Olympic Values - Friendship..

I am lucky enough to be able to say that I have some of the best friends in the world..

One of them Cherry Hall decided to celebrate her birthday with a flourish an exhibition celebrating the Olympic Value -  'Friendship'

Showing now Chelmsford library, Essex.

(You can just see Cherry in the poster reflection)

 

Cherry's work 'Medal A Day'

 

Here a view of Cherry's work.. Looking through the cabinet. I love all of the patterns around the sides.. Looks as if its in Kew gardens glass house not Chelmsford Library....

The Olympic paper children are the work of Joan Glen-Martin . Amazingly completed despite suffering from kidney stones and a rotten virus.

The beautiful handmade book is the work of Linda Wilks, her flag book set off the cabinet with a flourish of patriotism.

.....Close up.. Whilst waiting to be put on show

 

My work was put into two tall glass cabinets 108 dolls all linked with red thread..

My blurb..

'A Common Thread'

by

Julie Howe

This installation is about imperceptible links that join us all.

The Olympics have joined athletes their coaches, families and spectators across the world in a unique way through sport, we join them for a brief moment as we watch their race to the Olympic line.

This installation was born through sadness and loss and ended up as a self-exploratory piece looking at the invisible threads that link us all .

It begun with a simple pattern made from a cereal box cut out in calico and stitched. Each and every 'doll' started with the same pattern (their own DNA), stretched and altered, evolving as they were made. One 'doll' led to another and became this installation of 108* pieces.

This work was started in despair and ended in the reassuring knowledge that we are all linked in some way by 'A Common Thread'.

“An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstances. The thread may stretch or tangle but will never break.” - An ancient Chinese belief" - Author unknown.

*Note:108 is a sacred number.

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   "Friends have all things in common."- Plato

Grayson Perry

I have taken it for granted that you know that my 'dolls' Grayson and Claire are one of the same, as they are in real life, different sides of the same person. These photo's will explain.

Grayson Perry

Grayson Perry is a unique character, this doll is my homage to this amazing artist. I have used as a starting point an outfit that

'Claire'

wore to the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition preview party 2008 and

'Graysons'

motor bike leathers leathers based on the Cerne Abbis Giant.

This cloth and clay doll is 45cm or roughly 18" in length, the doll is made of calico, paperclay and acrylic paint. I'm not very good with a camera so I hope these photo's do it justice

I hope that you are intrigued enough to look up Grayson Perry......... His work is amazing.

Miss Poppy Field

I'd like to introduce you to Miss Poppy Field she was my very first cloth and clay doll, thanks to all the support I have received from the Cloth and Clay workshop.

Miss Poppy Field lives in a typically quiet English village , she lives in the same house which she was born. Everyone in the village thinks is a very boring old maid but little do they know............







A single lady with a plain outside except for a twinkle in her eye and red shoes but on the inside there is a racy lady....... she is she is made of calico, paperclay and acrylic paint. I have had the best fun making her.

Perry, Grayson

Heres a little more information that I thought might be of interest

* British artist
Having achieved celebrity status by winning the 2003 Turner Prize, one of the art world’s premier honours, British potter Grayson Perry in 2004 mounted a solo exhibition at the Tate St. Ives in Cornwall and saw I Want to Be an Artist (1996), the first of his vases to be sold at auction, fetch £36,000 (about $66,000), more than twice the presale estimate. The Turner Prize frequently generated controversy, and Perry’s award was widely perceived as a continuation of this trend, though perhaps for different reasons from those in the past. Perry was the first potter to win the prize, and the fact that he dressed openly as a transvestite, with his doll-like alter ego, Claire, making frequent appearances (often accompanied by his wife and daughter), added to the controversy. Furthermore, the colourful surfaces of Perry’s classically shaped vases served as a seductive camouflage for inscribed images and messages that were distinctly at odds with their decorative medium. Domestic violence, child abuse, pedophilia, and cultural stereotypes were some of the troubling themes that the artist habitually explored in these inscriptions. Perry acknowledged his exploitation of the decorative appeal of his pots, describing them as a “guerrilla tactic” or “stealth tactic,” under the cover of which “a polemic or an ideology” waited to be discovered.

Perry was born into a working-class family in Chelmsford, Essex, Eng., on March 24, 1960. His interest in ceramics was kindled during childhood, and by the age of 13 he had confided his transvestism to his diary. He studied at the Braintree College of Further Education in Essex and at Portsmouth Polytechnic in Hampshire, but it was not until the early 1980s, when he was living in a squat in London’s Camden Town, that he returned to the serious study of ceramics by way of evening art classes. At the time, he was appearing in performance pieces and art films and nursing his own aspirations as a filmmaker. He disliked the compromising and collaborating that he felt went hand-in-hand with filmmaking, however, and when in 1984 the first solo exhibition of his ceramic works—all created in his evening classes—sold well, he made pottery his main art form, though he continued to work in other media. From the 1990s Perry also worked in embroidery, creating such pieces as Mother of All Battles (1996), a woman’s folk costume stitched with ethnic symbols and images of weapons and killings, and Claire’s Coming Out Dress (2000). In 2004 Great Britain’s Channel 4 commissioned him to make a television documentary about transvestism. Perry was also the author of a novel, Cycle of Violence (1992).

Janet Moredock

This is the entry in the encyclopaedia Britannica for Grayson Perry

A little more Grayson a tiny bit of Claire

These are a few glimpses of my Grayson and Claire doll.

I an intrigued by this man. I admire his ceramic and textile work. He confronts issues within his pieces and does not shy away from so called 'difficult' subjects.


I hope I have done justice to the man.

The doll is made of fabric paperclay and acrylic paint

Grayson

A spare rib...

Claire

A sneak preview...