Pittenweem Arts Festival 2009 — Day Six

Thursday morning.

The sun remained out for our final tour of some scattered venues that we missed earlier in the week. The dream of seeing and critting every venue seems rather optimistic now, but we hit more than half so it was still a good effort.

34. McLeod & Duncan et al. A real family exhibition held in the family home. We met Nanzie McLeod, local author, who called me “bearded one” and told me I looked local. Julie has all Nanzie’s previous books and bought her more recent one which the author signed. Downstairs, Jules Duncan’s relief pictures of dinosaurs and Braille and partially eaten chocolate bars and optometrist boards are very inventive. Please mind the step, however. Always mind the step.

35. Jennifer Pettigrew. A lot of variation in styles while remaining fairly neutral and accessible. Warm golden abstracts that I could see in showhomes and restaurants and furniture stores. My favourites were photos of boats masts in the sky that were inverted and photoshopped to give an illusion of water.

30. Reinhard Behrens. Very odd but in a good way. Reinhard does gorgeous illustrations of camels in the desert and remote villagers and Venetian canals and sepia 1920s expeditions, all with this little yellow toy submarine somewhere in the image. It’s called Naboland and has quite an alien feel although I’m not sure I get it. Despite this, I had to admire the dedication given to the installation in the venue. Margaret Smyth’s work is a little more grounded and features clockwork dolls and caged birds. Both are a little spooky.

28. Tracy Butler. Tracy’s Korea-inspired pastels just remind me of how few exhibitions have been solely seascapes and puffins this year. Highlight was a mixed media tiger in golds with a fantastic crackle effect through it. And what a lovely person too!

27. Mark Bannerman. Surreal 3D renderings. The Scotch Pie Fight has proved very popular. The images have a strange Victorian freak show feel, making them even more interesting.

71. Adrienne McStay. Sculptures of pretty big acorns and oddly scorched boulders. Not quite my cuppa but Julie lapped it up.

70. Jewellry. I’m not best placed to comment.

65. Mairi Clark. Abstract landscapes in big blocks of colour are a bit hit and miss for me. The ones I liked were more down to the colours and general composition rather than what they said to me.

63. Ian Rolland. Perfectly delightful local watercolour landscapes and Parisianesque St Andrews cafe culture. Doesn’t stand out against its ilk but there’s only so many ways to paint these kinds of subject with this kind of media and after six days and dozens of venues, a certain sameyness is unavoidable.

4. Liz Yule and Angus McDonald. Same as 63, really, although Breakdancers on the Royal Mile has that X Factor. Hundreds of red dots suggest far more enthusiasm than perhaps I have and Julie described one of the floral works as masterful. At this stage, I was getting hungry and a little grumpy.

2. Marlene Byres. Landscapes but this time done in mixed media and embroydery and cotton. A fresh approach.

1. Horsburgh. James More Horsburgh paints angry seas and the boats that braved them. Excellent movement and light and I’m not just saying that because he’s famous. So even though it’s predominantly subject matter that I like to avoid at Pittenweem, it’s impossible not to admire the scale, skill and precision in the work.

43. Outbye Gallery and Ovenstone Artists  Outside Pittenweem in nearby Ovenstone, Lynsey Ewan does huge oils of out of focus fruits and flora that make the journey worthwhile but there’s so much to choose from here and so many different styles, especially if your tastes are a little more avant garde.

The Festival finishes on Sunday, but that about wraps it up for us. It’s been a great week in the East Neuk and the best Pittenweem we’ve seen in the four or five years coming here, helped by the weather and our fabulous lodgings and grandly underpinned by the fine food at the St Andrews Cheese Company, from which I’ve been pestering m’colleague Stoobs with pictures of my lunches. The variety of work, while I haven’t done it justice and have probably made it sound quite similar in these posts, has been very broad indeed. And judging my the amount of red dots scattered around town, that recession thingamebob might be on the way out.

Pictures will be added to the last few posts tomorrow night when I’m back in the land of wi-fi broadband.

Until next year …

 

Pittenweem Arts Festival 2009 — Day Five

Wednesday morning. 

Hot and sunny and we find ourselves on West Shore collecting the venues in the 80s and I’m enjoying four bars of reception for the first time. If I haven’t already done so, I’m beginning to run out of ways to describe landscape watercolours. Judge for yourself.   

87. Heather Cunningham. Very easy style. Thick strokes without bring very impressionist and delicate watercolour flowers. Enjoyed our conversation regarding a pregnant or just lazy cat.

