Winter News

A few more images of my installation Dust of Stars, made from scrap, reused and found materials, some from older work. It questions what is waste, dead, no longer of value. We throw away so much… Looking at the bigger picture, all of life is made from stars made billions of years ago: ‘The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff.’ (Carl Sagan). Matter keeps on going… Loved watching the way visitors interacted with the installation. See my instagram page for video clips of the work. We had some great feedback: ‘one of the most exciting art exhibitions I have seen in a while’ (Jan Ollis, SAW Co-Chair). I gave a talk about Dust of Stars as part of the Hatch exhibition, which will soon be published online via their website.

Photo by Rod Higginson

I’m enjoying the speed and convenience of working at a small scale, trying out different versions of a general idea about precarious structures on stilt legs. The sculptural maquettes are made from repurposed and to-hand materials, treating the assemblages as 3d sketches. These and other sketchbook ideas are leading to upcoming projects, including one I’m co-curating with Jan Ollis (‘As Old as the Hills - working title) for next year’s Somerset Art Weeks Festival. We have some great artists on board and will be taking over the top floor of the Zig Zag building, Glastonbury. The project is rooted in local heritage and environment, linking community with social engagement activities highlighting issues of conservation and sustainability. Culture is an indispensable pillar of climate action. Currently fundraising for the project. More on this soon..

Maquettes: Found & recycled materials: (top left) grass stems, willow, pine, peacock feather, copper wire, wool, roots, steel; (top right) steel, copper wire; (mid left) steel, copper, aluminium; (mid right) sticks, grass stem, khadi paper, leaves; (above left) roots, cardboard, plywood; (right) wood, cardboard packaging, khadi paper

Collage

For many instability is the norm. Dwellings exist on the edges of safety raised high on make-do scaffolding to avoid floods and other threats. In ‘Planet of Slums’ Mike Davis highlights our increasingly unstable urban world. Nomadic Somali tribes carry their homes on camels. Shepherds in France used to herd on stilt legs in boggy ground. I’ve been thinking about resilience, making do. In order to adapt, change the narrative of consumerism and economic growth, imagination is key.

Teaching:

I’ve been running 6 courses at Bath College (3 sculpture, painting, drawing and life drawing). Loved getting to know and working with students on their work - see pics below of students’ work.. ↓ (from top to bottom: Maureen, Mandy, Nick, Cath, Juliette, Sarah, Lynette, Sarah, Martin, Sally, Cath, Fran, Cathy, Pat, Juliette, Jenny, Suzanne, Sally, Judy, Jenni).

Squeezing in my own studio time has taken a concerted effort, and I have been treasuring that.

My next online sculpture course starts in January ‘24. If you’re interested please get in touch, or buy the course direct from my shop. I have other goodies you can purchase too, if considering arty Christmas gifts!

Upcoming events:

My work will be showing in Casting Shadows, Royal Society of Sculptors group exhibition at ACEarts, Somerton, 2 March - 6 April ‘24.

As part of the Snowdrop Festival (February ‘24), I’ll be running a free workshop with writer Polly Hall to create a long scroll-like collage with text, on 20 Jan, 10am-4pm, at Create@#8, Shepton Mallet. The artwork will be installed in the Baptist church for the festival. Get in touch if you’d like to join us.

Really enjoying reading The Golden Mole and other Vanishing Treasure by Katherine Rundell, sent to me by Faber books. As part of the book launch, I was commissioned to make a small Pangolin sculpture, now on display at Hunting Raven Books, Frome. If you haven’t yet, do read the book! Each chapter tugs at your heart with enthralling details about wonderful but endangered creatures.

I’ve been selected for a PADA residency, Portugal in February, and am fundraising for this great opportunity. If you can support me (for travel and accommodation costs), I’d really appreciate a donation via the link below.

Donate

My next blog may be post-Christmas, so here’s wishing you a wonderful festive time wherever you are!

Dust of Stars

Work in progress: Dust of Stars, for Hatch. Found, discarded and recycled materials: wood, metal, wire, rope, twine, glass, plastic, rubber, miscellaneous debris and objects.

I’ve created an installation in a disused barn for an exhibition Death & Microwaves, Hatch, Somerset. Enjoyed the freedom to be experimental in a large space, play with shadow, and take a line for a walk, working with my collection of salvaged materials and objects. Regarding the value we give to different materials, I’ve re-used old work and things which often end up in waste piles, what I already have.

Anselm Keifer speaks of the detritus he collected as ‘an incessant metabolism, the beginning of a rebirth.’ The creative cycle,  the ‘ceaseless shuttling back and forth between nothing and something, a constant going from one state to the other’, is synonymous with life and death. Each merges into the other with no real defining point, a cyclical persistence. Considering this and the magnitude of our universe, what is living and what is dead?  As matter is ongoing, is this stuff alive?  Life comes from the dust of stars, and we return to dust. According to Carl Sagan: ‘The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff.’

Death & Microwaves, Hatch, Langport, Somerset, Oct 27 - 12 Nov. ‘Like the Dadaists, whose name came by stabbing a knife into a French-German dictionary pointing to the word dada (hobby-horse), the title for our upcoming exhibition arose from two spontaneous and juxtaposing conversations around a dinner table.’ Book to visit. Exhibition late opening 3 & 10 Nov, from 4.30pm. Tea & cake 5.30pm. Artist Talks 6pm. Come to my talk on 10 November! Georgina Towler and I will each be discussing our work on show. See here for more.

Somerset Open Studios ‘23

A few more pics from my Open Studio event, which ended at the beginning of this month. Some days were magical, with visitors, sunshine, and butterflies galore. Other days wind and rain lashed at the outdoor work, activating the flags. Great to have sold a few pieces and receive quality feedback. Loved welcoming people - thanks to all who visited!

