de-junk goes to the World Museum Liverpool

Alison Bailey Smith and Anjo Designs

Judith Railton's Tower & Jo Smith's lens hangings

 Marie Louise Williams

Jacqui Chapman, Jo Smith, Susan Brown, Roy Lewis 

Paris aged 6 - de-junks!

From Gill

"This is what Paris and I made this afternoon. I was using sewing machine and he wanted to make something. He went through bag of fabric samples and picked the ones he liked, he found the piece of elastic embroidery from Madeline and decided he wanted that on front, he wanted to try all the different stitches on sewing machine and had a go with posh scissors!!!

I love it, it's tatty, functional, beautiful and made by my boy, aged 6 xx"

Wonderful - keep making!

de-junk, re-junk 2012 closed

Unfortunately, the lovely article in Wirral News said we were ending on the 22nd of July but we actually closed on Friday at 4.30pm, so for all those who have shown up today, here is Margi Adam's piece made from cans.

LAST CHANCE

Dear Friends, colleagues and art lovers of Wirral
Last chance to view de-junk, re-junk exhibition in Birkenhead Park tomorrow (Friday) 9 til 4.30pm.

Many thanks to Wirral Council for their support and thanks to the Birkenhead Park Rangers and volunteers and our own volunteers and to you our audience who have boosted our view that this is a fabulous enterprise and worth building.






Alison

PS We are already planning "de-junk, re-junk 2013"

http://de-junkre-junk.blogspot.co.uk/

Birkenhead Park Visitors Centre, Birkenhead Park, Park Drive, Birkenhead, Merseyside CH41 4HY

On Twitter use #dejunk

On Facebook https://www.facebook.com/events/328498400566273/

On Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/abscraft/sets/72157630069013686/

Our junior de-junk creators

An offering from Alice (age 9) called 'life on stony ground' at de-junk re-junk in Birkenhead Park

This is Alice's offering (age 9). It's called restaurant!

Freddie aged 2 "Blue train"

Rose (age 7) produced 'red hot'

Lily (age 9) produced 'life is alien'

David Jones's is at home in the exhibition - one more week to go

David Jones has a background in science, technology and an un-fufilled interest in architecture. The construction of miniature buildings is one part of the artist's portfolio.

The main 'structural' material for David's buildings is cereal packaging which is laminated to form a material comparable to pulp-board. Much of the construction is in laminated layers to produce details such as doors and windows. These are also from recycled materials. The buildings are finished with brick papers, water-based paints and match sticks for some details.

Nice review from Nerve

Nerve Magazine's review

Cygnus by Lorraine Hughes

Our de-junk table

If you come to visit the exhibition, this table above which has all my tools of the trade for hanging the show has been transformed into a de-junk table for you to find junk to create your own re-junk creation. Please email us any photos of your art, craft or model to info@abscraft.com and we will post it here.

Promoting de-junk through Festival of Firsts

My banner to advertise de-junk show made with all the labels from the Welly Road gets the Boot in project - from all the flowers with bunting made of bouncy castles, vinyl aprons and flowers of toothpaste tubes and plastic strapping, two pouches for leaflets made from a plastic bag from a safety vest and a boots the chemist beauty bag from Erica Wilcox, nothing thrown away! Lots of stuff used from my Granny's sewing box.
Banner donated from Barbara Singleton via Derry Hunter and letters glued on with help from Gill Alleyne. 

 

Judith RAILTON exhibits with de-junk with her ephemeral assemblages

Judith Railton  - statement for de-junk re-junk 2012

Stimulated by a recycling junk into art workshop, I use cardboard boxes with bits picked up from streets and found in charity shops. 

   

‘Tower’ –a fantasy environment that I’d like to live in.

– recycled cardboard whisky box, found objects, abandoned papers and paint                     

£50

‘Flower’ – mechanics allied to  nature.

- recycled cardboard box and papers, found objects, paint and sand 

£50 

‘Taxman’ – my fascination with travelling fairs and musicians.                                                                                        

 – recycled cardboard box and found objects, paint              

£40

Jo Smith from Hoylake

Before red and the top shows the start of the transformation

Jo is a mixed media artist and jewellery designer using both traditional and non-traditional materials.