86. Gina Wright. Quite simply the best pastel work at the festival. Light and shade is fantastic.  

84. Patrick Duncan. An interesting non-runny use of watercolour in these landscapes.  

83. Louise Scott. Etchings of nature with a Celtic/Norse/Watership Down theme. Lots of greens and blues. Looks maddening work, requiring patience and persistence, not two of my most abundant qualities.

Forgive the somewhat lack lustre commentary. It really was very warm this morning and the festival was soon abandoned in favour of Elie and Lower Largo for a spot of paddling.   

 

Pittenweem Arts Festival 2009 — Day Four

Tuesday Morning.

We were a Festival-Free-Zone yesterday so no update. Julie abandoned me in favour of a pastel workshop run by Cath Reed, leaving me to amuse myself in St Andrews. Refreshed from the break, we tackled this morning’s efforts with vim and vigour, only for the morning to retalliate by pishing it down on us.

21. David Graham. Bhopal 25 years on. Bhopal is one of the first memories I have of big news and I confess that I was unaware that the effects of the Union Carbide disaster is still felt today through contaminated water. What a price to pay for some pesticides. The exhibition of David Graham’s photography from a recent visit to the area are to a National Geographic standard. The images of abandoned industry are chilling enough, but nowhere near as affecting as the stark photos of survivors and their offspring.

22. Ricky Thorbjornsen. Ricky’s work is mainly pastel and watercolou and he makes good use of reflections and sunlight in his Edinburgh and east coast landscapes. The paintings that aren’t quite so obviously what they’re supposed to be works better.

23. Robert Cairns. Robert is a character. Without a doubt, one of the friendliest welcomes we’ve had and that’s not just because he plied us with vino and shortbread at a little after midday. Judging by the number of red dots, Robert’s had a good festival so far and deservingly so. He has a good head for the audience he’s going to attract and has sensibly sized and framed his work so it can be picked up and hung at home with minimal fuss. Particularly, his pen and ink work of Parisian buildings carries such sophistication and detail, it’s another example of wishing we’d put a little more cash aside

80. Susie Lacome. I’ve been admiring Susie’s work for years and I still don’t know exactly how her linocut prints work. It’s an unusual and charming technique and however it’s done, the results are awkward angled buildings and people and fish vans and gulls and washing lines and it all just comes together perfectly.

79. Tim Cockburn, Hilke MacIntyre and Ian MacIntyre. Tim parodies the supposed masters of Scottish art so imagine caricatures if Vetriano and that ice skating dude from the National Gallery. Hilke Macintyre works in ceramic reliefs and, strangely enough, linocuts, but her motifs are far more urban than Susie as she mostly deals with people and boozy nights out. Ian Macintyre linocut (again?!) and linocut style oils give a cartoon style simplification of people and places.

77. Paul Bartlett. Paul is hugely successful. We’ve been in to his venue for four years and every time we go in, he’d usually wrapping up another sale. His acryllic collages of wildlife — mostly using torn up magazine pages — have impressed me for years but the work seems to lack evolution and so what we saw today wasn’t a whole lot different to what we saw in 2007. Still, they’re big, bold and expensive and he never seems to have a problem shifting his work which must be useful if you want to eat.

Craig Mitchell

72. Craig Mitchell. We finished up the session in the harbourmaster’s building with Craig Mitchell’s comical sculptures. The work is hugely inventive and he really runs with an idea, taking it to a conclusion. Picks of the bunch were the three caged birds, all attempting escape by different means: saw, blowtorch and dynamite, plus Airfix styled Boyfriend Kit, complete with box and component sheet. My only complaint was there wasn’t enough of it.

Before heading off to spend an afternoon with scones and friends, we had a fantastic lunch at the St Andrews Farmhouse & Cheese Company. If you’re in the area, you’ve got to try it.

 

Pittenweem Arts Festival 2009 — Day Two

Sunday Morning.

Our luck was in again on this fine Sunday morning. If earthenware was the theme for yesterday, today seems to be sponsored by more ads for tarot, past life regressions, aromatherapy and Indian head massages than I’ve ever seen, either in this life or any previous ones. Sunday morning was spent mostly along James Street which runs through Pittenweem.

49. Open Exhibition. As you’d expect, a real mixed bag of styles, techniques, media and capability. Features two of Julie’s collages which hold their own quite comfortably. Not much in the way of red dots which doesn’t bode entirely well but it does mean that we might be able to put our hall back to the way it was once this is all over.

