Interpretation / Winifred Nicholson: Music of Colour / Friday 30th November

Good interpretation (the information in an exhibition that supports the understanding of the artworks) is a tricky thing to get right – too many words and people are bored… not enough words and people are confused… the wrong words and people are annoyed. It is a tightrope to provide some insights into artworks without explaining away the magic. Rosie and I (the education team) have really enjoyed working with Lizzie and Guy (the exhibition team) on the Winifred Nicholson show. It was a pleasure to read Winifred Nicholson’s amazing writing and think about how best to invite visitors into her world of colour and imagination.

Alongside the text panels and labels for this exhibition, we have added a small range of activities to offer alternative ways of exploring the gallery – as well as looking, talking and reading, we like people to do some making too. In the first gallery, we have a selection of small cards with the invitation for visitors to write poems, give feedback, invent a colour or imagine themselves in a Nicholson landscape. The responses are wonderful – so many people have shared their own creativity with us and it is exciting to see how Nicholson has inspired their contributions. In the second gallery, we have lightboxes and coloured gels (similar to cellophane but thicker) for people to mix their own colours and light. We also have prisms, torches, mirrors and magnifying glasses – tools that bend and distort light and allow visitors to experiment with the same ideas that interested Nicholson. We wanted to create a comfortable space that encourages you to linger and spend longer with the paintings – what else do you see when given a bit more time?

Light boxes with coloured gels - Kettle's Yard gallery

If you have already seen the show, I hope you enjoyed it (and if you haven’t, there are a few weeks left). If you have any thoughts or comments about our interpretation for the exhibition, do please get in touch – we are always looking to improve your experience of the gallery and your feedback is welcome.

 - Sarah Campbell

You can find out more about the exhibition here.

Conservation / Lady Macbeth / Tuesday 27th November

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska’s Lady Macbeth poster, usually on display in the Kettle’s Yard House, is currently undergoing conservation treatment at Museum Conservation Services.

Paper conservator Nicholas Burnett is currently looking for traces of pigment in the blood on Lady Macbeth’s hands, the original colour of the poster would have been quite different. Exposure to light has caused some pigments to fade almost completely away.

Aid and Abet / Exhibition preparations / Friday 23rd November

In the new year two artist-led spaces from the East of England will be temporarily taking up residence in the gallery. Aid & Abet from Cambridge, and Outpost from Norwich, will bring together artists from their memberships to exhibit work, perform and take part in a programme of events.

Here is what David Kefford, co-founder of Aid & Abet, had to say about how preparations for this exciting new collaboration are going.

Following last week’s meeting at Kettle’s Yard we’ve just sent our final project proposal for the January exhibition. We’ve put together and exciting exhibition and events programme, including critique sessions, talks, performances and a residency in the house.  All artists confirmed, now to select the artwork. Looking forward to seeing how the work looks in the exhibition spaces.

Friends of Kettle’s Yard / Meeting Stephen Chambers / Thursday 1st November

Forty Friends of Kettle’s Yard gathered at the Lynne Strover Gallery in Fen Ditton, Cambridge to hear a fascinating talk from artist Stephen Chambers. Stephen, a Royal Academician, is currently exhibiting his beautiful work simultaneously at Lynne Strover’s gallery and at the Academy itself.

Stephen is a great fan of Kettle’s Yard and many Friends have been following his career closely since the late 1990s when he made a big impression here as Artist Fellow, based at Downing College. After listening to the fascinating talk about the inspiration for his subject matter and his collaborations with many of the world’s leading printers, the Friends viewed his beguiling prints and paintings on view in the Fen Ditton gallery .

We were also lucky enough to hear from Stephen about the inside story of the conception and making of his vast print installation ‘The Big Country’ showing at the Royal Academy until 2 December.

Stephen has described this 75 panel narrative as ‘my Alexander McQueen moment – the unwearable dress- an anti-print.’ The sixth in the ‘Artists’ Laboratory’ series at the Academy, this epic scale visual narrative, partly inspired by the 1958 movie of the same name, fills the Weston Room and the onlooker is given a sense of the human figure pitted against the sweeping landscapes of Wyoming.

A huge thank you to Stephen for his enduring support for Kettle’s Yard. Don’t miss these concurrent exhibitions of the work of one of this country’s leading contemporary artists.

- MT

Culture Hack / Director's blog / Monday 30th July

I spent an invigorating weekend at a cultural hack day recently. This combined the world of arts organisations of the East of England with tech-savvy hackers and web developers, coming together to create beautiful web manifestations of our cultural data. Some of the arts organisations involved were Wysing Arts Centre, the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, Harlow Sculpture Collection, the Junction, BBC Proms and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Saturday was a day full of buzz and creation as the developers took our information and began a 36-hour marathon to create beautiful things for us. Meanwhile we attended talks by the brilliant Dr. Zoe Svendsen of Metis Arts and Daniel Jones, with his ‘Listening Machine’ which, in partnership with Britten Sinfonia, brings a musical adaptation of social media activity on Twitter. This is featured on the BBC’s and ACE’s The Space . This combined with Circumstance’s performance Of Sleeping Birds made it an exhilarating day of exchange.

It was exciting to see what could be done in just 36 hours. Gareth Wild created an art map featuring Kettle’s Yard and Cambridge arts venues. Some others included “Sculptour”, a sculpture park app for Harlow Sculpture Trail, a treasure hunt app for families attending Firstsite in Colchester and an online storytelling platform for Hoipolloi Theatre Company. For a full list of events and outcomes, you can find them on the Creative Front site.

