Printmakers at Barton upon Humber’s Contemporary Art & Craft will soon be using enhanced facilities at the Maltkiln Road venue thanks to a £15,000 Arts Council England grant.
Printmaking sessions at The Ropewalk have been suspended until mid-September to allow the work to take place.
Richard Hatfield of The Ropewalk explained that the current printmaking studio was part of the first phase in the restoration of the building which opened in 2000.
“Initially we obtained funding to restore the southern end of the Hall’s Barton Ropery ropewalk which had been derelict for 10 years,” he said.
“But as time has gone on, particularly since the rest of the building was opened in 2006, it has become apparent that the studio’s original location was not ideal.”
Now the Arts Council grant means that the studio will be located within the corridor housing the artists’ studios in the middle of the quarter-mile long building.
The relocation of the print studio will also have a knock-on effect for some other facilities in the building.
One of the few remaining picture framing facilities in the area will take over the space left by the print studio while in turn the Craft Gallery will expand into the area vacated by the picture framing unit.
Local craftsman Dave Ayres of Deepdale Studios will be further enhancing the entrances to the galleries by making and installing three new ash framed doors to match the external doors he made for The Ropewalk four years ago.
“Until now we have been able to increase the number of artists whose work we display and sell just because we didn’t have the space. But the Arts Council grant means that we can soon rectify that,” said Richard.
And a spin-off of the relocation of the various facilities means that there is now the opportunity to enlarge the kitchen serving the coffee shop at the same time.
“We appreciate that our visitors may experience some disruption for a short space of time but we hope they bear with us as we try to make our facilities even more user-friendly,” added Richard.
The first opportunity members of the public will have to view the print studio and the other alterations will be during the Insight 2010 Open Studios weekends on September 18 and 19 and September 23 and 24.
The annual exhibition by The Ropewalk Studio artists. Featuring work by:
David Alcock
Sally Beaumont
Emily Connor
Debbie Grice
Richard Hatfield
Gill Hobson
Judith Land
Darren Langton
Tim Needham
Julie Oxenforth
Michael Scrimshaw
Shirley Trumble
Keith Woodcock
The Ropewalk’s popular Christmas Art Market will showcase the work of more than 40 makers and artists.
Taking place over the weekend of Saturday December 7 and Sunday December 8 those makers and artists selected to take part will be selling original handmade gifts, cards and artwork (more…)
Helen Martino would describe her work as being ‘sometimes serious and sometimes playful’. For many years Helen worked as a functional potter, making batches of domestic pots on a wheel. Now she sees herself as more of a maker in clay, hand building each piece individually by using soft and flexible sheets of clay. These sheets of clay are freely cut, curved and sometimes twisted, this is how Helen is able to create different perspectives and distortion within her work. The surface is painted with slip, underglaze pigment and resists. Depending on the piece silver and gold lustre may also be incorporated.
Helen is fascinated by body language and how this can be communicated. She observes Mogul and Persian miniatures and admires how they are able to tell a story within one image. These artworks often show a significant event within the life span of a person or family. Helen’s sculptures are also intimate like the miniature and show a single event that can be applied to the past, future and present, allowing the viewer to determine the story of each artwork.
Working in Cambridge, Helen exhibits widely across the UK and is the founder member of Cambridge Open Studios. She will be exhibiting in the Box Gallery in November.
Yorkshire born and bred, Eleanor Tomlinson is a traditional artist and illustrator based in East Yorkshire. Inspired by the beautiful Yorkshire countryside she has grown up amongst, Eleanor predominantly works in ink and watercolour to specialise in capturing and celebrating UK wildlife and the local countryside. Eleanor’s distinctive style using ink and watercolour, combines traditional, well-loved subjects with a contemporary, illustrative twist. Her use and composition of contrasting white space brings a narrative and sense of movement and energy to her pieces. Eleanor’s artworks have also been developed into a wide range of cards, stationery, limited edition prints and homeware collections alongside her original pieces which are being sold in an array of independent shops and galleries across the UK.
LAND, SEA AND SKY
The theme for this exhibition ‘Land, Sea, and Sky’ was chosen because its wide-ranging associations might be interpreted in many different ways, and in part because the theme was seen to have some relevance to the location of The Ropewalk Gallery. No size limit was imposed and artists were invited to respond to the theme in as wide a way as possible, to be as traditional or as innovative as they wished both in process and format. The final selection includes three dimensional and large format pieces as well as more conventional prints.
Printmakers Council was founded in 1965 by a group of prominent printmakers to raise the profile of printmaking as an art form and to provide an exhibition society for members. For over fifty years PmC has continued to pursue these aims through a rolling programme of exhibitions, lectures and practical workshops.
Two new exhibitions with links to northern Lincolnshire are opening this Saturday (Sept 14) at The Ropewalk arts centre in Barton upon Humber.
In the Artspace is Re-Tellings, a solo exhibition by Grimsby based artist Sue Stone whose work is inspired by people, place and time. (more…)
