Drawing

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.

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.

Constellations of Kindness – Thatto Heath Primary school

| Claire

I tested out a few new things for my Constellations of Kindness work this month. I’ve developed how the project can connect with themes within school, using a selection of prepared images to tie in with the school’s Around the World themed week. Two Y5 classes worked with me to create two globe structures that you can fit your head inside and are now installed in the school library.

Black circles of card hang in front of a window. Words are written on each card with tiny pin holes that form the letters. Fragments of words meaning peace, love, and kindness in english, polish, arabic, french and japanese can be seen.

We also took an opportunity to develop mass participation with the pin-pricking technique with 11(!) KS2 classes, which required a busy night for the Cricut machine that cuts out all the shapes. The whole of the juniors of this 3-form entry school heard the story of Hoshi and the legend of the lucky stars, before returning to class with instructions on how to make their own mini constellation of kindness. A selection of words about kindness and community were translated into the languages of the countries being studied, plus the languages spoken in school and each child was able to create their pin-pricked contribution to the community installation. The result is a window installation of approximately 300 circular constellations, all connected and suspended from each other.

A black background has drawings made of dots of light. Drawings include a happy cartoon-like frog, the Japanese flag, a silhouette of a figure holding hands and the word Japan.

One of the classes I worked with were studying Japan, and whilst hanging these, they felt like fortunes, blessings or hopes for the future that might be found in a Shinto shrine. I think there could be something in this process for when I hopefully expand the project into one with the wider community.

Thanks to Thatto Heath primary for the space to try this out.

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

Drawings – July-September 2017

| Claire

I’ve had a recent flurry of drawing activity that has had a public showing over the summer.  A pair of monoprints titled ‘Helped up/Held down’ won the Drawing category at the St Helens Open exhibition at the World of Glass, these drawings are also due to appear in a national arts publication soon, which I’ll share when it is published:

And a set of three drawings that are part of the ‘Drawing the Collection’ exhibition, also at The World of Glass. They are based on observations in the hot glass studio of The World of Glass, observing how the ellipses of glass morph and change in the process of hand blowing different vessels.

‘Drawing the Collection’ is on show at The World of Glass until Friday 3rd November 2017.