and numerous exciting temporary shows.

 A new discovery for me has been the gallery and grounds at Compton Verney in Warwickshire.  I went to see the recent Ben Nicholson and Alfred Wallis exhibition there.  They also have a fantastic collection of Folk Art.  I will be visiting again very soon!

6 Are there other contemporary artists who captivate you right now?  Whose work inspires you?

It’s difficult to choose but I’d have to say Barbara Rae, as her work with colour is amazing and the ceramicist John Maltby for his beautiful simplicity and use of pattern.  I really appreciate the joyfulness of Elaine Pamphilon’s paintings too.  In terms of portraiture I’d say Tai-Shan Schierenberg, Alison Watt and Chuck Close.  Chuck Close is particularly interesting as his photographic large-scale portraits are made up of thousands of tiny abstracts.

Generally speaking there are many wonderful artists whose work inspires me.  Most of them are from the 20th Century.  Craigie Aitchison, Mark Rothko, Henri Matisse, William Scott, Ben Nicholson and the glorious Roaul Dufy to name but a few.

 7 What do you think the future has in store for your work, do you have anything new you are working on which you would like to mention?

 It’s difficult to say as my work is always developing.  It seems to have a life of its own!  I would like to think that my style and confidence will continue to strengthen and that I will be working on more large-scale pieces. 

8 Where do you go for inspiration?

I don’t really have to go anywhere as I live in a beautiful Lodge cottage on the Staunton Harold Estate in Leicestershire.  We are surrounded by fields, have a herd of cows as our next door neighbours and I can walk to work along a mile long lane which takes me beside a lake and in front of Staunton Harold Hall.  There is so much to see everyday.

Otherwise I love the North Norfolk coast of my childhood at Brancaster, Holkham, Wells or Cley where my aunt used to live.  A trip to the Cotswolds is always a pleasure – quintessential English countryside and architecture always does it for me!

Reading is my other great source of inspiration.  There’s nothing like a good novel to get the imagination going.  Salley Vickers, Jeanette Winterson, Jostein Gaarder and Virginia Woolf are always magical.  At the moment I’m reading “All Passion Spent” by Vita Sackville-West and it’s a bit of a revelation.  A very poetic and thoughtful book about an elderly woman looking back on her life and her early ambitions to become a painter.

9 Where is your favourite place to create?

I am very fortunate to have a studio that is housed in a converted Georgian stable block in the grounds of the beautiful Staunton Harold Estate in Leicestershire.  I share this space with textile artist Michelle Holmes and my characterful whippet Rosie.  Being based in the middle of the countryside is very important to me and we walk Rosie twice a day in what is now part of the new National Forest.  I find that, in order to do my work, my mind needs the space and the visual beauty that these surroundings provide.

 10 Do you have a favourite piece you’ve created?  If so, why?

 I have several, each because they mean something to me personally.  There is a large square painting called “The Safe Path” which is an abstract landscape based on a walk on the estate here at Staunton.  It hangs in my home.  The others are also personal – a portrait of my late father and another of my crazy dog!

11 What’s your ideal working day?

One with no interruptions!#

12 What would you like to be working on in 12 months time?

A sell-out show!