exhibition

Emergences – Artworks with Potential

| Claire

by Rebecca Ainsworth, Joao Coelho, Gee Collins, Lucy Davies, Jeff Gilgannon, Cate Glasson, North West Miners Heritage Association, Claire Weetman, Angela Wilkinson.

Event space 1, Haydock Street, St Helens, WA10 1DH
Thursday 26th September 2024 18:30-22:00 VIP launch event 
Saturday 28th September 11:30-17:30 as part of the SUN STREET SOCIAL PARTY
Other times by appointment.

What does a connected community of ideas look like? What are St Helens artists creating that could grow into thoughtful, beautiful work? “Emergences” showcases the work of nine artists who live and work in the town, highlighting their potential.

Brought together in the space of a fortnight, these artists represent the area’s existing infrastructure and networks. Rebecca Ainsworth, Gee Collins and Claire Weetman, all from Platform Studios, have previously worked with Kindred LCR on plans for a secure future for artists studios amid the Town Centre redevelopment. Angela Wilkinson, also a Platform Studios member, Jeff Gilgannon and Joao Coelho have received support through St Helens Arts in Libraries’ Artists Together programme. Lucy Davies is a recent graduate from the BA (hons) Graphic Design University Centre St Helens; Cate Glasson is a resident glassblower at the creative hub that is The World of Glass; and North West Miners Heritage Association are one of the many active community organisations who connect the arts to the people and stories of St Helens.

Each of the works in the show connect to the title, Emergences. The idea that creative work, like a germinating seed, begins in one form that contains the research, the processes and energy to grow into something bigger. Explore how the artists’ works connect to each other and how the town, its people and resources can create a nurturing environment for creative ideas like this to flourish. 

About the venue:
Kindred LCR in partnership with St Helens Borough Council have taken over the old Catapult building on Haydock Street (rounding the corner into Bickerstaffe Street) to create ‘Street and a Half’ (SnA).  Event space 1 is a unit that shows the current space and its potential to be part of a new home to help socially-trading organisations (STOs) and makers grow. 

Credits:
Venue and funding support: Kindred LCR
Projection mapping and equipment: Focal Studios
Glass blowing facilities and production expertise: Marcin Czepiga and The World of Glass
Exhibition producer: Claire Weetman
Poster and marketing design: Gee Collins

For more information or to book an appointment to see the show, contact Claire.

About the artists:

Rebecca Ainsworth presents a large graphite rubbing taken from the floor of The World of Glass hot glass studio. The image is a trace of the creative process of the glass blowers and transforms a stage in Rebecca’s process of creating paintings into a large-scale drawing that marks the layers, echoes and human imprints on places.

Rebecca Ainsworth: The home of the green molten glass, Graphite rubbing on paper

Joao Coelho creates detailed dioramas that capture the rustic, weathered beauty of hidden nooks and the eerie charm of an abandoned alley. Every detail, from the cracked walls to the rusty shutters, tells a story of forgotten urban history in miniature form. Exhibited in this space that is between past and present uses, with its own marks of deterioration and potential Joao wants to connect with others as he develops his creative passion.  

Joao Coelho: Echoes of the Inferno, Mixed Media

Gee Collins is an artist and artworker. They create art with other people, support creative activity, ask lots of questions and listen to people’s answers. With a bit of luck this means creating spaces for justice, challenging and expanding learned ideas of what the world is allowed to look like. 

Gee Collins: And yours, Engraved mirror and glass

Lucy Davies produced a series of two-colour risograph and lino prints of shop buildings in and around the town centre of St Helens as part of her recent degree show. Some of these shops such as Burchall’s Bakery are well loved and still in use, others wait, frozen in time until they are demolished. Lucy’s printmaking helps us to remember the people and stories behind these locations and to appreciate the interesting features and architecture that surrounds us.

Lucy Davies: Flip in St Helens, Flip Book and Burchalls, Top Nails, Charity Shop, Jordan’s Employment Agency, Risograph prints.

Jeff Gilgannon and Angela Wilkinson are collaborating on a project called “Our Town”, creating amazing images which present the regeneration in a way which engages the local community and attempts to cultivate a positive view of the town, both now and in the future. They aim to showcase the town’s changing places and architecture and its changing population in unique perspectives which creates enthusiasm for the transformation and strengthens community bonds. 

Cate Glasson is a glassblower at The World of Glass who was moved by the history of The Wood Pit Disaster in 1878 to create an installation of glass bells that can sound out for every man and boy that perished giving a light filled ringing voice to those whose lives ended prematurely in the dark and horror below ground that day.  Each bell is engraved with a person’s name from the NMRS list of lives lost, connecting family names to people who live in the Borough today.

