TOP TEN CHARITY SHOP FINDS OF 2011

It's around this time of year that the newspapers
and magazines publish their 'best of the year' selection.
Here are my ten best charity shop buys of 2011.

Beautiful Welsh Blanket to add to my collection.
St.Peter's Hospice

Contemporary ceramic 'coral 'object.
I had been coveting this for a while in a local interiors shop.
Amazingly it turned up in...
Save the Children

Pair of Japanese cups with Eggshell Lithophane 

'Quizzical Geisha' image. I am totally intrigued 

by this method of producing images 

within the clay body giving this ethereal quality.

 I will explore this technique in my future work.

Junk Shop 

West German vase, with wonderful thick lava glaze.
 Carboot Sale

Studio Coffee Pot, hand thrown. Looks scandinavian.
Oxfam

Blue Domino Ware teapot and cruet made by
T.G Green & Co. Ltd.
Salvation Army 

West German Vase 1970's.
Save the Children

'Mr.Wolf' Pelham puppet.
St.Peter's Hospice

Wonderful Welsh blanket cape.
Probably circa 1970's.
St.Peter's Hospice

 'Magic City' storage jars with transferred
 design and wooden
lids, designed by Susan Williams-Ellis
 for Portmeirion in 1966.
Save The Children

MUSEUM SHOW PART 2

Cycled down to the docks this morning to see the second part of the Museum Show, curated to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Arnolfini. As a child, mum and I would visit the Arnolfini often. I recall being transfixed by the exhibits that I saw there....I have a vivid memory of being with a gang of other children watching Gilbert & George's 1972  film  'Gordon's makes us drunk'. The film was shown on a continuous loop in the cinema, I remember watching it for what seemed like hours.


"When we opened the Arnolfini, I wanted to put an inscription above the door for people to read as they came in - Enjoy Yourself." Jeremy Rees, Arnolfini founder.


Museum Show Part 2 continues to investigate the the roles museums play in presenting and making sense of our many different histories and cultures. I'm facinated by the idea of these small touring museums. My favourites from round two were:


Danger Museum
Museum of Forgotten History
Museum of Television Culture
The Victoria and Alfred Museum

Museum of Forgotten History
Ikea-Vase
Restored vase
Europe 2011 A.D.
Ceramic and restoration paste

CHARITY SHOP TOURIST

Last week I made a research field trip to the charity shops of Honiton, Devon. Last time I visited around twelve years ago, the High Street of this small Devonian Town was full of Antique shops....a very different retail experience this time....Honiton now boasts no fewer than nine chazzers (charity shops). Needless to say, I managed to make several charitable donations along the way.

I've been looking out for a tripod for my new camera and thought
 I'd stuck lucky here, but on closer inspection, the one seen here in
 the window didn't have adjustable legs.

Found some lovely hand knitted catnip balls for Darjeeling here.

visit

http://charityshoptourism.wordpress.com

http://www.changeworks.org.uk/uploads/Edinburgh-Charity-Shop-Map-2010-Full.pdf

I was saddened to find that the only vestage of Honitons once thriving ceramics industry was this 'paint your own pottery' cafe. 

1930's Handpainted 'Exton' Design Posy Jar

Paintresses working at Honiton Pottery

FRAGMENTS 2006-2007

David Cushway made these wonderfully poetic films of banal ceramic objects (the type of artefact commonly found in local charity shops), being dropped onto a hard surface in slow motion. 







 'Technology allows us to view in a more intimate way how ceramic responds and reacts to hitting a concrete surface. The onlooker is at once aware of the qualities and limitations of the ceramic object. The work acts as a metaphor for the way in which we attempt to piece together fragments of culture – ceramic – to reconstruct the past.' David Cushway.

BRITISH CERAMICS BIENNIAL 2011

The former Spode Factory in Stoke on Trent has once again closed it's doors, heralding the end of the Second British Ceramics Biennial.

As wonderful as it was to see the ceramics which were on show here, for me the magic came from the atmosphere of wandering around in this abandoned factory. I could feel a sense of its redundancy in my bones. A factory which once was filled with hundreds of workers, now lays empty. A few last vestiges of its former life remained, but not many.....

Lawrence Epps. Employees

Julian Stair. Urns, brickclay

David Rickard's 'Test Flights' stole the show for me.
View a short film of the making.

British Ceramics Biennial

FIELD OF LIGHT

Bruce Munro’s Field of Light is an ethereal installation of 1000s of tiny fibre optic lights which spread from the Museum’s new extension, into Sidney Gardens. In the grounds they form pools of light which shimmer and change colour creating something quite magical. The exhibit utilises the glass casement surrounding the cafe, inwhich I hope to install Pigeon English later this year.
Visit after dark. Runs until 8 January 2012 4pm to 7pm