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August Craft Month- Open Studio and more..
August Craft month has well and truly started and it seems like a good time to get caught up. My contribution this year is taking part in two group exhibitions, an artist talk and an open studio at the end of the month. It’s been a strange old year as for most of it I’ve had a bit of creative exhaustion after pushing hard with work through the pandemic. Although I’ve still been making, painting…
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Retracing Nature at Make Hauser & Wirth Somerset.
Retracing Nature is a two person show opening on the 8th of February at Make Hauser & Wirth Somerset, I am showing a new series of vessels alongside utensils with Ceramicist Adam Buick.
“Stuart Cairns is a contemporary metalsmith using the forms of silversmithing objects, of dining and ritual, as places to explore materials and tell stories. The visual language created emerges from his…
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New Embroidery Lecture
I went to Craft N.I.'s free lecture on 'New Embroidery' at the Ulster Museum today as part of August Craft Month; Phil Davison of London's Urban Cross Stitch was speaking, as was James Hunting, who was the highlight for me.
James has a Goldsmiths / fashion background and now moves more in the direction of fine art. His work is really exquisite; he employs a lot of really beautiful, floral motifs in traditional styles alongside images of the male body (commercial, typically 'beautiful' figures), framed as objects of desire.
I loved what he had to say about engaging with your materials and techniques and the importance of the 'makers' rather than the 'designers' in relation to art and couture. (Why didn't I know that Tracy Emin didn't sew her own shit?!) He also raised a rather interesting point about the discrepancy between the resurgance of interest in hand crafts and what he saw as the decline of real needlework skills and dedicated embroidery courses which are now being absorbed into broader textile or fine arts programmes.
This is probably a good time for me to point out that I don't have a textile degree, or an art degree of any kind whatsoever, so all of this could just be me talking through my hat and boring the tits right off you with my ill-informed bullshit.
Still. Stuff to think about.