Cate Glasson with Marcin Czepiga: Wood Pit Bells, Hand blown and engraved glass

North West Miners Heritage Association and their resident artist Jim Housley create replica Pit Banners that celebrate the heritage and communities of former mining areas in St Helens. These banners are used in place of the, now delicate, originals that reside in archive collections to celebrate and remember the spirit and culture of St Helens past mining communities. NWMHA aspires to become a centre of excellence in the production of these banners.

North West Miners Heritage Association: Clock Face Colliery Banner, Textile.

Claire Weetman presents ‘Constellations of Kindness’ a geodesic dome, pin-pricked with illustrations from the adapted story of Hoshi and the Lucky Stars, about the power of a community working together. Works incorporating storytelling performances are a new avenue for Claire in her varied work as an artist, educator and producer of community-engaged projects.

Claire Weetman: Constellations of Kindness, Pin pricked card and audio.

Finding Solitude – an exhibition of drawings

| Claire

Venue:
The Coffee Stop Café, St Mary’s Market, St Helens, WA10 1AR
1st February – 30th March 2024
9am-5pm Monday – Saturday

You can also view the works in an online space if you are unable to make an in person visit to St Helens.
View the exhibition in an online space here

Claire Weetman presents a collection of drawings of chairs that invite you to sit down, but that time to rest alone is just out of reach.

This collection of pencil drawings, created by Claire in 2023 and 2024, began by thinking about how time alone either physically or mentally is difficult to achieve as a parent. Chairs are perched precariously on branches or balanced on top of a tottering tower of bins that need emptying. The chairs are inviting, you’d quite enjoy that seat for yourself, but ultimately, all of these chairs and their offer of rest are unusable. 

Each chair is based on a real chair. Three of them were seen abandoned outside while walking to school with her children. Other drawings feature real chairs that have been moved to a more surreal setting to elaborate on the feeling of never being able to find time alone. 

Claire started making this series of drawings during an artist residency in 2023 with Wild Rumpus and (M)other Collective, where she and a group of artist-mothers stayed in the woods for 4 days. While sitting on an old wooden dining chair in the middle of a field she read Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida. In that book he compares familiar landscapes with the maternal body. “There is no other place of which one can say with such certainty that one has already been there.” Within these drawings, Claire has aimed to capture the familiarity of a chair and to set it in a location that we feel we might have visited. But within each drawing there is some barrier, either physical or emotional, that prevents us from sitting down in peace. 

Finding Solitude - never disconnected. A pencil drawing of a wooden chair in a field of long grass. A telegraph pole is visible in the distance.
Finding Solitude - precarious balance. A wooden chair with an arched back support is balanced high up in the branches of a tree.
Finding solitude - pilgrimage to the bins. A wooden chair sits on top a tower of three metal rubbish bins.

The original drawings are available to purchase at a cost of £150 each, and prints will be available at a cost of £15 each. Please use the contact form on Claire’s website if you wish to make a purchase.

We Reside* Here

| Claire

As the lead artist for Artists Together – the artist development strand of work for St Helens Libraries and Arts NPO – I’ve been working on a programme of work during 2023 called Reside*

During 2023 St Helens has been the Liverpool City Region Borough of Culture, so for this creative year the programme was built around this thought:

“What if every artist who is RESIDEnt in St Helens was recognised as an artist-in-RESIDEnce for the year?”

We started the year with a pop up exhibition at The World of Glass that mapped the locations of artists around the borough and shared what they were planning on working on during the year. Following opportunities for artists to get help with funding, planning and commissions, opportunities to make work together, 1-2-1 feedback from curators and producers and chances to share ideas with each other, we have arrived at the end of the year and the production of We Reside* Here.

We Reside* Here is both a publication and exhibition that maps and showcases the work of over 60 artists in St Helens. The document features a map, illustrated by Cady Davies and with graphic design by Karen Hitchcock, that places each artist in the area of St Helens that they are based, showing our audience that artists aren’t rare beings, only to be found in the big cities of Liverpool and Manchester. These artists are our neighbours, the people you meet on the school run, the folks standing at the bus stop, and they are only a small proportion of the people who bring light, colour, stories and the joy of creativity into St Helens.

As well as mapping some of the artistic population, the We Reside* Here document provides guidance to artists. There are examples of how a number of artists are making their work, designed to provide inspiration and support to other artists seeking to develop. A list of organisations who support people’s creativity features, along with a breakdown of what the process of Reside* was during 2023, so that other artists can pick this up and make new work in the future.

