Ongoing

Design for Flags of the Forest - ongoing work

As one thing ends, another begins… and so we go on.

Thanks to all who visited my recent solo exhibition, supported, and bought work! :-) I had such a special time meeting new visitors and friends, catching up, talking art and all things related. See more about my residency and solo in my previous blog posts.

A few events on the horizon:

I’m involved in the Quantock Poetry Trail, led by Ralph Hoyte, (worked with me in step in stone). We're showing our work in Measureless at Studio 10, East Quay, Watchet, a film comprising spoken word and visual art. My Flags of the Forest was partly inspired by walks with the group, and some of my images and words will feature. It runs 1-23 April. Readings eve: 22 April, 7-9pm.

Join me for 2 Heart-making sculpture workshops this Thursday 6 April, and 4 May, at the Art Bank, Shepton Mallet, 10.30am-12.30pm. Help me create the heart of the Community Spirit living sculpture! We’ll be using found and recycled materials to make the giant’s heart, to be installed in Shepton this summer. No need to book.. Just turn up!

I’m taking part in a Pecha Kucha at Shatwell Farm, Bruton, Somerset on Friday 14 April, 6.30pm. Creatives speak about their practices in quick succession ‘to foster new connections... an opportunity to exchange ideas with one another’. Join us if you can! Book your place here

My work (design above) has been selected for Stone Lane Gardens Sculpture Exhibition 2023, and Ashburner Prize; opening 1 June, it runs throughout the summer. The spectacular 5 acre woodland is on the edge of Dartmoor National Park.

Thrilled to be taking part in Wander_Land this summer, with Royal Society of Sculptors SW group members at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens & Gallery, Cornwall. We’ll be showing new work about landscape and wandering. Runs 1 July-5 Aug. PV 30 June, 6-8pm. I’m developing Flags of the Forest into an outdoor series for Wander_Land. Sculptural lines and layered fields of colour will be activated by the elements: solid vertical hoists contrasting soft hangings, hand-stitched patchworks of semi-translucent materials that will hang at different heights. This film shows my process so far ↓.

Above and Below, my second (indoor) piece to be shown at Wander_Land

Behind the scenes I’ve been working with the steering group, my focus being PR and our instagram feed. Do follow @wanderland2023 for more..

Thanks to Mark Devereux (MDP) for his sensitive mentoring so far as part of my DYCP award.

For the past year I’ve been art tutoring young people at home. I was delighted that 2 had 6 of their artworks selected for the Black Swan Young Arts Open Exhibition, and 1 won a prize in his age category.

If you’re interested in a 1-to-1 or group workshop let me know!

Other events and links:

I was so glad I got to London last week to catch Cecilia Vicuna’s Brain Forest Quipu and Magdalena Abakanowicz’s Every Tangle of Thread and Rope at the Tate. Both inspired by forests. The latter particularly inspiring: highly dramatic environments of enormous bulky forms, suspended so that ropes spill across the floor, shadows, deep rich earthy tones.. Also saw Maria Bartuszova’s delicate plaster sculptures, wandered around the Object/Materials collection, and visited V & A to see Africa Fashion - a brilliant show!

Attended a tour of The New Bend, Hauser & Wirth Somerset by curator Legacy Russell last weekend, very eloquent.

So sad to to learn of Phyllida Barlow’s death last month. A huge loss to the art world. She was a great inspiration.

A-N report ‘Structurally F-cked ’on the ‘systematically flawed art world… the only people not paid were the artists, the content providers….small fee.. huge workload… the fee per hour worked out as pennies..’

Aerial African Studies by Edward Burtynsky

Flags of the Forest, Residency, Exhibitions, Workshops

Flags of the Forest (in progress). Photo by Russell Sach

Happy New Year (I think I can still say that as it’s still January, just)!

