I’ve just attended Fab Camp this weekend – an excellent opportunity to play with the digital fabrication tools on offer at Liverpool John Moores Art & Design Academy. Here are some of my experiments from the past 2 days.

In order to understand the capabilities of the equipment I developed this model out of plywood – somewhat a return to subject matter I painted around 12 years ago. The scene is based on views in Keswick.

Day 2, and I wanted to develop some works with a relationship to my current practice. These images show layering of soundwaves – laser engraved onto 3 sheets of acrylic.

And just for fun, an example of how 3d modelling and 3d printing works with a lego representation of yours truly (with only one hand!):

Other events from the weekend included talks from Hayden Insley of Fab Lab Manchester, Q&As from Razorlab, talks and guidance from Ilsa Parry and Jason Nelson of Dundee University.

The Brindley, Runcorn

29 January – 26 February 2011

www.thebrindley.org.uk

Halton Arts Development’s unique programme of artists’ residencies with Halton’s high schools, special schools and FE College is now in its 6th year. Come and celebrate with us and enjoy painting, sculpture and photographs by talented young people from across the borough, alongside works by artists Karen Allerton, Beth Barlow, Rebecca Chesney, Laurence Payot, Angela Sidwell and Claire Weetman.

Claire worked with Cavendish High School exploring movement, sound and drawing, resulting in this exhibition of work by the young people and four experiments in animation by Claire.

Midas Touch was an early years creativity project, managed by Claire Weetman for Find Your Talent and the Aspire Trust in early 2010. Artist Michiko Fujii and Early Years Practitioner Laura Grindley delivered the project and their story of Aaron and Lewis’ explorations has been published by Creativity, Culture and Education.

For more Early Years projects involving Claire Weetman, see the projects section of her website.

‘Four experiments’ was produced following workshops at Cavendish High School, Runcorn as part of the Inspired Responses 6 programme for exhibition at the Brindley Arts Centre during February 2011.

Platform is a group of artists based in St Helens, UK, who are working together to share their practice and to address the lack of affordable, accessible, studio spaces in the town. On Wednesday 15th December 2010, the artists took to the streets of St Helens to produce artworks within the town in order to highlight this to a wider audience.

Claire Weetman produced ‘Recording the Journey‘ a drawing intervention on the pavements of St Helens, which visually charted an audio recording of a journey through the town, and used snippets of overheard conversation.

Above: ‘Recording the Journey‘, Intervention, Chalk on pavement, Claire Weetman
Photograph courtesy Tony Glover

Below left: Work in Progress, Joan Birkett
Photograph Courtesy Angela Wilkinson

Joan Birkett created a temporary exhibition of some works in progress and invited the passing audience to make marks on canvas which she could later develop. Photographers Jon Holden, Tony Glover and Angela Wilkinson exhibited some of their works, produced new work and documented the event, whilst Tony Maher from the organisation ‘Art from a bag’ invited the public to take photographs and email them back.

Michael and Adam from Renaissance Film Productions filmed the event, and Tina Culshaw from T5 magazine was present and will no doubt feature Platform’s efforts in an upcoming issue.

Audience pulling events came from poet Raphael Hart, who performed his works to gathered students and shoppers, and the installation ‘Restricted Movement‘ by Pauline Heyes brought humorous responses and engaged debate from those who saw it.

‘Restricted Movement‘, Pauline Heyes, Installation
Photograph courtesy Angela Wilkinson

Raphael Hart performing his poetry outside St Helens College
Photograph courtesy Tony Glover

Platform plans to hold more events in 2011 in its efforts to work towards the establishment of affordable studios in the town of St Helens.

To keep up to date on Platform events see platformarts.blogspot.com

Static:Moving, a graphite drawing by Claire Weetman, has been selected for the Light Bite 2011 exhibition in Nottingham.
As part of the 2011 Light Night Festival, Claire’s work will feature in this exhibition of magnetic masterpieces on the city centre streets of Nottingham. 250 miniature artworks will be displayed on lamp posts this February 18th, 2011 from 6pm onwards. Find them, pick them up and take them home. Discover Nottingham’s finest talent and artists from around the world. Collect their work for FREE and start a gallery on your fridge.

Claire Weetman’s first animation ‘Chatham Road (Eventually Everyone had Moved)’ has been selected for this exhibition at Manchester Modernist Society.

Inspired by the organisation’s own collection of 20th Century maps, the exhibition is part of the Chapel Street Open Studios series of events which showcases the creative output of the Chapel Street area of Salford.

The exhibition includes a variety of work including a map of Manchester in the form of an angiogram (an x-ray of blood vessels); a map tracking every aeroplane to take off from Heathrow airport in 24hours; a map designed to promote Salford’s ‘Unconvention’ music festival and an intriguing take on motorway signage.

Artwork is available for sale and all proceeds will suppport the continued aims of the modernist society, a not for profit organisation.

Participating artists:

Angela Fox

Annie Harrison

Becca Smith

Charlotte Utting-Brown

Claire Weetman

Daksha Patel

David Davies

Mark Lomax

Michael Thorp

Noah Rose

Phil Turner

Spike Dennis

Ultimate Holding Company

Crossing: Nibelungen Bridge’ and ‘Space Between’ will be exhibited for the first time at The St Helens Open 2010, which opens Tuesday 16 November 2010.

Both of these works were created as part of the Urban Interventions residency that Claire undertook at Atelierhaus Salzamt, Linz earlier in the year. ‘Crossing: Nibelingen Bridge’ is a graphite drawing and was developed using film footage of people crossing this major bridge in the city.

‘Space Between’ is the result of an intervention in the exhibition Linz <-> Liverpool: How much Exchange can you stand? Claire invited visitors to the exhibition to carry an MP3 recorder between the two venues – recording their journey along the way. The resulting audio was transformed into visual soundwaves, layered and displayed as a lightbox.

Claire Weetman’s drawing ‘Passing, Watching, Waiting, Following II’ was selected from the Halton Open 2010, for Art Merseywide at Liverpool Conservation Centre. This exhibition draws 9 of the best works from each of the open submission exhibitions across the Merseyside area.

‘Passing, Watching, Waiting, Following II’ was produced as part of the POST exchange with artists from the city of Linz. It is a drawing produced during an intervention in the main square, that tracks and traces movement using graphite marks.

Art Merseywide has been extended from its original closing date – please check The National Conservation Centre website for details.