Amongst writing for several books right now I am starting new works for two enamel exhibitions…one at Gallery Handwerk in Munich called ‘Enamel A Renaissance’ which will begin in March while the International Crafts Fair takes place in Munich and the other a project called Heat Exchange which will begin and be shown during the 2012 SNAG conference at the Shermer Arts Center and Museum in Phoenix.
One of my friends, colleagues and co- Intelligent Troublers Shane Waltener is presenting a new exhibition in London from next week. It is taking place at Siobhan Davies Dance.
Drawn to motion, written in space, stitched over time
12 January – 11 March 2012
Free entry
www.siobhandvaies.com/shanewaltener
Opening and performance: 12 January, 6.30-8.30pm
Public weaving event: 27 January, from 6.30pm
Artist talk and performance: 17 February, 7pm
Book launch for Practical Basketry Techniques: 24 February
With this exhibition, London based artist Shane Waltener is presenting new works resulting from on site research and exchanges with dancers at the Siobhan Davies Studios. Looking at the relationship between stepping ans stitching, the artist and dancers at the centre will use the building as a loom to weave on and create a site responsive installation looping from inside to outside the building.
Together with this piece, the artist will be showing ‘Stitching Score #1’, an animated installation using over 200 meters of deconstructed clothing strung together, material produced during interactive installation at the Palm Court at Alexandra Palace last year.
Below: Shane during an Intelligent Trouble installation at the Institute of Making, Kings College, London Nov 2011
on the Art Jewellery Forum’s blog...about tools
It’s been a busy year with lots of travel, I spent the first part of the year travelling back and forward to Berlin where I was a Guest Professor for 4 months. We are producing a small publication about the walking project I did with a lovely group of students there and I will post more here soon as it emerges. I spent part of the year working on some great Intelligent Trouble projects, having a fantastic time at the Institute of Making, at Kings College, London and I look forward to more collaborations in 2012. I also made work for several exhibitions including Drawing, Permanence and Place, which is still touring and The Tool at Hand which has begun recently at The Milwaukee Art Museum and will also tour.
I am looking forward to 2012 and amongst other things I am really excited to say that I have been asked to undertake a new residency with Siobhan Davies Dance , Called Side by Side. It will begin in June when I will be ‘side by side’ with the dancer and choreographer Laila Diallo.
Special thanks to all those I have been lucky enough to work with this year.
Happy days in 2011. Dungeness.
Earlier this year I was invited by Ethan Lasser of the Chipstone Foundation to make work with just one tool. After much thought I decided to use my rolling mill. It’s a tool that I have had for about 7 years and it has some history, it belonged to a silversmith who worked in Hatton Garden in the 1950s, he then moved to Blackheath and worked from a shop there. I often think about him, as I have many of his old tools and so I guess in some respects we have a connection, though I only met him once, for about an hour, when I bought many of his tools from him. He told me some wonderful stories about how he used to work including re-polishing and selling cutlery that had been found in the London sewers.
I think that in my work I try to tell some sort of story…the story of where something has come from and particularly about the marks that have been left behind. I often use walking as a tool, to understand place, understand the stuff of a place and to wander and think and sometimes to collect things. I guess the wandering is like drawing a line and as I am interested in the drawn line I would say that there is a connection to walking and making marks for me.
The furthest I got walking in this project, though, was around my studio and I decided to document a series of things found in my studio by capturing their imprints on different papers by pushing, rolling and squashing them through the mill.
We were asked to make a short film to go with the work which you can see here and I decided to display the work in archival boxes. There are 8 boxes and each contains a selection of pieces under the titles: Findings; Drawn; Dyad; Emerge; Foils; Impression; Floating and Resolution. I probably made about 400 hundred prints in total and so honing in on which to show was a process of both selection and of course elimination.
The exhibition opens tomorrow at Milwaukee Art Museum and shows until April 2012, after which it will go on tour (more info to follow).
Berlin April 2011 above and Moscow June 2010 below…