The exhibition that accompanies We Reside* Here is installed at St Mary’s Market in the large event space from 25th November – 20th December. This features an installation of the map, with its cardboard-cut-out style illustrations and showcases the work of many of the 60+ artists, whilst signposting audiences to other works that exist in locations around the town.

Reside_onscreeninfopackDownload
ResideMap-onlyDownload

Artists Together and We Reside* Here is supported by

The Art of Motherhood: An Exhibition of Resilience and Strength

| Claire

Saturday 7th October 2023, 11am-7pm, Sunday 8th October 2023, 12-4pm.
Stretford Public Hall, Chester Road Stretford M32 0LG

Three of my Finding Solitude drawings that were created during a residency with (M)other Collective at Wild Rumpus’ Whirlygig Woods in July 2023 and my Landing Lights window blind feature in this exhibition in October 2023. The exhibition showcases art, photographs, music, recorded histories and performance that capture the experiences of mothers during World War II and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The opening event on 6th October features a special performance by the cast of Motherhood Unscripted of scenes and songs from the show, as well as a drinks reception with nibbles.

This exhibition is part of Mothers in Crisis: Then & Now, a two-year-long creative heritage project delivered by enJOY arts with mothers from across Trafford. Delivered with support from Stretford Public Hall and the People’s History Museum.

(M)other is having a baby

| Claire

Exhibition, 21st-26th January 2023
Village Hall, Great Northern Warehouse, Deansgate, Manchester, M3 4EN

(M)other is a collective of artist-parents based in the North West of England that formed during 2022, and for our first action together, we’re holding an exhibition of sketchbooks, emerging ideas, and introductions to our works in Manchester during January.

I’ve been working on a new maquette piece – lots of the things I make in my studio are experiments at a manageable scale that I think could become something bigger, more complicated, more specific to a location. I’ve been bringing together some poetry and drawing that reflects on the time spent within the home, as a mother during maternity leave in 2019 and the subsequent year of 2020. I’ve been exploring creating digital drawings and cutting text into the printouts of those drawings. I’ll share the completed work in full once it’s on show, but for now here’s some pictures of the making process.

Artist-Led in St Helens

| Claire

Creative Activity in Empty Shops, 10 January – 31 March 2022

In 2022 St Helens Council awarded a tender for me to deliver Creative Activity in Empty Shops as part of the Welcome Back Fund, funded by the European Development Fund. The project was promoted under the title ‘artist-led in St Helens’ with Claire project managing the delivery. A team of freelance artists supported Claire in the delivery; as installation and invigilation assistants, social media support and project management support. Partner organisations including Wonder Arts, Short Supply and Heart of Glass supported delivery of the programme. Here is a summary of what happened.

Print 20:20 exhibition by Platform Print, Buzzhub and Hot Bed Press in the window of Salsa for an 8 week period
Emmer Winder
Julie
Three Artists Together events, providing space for more artists local to St Helens to come together in a space, for the first time in 2 years, to make new work in the town centre.
Aliens, Zombies and Monsters & Alien Agency Exhibitions open in 2 empty shop spaces on Church Square for 8 days during February half term, welcoming over 1000 visitors through the doors in that time. Delivered in partnership with St Helens based Wonder Arts and working with local independent businesses St Helens Bookstop and Geek Retreat to build interest in St Helens’ town centre offerings. Featuring a day of zombie-inspired dance performances by MD Creatives.
SLAP DASH: 1-day artist residencies on 3 March, 1-day symposium on 5 March and 6-day exhibition in an empty shop in St Mary’s Arcade to research ways of creating a culturally centred town centre. Working with North-West based organisation Short Supply to build a regional audience to visit and work in St Helens and supporting local independent businesses such as Phoenix Plant Based Eatery, Rennies and St Helens College Print Room in the production of the events.
Our Susan’s an artist… and Traces of the Town.
A 1 day event where visiting members of the public could share the creativity that they treasure that doesn’t usually get seen in a public space and where they could explore what St Helens town centre means to them through drawing – leading to a new interactive artwork and the exhibition of 10 illustrated photographs by Grace Collins in the windows of 3 more empty shops in St Mary’s Arcade, which will be in place for a minimum of 3 months March – June 2022.
The Many Uses of a Blanket and A Cosy Jumper exhibitions (both projects originally commissioned by Heart of Glass) across 2 empty shop spaces for 7 days, creating comforting spaces where people could reflect on connection and creativity within our community and where two St Helens artists were commissioned to create additional new works.
Claire Eddleston’s spinning wheel situated in the Many Uses of a Blanket and Cosy Jumper exhibition. Photographer: Kelza Pilkington

And here’s the key facts and figures:

  • 63% of the total £30,000* budget was spent directly in St Helens supporting local retailers (9%) and the St Helens Arts economy (54%), predominantly to individual artists living, working and studying here who will go on to spend their income in the local retail economy.
  • A total of 1738 people came through our doors on the 22 days we were open
  • From the postcodes we’ve collected, 73% of visitors were from St Helens, with 13% from Liverpool City Region and 13% nationally.