Knuckling down to studio work has been a priority this past month. I’m developing new work as part of my Arts Council England ‘Developing Your Creative Practice’ Award. The award supports a year’s development, including my recent research trip to Kenya (see film), and mentoring with Mark Devereux Projects - which helps motivate me. I’m working on several pieces, leading to upcoming shows, including a residency/solo exhibition in a large empty space, Create@#8, Shepton Mallet, and Wander_Land at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens and Gallery, with Royal Society of Sculptors this summer.

Inspired by walks in woodlands, I’m creating a series of Flags of the Forest. The flags celebrate bio-diversity, hopeful of nature being more cared for, and thriving.  These involve a combination of sculptural lines and fields of colour in space - hand-stitched patchworks of semi-translucent fabric and plastic remnants.  Some I’ve botanically dyed, eco-printed or embedded with found objects collected on walks.

I’m really grateful to photographer Russells Sach for visiting me last week for a photoshoot in my studio. It was a great opportunity to test out how the separate elements of my Flag pieces work together (and have a tidy up!).

Flags of the Forest (in progress). Photos by Russell Sach

Woods and forests provide vital ecosystems - crucial to our survival. Trees and their underground connections with mycelia fascinate me. Trees inspire awe, such slow-moving tolerant beings with ancient energies. My labour-intensive process is key to the work. Care and repair, making do, reusing, avoiding wastefulness. The binding, weaving and hand-stitching is cathartic, a form of suturing - healing through making.

If you have any green fabric/old clothing you’d like to get rid of, please let me know. I can collect if in the Somerset area.

Collage for Above and Below - a sculpture I’m developing

Botanical-prints on khadi paper, created after watching online demo with Suzanne Ledesma-Sikkerbøl

I plan to create a dyers garden. This will take time, so while I set up, I’m on the look out for certain leaves and flowerheads (unwanted) for eco-printing eg: eucalyptus leaves, african daisies, chocolate cosmos, dahlias, coreopsis, madder root… If you’re able to save me any of these, please get in touch!

During my residency at Create@#8, 20 Feb-10 March. the space will be open to visitors on Fridays and other days by appointment.  From 11-19 March, ongoing work will be showcased in a solo exhibition (Mon-Sat 11am-4pm, 8 Town Street, Shepton Mallet BA4 5BG). The Opening Event is Saturday 11 March, 2-4pm - save the date, I’d love you to come!  There will be a compositional soundscape in response to works by Ushara Dilrukshan. I plan to show a range of suspended, wall-mounted and freestanding works in the empty shop space, including a few pieces from my Life in the Undergrowth project. All welcome! 

I have some workshops you might be interested in (pics below of one I ran last weekend):

Join me in creating small snowdrop-inspired sculptures as part of Shepton Mallet's Snowdrop Festival on Friday, 17 Feb, 2-4pm, at The Art Bank Cafe, 13 High Street, Shepton Mallet BA4 5AA. Supported by Snowdrop Festival. Tickets £5. Book: eventbrite.

Shepton Reflections: a FREE one-day art and creative writing workshop with me and Polly Hall, Fri 3 March, 10am-4pm at Shepton Mallet Library. Using written word, poetry, botanical dyes and textiles we’ll make a suspended artwork featuring the Market Cross.  Supported by Shepton Mallet Town Council. Book: eventbrite.

Linked to my exhibition at Create@#8, I’ll be running an Eco Sculpture Workshop on Sat, 18 March, 2-4pm. Tickets: £18. Book: eventbrite.

Very happy my piece Entangled VI was selected for an exhibition Darkness to Hope at Atkinson Gallery, Somerset, opening 27 Feb. For more details please visit current and forthcoming events.

Looking forward to Spring!

Workshops, Exhibitions, Residencies

Inch by IN:CH

We had a magical day in the woods at Found Outdoors for our pop-up earlier this month. The light was sublime. ‘The work was held by the environment so well it could have been made for it!’ (Philippa Edwards). 

