Day 3: Brilliant felting workshop from Sponge Tree

By guest blogger Nicky Solloway

Enjoyed a fantastic workshop in Ben Rhydding this morning with the lovely Nicola from Sponge Tree. The theme was Felting a Yorkshire Landscape and around 15 people came along.

This is one of my pieces and my first attempt at felting. I'm sure my technique needs plenty of work but hey, it was great fun and Nicola made it all seem so straight forward. I can't wait to buy my own wool tops and bamboo mats to do some more at home.

Day one opens with a great buzz

By guest blogger Nicky Solloway

It's the first day of the 2013 Trail and so far, so great. The bunting and banners are up and a stash of green arrows point the way to venues around town.

The artists I've spoken to today report a steady stream of people popping in who have all been very complimentary. 

Just a reminder that community artists Sponge Tree are set to spin their magic with a drop-in family workshop at Ilkley Bandstand on Saturday. Come along and make something wacky out of recycled books - only £2 per person. The fun starts at 10am and goes on until 4pm. See you there!

Generous offers from local businesses

By guest blogger Nicky Solloway

From half-price taxis to cut-price coffee, we've got some lovely offers from local businesses to help make Ilkley Art Trail 2013 an even greater experience!

The new owner of Avanti, Carl Doyle has very kindly offered 20% off eat-in food and drink for the five days of the Trail plus a 20% discount on takeaway coffee and hot drinks to anyone who presents a programme. Surely an offer we can't refuse....how many coffee stops can we squeeze in!? For those who haven't been before, Avanti is in the middle of Ilkley on The Grove promenade, just off Brook Street.

Meanwhile Italian coffee shop La Stazione is offering to decorate your latte or cappuccino with a free Ilkley Art Trail logo during the five-day Trail. Manager Max says he has been practicing and now has the chocolate logo down to a fine art!

And if you need a taxi to get from venue to venue, Ilkley Taxis have kindly stepped in to offer half price fares around town on production of a programme. You can book your cab by calling 601110 or look out for the taxis with the IAT car magnet. 

There's only one fly in the ointment, or should that be in the beer? We were hoping to be able to offer a pound off your first pint at the soon to open Flying Duck brewery pub. But unfortunately, through unforeseen circumstances,  it won't be open by mid-October. Sorry about that folks, but you can still enjoy a cuppa...!

Pic by Anna Nolan

Welcome to the third Ilkley Art Trail 9- 13 October

We're getting to ready to roll out our fantastic new programme for this year's Trail which starts in just five weeks.

Look out for our lovely turquoise brochures around town to start plotting your route to some of Yorkshire's finest art!

Artists will be opening their homes and studios and we will also be displaying in some more unusual venues including at a dentist's, a vet's, an osteopath's and in a shed.

Watch this space....

Ilkley Art Trail 2012 - Day 8

Busy in town. Tourists making the most of glorious weather.

Balloons and 'This Weekend' posters were put up all along The Grove, Station Plaza and Brook Street.

Billboard fame:

The first of today's guest experiences is from:

Ruth Wightman, oil painter at VENUE 13:

(Did he go through the submissions process?!...)

Hi all

A strange coincidence happened on Wednesday. As I was leaving Christ Church (VENUE 13 - late, I thought it was 5 and it was actually 6 ) the wonderful stained glass window on the stairs caught my eye, the words "Children" at the bottom of  the first shield particularly drew my  attention.

The window had been given to the Church by the Children of Frank and Mary Elisabeth Suddards in their memory in 1940.

After reading this I really looked at the  window and noticed what beautiful drawing and colours make up this window and remembered that it was once at the front of the alter before the church gained a floor.  The last shield reads "He that was dead came forth " with rather a creepy image of a bandaged figure shinning out of a deep blue background.

I'm not religious but  those words kept going through my head on the drive home.

As I neared my house I saw my neighbour who for a combination of reasons I only see about twice a year and so I stopped the car to catch up.

