Heirloom Exhibition

In the final weeks before my second solo show at Burslem School of Art. Everything seems under control, quite a few pieces are still in an unfinished state but there's not much thinking work left to do.

Here is the flyer and if you are reading this within travelling distance of Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, do come along and have a look at what I've been busying myself with just lately.

Because this project has been self-funded there won't be a private view but I am more than happy to meet individuals or groups at the gallery, just drop me an email via my website http://www.rachel-grant.com/ to arrange an appointment.

News just in - I have also heard today that the two panels bought by the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent have gone up on display. They are on the ground floor on the bricked walls alongside the Spitfire gallery.

Social Cleansing?

I began my practice as an artist around 2003 as the regeneration process began to be revealed here in Stoke-on-Trent.

During the first few years I was moved to respond creatively to my outrage at the process of pressurising residents into selling their homes for demolition.

As I researched more I moved more to the centre in terms of opinion. When faced with strong arguments from all sides it was difficult to form my own judgement.
In 2007 when I exhibited a full collection of work in response to all this I was very clear that I took the neutral ground as an observer.

More recently however, after five years I am increasingly at odds with the entire housing market renewal programme and there are no longer arguments that can sway me to the centre.

The money that has been brought into the city is phenomenal and could have made such an impact. We could have shown that regeneration can really work for the good of the existing communities as well as attracting more people to the live here. Unlike the cities of Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool for example where regeneration has managed to highlight the divide between rich and poor, creating central areas of affluence that are deemed a success, whilst leaving other areas to fall further and further into extreme deprivation.
The original Prescott statement of decent homes for all could have really worked if we'd focussed on refurbishment, building more social housing and on the slow demolition of outdated housing stock. One or two streets at a time perhaps, slowly moving residents into other temporary accomodation while a home of equal value was built for them, ensuring no financial loss for the homeowners. Yes this would've been a slower, possibly more arduous task and possibly more costly but very possibly more successful than letting developers set the agenda.

The demolition is too far down the line to be reversed so I will watch with interest at what happens next. Maybe I'll be proved wrong and I hope for my children's sake I am.
To see the effect of housing market renewal on ordinary people have a look at this. I can't believe anyone after seeing this could possibly argue that mass demolition is an ethical way to 'transform a city'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkKptVrlfvQ

Have strength in your own convictions.

Well after my complete crisis before half-term, things are looking up again. I am writing an accompanying essay for the exhibition that structures the whole show, with quotes from it being displayed with the work in order to set the visuals in context. Here is the brief summary about the collection:

“This collection of new work is concerned with the natural evolution of communities through “inheritance”.
It explores the issues we face in terms of what tangible evidence (buildings, artefacts etc) from the past we preserve and what we discard.
In addition, the work aims to challenge the audience to consider the possibility that large scale intervention could in practice hinder the natural development of a community and indeed disinherit an entire generation in the process."

I have completed my gloves for the piece 'follow me' and they hang quite nicely together.



Each mitten is knitted from an old book of patterns that I inherited, published in 1903. The ribbon threaded through is printed with the names of some of my female family members and ancestors. It suggests the way that we learn from the women around us, each generation passing onto the next skills, qualities and attributes. Each mitten is slightly different, even though worked from the same pattern, through the process of the making I often found fault with the previous one and tried to make the next one better. Each time I would alter the pattern just a little in order to improve the glove. In the same way, each generation takes the pattern of it's predecessors and alters it to improve it, all the while knowing that the next generation will go through the exact same process.

Over the half-term I have thought a lot about the direction of this collection and what I am trying to say through it. With a little help from a friend http://www.blogger.com/profile/12648229748088235109

.....and a quote from Richard Billingham:"It's your work that matters; you haven't got to bother what people think. You've just got to concentrate on your work and not be distracted......... but you have to have strength in your own convictions".

Sometimes it's hard not to get distracted by what you think you should be doing or what you think other people might like you to do or, in my case, what might be more 'exciting' to the world of contemporary practice. I will always struggle against textiles in this respect and indeed in today's atmosphere of almost anti-beauty within contemporary art. The further something is from traditional art, the more appreciated it is.
Now I love contemporary art, I like to see installations, I like to be challenged, I even like to see screen based media(sometimes!) but what I like to create is probably more traditional. I just like beautiful things and I like the good old fashioned ability to hang something on a wall!
I think there is room for all approaches in contemorary art and so I must indeed concentrate on my work and "not be distracted".

On a lighter note, at the weekend we went to Etruria Canal Festival as we do every year. We walked along the Cauldon Canal which is very close to our home and it took about twenty minutes. May have been quicker if I hadn't been taking a load of photos! Here's just a few.