88. Winton, Demarco & Newman. Feels like a proper City gallery. It used to be a car showroom so it’s über spacious and the empty spaces were filled with Spanish guitar music. Susan Winton’s mixed media abstract landscapes were striking as were the numberous Richard Demarco pencil (I think) illustrations, which look like film noir movie storyboards. Terry Ann Newman, I just don’t get. At all. While we were browsing, Richard Demarco turned up with a couple of Californian types to sit at a table and discuss the Festival (not that I was eavesdropping). However, while I was eavesdropping, I heard Mr Demarco mention that he thought it was a shame that most artists use the same venues every year and they should mix it up to keep things fresh. I tend to agree, but more importantly, I think artists shouldn’t exhibit the same stuff year in, year out which quite a few of them do.

50. Church Hall. This is split into three venues. The main hall is taken up with some Capability Scotland artwork, featuring work by an artist called Garland who only draws, with felt tips, largely identical topless women; particularly his nurses. It’s impossible not to smile. Upstairs, one of the smallest venues has some of the biggest paintings. Morag Muir’s work is full of Persian colours and influence but the subject matter is typically contemporary (for example, a tin of Quality Street). The annexe is a threads and textiles exhibition that draws on influence from Native and Latin American as well as more homely Gaelic hues.

51. Sheila Caldwell. This was the first venue that was obviously in someone’s house. Mostly woodland watercolours that I thought my mum would love but a bit too safe and obvious for my tastes.

56. John Gifford. With the smell of a nearby barbecue on a Sunday lunchtime, it was tricky to concentrate on John’s pictures of the East Neuk. This was the first venue that exhibited artwork of predominantly local inspiration. Again, maybe a bit standard, and his more impressionist work was, funnily enough, more impressive even if they were thinner on the ground.

Sunday Afternoon.

After a seafood lunch at the Heron Bistro, we strolled up West Braes where we knew we’d be in for a treat or two although unfortunately, the guy who sculpted a G2 Mac out of a block of granite was nowhere to be found this year.

Angie Turner

33. Angie Turner & Suzi Morrow. One of our favourites from last year, we found Angie Turner in sparkling form. It would be hard to visit her and not come away feeling that all is right in the world and this little corner of it is populated with genuinely lovely people. We bought another fairground horse as a companion to last year’s. Angie takes obvious inspiration from circus and fairground themes and her abstract work is fabulous, making me wish we’d stuck a couple of hundred aside to pick one up. It’s abstract working as abstract should, requiring a little effort on behalf of the viewer to piece the puzzle together. Sadly, Suzi Morrow, who we also liked very much last year, had to pull out this year and we didn’t catch the names of the other artists sharing the venue in her stead, although they were just as impressive. Huge screenprints taking inspiration from New York and Dundee (we laughed with the artist at the unusual fusion) and very emotionally affecting sculptures (an old typewriter with sepia Victorian faces for keys) really threatened to overwhelm my poor brain, but in a nice way!  Without a doubt, Venue 33 has been the most enjoyable so far and we’ll enjoy a second visit later in the week for photos and to right the wrongs of forgotten names.

After a brief break, we found ourselves chalking off some of the venues along the High Street, starting with one that gets plenty of column inches in the Festival Programme.

7. Masahiro Kawanaka is a Japanese installation artist. For this exhibit, he’s stretched audio tape across a garage, creating a moving wall of brown tape which flickers in the wind. That’s it. There were many raised eyebrows and not much interest in the chair that had been, perhaps optimistically, placed in front of the tape for those wanting an extended view. I hate dismissing the unusual just because it’s unusual, but I honestly can’t say what they artist was hoping to achieve with the work.

37. Jean Dakin, Doris French & Nicky Fraser.  Doris French had sold all of her quilted pictures, just like last year. Hardly surprising, but a little disappointing as her work is honest and charming. Jean Dakin presented lovely loose pastels of African savannah and townships. Nicky Fraser’s work is a little harder to place and pigeonhole but the bold, almost cubist, primary colour representation of busy harbours certainly hits you between the eyes. A lot packed into this garage.

14. Elizabeth Shepherd. Etchings. Accompanied as they were by disturbing sci-fi music, the whole thing was rather surreal. Elizabeth herself read a book in the corner of the room, which she’s perfectly entitled to do, but I find when the artist takes the time to engage and converse with the audience it’s a) a more interesting experience and b) we have a better chance of understanding the work. Neither happened and I recall neither happening last year, either.

