How? and Why? ... Questions to ask Artists

Some art makes you immediately ask yourself “Why?” Why on earth did the artist decide to make that? To put those materials together? To rearrange, to construct in such a way etc?

Other art makes you ask “How?”

Michael Rowe is an artist whose work makes me ask “How?” You could say that that’s because he is an applied artist working at the top of his field. An artist where knowledge of his chosen material, metal, is supreme.

I was rushing along a busy pavement in London when I was stopped in my tracks by Square the Block by Richard Wilson.

The question this time was “Why?” The answer? “Why not?” or “Because I can” or “Because it will get the reaction of making people stop in their tracks, smile, ponder, laugh etc.”

There are some schools of though that say that if you are a fine artist then the questions that people will ask about your work will be more of the “Why?” ones and that if you are an applied artist then the questions will be much more of the “How?”

In the British art scene especially there seems to be an insistence on labeling an artist as either applied or fine.

I am an artist who wants my work to say something but I am also concerned with the method and quality of construction.

What if you have a passion for materials, you enjoy understanding construction methods and also being involved in the physicality of making? Does that put you completely in the applied artist camp? No I don’t think so.

I bumped into Mike Gallagher, gallery technician at New Art Gallery Walsall on the opening night of the recent show, The Life of the Mind: Love, Sorrow and Obsession. I asked Mike questions about the construction of these wooden letters. (Bob and Roberta Smith had mentioned his appreciation of the help of the technicians in his speech that evening.)

Mike had really enjoyed working with Bob & Roberta. Starting with a sketch for the letter ‘E’, the technicians worked using graph paper, a sense of playfulness and a knowledge of wood work to make the complete piece. Mike was bemused when I asked about mitred joints.

This was probably because most people had asked the “Why?” questions: e.g. “Why all this talk about Walsall’s Mona Lisa?” but I was asking the “How?” questions about the actual construction of the wooden lettering. In this instance it was because I knew that the idea for the piece was actually Bob & Roberta’s but that Mike had made it and also because I have a fair knowledge of woodwork and cabinet making and am always looking to extend my skills.

There was no artist to ask when I spotted this bit of rather unusual boxed in pipe.

The person who decided to use fake rustic dark wood beam cladding to clad the toilet pipes in this 16th century cafe in Stafford probably didn’t see himself as an artist.

But really! The craziness!

The reaction in my mind that this wonderful juxtaposition of fake plastic aged timber alongside a 20th century toilet cistern is worthy of an artist.

I’m asking myself “Why? What possessed you?”

Joana Vasconcelos is an artist whose work has made me ask both “Why?” and “How” questions.

Red Independent Heart was one of the pieces that she showed in her solo show at New Art Gallery Walsall back in 2007. Knowing that it is made from plastic cutlery I ask myself lots of questions about construction, but that is only one aspect of her work.

She is an artist who uses materials for their meaning and there are very definitely stories behind each piece.

However, her work can be read on several levels. You don’t need to know that Red Independent Heart refers to the famous filigree jewellery from the town of Viana do Castelo in Portugal. The heart shape is also a traditional shape for this jewellery.

Joana Vasconcelos is an artist who works on a huge scale and although I am interested in her subject matter, national identity and female identity, I am especially interested in how one gets to the stage she is at now.

What I ask about Joana Vasconcelos now is how do you get to the stage where you have a team working for you, an atelier of your own and working on such huge commissions?

One of my absolute favourites of Vasconcellos’ is A Joia do Tejo (2008). Perhaps it’s the direct interaction with architecture and also the story that I immediately start to compose around this piece. It has much of the fairy tale about it.

I’ve also enjoyed looking at images of some of her metal frames being constructed. This is especially pertinent for me as I am currently on an AA2A residency at Coventry University.

Since October I have been challenging myself to work on a significantly larger scale and also to learn how to weld.

In my practice I definitely enjoy the period of creation, but actually a lot of this is the creation that takes place in my head.

I like the thinking, the research, the searching for materials, the pondering, the decisions about form. So much of this happens before I have even put pencil to paper. I have a fantastic visual memory.

I like to work intuitively and try not to analyse why I am putting various materials together. I like to keep a lot of my creative decisions in my subconscious.

It seems to work for me.

Learning how to fabricate in steel has been exciting. Read my AA2A project blog here.

When I made Cyril in 2007, I paid some metal fabricators to make the internal frame. Back then I could see the potential of this technique for making more sculptural pieces.

When I made Madeleine I used copper pipe and MDF to make the frame myself. This way I could make decisions and adjustments during the process.

Since October I have asked several artists “How?” questions. Specific questions about working in metal and also working on a larger scale.

Richard Bett has been especially supportive.

Working hands-on is absolutely the best way to learn a technique. Spending the day with Richard on the construction of one of the frames for a new being was absolutely invaluable.

But when these new beings are exhibited next year I want people to be asking “Why?” questions way before they even think about “How?”

This spiny looking cage will be quite different once she is clad in dusky pink very fine tweed, white wet look PVC and a sort of spinach coloured shaggy frayed fringing.

I know why!

