Sunday 22 July 2012

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!

Saturday 21 July 2012

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.

Thursday 19 July 2012

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

Saturday 14 July 2012

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'

Thursday 12 July 2012

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.









Sunday 8 July 2012

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. 
 


Friday 6 July 2012

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

Thursday 5 July 2012

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

 

Wednesday 4 July 2012

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
 

Tuesday 3 July 2012

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

Monday 2 July 2012

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

Sunday 1 July 2012

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