Jane Barwood Art

Tag: World of Glass

Exhibiting Now! Reality Removed

My painting “The Old Ice Cream Factory” has been selected for the “Reality Removed” exhibition at The World of Glass in St Helens.

This painting is quite large for me at 82 cm x 82 cm. I painted it during my residency at Liverpool Hope University in 2014. At the time I was making paintings of Liverpool buildings that have a special significance for me and, like the other paintings in this series, “The Old Ice Cream Factory” has a story.

When I was a very little girl my mum would sometimes tell us that if we behaved on our shopping trip she’d take us for a treat. On the rare occasions that we went into Liverpool that could mean a visit to Reece’s Café for a Knickerbocker Glory. The building in my painting was known locally as The Dairy and belonged to Reece’s. It was demolished years ago but still sometimes surfaces in my dreams. It’s one of those places that I’ll always connect with in my memories – not just of childhood but years later when I would pass by as an adult on my way to work when the building was derelict.

The cafe was where the Superdrug store is now in Liverpool (see below) and the dairy was on Brownlow Hill behind The Adelphi Hotel and Lime Street train station.

I found a few images of the old dairy online here. I have my own photos too somewhere. I need to dig them out. In the meantime, here’s a photo of how it looked, taken from the myspace account linked above.

Reece’s Cafe was made famous as the place that John Lennon and Cynthia held their wedding reception in 1962. You can read more about Reece’s on this blog. There is also a discussion about it here.

About the Exhibition

What we see, we understand because it is real or realistic; but what happens when we remove the reality in art? Space, time and structure take on a limitless entity that require you the viewer to interpret art when reality is removed. Figures become shapes become colour become monochrome, sky merges into horizons slipping into shorelines that leave no boundaries. Like the borders of great countries and empires only the canvas edge or form surface can dictate the parameters of what is defined.

The exhibition will open to the public on Saturday 11th March, run until Friday 28th April 2017.

March 13, 2017
“Heart of Glass” Family Art Club – Saturday 6th September 2014

I was fortunate to be selected to work with artist Gemma Latham for this week’s Family Art Club session. The art club is now running regular fortnightly sessions in the activity space of St Mary’s Market in St Helens.

Gemma‘s practice is not concerned with producing finished artworks but rather with encouraging public participation in making and creating using traditional crafts.

I met Gemma earlier in the week to look around The World of Glass museum in St Helens for ideas and inspiration. She was interested in developing an activity that drew upon the town’s history of glass innovation and production. There are a few examples of beautiful stained glass in the museum’s collection and Gemma had the idea to recreate stained glass patterns on the floor of the activity space using stencils and coloured sand (sand being a key ingredient in glass production).

When Saturday arrived Gemma had prepared a few stencils and brought along lots of different coloured sands. Gemma demonstrated the activity and myself and the other assistant Jacqui both created repeat patterns using the stencils and sand.

This started to create interest before we were due to open at 12pm so despite the town centre being especially quiet we had a few excited participants eager to start. We introduced them to the idea of stained glass and our intention to reflect this in the patterns on the floor. As usual, the children grasped the method and ideas very quickly and began making their own creations.

We had several returners who had attended and enjoyed previous Family Art Club sessions and stated they would definitely be back in the future. It was a successful and very enjoyable day for all involved. The children and their parents all had fun with the activity and were thrilled with the results. I love participating in the art club sessions. They are always good fun, rewarding and a learning experience for me. I hope I get to do more in the future.

September 10, 2014
“Heart of Glass” Family Art Club – Saturday 17th May 2014

This was the second Family Art Club session in this summer’s series that I was employed as Assistant Artist. I previously worked with Lead Artist Robyn Woolston. You can read the blog post for the first session here. On this occasion the Lead Artist was Claire Weetman and the other Assistant Artist was Hannah Bold.

I was already familiar with Claire’s artistic practice, having worked with her before and having seen some of her exhibitions. Her work involves innovative ways of drawing and I was looking forward to seeing what exciting ideas she had developed for this workshop.

As Assistant Artist I hoped to learn from greater experience of Claire’s practice and perhaps pick up some ideas and tips that I could use in my own work. In addition, I was keen to see how she had prepared for and how she ran the workshop throughout the day.

Claire’s theme for this Art Club session was mazes, streets and houses. We sometimes speak of a “maze of streets” and it is easy to get lost in the unknown streets of an unfamiliar city. I believe that the idea for this workshop initiated from Claire’s residency in Shanghai, China. Claire often found herself lost in the streets of Shanghai where the street signs were not only in a different language but using a writing system incomprehensible to a westerner.

For today’s session Claire brought along neoprene squares and wood blocks for people to make and design their own house stamps with which to print. We prepared a large maze on the floor of the workspace by drawing the maze onto paper using coloured tape. More mazes and labyrinths were projected onto another large sheet of paper fixed to the wall. There were also examples of mazes and stamps for the participants to look at and try out, along with lots of paper, coloured pens, stencils and inkpads for everyone to use.

As people arrived we showed them how to design and make a rubber stamp by drawing onto the back of the neoprene squares, then cutting out the design and sticking it to the wood block. They were encouraged to design their own mazes and use their stamps to make streets. After working at the tables on their designs they then added to the floor and wall mazes with their own stamps and mark-making ideas.

The children were very enthusiastic about making their own stamps and lots of the adults seem to enjoy it too. Some children went on unprompted to take the themes and ideas in new directions. One little boy decided to make the large maze into a game. He painted in a start and finish line and explained the rules to the others. Children began to make stamps of flowers, trees and animals as well as houses. One of the parents even made a Doctor Who Tardis stamp!

Many of the children were proud to have their drawings put up on the wall of the art space, while others wanted to take them home to show to parents and grandparents. Most of the children took their stamps away with them too.

It was an enjoyable day for artists and participants. It also inspired me to think about other methods of printmaking that I may use in my practice.

May 20, 2014
Latest Exhibition News

My painting “Crossing” was highly commended at St Helens Open Art Competition. The exhibition is currently showing at World of Glass, St Helens and runs until 9th November 2013.

Two of my paintings, “Alone” and “Spat from the Maw”, have been selected for Warrington Contemporary Arts Festival. The festival runs from 18th October to 22nd November at Warrington Museum and Art Gallery and The Gallery at Bank Quay House. I don’t know yet which venue will be exhibiting my paintings but I will update this entry when I find out.

September 23, 2013