Our finale at the Gauge Museum (West Somerset Railway, Bishops Lydeard TA4 3RU); 25 September - 3 October, 11am-5pm daily (closed Mondays) is part of Somerset Open Studios.

The event is part of a 6 month travelling exhibition of art in cases. We’re treating this as a residency, so each of us will be working on something in situ.

We have some exciting events for you to take part in! Some are drop-in, others are part of The Big Draw and need to be booked in advance. We’re keen to engage Somerset-based residents.

The first workshop this Sunday will be led by me and Shirley Sharp:

Sculpture and Shadow Drawing Workshop: Sun 26 Sept, 2-4pm. Make sculptures and shadow drawings using wire, clay, newspaper and recycled materials. We will first create heads and other sculptural forms. The artists will then guide you to use these as inspiration to draw sculpted shadows, enhanced by dramatic lighting, using inks and graphite, limited places. For adults and children (accompanied by adult/s). Just £5 for materials. Book via Eventbrite:

Next week:

Family Drawing Workshop: Sat 2 Oct, 2-4pm. Exploring the Journey of Line: where it might go and how it might get there. With Helen Anson & Anna Kot….. Eventbrite,

Family Sculpture Workshop: Combine sculpture and drawing processes using mainly recycled materials; Supported by Somerset Art Works and linked to The Big Draw; Sun 3 Oct, 2 - 4pm Eventbrite

Please share this information with anyone you think might be interested. Our funds depend on participants!

For more events visit www.inchbyinch.uk

Wells Art Contemporary, Wells Cathedral

There’s still time to visit Wells Art Contemporary, where my installation Snakes and Ladders (I) is exhibited. I’m so grateful to visitors, wonderful feedback and photographs of my work. Below are some beautiful shots taken in the cathedral by Barry Cawston, Dominic Weston, Polly Hall, and Jack Robson

Snakes and Ladders (I), Wells Cathedral. Photo by Barry Cawston

Photo by Polly Hall

Photo by Dominic Weston

Photo by Jack Robson

The extraordinary effort and process involved in transporting, fixing together, erecting and suspending the piece will happen in reverse next week! There have been some excellent reviews of the exhibition and installations. It ends on Sunday 26 September, so if you haven’t yet, I’d recommend a visit! :-)

Snakes and Ladders (I) was originally created as part of a series of dysfunctional ladders and hangings for B-Wing, Shepton Mallet Prison. The piece was inspired by Piranesi’s ‘The Bridge’, referencing the human cycle of striving, greed and suffering. The winglike skeletal structure is a precarious stairway, reminiscent of flight and extinct animals hung in museums. My use of recycled and discarded materials relates to waste, our relationship with matter and nature.

Loft Residency

I’m really enjoying my ongoing Loft Residency above Heritage Courtyard Gallery and Studios. Huge thanks to Heritage Courtyard Gallery for all their support, for facilitating my residency, and to all our lovely visitors; it’s been wonderful to meet and chat with friends and new acquaintances. Open 18 Sept-2 Oct, 11-4 (closed Sun/Mon).

Some of my pieces are in progress. I’ll be working on them over the next week or so. The residency is giving me the opportunity to experiment with the space and new ideas using mainly recycled and found materials, responding to ongoing global events and nature’s complex interconnections.

As part of this event I'll be running a sculpture workshop on Saturday 2 October, 2-4pm in the gallery:

‘Inspired by the incredible variety of creatures and plant forms in our natural world, come and explore different processes to create a small sculpture, using recycled and found materials including copper wire. Materials will be provided, but do bring your own collection of buttons, bottle tops and beads to add to your sculpture! £15pp. Book via email: fionacampbell-art@sky.com’.

I’ll be there when the gallery’s open apart from Saturday 25/9, when I’ll be at my Inch by IN:CH venue (16).

Hope to see you at one or more of these events!

