Michael Dean . . progress

Eva Berendes at work in Berlin

Production of Eva’s curtain installation for the Weaving Shed entered its final stage of manufacture last week when Eva received the massive 14m long curtain back from the fabric workshop. Eva is now beginning the careful process of excising areas of the fabric to complete its final design.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cornelia Parker visits her work in progress

Cornelia Parker has been visiting Frome this week to see her work in progress. Stone Mason Dieter Eichorn has been carving the stone with the selected Philip Larkin poem to be shown in the exhibition. Dieter has had the tricky challenge of working out how to carve the modern courier typeface using traditional stonemason’s techniques.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

photographs: Andrew Ziminski

Micheal Dean starts work in Frome

This week Michael Dean began manufacturing some of the sculptures that will feature in his sculpture garden that will he will create behind the local toyshop Ellenbray. The artist spent two days in and around Frome collecting materials and creating concrete hexagon sculptures, assisted by UWE students Michael Rudd and Joe Gower.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

photographs: Joe Gower

Michael Dean’s plans for Ellenbray

Eva Berendes visits historic Silk Mill to plan installation

Eva Berendes visited Frome last week to begin planning the installation she will be making as part of Intervention/Decoration. Berendes’ installation will be the first opportunity for the public to access the Weaving Shed of Frome’s historic Silk Mill currently undergoing renovation by owners Kate and Damon Moore (pictured below with Eva).  A small army of volunteers from the University of West of England , Bristol and Connexions in Frome who have been hard at work whitewashing the space in preparation for the exhibition also had the chance to meet Berendes and hear her preliminary ideas for the project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Woods’ talk at Arnolfini, March 12 2008 by UWE student Joseph Gower

I began work with Richard on his current project in Frome several weeks ago with very little knowledge of his practise, so I was hoping the lecture would prove helpful in collating my thoughts and opinions of his work.

Woods is an artist who takes images and designs from his environment and re-presents or transforms them. Firstly, he presented an image of a seemingly elegant interior, full of classical paintings and furniture, like a National Trust edition with one striking difference: bright-yellow wood patterned floorboards. Hundreds of MDF boards had been hand printed with a repetitive two-tone pattern, a mass coverage of design.

The work was not ‘mass produced’ using modern machinery but a labour intensive work force, giving the piece a hand made and unrefined quality, necessitating a close eye to appreciate.

Woods takes pleasure in bringing alternative aesthetics to distinctive locations. At Deitch Projects, New York, Wood’s work involved the redecoration of the gallery’s exterior with traditional, black and white Tudor style beams. The creation looked wonderfully out of place and time amongst comparably dull architecture.

When commissioned a work for an antique Venetian Piazza, the artist disregarded the city’s notable grandeur and chose a design with lowly associations: crazy paving; a common sight on British driveways perhaps, but horrifyingly inappropriate in such a grandiose context.

Woods describes this shock value as ‘retinal burn’. His aim is to captivate, to create an eye-catching image that lives on in the memory when the work has gone.  Through re-contextualizing architectural and décor designs often considered commonplace, the ordinary becomes art.

By contrasting the cultural and class connotations of each design with that of specific sites, the work encourages interpretation of a comment on both class and taste divisions. Thematically reliant on patterns reminiscent of British culture, Woods’ work for me is predominantly about memories and the past with the individuality of each design commanding your attention and thus existing as its own entity.

Preparation of the weaving shed, March 2008, by UWE student Joseph Gower

Our first task was to paint the weaving shed site interior in preparation for construction of the Eva Berendes’ work. Painting white on white was quite a lengthy and laborious task but we made good progress and successfully completed a thorough coat by the end of our first day.

 As the paint job was now complete we got to work on the floor grinding using high-powered sanders. We needed a clean, dust and paint free floor space to work on; a hard thing to achieve as the floor was covered in a thick layer of dust and grinding the stonework was resulting in huge clouds of the stuff. It was very slow backbreaking work requiring goggles and masks and I recall it being described at one point as a ‘post-apocalyptic’ scene.

The work was hard but when the grinding was complete and we had begun to clean the remaining dust I felt a great sense of achievement. The place was beginning to look somewhat complete. The weaving shed was an inspiring place to begin the project; it holds so much history and there was never a dull moment, there were always jobs to be done. And as an added bonus to counteract the cold weather we also had delicious home made soup courtesy of Tabitha!