There was a great tone to the event, with some of the best outcomes coming from the collaboration between arts organisations thinking creatively, and being brought to life by those who can make the seemingly far-fetched, possible. I look forward to seeing what comes next…

Curator’s blog / Past visitors / Friday 27th July

One of our visitors to the House over the weekend told us he used to come and stay at Kettle’s Yard when he was a boy. He remembers they weren’t allowed to have a hot bath – because the condensation from the hot water would damage the paintings in the bathroom. Now that’s suffering for your art.

-Lizzie Fisher

Painting conservation / Christopher Wood / Tuesday 17th July

Painting conservator Sally Woodcock has been brought in to prepare Christopher Wood’s Self Portrait for its journey to Norwich Castle Museum later this year where it will be on display as part of Cedric Morris and Christopher Wood; A Forgotten Friendship.

Sally Woodcock with Christopher Wood’s Self Portrait, Kettle’s Yard

This autumn Norwich Castle will host the first exhibition devoted to the British artists Cedric Morris (1889-1982) and Christopher Wood (1901-30) focusing on their friendship and the many artistic links between them. Cedric Morris and Christopher Wood; A Forgotten Friendship runs from 20 October to 31 December 2012 at Norwich Castle Museum , Norfolk.

Friends of Kettle’s Yard / Yorkshire Art Trail / Wednesday 4th July

• The Friends of Kettle’s Yard hit the Yorkshire arts trail

From Gaudier Brzeska’s sketch of Ezra Pound nestling between the superb Old Masters at Harewood House near Leeds to the ebullience of Miro’s late 3D works at Yorkshire Sculpture Park , via Fiona Rae’s dazzling show at the Leeds Art Gallery, the David Hockney collection at Salts Mill and of course the great new Hepworth Wakefield ….48 Friends lapped up the Yorkshire arts scene over a packed 3 day weekend in late June. We all came away believing there must be something special in the Yorkshire air that gave life to such giants as Moore, Hepworth, Hockney and now of course, Hirst. This lively yet relaxed trip was typical of the great programme of events that Friends of Kettle’s Yard can enjoy.

- Martin Thompson

Click here if you’re interested in joining the Friends of Kettle’s Yard , which would allow you to take part in their outings, holidays, talks and parties.

Matthew Darbyshire / Studio Visit / Monday 2nd July

Guy and I headed to Kent to visit Matthew Darbyshire in his studio on a wet April morning.

Preparations were underway for an exhibition in Paris. Matt is a
sculptor who is interested in the objects we surround ourselves with,
especially the things we can buy, what they mean to us and where that
meaning comes from. His critical eye for a kind of contemporary
vernacular forces us to think about how we shape our world and how that
shapes us. Looking forward to some interesting conversations when Matt
comes to Kettle’s Yard .

Matthew Darbyshire – Untitled: Shelves No.5, 2008, 
Various glass and plastic components, 110 x 140 x 30 cm, Herald St. Gallery

Not many people know this, but a colleague recently told me that Jim had a couple of trays in bright pink plastic and yellow perspex in the 60s. So tea with Jim would have been lapsang souchong in a broken china cup held together with staples on a yellow perspex tray.

- LF

Curator’s blog / studio visit with Lorna Macintyre / Friday 29th June

After 2 weeks on a Clore programme in Northumberland I flew up to Glasgow to catch the last day of Matthew Darbyshire’s show at Tramway, and visited Lorna Macintyre in her studio. It was Matt’s largest public exhibition to date – and the product of a number of intense collaborations. I learnt a new phrase: ‘developers vernacular’.

I had a cold so Lorna made me tea and we talked about the work she’s making for Glasgow International, the jars containing strange crystalline growths hiding under tables and on windowledges, Virginia Woolf and the view.

Matthew and Lorna, along with Jeremy Millar and Matei Bejenaru , are working with Kettle’s Yard over the next year as Associate Artists, and we have invited them to engage, make work and intervene creatively with us onsite, offsite & online. They start work in earnest later this month, and the first opportunity to get to know them and their work will be around a display in the gallery this summer, when they will select works from the collection and show works of their own alongside.

LF

Curator’s blog / Kettle's Yard House / Tuesday 29th May

The man from Istanbul brought our rug back today. (Literally, he flew over with it under his arm). He’s been restoring it for a whole year and it looks amazing. He uses vintage yarn to preserve the antique colours and works with traditional weavers from Anatolia to help us keep our rugs in the best condition to resist the daily wear and tear of visitors’ feet.

Next time you visit, don’t forget to look at what’s under your feet. And tread carefully!

LF

Andrew Nairne / Director's Blog / Monday 14th May

Hello and welcome to our development blog site – we want this to be an active online space where you can find out about the ‘behind the scenes’ stuff, especially at this time of great development for Kettle’s Yard (for details about the new Education Centre that we are building, read more here ).

All the formal information about what’s on and what’s open can still be found on our main website .  This site is a more informal space where we’ll invite comments from artists, educators and audiences who we are working with to contribute.

There will be opportunities to find out more about our four Associate Artists who will be working with us during 2012 /13: Mate Bejanru, Matthew Darbyshire, Lorna Macintyre and Jeremy Millar.

Over time this website will grow and a bigger and richer picture of all the activity that Kettle’s Yard is involved with during the building works will emerge.

This is new for us so please do give us feedback and let us know what’s working or not and what you would like to see more of.

To illustrate my first post I’ve chosen one of my favourite paintings from the current Alfred Wallis exhibition in the gallery here, a different version of which will go on tour from July.

Andrew Nairne, Director, follow me