For more images visit my Instagram page

The Fall

The Fall (detail) - work in progress

The changing seasons here in UK are a poignant reminder of life’s cycle.  Falling leaves reveal skeletal structures of trees, signifying loss, decay, repression.  In this beauty there is sadness, but also hope and promise.

In Cranmore woods, where rusty autumn leaves thickly cover the ground, I found a couple of fallen trees.  Ripped from the ground, their exposed roots are a mass of interconnecting lines.  My drawings led to new sculptural work, in progress. 

Playing with lines, The Fall is a drawing in space using locally sourced, to-hand-materials: steel rod, copper wire, found wood, wool, sisal, leaves… I’ve been collecting feathers - picking them up wherever I go.  Waxing and burning them produces interesting results.  I’m thinking about Icarus, roots, life’s interconnectedness and lines that ‘give us life.’ (Life of Lines, Tim Ingold).  I’m reading a book The Overstory (Richard Powers) about trees, connections and human/nature conflict.  My thoughts often return to Donna’s Haraway’s phrase staying with the trouble - sticking with the entanglements of life.

Shepton On Show 

Last month I was involved in Shepton On Show - a community event organised by The Art Bank, involving window performances around Shepton Mallet.  I had fun creating a large scale backlit performative drawing in the window of One Craft Gallery in 2 hours, linked to The Big Draw.  Made with egg ink on paper (170 x 180cms), people watched it emerge, alongside other performances. 

The slideshow documents the event from prep drawing to live version.  It was inspired by my @life_intheundergrowth project. 

Exhibition News 

3 film stills from from my film Life in the Undergrowth are showing in the Being Human New Worlds Exhibition.  The work was displayed outside Queen Mary University of London last week and is currently online.  The exhibition shares people's experiences of Covid-19, and the Festival reflects on the radical global changes of 2020, from the Covid-19 pandemic to the Black Lives Matter protests and US election.

Our Somerset Reacquainted exhibition at Somerset Rural Life Museum, Glastonbury has been extended until 16 January. Once lockdown has lifted, do try to visit if you can, it’s a very moving experience.

Shop

I have developed a little sideline making small copper bowls, each annealed and hammered, plus other copper goodies, ideal for Christmas gifts and copper wedding anniversaries. The bowls are on sale at Hauser & Wirth Somerset’s new Durslade Farm Shop, Somerset, where you can buy locally made quality artisan eco products and foodstuffs.  Very pleased that they are selling well :-)

I’ve added a Shop to my website, which includes these, together with affordable drawings, small sculptures, prints and cards.  Enjoy a browse and if there’s anything you’d like to see added, please get in touch.

A few projects and exhibitions are in the planning stages for 2021. As part of an artist group IN:CH (Incubation Chamber), we are excited with developments for our travelling exhibition next year.  Inch by IN:CH is an artist-led project bringing contemporary art out of the protected space of studios and galleries and into communal areas of our everyday lives.  Small-scale works in cases will be transported from place to place, migrating outwards in a spiral. Artists will engage with local communities through workshops, talks and performances.  We’re seeking match-funding prior to our ACE application.  If you’re able to support in any way do please get in touch.

Next Online Sculpture Course

After the success of this year’s Online Sculpture Course, I’m running one from 11 Jan - 14 Feb ’21. It’s a 5 week course to create a nature-inspired sculpture using found & recycled materials. Aimed at adults, art students, teachers and those who want to get creative, it’s suitable for mixed abilities.  This showreel gives you a flavour of my work and Introduces the course.  Places are limited so book now if interested! To enrol (and receive your free tools list) e: fionacampbell-art@sky.com . It might make a nice Christmas present ;-)

I am thrilled to be featured in The Arts Society winter magazine about my sculpture workshops with art teachers! It was great to be involved in the initiative!

I was invited to run a wire sculpture bugs workshop at Preston School, Yeovil last week.   I really enjoyed being back in school working with young people face to face after so many months.  Students made a lovely range of small creatures.

Stay safe!