*numbers are rounded

Who did we work with?

  • 53 individual artists were involved either in the creation of works or as support staff for the events
  • Local independent businesses including Phoenix Plant Based Eatery, Bookstop St Helens, Geek Retreat, Rennies, Vinyline, Retro Chimps, 1 hour stitch, Victoria Flowers.
  • Local and regional arts partners including Wonder Arts, Heart of Glass, St Helens Arts Service, St Helens Libraries, Short Supply, Buzzhub, MD Creatives, Hot Bed Press.

“The major benefits …was being able to see a variety of ages, genders, backgrounds interacting with artwork in the heart of the town centre. The reactions were…of surprise and intrigue and to see the joy that art work can bring to audiences that aren’t not expecting to see it on a routine outing was wonderful.”

“The Benefits for our members have been extraordinary. We have been able to showcase the work of our talented members in various locations around the Town. It has enabled their local community to recognise and appreciate their talents. We have had the privilege of working with some amazing Artists… Our aspiration is inclusion. Our members (as) equals within their society. Opportunities to be admired and respected. Working with these artists allowed this to happen…we saw the Town Centre come to life with creative spaces ” – Buzzhub St Helens CDP

“It was wonderful to be welcomed into a town and space I would likely otherwise never have worked in before. I learned about the energy you find in small towns, breaking down that assumption that creativity isn’t worth bringing to a small town because nobody is interested in it. The project proved resoundingly that isn’t true, and furthermore proved how a little care, attention and effort can bring life and energy to even the smallest places.”

Check out @artistledsthelens on Instagram and Facebook for posts made during the project.

Artist-led in St Helens Creative Activity in empty shops was receiving up to £24,500 of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund, specifically the Welcome Back Fund, as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (and in London the intermediate body Greater London Authority) is the Managing Authority for European Regional Development Fund. Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regenerations. For more information visit https://www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding.

When paths cross/Wenn sich wege kreuzen

| Claire

A short residency in Stuttgart in April 2018, invited by Yellow Door Artists has resulted in an exhibition opening this weekend at the Rathaus in Stuttgart to celebrate the 70th anniversary of St Helens and Stuttgart’s town twinning.  I’ll be showing two pairs of photographs from the performances of What are you waiting for? that took place outside Bibliothek in Stuttgart in April and from Thatto Heath Library in St Helens in October.

When paths cross/Wenn sich wege kreuzen
Rathaus Galerie, Stuttgart
Germany
19th November – 14th December 2018.
An invitation to the opening of our twin town exhibition on Friday 16th November 2018 at 6pm, Rathaus Stuttgart, 4th floor, Marktplatz 1, 70173.
Welcome speech by Nadia Vom Schiedt: Director of the Department of International Relations, followed by an introduction talk by Vivien Sigmund: Art Historian MA.
This exhibition takes place in the context of the 70 year partnership between Stuttgart and St Helens and the 30 year partnership with Lodz. It showcases 4 artists from St Helens, 1 from Lodz and 4 Stuttgart artists, who have all undertaken artist exchanges between the towns.

Exhibiting artists:
Naoise Johnson-Martin, Rhyannon Parry, Rebecca Ainsworth, Claire Weetman, Ellen Rein, NAF (Nana Hühewig and Fender Schrade), Monika Drache, Magdalena Kowalczyk

Opening Times: Monday to Friday 10am – 6pm, Free Entry.
Duration of Exhibition: 19 November until 14 December.

Artist Books in the Autumn. Stuttgart/Yokohama/Manchester

| Claire

This autumn the three editions of Aridane’s thread will be joining a host other artist-book makers from around the world in three exhibitions.