18. Maureen Traquair. As we discovered, Maureen owns the venue and, as it turns out, the shop underneath. Some very striking photography perhaps just a little usurped by the astonishing views of the Firth of Forth from the window where a trawler was being pestered by a million gulls.

The Little Gallery

13. The Little Gallery. This has to be the most wonderful building in the festival, so much so it’s hard to remember to look at the art. There’s no one artist here so it’s a bit of a hotch-potch and I’ve got to say nothing much caught my eye in either a good or bad way … but what an amazing room. The main part of the building used to be a fisherman’s cottage and fishermen back in the day were a bunch of short-arses so there are very low ceilings throughout. Then, through one door, it’s like stepping into a massive cavern, albeit one with an attractive mezzanine and I half-expected to find Nicholas Cage searching for some lost treasure behind the ottoman.

6. The Fisher Gallery. We finished the afternoon in another favourite haunt. There’s so much to admire in this permanent, year-round gallery and pound for pound it probably has more fantastic work than most. This year, we were particularly taken by Lynn Muir’s Burtonesque art from driftwood. Jan Fisher’s masterful use of watercolour never disappoints and she captures some of my favourite Neuk themed seascapes. It’s all good, though.

 

Pittenweem Arts Festival 2009 — Day One

Saturday afternoon.

The weather was kind to us on day one. The cloud had the good sense to disperse without threatening much in the way of showers and when it was sunny, it was pleasantly warm and just about right for crawling round the first few venues.

I still have high hopes of hitting the eighty plus venues. Julie, even as I type this is arching a disbelieving eyebrow. We’ll try our best.

Incidentally, there are some photos to accompany some of the venues, but 3G is some kind of meaningless high majick in Pittenweem and posting the text is going to be challenging enough, so this might need to wait til we get home to finish.

17. Page Pottery Gallery. Off to a bit of a dull start. I mean, it’s nice with lovely washed, earthy tones. But no matter how washed or earthy the tone or how shiny the sheen, it’s just pottery. Julie liked the plant pots. For pottery fans, it’ll be a hoot. Not my cuppa tea.

16. Jim and Barbara Fleming Art and Jewellry. The art work initially looks quite samey but seemed to hide African animals like giraffe and such. No puffins or boats so far. Julie saw no animals. I’m not the best judge of what makes good, arty jewellry, but it all seemed very nice in a classical way.

15. Funky Scottish. Now we’re talking. We like Funky Scottish. In fact, we love Funky Scottish. Karen Edward does these crazy ceramic plates and we’ve previously bought a few and commissioned one for a unique present. Last year, we added a Linzi Knox felt puffin to our collection. It’s all great fun. The cartoony aspects of Karen’s plates don’t really show the extent of her talents, however this year her wonderful mixed media work really caught the eye. We ended up buying stuff. Again.

Anita E Hutchinson

12. Anita E Hutchison. A firm favourite from the last couple of years and she continues to impress. Anita goes on beach walks across Scotland and makes art from the things she finds and the inspiration along the way. Art is an involving experience and it flows through Anita’s work. For example, she has 20m tickertape length of thin fabric with a story handstitched into it and the story is about as entertaining and impressive as the art. Last year, she made hundreds of little cloth tents and placed them round about the stretch of beach that was being bought up by Donald Trump. As an exhibition, it’s exactly what Julie and I love. There’s thought behind every delicate stitch, a story round every corner and hidden treasures within the work that make it a rewarding experience. Every year, Anita manages to put in a new twist to keep her work fresh.

69. Josephine Gillespie & Terry Adams. The first garage venue is down on the harbourside in a venue that I would imagine is usually home to fishing boats and boxes of fish. It’s a big space, filled with a huge variety and probably an awful lot for the casual art fan to enjoy and admire. Julie thinks it a little underpriced but the standard, especially on the Gillespie side of the garage is impressive. Boats, nudes, landscapes, flowers, snaps of life, oil, watercolour, pastels. You name it. Pick of the bunch, something called Lovely Day, featuring two old dears having a natter outside the shops. I’m a sucker for that kinda stuff. The busker outside was a bit throaty, though.

Julie bid on a fish.

67. Gavin Burnett & Nicola Cairns. It’s more earthenware, which is something of theme so far on the first day, and glassware which stands out more. Impressive conches of blown coloured glass immediately catch the eye, as do some mounted porcelain that look like what would happen to an ashtray in a Salvador Dali painting. Can’t get too excited about pots and £200 tea lights. Very modern, perhaps too modern for my tastes and a bit pricy.