Resurrection., on show in my garden. Photo credit Andy Ladhams; thumbnail pics above: 1-5 Rich Cassidy; 6 Andy Ladhams

I have a small sculpture Roots in ACEarts Open Exhibition. The Meet the Artists event was a great start to the show. Lovely to catch up with so many artists, and see the wide selection of artworks. Runs 14 Oct-11 Nov, 10-5, Tues-Sat, Somerton, Somerset.

My work is currently on show at Stone Lane Gardens Sculpture Exhibition 2023, Chagford, Devon until 31 Oct..

Loved making a small Pangolin sculpture for Faber Books. As part of a campaign to launch the paperback ‘The Golden Mole and Other Vanishing Treasure’ by Katherine Rundell, Faber Books is working with independent, sustainable artists on bespoke pieces inspired by animals in the book. My obvious choice was a pangolin, most trafficked mammal in the world. I have a particular passion for their plight. Many people aren’t aware of what they are and how endangered they’re becoming. They are such docile, shy creatures, and it’s a tragedy that they are slaughtered for their only protection - their scales.

Pangolin, found and recycled materials: copper and steel off-cuts, wire, aluminium & plastic bottle tops, buttons, beads, wood, twine, shells.

I’ve been leading workshops with young people via YMCA/SAW. I’m also teaching art at Bath College: sculpture, drawing & painting, and life drawing courses. It’s been a busy initiation, with heavy admin, training and prep involved. Finding the juggling quite exhausting, but it helps pay the bills and support my art practice.

Looking forward to a PADA residency in February, and seeking help to fund this great opportunity. If you can support in any way, please click on the link below.

Donate

Launching my Online Sculpture Course and other news

I’ve made a showreel to launch my forthcoming 5 week online sculpture course.   Starting on 3rd August, I’ll be teaching participants how to create a nature-inspired sculpture using found and recycled materials.  

The course includes:

Weekly challenges

Step-by-step guidance at each stage

Demos

Exclusive videos and downloadable content

Online seminars

You will learn:

A range of 2-d and 3-d skills - from drawing and design to 3d wirework

Exciting ideas and techniques 

To explore different media and processes

To source and use recycled and found materials

Benefits of the course:

Work at your own pace from home

Learn in your own time

Individual advice, tutorials and one-to-one critiques

Share ideas

Learn safely 

Opportunity to connect with other participants in a friendly virtual space

Increase your confidence in creativity

Create an item for your garden or interior

After completion, you can revisit techniques

COST:

£80 incl free tools list (by 31 July)

TO ENROL:

Email: fionacampbell-art@sky.com

Entangled I, 180 (w) x 110 (h) x 100 (d) cm, '20

My Life in the Undergrowth project continues (see previous blogs).  My ritual of gardening and documenting has become a rhythm. Exploring new boundaries, free from conceptual dividing lines, drifting between gardening and art, some days are productive others more a blur.  I’ve been getting absorbed in the present, nature, looking at tiny details. Trying to surrender to the moment and allow things to just happen. 

I’m making a film which records a few of the goings on in my garden. I’ve formed a stronger bond with all that comes and goes. Sometimes this has been emotional. Strange incidents happen, stories of life and death - some have been wonderful to witness, others very sad. 

A young rook and blackbird may have died from pesticide poisoning as there have been other similar incidents locally. I watched their behaviour and subsequent deaths. I sat with the rook, left it water and worms, tried to help it, but in vain.  Slug pellets, crop pesticides and other toxic chemicals we use to deal with ‘pests’ seep into the food chain. There are countless eco-friendly ways to protect our veggies - egg shells and copper wire for slugs, marigolds for aphids, or just ‘stay with the trouble’ (Donna Haraway). The rhubarb leaves I’ve been watching decay seemed the right thing to wrap up the bodies.

I’ve approached the project as an art residency. Encounters between myself, the garden as site, and nature, without an audience, in order to gain understandings and make new connections. I’ve been interested in transformation, the entanglement of roots, worms, shoots, earth.  Aristotle called worms; ‘the intestines of the earth’. Bird communication; the vitality of nonhumans; cultivating my aloneness.  Excavating the earth, I’ve been uncovering a glut of old rusty nails, bones and ceramics. It’s been a meditative process.  I am the instrument, allowing creative energy to emerge in its own time. As I make pieces I’m aware of Donna Haraway’s words: ‘life lived along lines… a series of interlaced trails… make kin in lines of inventive connection... stir up potent response.. and rebuild quiet places’.

You can follow my Life in the Undergrowth instagram page to see the journey @life_intheundergrowth

Other news

I’ve been doing digital training via Creativity Works, which has been a great help. It’s a long, windy road but I’m on it!

This week I drove to London to collect Glut from the Royal Society of Sculptors Gilbert Bayes Award Winners Exhibition - finally over after its extended lockdown.  At the same time, I delivered Accretion for the RSS Summer Show, opening 13 July. It was the first time I’d worn a facemask for covid protection - a requirement for de-installation. I made my own - hand dyed (with avocado pits), hand painted and hand sewn. I thought a pangolin made an appropriate statement about the origins of covid19 and the wildlife/meat trades in China, which I abhor.

Huge thanks to Arts Council England and National Lottery UK for the Emergency Response Fund enabling me the time to be creative and develop skills.  Thanks also to Richard Tomlinson (Ignite Somerset), Jack Offord, Jack Robson, Dave Cable, Caroline Bond, Duncan Simey, John Taylor, 35 mil, S-J White, Jason King, Juliet Lawn, Jennifer Moyes and Carrie Grainger for some of the footage for the film (see top).