Jo’s inspiration mainly comes from her daily walks on West Kirby beach with her beloved dogs. Her approach has evolved over time, through constant experimentation and play with mixed media. The results are a colourful and textural rendering of her emotional response to her surroundings reflecting the joy, love and awe that Jo feels through her connection to the landscape.

For the last 10 years Jo has exhibited widely across Merseyside, and her many commissions of paintings hang in homes across Europe and as far as Australia. Jo has a B.Ed Hons in Art and Design and is a practicing counsellor with a Diploma in Art Therapy skills. You can find her at Seagrass Studio Gallery by Hoylake Train Station where she is artist in residence.

Looking like Raku

 

Linda Mary Evans _ Treescape

 

Linda Mary Evans
BA(Hons) Fine
Wirral based Contemporary Landscape artist.

Trees have always fascinated me, they are very much part of the landscape but they are incredibly complicated. So I have tried to simplify them, to allow for greater interpretation and imagination.

Tree-scape
This work was inspired by a piece of beech wood given to me by Liverpool wood turner Mike Rule.
I was intrigued by the natural images within the wood and wanted to evoke an impression of the landscape from which it came.

Tree-scape
Acrylic on re-used canvas
£150
 

Damon Revans-Turner's desk

in the construction from floorboards

floorboards found in a skip on Wellington Road

“I’m what some call a joiner, others a chippy or carpenter, I prefer Cabinet Maker, not because it sounds posh but because that’s what I do,  I make furniture.When I say “make furniture” it doesn’t quite do it justice, what I should say is “I love to make things out of wood” and if that wood has been thrown out, and is free, even better!

I didn’t set out to be a furniture maker, just kind of walked into it naturally, and I’m so glad I did.

Didn’t achieve much at school, owing to being a hopeless dyslexic with a creative imagination that wasn’t nurchard or channelled correctly, but always loved art and drawing and design.

So one morning in my late teens I was asked to help move some old furniture by a friend, from an old barn in Cheshire, and that was the beginning of my walk with wood.”

The end results!

I am a desk, made with love, for those to sit at and write above, on leather seen now colored green while you look at your silver screen.

I'm made of wood were once there stood so many feet above the street, from childhood fears and lovers tears , Ive held them all through out these years.

And songs I’ve heard from choirs too , from hyme's and prayers with windows blue and red all seen, please write on green, a lovers note that is unseen.

You see, I'm made from bits of wood, with stories to tell, and if you would, consider a while, as you watch me smile, please sit and rest, for now



"I'm a Desk" 
£1200

Marie Louise WIlliams of Wellington Road Studios

 Marie is a full-time artist based at Wellington Road Studios in Oxton. She is passionate about the environment & sustainability & campaigns for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.

“I create installations from recycled & reclaimed materials, paint, drawing, shadows, photography & text. Inspired by quantum physics, music & environmental concerns, my work makes tangible the invisible underlying patterns of the universe.”

Marie holds a BA in Fine Art from the Wirral School of Art & a BA in Chinese Culture, Philosophy & Russian from Durham University. She has taught art workshops to adults & children across Merseyside since 2004.

'Spring Theory No. 2:
inter-colour territory'
re-energised & re-composed cot-mattress & couch springs, hanging basket, reclaimed telephone and electrical wire, coffee plunger, can tops,  odds & ends wool and donated end of tin enamel paint.   Price on Application

Well done all!

WOW!

Alison and the mayor

Michael Walker

Barry Canning Eaton

Barry Canning Eaton

Helen Smith

Mosaic sign made during a workshop and work by various artists

Marie Louise Williams

Mandy Oliphant

Damon Revans-Turner

The day of the opening

Nicola

Rachael

Today, we open our de-junk, re-junk! show to the public at 10am, with a grand opening at 11am for supporters from the council. Mr Mayor, Gerry Ellis opening us officially at 11.30am, and Sean Styles from BBC Radio Merseyside will be coming to interview me at 12.30.

I have arranged for 2 friends to model my television wire corsets. Rachel modelled for a photoshoot with photographer Mathew Kelly and make-up artist Persis Peters. The images were later used in an article in Cheshire Life about my work. Nicola modelled during a fashion show at the Williamson Art Gallery in 2011.

