prep for the King of the Cats Exhibition

Well it's been a long time coming but Arteach are on the final leg of prepping for our major touring exhibition  

'The King of the Cats'- Retelling of old Lancashire Tales, 

launching at The Whitaker Museum and Art Gallery, Rossendale on October 4th 2014.

We have the fantastic news that we have acquired funding from Arts Council England to produce all out printed materials along with some fabulous schools workshops including a traveling suitcase that will be loaned to schools, community groups, residential homes etc to encourage interaction with the exhibition and hopefully capture some new Lancashire Tales along the way. 

We are producing a book to go along side the exhibition to include retelling of the tales by the storyteller Jackie Harris and our work as Arteach in response to the tales including the King of the Cats. There will also be a set of collectable book marks that will be used to advertise in libraries and other museums that the tour will be going to. At the moment we have 7 confirmed venues and a few more in the pipe line. We have 5 schools confirmed to work with each member of Arteach: Marjan Wouda, Christopher Rainham, Patricia Ramsden, myself and Jackie Harris across Pennine Lancashire. Each of the artists will be running one day workshops at the first venue in the Autumn so watch out for booking details too.

I will be running a clay workshop demonstrating and teaching some of the techniques I will be using to create my characters for the exhibition on Wednesday October 22nd at The Whitaker Museum in Rossendale. 

10am-4pm £95 including all materials, firing and a delicious lunch laid on by the cafe within the museum and art gallery too. Bookings will be taken by the Museum on 01706 260785. 

More details to follow soon

my prelim drawings

getting there

Christopher Rainham

Christopher Rainham

Marjan Wouda

Marjan Wouda

Marjan Wouda

 We have a blog where each one of us is posting works in progress and also some of the tales to be featured in the exhibition. Click the link below to find our blog.

http://thekingofthecats.wordpress.com/about/ 

I will post more from the other artists involved as and when but we had a little 'show and tell' this week so I thought I would share here too. 

The traveling suitcase soon t be filled with lovely things

#RHSTatton Park Flower Show

We how much fun was that and also how many plants did you come home with? I had to steal myself but in the end I brought 9! Not at all tempted by beautiful flowers am I?

Sweet peas from the garden were quite good even in that heat we had. All but the irises were from my or mums garden and they looked brilliant in my opinion especially in that heat. It was hot as a really hot thing all week which was ace but in a leg cast maybe not so great.

Pimms O'clock

We soldiered on and I had the lovely Sara and my dad to help me over the 5 days we were there.

Mavis and Gladys went to their forever homes too

Deer in the car park as we were leaving :-) 

Duncan had quite a few admirers too.

New larger pendants with the latest designs.

It was a fab week though tiring on crutches but for the first time it was a brilliant show for sales of drawings and pots too.  The sun shone a little too hotly but we survived, the M6 was a little trying but we got there most days on time :-) I think it maybe one we go back to next year too.

Then on Wednesday Stephen Kingsford and I went up to Whitley Bay to sadly to attend the funeral of fellow potter Michael Palmer, one half of the Geordie Boys. He was always there with a grin and a beer in hand at every Potfest and even came over to the Park with his business partner Andrew. They were a fab duo always up for a beer and a chinwag and good hugs. He will be sadly missed by all the Potfest family and thoughts go out to his wife Jeanette and family and our Andrew Geordie Boy.