Ceramist and pastelist, Glenda Dolman was exhibiting in the Victoria Square marquee at Artsfest. She creates these unique, unusual and intriguing ceramic pieces which are all handmade and painted.
Sculpture
I’ve had an email:
I have been asked to support the children in need appeal and I would like to get a Pudsey the Bear figure carved out of a 25kg block of cheese.
Can you help?
Can you give me a call if this is something you could do.
The event is being held next Friday the 14th November in the Asda store in Wolverhampton.
I can get the cheese to you by next Monday the 10th
Now, it’s not something I can help with personally, so I thought I’d open this up to CiB’s readers. I’ve no reason to believe this isn’t genuine, by the way (there’s a name and mobile number attached in the full email).
If anyone can help then email me at the normal address and I’ll pass on your details. Don’t get in touch if you just fancy 25kg of cheese.
To illustrate this post, and given the recent fuss over the pond, I present the signing of the Declaration of Independence in cheese form:
Image by Reuters.
I came really close to missing this, even though the guy lives round the corner from me.
Willard Wigan carves sculptures from dust particles, sugar crystals and grains of sand. Many of those sculptures are smaller than this full stop. Yes, that one.
Now, this isn’t like those guys who’ll write your name on a grain of rice or something; Willard’s work is a whole step beyond. So incredible, in fact, that there’s a Snopes entry about it. For your viewing pleasure here he is on This Morning and on ABC.
He’s been touring his exhibition around the country for a while now and it’s currently at Debenhams in the Bull Ring. Only until tomorrow (5 June) though so get in quick.
Entry is £3 (£2 for kiddies) and opening hours are 10.30a to 7.30pm.
One of the nice things about Ikon Eastside was how the artists were encouraged to work with the surrounding environment using found scrap metal or making wine from canal-side plants. While the Eastside project has ended for the year it’s good to see there’s still work being done that interacts with the city rather then just being in it.
Chandelier by Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi is a temporary off-site work, providing the finale for Ikon’s Eastside programme for 2007. This exciting new work consists of several street lights that have been conjoined, inverted and hoisted into the air by an industrial crane to create an oversized chandelier, illuminating the night sky in a cartoon-like gesture.
Nishi is renowned for his major architectural installations, playing with our sense of scale and position, to alter our perceptions of a familiar environment. Seeking to forge a connection between an individual and their surroundings, his typically witty works reconsider overlooked elements of urban design or public sculpture. Often involving the aesthetics of the construction site, Nishi’s projects literally embody processes of change, physically adjusting our relationship to common sights and locations that have become so well known to us, they are almost invisible. Forgotten detail is given a new prominence whilst that regarded as remote takes on fresh significance.
There’s a load more links related to Tatzu Nishi in this Things post.
Chandelier takes place on the building side by Curzon Circle, the roundabout where Curzon St meets the Middleway, until November 15th.
Yesterday I popped along to St Chad’s Cathedral, which is a very interesting building so I’d recommend you follow that link. I was there to meet Sian Hindle, a jewellery designer who was taking part in the Architectural Jewellery and Conceptual Design strand of New Generation Arts and Architecture Week. This project, curated by Susan McNally, gets four designer-makers to work with a building of architectural interest in Birmingham. As well as St Chads there’ll be work in the Central Library, Big Peg in the Jewellery Quarter and Moor St Station.
Sian has produced six birds from a sheet of metal which has been acid etched with a dream story about flight. The birds are then suspended in the air at St Chads – you’ll find them in the far right corner.
Sian graduated from BIAD a couple of years ago and now works in the Jewellery Quarter as a jewellery designer. She can be contacted here.
The show officially starts on Monday 18th and runs to the 29th but if you’re passing you can obviously see Sian’s work right now during cathedral opening hours (8am – 5pm). The other installations are going in over the next few days.
And it goes without saying the cathedral is well worth a visit on its own. Be sure and check out the 15th Century Christ.
Sculptors! Specifically sculptors under the age of 35! Do you fancy working with a redevelopment company responsible for turning our old industrial buildings into luxury flats? Well, here’s your chance!
I joke. Note that the deadline for this is June 29th.
As one of the UK’s leading urban regeneration specialists, MCD are committed to creating vibrant residential and commercial schemes within which people enjoy living, working and relaxing.
MCD believe that the transformation from run down or derelict areas into environments which provide these opportunities successfully, depends not only upon good architectural design and attention to the finer aesthetic details of the development such as use of materials, lighting and landscaping but also upon internal and external visual impact which enhances every day life on a deeper level.
Within our company philosophy is the belief that the Arts have an important role to play in accomplishing this aim and over the years MCD has commissioned many individual works by selected up and coming artists, for display within offices and residential areas.
The MCD Arts Prize 2007 is intended to further this relationship and offers an opportunity for local students of sculpture to be selected by a distinguished panel of experts for a work to be commissioned by the company for display within a residential courtyard.
The winner gets £2000 and their piece “funded and commissioned by MCD with all materials supplied, suitable for external display” in the Kings Edwards Wharf residential courtyard.
Full details in this document.