The show would not have been made possible without the late Jim Smith. He was put in contact with me after I met Steve Maddox, chief executive of Wirral Council at the Oxton Art Fair in 2009. Jim and Daniel Molyneux arranged to meet me in some coffee shop or other and a few meetings later they had pulled together a community art show featuring recycling with my involvement being to rope in some artists working with "rubbish". So along with my work, Wendy Williams' carrier bag rug art pieces, Vanessa Ryall's mosaics, Julie Dodd's paper pieces made from old books and a few other people, we had an exhibition in the park. The following year, we had two outings of what had by this point become "de-junk, re-junk!". The first showing was to tie in with an environmental conference run by the council at Pacific Road Arts Centre and then into Birkenhead Park Visitors Centre. This time almost 30 artists were involved and were given parts of my old kitchen and other rubbish from my house, supplemented with their own "garbage". The show was a huge success and here we are today with many of those artists back involved and a few added to it, including one jeweller from Lancashire , so we are 34 in number!

I am indebted to Jim Smith for many cups of tea and laughs as well as being occasionally infuriating. I miss him and I hope we make him proud today.

Mandy Oliphant has 2 pieces in the show -opening tomorrow

 

Amanda graduated from MMU in 2008 with an MA in Art as Environment and has since exhibited Nationally and Internationally. Amanda is an interdisciplinary artist who's approach is to aesthetically change our perception of people, place and objects through the manipulation of found materials. Amanda presents a new awareness towards the natural environment, especially trees, their function, form, fragility, spirituality and history. Her works of art allow reflection upon the ever changing environment and the transience of man where nature continues to be a strong source of inspiration, but it is the context of its survival within the manmade world that forces new narratives to be re-created.

'Oak Tree' is part of a series of sculptures that explore a materials ability to be re-invented, re-represented and adapted to expose elements of our daily surroundings that would otherwise go unnoticed, i.e; BT wiring and old discarded books.

OakTree-NFS (printing tray/19th century book with books and stamp).

Mandy's "Oak Tree"

Mandy's background source material on left. Istra Toner's "Nostalgia" on right

Stella Jones

Stella graduated from Liverpool Hope University with a Bachelor of design in textiles and wood, she has worked in lots of different media, including papier mache.

Her papier mache figures previously had the clothes hand stitched from remnants of material .

The figures Stella is currently making have been made using newspaper, wire and a little tissue paper. Stella wanted to show what can be achieved with the variation of colour and pattern in newspapers and a little creativity.

Brenda Sharp - My brain is a sieve

Brenda is our artist of the day for today's blog entry for one very good reason. She came to a meeting many moons ago in St James Centre in the North End that I arranged for Wirral Council staff (including the late and much missed Jim Smith) to give us information about the Empty Shop Fund, I merely hosted the opportnuity, not wanting to go for the money myself. Brenda seized the chance, finding one venue then another and finally plumping for her final location in Liscard. Today is the grand opening for PAPER SCISSORS STONE and we are all so proud of her. Representing local artists and craftspeople, Brenda Sharp's enterprise has been helped by a grant from Wirral Council through the Empty Shop Fund. She will be running workshops and exhibitions as well as selling wonderful art, craft and design from artists of Wirral, Merseyside and surroundiing area. Offering something for everyone's budget and taste.

Anyway, back to the de-junk, re-junk show and my usual format for blog posts!

 

Brenda Sharp is a photographer and multi media artist. In  "My Brain is a Sieve", she has explored  how her mind might look if translated using the discipline of multimedia art.

Brenda graduated from The University of Chester as a mature student in 2009, gaining a first in Fine Art and Photography BA (Hons). She then resumed self employment as a workshop leader and designer -maker before making the leap into opening a shop and gallery in Wallasey "Paper Scissors Stone".

Lorraine Hughes makes a dramatic entrance!

Lorraine Hughes is a Fine Art based self trained Artist with more than thirty years experience, Specialising in Art Direction, Set and Exhibition Design for TV, Film and Theatre.

Lorraine's clients include The BBC (working alongside Directors including Stephen Polliakoff and actors including Charles Dance, Miranda Richardson and Clive Owen), Pinewood studios (music videos including artworks made with recycled materials for Ruby Turner and Fashion Designer Vivienne Westwood's muse Sara Stockbridge), The Walker Art Gallery, St Georges Hall, Liverpool Town Hall, the Everyman theatre (working alongside actors Cathy Tyson and Michael Starke and 'Cranford' screenwriter Heidi Thomas), Walk The Plank, The Bluecoat Chambers Liverpool and the National Wildflower Centre in Merseyside. Creating works with an eco conscience using images sources from gritty urban decay to decadent Civic splendour.