Walls, photographs and managing inspirational images for Visual Research

Systems to categorise and organise have interested me for years.

I used to enjoy watching those programmes where an organisational guru would take over someone’s house and after only two days would have installed a wonderful system of shelves, boxes, drawers and index cards. It all looks so simple; just go out and buy lots of special storage boxes and hey presto!

But categorisation of information, documents, images etc is just not simple!

I have lots of boxes in my studio. In some you can work out that they have been categorised by their material say, made from plastic or metal. But materials for sculpture often don't fit neatly into a box, either physically or metaphoricallly.

In my practice there are all types of items. And they all come into the 'category' of, “Interesting and will possibly become part of a Frillip Moolog being one day”.

I take a lot of photographs; my camera is with me everywhere. As I have said before I draw inspiration from a huge range of sources.

It’s great to have a really strong visual memory but having taken the photographs I then need to organise them on my computer. There are folders within folders.

My Visual Research folder has lots of sub-folders;
Furniture, Upholstery, Fun & Weird, Architecture, Interiors, Ambiguous Objects, Shops, Museums, China & Glass, Childhood, Chindogu, Dens, Graffiti, Heaters, Display, Signs, Water Towers, Swedish Stoves and Brushes as just a few of them.

It might be easier to use a tagging system to manage my images but to do this I'd need to store them all in cyberspace.
As it is, I look at my images often. As time passes they can be moved from category to category. This happens when I am interested in them for another reason.

You can see that this is a very idiosyncratic and personal filing system.

A few months ago I realised that I was noticing and photographing walls. Before I knew it I was noticing interesting walls at every turn. This is the reticular activation system in practice.

The photo above was taken in a couple of seconds. I just turned round and snapped. And how lucky that everything lined up perfectly!

I think these strange molten rocks used to build the wall in the photo below are actually waste from an old Victorian factory furnace. This was taken as I walked up to the Camden Arts Centre to see the Eva Hesse exhibition earlier this year.

I parked by this next wall when I delivered 'Boris' to the Pitt Studios for the Worcester Open.
This colourful beauty is made from broken slabs. I did look closely and I do believe that they have actually been painted (as opposed to bought pre-coloured).
A labour of love!
This one brings back memories of Richard Woods' "Stone Clad Cottages". (Fermynwoods Contemporary Arts offsite project in 2008.)

This strange specimen was spotted on a visit to the Isle of Wight this Easter. I had just read read Mythogeography, a guide to walking sideways.
Taking a Mythogeographic approach I am tempted to apply some paranoia when imagining how this interesting shape of flaked off render came about.

I like homemade and this wall was built by my Dad just a few years ago.
His drive and zest for life are an inspiration.
Although he is old he won’t let old age or bad legs and back stop him from building walls (and much more besides).

We found this homemade creation when out doing a Geocache in Staffordshire.

I'd describe this as a fun little grotto type of wall embellishment.

This wall makes you stop and ask questions. It is part of the Erasmus Darwin House in Lichfield.

There will be a Frillip Moolog presence in the Erasmus Darwin House 30th Jul- 23rd Aug 2010 as part of 52 Weeks of Art.

This portion of wall is a remnant of the wall built 1296-1321 around the Cathedral Close. The house was built against it and then later in front of it. This shows you a cross section of the wall. It was 6 feet thick!

Here's another useful wall.
We discovered this at BlackGang Chine on the Isle of Wight. Black gang Chine "Theme" Park is featured in Bollocks to Alton Towers, one of my absolute favourite books. (It really was a challenge though and after 5 hours I was begging to leave.
It is possible to overdose on tacky!)

Talking of tacky. I just had to stop the car to take this photo. So a breeze block wall with a few real stone protuberances?

As I walked round the corner I discovered that once finished the breezeblock will be dressed with swirls of cement.
I just can’t decide how I feel about this. It’s almost, “so disgusting that it’s gorgeous”!
(An expression from my childhood).

And so, coming full circle, here I am back in the underground. A "brick" wall to represent Brixton underground station. A lovely visual pun!

David Mellor: taking inspiration from his live work ethic, designs and craftmanship

Stories are what I thrive on; and what better than a story which starts with a teenager in Sheffield making a caravan. Scavenging for materials in post war Britain he used Ponds skin cream jars for the light fittings.

(I remember that cream, it was always really cold. I used to put a dab on my nose when I was a little girl messing around with my Nan’s toiletries.)

David Mellor is the teenager that I am describing. He went on to earn the title of "Cutlery King". But he designed so much more than just cutlery.

When I was 13 I spent a weekend in London with my Mum. It was one of those special mother and daughter weekends. We went to the V&A and to Liberty’s of Regent Street, we saw Andrew Lloyd Webber’s "Evita", we ate some very posh sausages at The Greenhouse in Mayfair (It was John Tovey’s restaurant at that time) and we also went to David Mellor’s Kitchen shop. It was 1977 so it would have been his Sloane Square shop.

Photo by Phil Sayer

The things that you accept as normal when you are a child… I accepted that when out with my mum we went to kitchen shops (usually spending the most time in the china department). My own children know that when out with me there is a very strong possibility that there is an unusual museum nearby or an art gallery at least.

