Birmingham Watercolour Society exhibitions

Full information here.  Look out for work by our own members Valerie Alexander and George Loades. There should be some good pictures, like this one by Nigel Priddey. Maybe we could organise a group visit? Also there is the annual BWS exhibition which will be held at Hanbury Hall, Droitwich WR9 7EA from 15^th August  until 30^th Sept.

Spotlight: Going public?

Artist: Leon Keer. 3-D street piece

The end of July sees Europe’s largest street art festival, about 80 miles away from Ludlow, spread across much of Bristol. As a shameless plug, Sam Manley, LAS’ previous Chairman, and I will be producing art and exhibiting there for a couple of days. In public. As it is a street art festival every artist will be out there, painting and making in full view of the public eye. About 70,000 people visit the festival on a sunny weekend. So, why would anyone want do such a thing?

Artist: SHOK-1

Firstly, it tests the quality of your art. There are very talented artists there, as at any major exposure event. It makes you play a strong game.

Artist boards

Secondly, there is an opportunity for networking, including gaining interest of arts promoters and galleries. There is potential to attract professional representation.

Artist: MyDogSighs (one of the founders of Upfest)

Thirdly, one can learn from other artists: techniques and confidence.

Artist: Goin. Photo credit: Plaster copy

Fourth, it is friendly, mostly. Street art is both collaborative and competitive in ways. Some of its scale and techniques necessitate working in groups. The grabbing of public space, and the viewership that it gets, means that there can be competition between individuals and groups who wish to get a message across to the populace.

A view of part of an Upfest zone

The risks are wasted time and humiliation. But you have to try. Yes is stronger than no.
Our Art Society offers similar opportunities.
I hope you enjoy your membership.

Artist: Manu Invisible

The Arborealists at Twenty Twenty

The Arborealists AN EXHIBITION OF NEW WORK BY 9 ARTISTS Sat 14 July to Sat 28 July TWENTY TWENTY GALLERY, LUDLOW

LAS member Miranda Goudge and friends exhibiting at Canwood

In the Middle of Somewhere
Canwood Gallery, Checkley, Woolhope, HR1 4NF
August 4th-31st, Tuesday-Sunday 11-4

In the Middle of Somewhere is a collaboration between two ‘cartographers’ from the Royal college of Art with eight Herefordshire artists, most of whom met at Hereford College of Art over 10 years ago. The exhibition channels, celebrates and discusses the momentous importance of art as a fundamental life tool - a vital means of expressing one’s individual political voice, and of working through personal everyday obstacles, whilst making sense of some of the universal realities of the age in which we live. 

In the Middle of Somewhere:

A small disparate group find themselves lost ‘In the middle of somewhere’.
Making the best of it, they create things to help themselves not think too much about missing home.
One day they happen upon a passing cartographer, who they ask to draft a map to help them find their way back.
Xe agrees, explaining that there are many ways back and that they must all work together - as it’s only possible to map out the various spaces they perceive between themselves and each of the group members, via the objects they’ve created (since there’s nothing else to go on). 
All are cartographers in the end. 
Besides Xe says, mapmaking also helps a cartographer to pass time, since Xe too is lost. Yet a cartographer’s work can be useful to other lost folk. 
Being also lost, Xe can’t help them to not be lost, but rather Xe guides them towards mapping their own somewhere’s - where they are, if only for them to just see that they are, at least… Somewhere (X)

You are invited to join the artists for a picnic in the beautiful grounds at Canwood, on Thursday 23rd August, between 5-8pm.

Artists: Anita Louise Davies, Julia Gardiner, Miranda Goudge, Wendy Healey, Caroline Holt-Wilson, Liz Morison, Dani Sangway, Lexi Strauss 

Cartographers: Tom Nash, Lexi Strauss