During the past ten years Lorraine has worked mainly with young children, exploring the natural world using re-cycled materials in Grove Street primary, School New Ferry, the Eden Project Cornwall and the National Wildflower Centre in Court Hey Park Liverpool (alongside Artist Ticky Lowe).

 This work 'Cygnus'- (A floral tribute to Sir Joseph Paxton) ( A combined homage to the painting - Swans on the lake in Birkenhead Park - British school of painting/ Williamson Art Gallery ) and the garden designer and architect of Birkenhead Park Sir 'Joseph Paxton' who to his credit had decided to create "something handsome and good out of bad materials" he meant to create a beautiful landscape man made out of a derelict and marshy wasteland, a direct historical guidance from Joseph Paxton in 1843 to the aims of the de-junk - re-junk artists exhibiting in Birkenhead Park in 2012.

 Lorraine hopes that 'Cygnus' evokes an elegant, gentle contemplation of the history and beauty of the park and the need to tale 'time out' to relax and protect our natural, rich and diverse Merseyside heritage.

Diary extracts - the making of a re-cycled Art work for the De-junk Re-junk 2012 Exhibition:

    ingredients for creating 'Cygnus' :

    * 3 small plastic bottles

    * 3 large plastic bottles

    * scraps of plastic material

    * artificial polystyrene / Rafia onions

    * broken artificial foliage

    * brown paper

    * gift wrap

    * faux leather

    * discarded resin planter

    * gold leaf

    * photocopies

    * brown cardboard

    * 1 sack of shredded office waste

    * broken decorations

    * faux jewellery

    * left over masonry paint and assorted drops of fabric paint

•     In June during an intense two week period I began thinking about my contribution to the
•     De-junk, Re-junk 2012 exhibition.
•  
•     during the first week I had acquired a large amount of diverse but beautiful objects
•     (please see ingredients list ) that at first appear to easily link together by colour and texture and form.
•  
•     During the second week I spent a day walking through the beautiful Port Sunlight village and spent time looking at classical and mythological works.
•  
•     Later that week I visited the Williamson Art Gallery and walked to the boat house in Birkenhead Park and simply pondered on the tranquility and beauty of the scene and wondered about the history of
•     it's design and creation.
•  
•     I returned home and researched all that I had enjoyed and seen and realised that the garden designer and architect Joseph Paxton had provided me with the answer to 'create something handsome out of bad materials' a statement that he had made in 1843 directly created a connection to myself using re-cycled materials in 2012.
•  
•     I remembered a painting entitled Swans on the lake in Birkenhead Park - British school of painting (The Williamson Art Gallery - Birkenhead ), the sensuous 'Leda and the Swan' 1898 by Maurice Ferrary at (The Lady Lever Art Gallery - Port Sunlight),
•  
•     A painting of Anna Pavlova by Irish painter John Lavery 1911 'The Dying Swan' exhibited in 2011 at the Walker Art Gallery Liverpool.
•  
•     I had also been reminded of the Danish poet and author Hans Christian Anderson 'The Ugly Duckling' 1843 whose so called ugly duckling saw his true beauty as a swan in the lake, it seemed to me an amazing to find a link between this iconic symbol of transition to the year the park and its own Swan lake began it's transformation also 1843, a journey from derelict poor land to outstanding, inspiring
•     World class beauty.
•  
•     I looked at the raw found materials that I had collected at all the places that I had visited during this two weeks and saw that the gift wrapping paper I had kept for its foliage images also contained images
•     of swans.
•  
•     I looked up the Latin for swan and it was 'Cygnus', I thought about the grandeur of the scale and work of Joseph Paxton and immediately knew how the piece would finally look.
•  
•     The process of decay happens very quickly in life if we allow it. I have been working with found materials since the late 1970's (often guided by Artist/ Poet and friend Adrian Henri, studying the work of
•     Kurt Schwitters ), it has always seemed to me to be the ideal medium to directly consider the beauty, function and protection of our environment.
•  
•     It felt appropriate that I was making something new that was once broken as part of an exhibition in the new Birkenhead visitors centre, It felt like an appropriate tribute and acknowledgment of an amazing park and a visionary man.