Ian Briggs gets 2011 Ropery Hall programme off to a musical start

Selected by Rob Moore and Melvyn Petterson, this biennial exhibition aims to show the best of our region’s printmakers.

Situated on the rugged south coast of the Isle of Wight, Tregear Pottery produces a beautiful range of handmade stoneware pottery. Each piece is made from fine white stoneware clay. The work is hand decorated in a variety of designs – all drawing their inspiration and influences from the exceptional beauty of the surrounding landscapes.

Trained in Kyoto, Japan, in porcelain throwing, Neil’s passion for pottery has seen his work travel across the globe. He continually pushes and challenges the work at Tregear Pottery, refining glazes, developing new designs and expanding the studio. Neil has been awarded with a number of grants, international show selections, and other accolades for the quality of his work. The work is sold in several galleries and shops on the Isle of Wight as well as many well-known outlets across the mainland and now at The Ropewalk. Come in to the Craft Gallery during the month of June and admire the coastal bliss that Neil Tregear’s pottery creates.

Noted brings together artists Lou Hazelwood and Sarah Pennington for the first time, as they negotiate similar interests in the mechanisation of music and roles of women.

Hazelwood’s piece in progress ‘La Boheme/I’ve Got Her Disease Inside My Head’ transposes pianola scores to playable music boxes working with the oppositional themes of the female bohemian and hysteric.

Pennington has constructed a series of new sculptural observations and print works through a combination of historical research and material experimentation with player piano rolls and remnants of piano mechanisms.

This exhibition showcases the initial findings of their separate but related research into, and interventions with, the structures of pianos and pianolas, and social situations surrounding their key periods of use.

If you are interested in following these processes of exploration as they continue to unfold, please visit www.facebook.com/Noted

Rachel Morley creates unique felt items by hand using the wet felt method. The natural colours and shapes of the Scottish coastal landscape have inspired the Pebble range or Doorstops, Cubby Bowls, Cubbyholes and Pebble Pods. Rachel experiments with wool fibres from British breeds of sheep to take advantage to their varying qualities. As a contrast, Rachel enjoys the challenges of felting with a broad colour palette to create the colourful range of bowls.

Rachel’s aim is to elevate felt craft to create innovate products for the interior, echoing organic forms of the coastal landscape. Her fine art background brings a very sculptural feel to her work which is tactile and evocative.

Rachel has a Fine Art Degree and Level 2 and Level 3 Diplomas in Feltmaking. She is a member of the international Feltmakers Association and Design Nation. She is a supporter of the campaign for Wool and member of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Rachel works from a studio in Hickling a village situated between Nottingham and Melton Mowbray. Come in to the Craft Gallery during the month of May and admire the Scottish bliss Rachel Morley felt pieces create.

Spring Awakening

In the Box Gallery this month we have been inspired by the weather, and have put together a display celebrating spring. The focus is on the rebirth of nature, selecting pieces which represent the bloom of new flowers and joyous animals. The range of work within the exhibition is from a variety of makers working in different crafts all embodying our theme of spring.

Here is just a selection of the pieces we have on display in the Box Gallery.

Paul Collinson | Gary Saunt | Kat Saunt | Steve Upton

This exhibition shows work by a group of East Yorkshire and Hull based painters whose practice involves, either incidentally or wholly,  the used of photography or computer software.

This can be in the organisation of the idea, the capture and use images as subject matter, or in the very creation of the artwork itself.

What all the painters do have in common is that need, the “agitation”, to produce something that has a presence.