Universal Bendel

Universal Bendel is the home to a selection of Daniel Bendel's works. Daniel Bendel is a published artist and woodcarver and he lives in North Wales. He tutored heritage craft based woodcarving, letter-cutting, whittling and comic book making courses in Bristol 2010-2024. He has a lot of experience as an artist in socially engaged community art projects. He wrote, drew and published a comic book about the South Dorset Ridgeway for an exhibition called Field Days which was an Artsreach project. He recently finished a DYCP, exploring wellbeing and creativity through arts council funding. Receiving mentoring from storytellers, mindfulness teachers, art therapist’s and psychiatrists. Also collaborating with artists and musicians. This research and development time has been invaluable to Dan's growth and has inspired new and exciting directions in his art work. He has exhibited in Dorset, Bristol, Edinburgh and London.

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The torus or flowering mind. A story reveals it self or many stories. The flowering cabbage? The unconscious/ conscious constantly flowering forth from the unconscious to become conscious. Time reveals it or is it in the constant now? A week of diary entries becomes one moment.

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Undergrowth Posters

From 2016-2021, I made Posters for the Musician and community based collective Undergrowth. Making colourful eye catching, original art for their monthly gig.  Work by Daniel Bendel

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Story stick collaboration.

I made a story stick in 2023-24 (see above), the idea was to get as many people to tell a story about the stick and its figures, I asked mentors and collaborators to tell a story. The results were varied, from strange Sci-Fi, fables, realism, shaggy dog story to folk story. This was part of a develop your creative practice bit of funding I got from Arts council England.

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Comic book/ Zine making workshops.

What happened in the workshop’s: - I took the students at Weymouth college through a series of exercises, starting with comic book style consequences, freewriting, Mandala making for wellbeing, 3 panel cartoon drawing, using narrative and storytelling techniques. I encouraged students to delve deep and to think of questions of change, telling their own stories of change. All these drawings and stories will be complied in a zine to help, as a toolkit to inspire young people in hospitals, going from child care to adult care. So storytelling could be helpful to a young person fed up with explaining themselves. So making their story could help them articulate themselves in a different way and be shared with hospital staff. A collaboration with Weymouth college students and Arts in Hospital, Dorset. 2024-2025

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I started making an art Journal or doodle diary this year along side a writing journal. It helps me process the day and unwind. The images can be day to day biographical, or off the head abstract or contain an interesting idea or just plan soothing. There is no limits, although the one main theme is that the drawings are all contained in the circle or mandala motif. I also may write a title or poem to accompany the drawing. I explored the mandala in my DYCP and completed a course on making and understanding healing mandalas. See below for more images of that course.

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Welsh Mountain Muse!

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Misty Wales, Mountain Muse!

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This a sequence of photography called Portals of Nature. Photographs taken in and around North Wales.

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Portfolio of recent works

The work ranges from story sticks, story stick illustration of Jung's 12 archetypes , experiments with chess pieces, carvings and their comic books, and Naked Tuesday paintings. All by Daniel Bendel

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Mandala Course

As part of my DYCP I took part in an online mandala course with Susanne F. Fincher. The course took me through the 12 archetypes of the great round. Through a series of making, journaling and reflection on each mandala. A better insight into the self and my inner life was discovered, via Jungian symbols.

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Two free workshops

Below are details of the two workshops coming up on the 18th May and 25th May 2024

Experimental workshops

The workshops come of the back of doing my Develop your creative practice and the ideas and inspiration that I have gained from looking in to Wellbeing/mental health and creativity. So I will be Sharing ideas and getting feed-back from participants! The workshops are works in progress. The workshops are for Adults but hope to do Childrens workshops in the future.

Short Comic making workshop about an object on 18th May 2024 10am-4pm

5 hrs workshop

This workshop will be an intro into making a short story comic or cartoon about an object you

bring and other objects will be provided by the tutor like chess pieces, playing cards or carvings.

It will be a step-by-step course introducing you to the basics of story, brainstorming ideas and

Some comic/graphic novel techniques.

Story stick making workshop on 25th May 2024 10am-4pm

5-hrs workshop

This workshop is an intro to whittling and making story sticks. Starting with a talk about examples of story sticks, and their history. Followed by a few storytelling exercises. There will be examples provided and participants will be encouraged to bring a few objects of their own that will help inspire

Ideas. The basic whitling techniques will be taught. Then the participants will make their own story stick using inspiration from their own objects or from the objects provided.

Ending with a show and tell session.

Daniel Bendel 2024

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A Residency at the Island Gallery, Bristol. Via Art space life space.

During the residency I had a open day for people to try woodcarving and comic book making.

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A residency at the Island Gallery, Bristol. Via Arts space Life space.

The residency was for 4 days and it was about exploring more ideas for the comic book story about the mythical beast Quiff Owl swoop Moon.

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Commissioned by Artsreach in Dorset. Dan researched, created and published a comic strip book about the South Dorset Ridgeway for the Field Days Project.  Part of a touring exhibition in Dorset. The exhibition was to encourage locals to connect to the ancient landscape. The book led the audience on a journey through history via a real map and the combination of imagined and historical researched stories through the Dorset landscape. (see a sample of pages above)

Dan also held a workshop with adults and children later in the year making small comic stories about their connection to the ancient Landscape. (see a few photos of the day above)

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Heart and Soul: Trinity in the Community.  I was an artists on a community project that began with workshops, that included teaching comic strip making, letter and relief carving  with the community and led to creating five (comic book inspired) carved oak panels about the history and community connections with the building. On permanent display at Trinity arts centre, Bristol. 2018 ( photo credits with Heart & soul label Trinity Arts Centre Bristol)

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Here’s two pages from my comic book about the South Dorset Ridgeway called A Ridgeway: Going back along by Dan Bendel 2016 . It was part of an exhibition to engage a local audience in the ancient history of the ridgeway. The two pages show two characters talking about flint knapping and modern technology. I did a flint knapping course as research for the project. As the images show the flint axe inspired my comic.

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I made these carvings called Frog feet and Seal face. I then posted mostly on of my instagram page https://www.instagram.com/universalbendel/  two panels a day of a comic book story about them and their adventures. Which was part of Inktober.