Seiten | Räume
an artist-book project

// opening 12.9.2018 // Württembergische Kunstverein, Stuttgart

Linienscharen is a platform for contemporary drawing, which was founded in Stuttgart. Linienscharen have invited artists to submit a book project in the spirit of an artist’s book, which is to be exhibited at various locations that are not typical visual arts venues. A piece of furniture will be built that will present the submitted books in unison, allowing the audience the freedom to explore and leaf through the varied books. There will be an event for the opening at each location that focuses on inherent or additional aspects of the topic. After a week or two, the furniture will move on to another location, including the Graphothek at Stuttgart Bibliothek and the Stuttgarter Schriftstellerhaus (writer’s house)

Promoted by the city of Stuttgart

Reading Between The Lines:
Tokyo/Yokohama and St. Helens Artists’ Books and Zine

21 September – 1 October 2018.
Launchpad Gallery, Yokohama

Turning the Page: Manchester – Yokohama

29 September – 3 November 2018
Private View: Thursday 27 September 2018, 6-9pm
Paper Gallery, Manchester

Established in 2012 in the Tokyo/Yokohama area, Art Byte Critique responds to a desire for a community of artists interested in sharing ideas and feedback about their studio process.

Since 2014, Art Byte Critique artists have been exploring various modes of expression through artists’ books and zines. At the same time, Art Byte Critique established a connection with artists in St. Helens, England through artist Joan Birkett with the intent to develop relationships and collaborations.

This connection has happily borne fruit in 2018. Art Byte Critique artists and St. Helens artists organized a collaborative exhibition of artists’ books and zines at the Eccleston Community Library in St. Helens and the World of Glass in St. Helens this past spring. These works will tour to Paper Gallery in Manchester under the title “Turning the Page” from September 29 – November 3, 2018.

“Reading Between the Lines” at Launch Pad Gallery in Yokohama is the first collaborative artists’ books and zines exhibition for Art Byte Critique and the St. Helens artists in Japan. This exhibition will feature recent works and new works created by a number of artists for this exhibition. In the spirit of bookmaking and collaboration, “Reading Between the Lines” will be hosting a series of workshops and events by the artists. We want to give visitors a chance to learn more about bookmaking and try their hand at bookmaking.
Participating Artists:

Jane Barwood, Joan Birkett, Paul Cousins Deanna Gabiga Arthur Huang Patty Hudak Mariko Jesse Yuko Kamei A.J. Malone Jeni McConnell Carol Miller Julia Nascimento Lyle Nisenholz Mia O Lori Ono Jacqui Priestley Louise Rouse Yvonne Tinsley Claire Weetman Nick West

Interval 1.1, Ordsall Hall, Salford

| Claire

My work ‘What are you waiting for’ will be exhibited again from February at Ordsall Hall in Salford as part of the next iteration of Markmakers’ exhibition ‘Interval’.

Interval 1.1

Opens Sunday 11 February 2018, 2-3.30pm
Exhibition continues to 13 May 2018.

Ordsall Hall, 322 Ordsall Lane, Salford, M5 3AN
Open Monday – Thursday 10am-4pm, Sundays 1-4pm

What is an interval?
Is it just blank space?
Is there anything of interest in the gaps?

As a group of artists, ‘Markmakers’ come together to explore common themes through each artist’s individual contemporary art practice. Over the past year their theme has been interval. What is an interval? Is it just a blank space? Is there anything of interest in the gaps?

The exhibition will include new work directly inspired by Ordsall Hall with some interventions in other areas of the Hall.

Have a break, visit interval.

Getting there:

Car Parking: Please note that car park charges apply during the Hall’s opening hours (Monday – Thursday 10am – 4pm and Sunday 1 – 4pm). Costs are £2 for up to 3 hours and £6 for over 3 hours.

Tram:The Hall is very close to the Exchange Quay Metrolink Station on the MediaCity UK / Eccles line.

Bus:Any bus to Salford Quays on the A5063 stops on Trafford Road (the Copthorne Hotel) leaving a short walk to the Hall.

Christmas print sale, 9th December

| Claire

This year I’ve been making a lot (for me) of print work, exploring monoprinting and adding in a little bit of screenprint for variety. I’ve participated in the Hot Bed Press 20:20 print exchange, which saw a flurry of print activity and furrowed brows at Platform studios in St Helens as 9 other artists joined together to create a series of 25 prints at 20cm square.

To celebrate this joint enterprise, we’re having a festive celebration at Platform studios on Saturday 9th December from 1-4pm. You’ll be able to view the works produced for the exchange, see the works we’ve received from other printmakers across the UK, eat cake that has been baked to fit the 20x20cm guidelines and enjoy a warming hot chocolate.

I’ll have a selection of prints for sale, some are especially festive and others are things I’ve worked on during this year. There will be prices from £2 to £10, and all of the proceeds from these sales will be ploughed into producing a new programme of work planned for 2018 that works directly with people who have been displaced from their home countries. Available prints and prices are in the gallery below, if you see something you like but can’t make it on the 9th, then get in touch and I can post it out to you for the price of a first class stamp (an extra 75p).