When she heard that I was exhibiting at Christ Church she told me that some of her relatives had given the church a stained glass window and she was amazed when I knew their first names and what really astonished me was that Frank was an artist and an Royal Academist ...so I can't help thinking he came forth!

Regards Ruth

The second Guest reflection is from:

Chris Smith (VENUE 10) on Gillian Gilroy's work at VENUE 13:

One of my favourite works in the trail is this cup cake (as we seem to be calling them these days) by Gillian Gilroy. It looks painterly from a distance, but starts to loosen into fragments, strips and flakes of coloured paper as the eye closes in. The colours are well-judged with each of the three main complementary pairings present: greens and reds, blues and oranges and most pleasing of all, a few fragments of grey which hint at purple, surrounded as they are by yellows and greens.

This might seem fanciful (I am sure it is), but I caught a sense of ambiguity in the work; between the thing it evidently is, i.e. a cake in a domestic scene and the possibility of something more monumental. Here is the case (ahem) for the fanciful idea of the monumental. Firstly the background is rather map-like, particularly with that curling archipelago form in the top left corner. There is a horizon line which joins a surface plane containing fragments of patchwork green. Then there is the cake itself: solid and  circular, topped by icing and supported strongly by those column-like flutings of alternating dark and light. Before you think me totally mad, I remembered what it was that fuelled these thoughts in my sub-conscious; a painting by William Nicholson of the view of Malaga from a hillside in 1936.

This has been the last blog of 2012 Art Trail. I hope you have enjoyed it!  

Thank you for taking the journey with us and all the best for the year ahead from Ilkley Art Trail!

Ilkley Art Trail 2012 - Day 7

Busier around Town today and busier at most venues - this is good!

Tomorrow will be busy so get there early!

We have made it... to a bin!... But a full page spread in the Ilkley Gazette looks great - well done all.

FACE-BOOK JOBS

Two boons for The Trail are Judith Levin's lovely tea tin and Anita Bowerman's lovely paper cut maps.

Do visit Betty's cafe face-book and Yorkshire Tea face-book pages respectively and comment on their features as well as liking them (if you do).

In your comment, if you mention www.ilkleyarttrail.org.uk and it will reach all of Betty's and Yorkshire tea's friends! Anita has receives an order for a print of her map from America based on its presence on Betty's page. Good work!

Chris Smith has kindly offered another guest spot, this time on Gillian Gilroy at VENUE 13:

Guest blog coming soon but TTFN

Ilkley Art Trail 2012 - Day 6

The organiser has spent the day replacing signage that had gone astray and giving out programmes around town and has been relieved from blog content by something which I believe is a great thing to do: Chris Smith has offered to guest blog today and here are his reflections on Drew Ward's work:

Drew Ward – VENUE 13

Audience:

The paradox in Drew Ward’s drawings is that whilst they are full of lines, there are no drawn lines as such, only edges and when you think about it an edge is not a line anyway, but merely the point of transition between one thing and another. Phew, my head hurts!

I am struck by a recurring idea of slatted blinds or vents in these drawings. As we know a blind simultaneously blocks and reveals the view, but it also regulates illumination into a scene, in much the same way a vent regulates the flow of air. There is another sense in which these drawings are ‘airy’ too; they depict the high spaces in architectural buildings that would otherwise be unseen. In these places the exchange of wall, ceiling and corner are managed through complex crossings, skeletal supporting structures and services, which build from back to the front to give the drawings their double sense of space and atmosphere.

In most of the drawings the blocks of tone seem to slide alongside each other in seismic shifts. Fragments, or shards, break away to form new ribbons of light and dark pattern, which remind me of the black and yellow tape used by workmen to cordon-off dangerous construction sites. This simile could be apt given the lofty heights in which these drawings have their origins.

Alternatively, what I meant to say is - I really like these drawings!

Thank you Chris.

I am hopeful of another guest blog slot from Chris tomorrow...