I stored away all the memories from that London weekend.

It was special; we lived in Central Scotland and it was my first real trip to London.

When I got married I was 24 and I would have loved to have put David Mellor cutlery on my wedding list. I think my favourite design at that time was “Flute”. Sadly we couldn’t agree; I think that it came down to the fact that we preferred to have two spoon shapes one for soup and one for desserts. (One of Mellor’s ambitions was to refine and simplify and so he had worked on devising the fewest items of cutlery actually needed…. You don’t see fish knives and forks in a David Mellor range).

"Flute" designed in 1983. Photo by Pete Hill.

I have now been married for 22 years. And David Mellor’s career has been a notable one. Visiting London Design Week events I still drool over his designs. My favourite now? Possibly "Hoffmann".

David Mellor was an advocate of Modernism and "Hoffman" has been described as being, to some extent, an homage to early 20th Century mid-European metalwork.

I am also fascinated by people’s homes and how they live, so what a wonderful book “At Home with the Makers of Style”. Reading this book back in 2006 I studied each photograph. David Mellor is one of the designers featured in this book. It was then that I read about his Round Building cutlery manufacturing site and home in Hathersage, near Sheffield.

So this Easter we made it. The trip was first planned to go to buy some “posh sandpaper” (Micromesh finishing cloth) from Craft Supplies.

I am finally finishing a being(sculpture) called "Rachel". She’s a cross between Barbara Windsor and Mae West… so of course the sandpaper needs to be posh!

Hathersage is only 3 miles from Craft Supplies so obviously the time had come to visit The Round Building!

The building was designed by Sir Michael Hopkins. It was built (1990) on the foundations of an old circular Gas Storage container and has been described as minor masterpiece of modern architecture. Although my photos don't show it it sits in exceedingly beautiful countryside.

You can walk round the factory and watch the cutlery being made. Mellor was a designer who was completely involved with the making of his designs. Although he introduced a lot of technology he still retained the handmaking skills and hand finishing of each item. He admitted to being a perfectionist.

I find this machine really sculptural. I get inspiration for my Frillip Moolog beings from an ecclectic range of sources.

Not only that but he used his own workforce when building, renovating or fitting out his premises.

Of course you are going to feel pride and belonging if you actually contributed to the making of the building that you work in.

There are 480 Finnish plywood roof panels to make the roof of the Round Building; these too were made by Mellor’s own workforce.

“Mixing concrete and foundations on a bitterly cold Sunday was a typical situation which I learned to expect….working with him you surge forward on a tidal wave of unbounded enthusiasm and there is never any question of defeat”. Ron Carter furniture designer and old friend from RCA talking of his involvement with the design and shop fitting work on the Sloan Square shop.

Yes this is what you’d expect from such a name in design history; drive, passion and self belief.

Park Lane was the first of Mellor’s live work buildings. A point to note is that this building was designed (1960) with two thirds of the space devoted to design studio and manufacturing workshop and just one third for living and sleeping space. (The same proportion that he divided his time.) His bed actually slid out into the living room from under from under the kitchen work units!

Yes a driven and committed man I would have loved to have met him.

Recognise the salt and pepper set in the left of this photo? "Fanfare" condiment set was designed by David Mellor in 1961 and has been copied the world over.

Another game that I enjoy is “How Many Degrees of Separation?” I love when I can make connections and often during a chance conversation you can discover that you are more closely connected to someone than you might have believed.

Sitting in the cafe area within the David Mellor museum I discovered that the gentleman sitting beside me was Brian Edwards, an old friend of David Mellor’s. On realising that I was more interested in David Mellor than my posh sandpaper he revealed that he had known David Mellor from the early days of his career. Infact he had interviewed David Mellor for one of his very first design jobs.

Brian Edwards described his business as being office workstations specialising in Danish and Scandinavian designs. Now that I realise that he owns Shape Posture Seating I realise that I could have mentioned that I owned a kneeling stool back in the 80’s. Lots of student studying was done on it.

And also my own very early exposure to Danish design; my memories of eating Open Sandwiches at the Danish Design Centre in Glasgow. These were trips with my Nan and my mum I was very young but I definitely soaked up those sensory experiences.

Brian owns a set of David Mellor "Pride" cutlery. He started collecting it when he got married.

What a wonderful name; "Pride".

David Mellor was still a teenager when he first designed it and it went into production while he was still a student at RCA. It has now been in production for over 50 years!

Press plates for making "Pride" cutlery.

Brian Edwards was having lunch with Keith Tyssen. He introduced Keith as one of the country’s leading designers in silverware.

It was a funny feeling, I was so excited to have the chance to speak to these old friends of David Mellor’s (Keith Tyssen was quick to mention that David Mellor had given him his first “leg up” by giving him free access to use the studio space at Park Lane when he first graduated) but I didn’t want to sound too gushy. People can get the wrong idea when I get excited!

They both spoke fondly of their friend; sadly David Mellor died last year. But how lovely that they can still meet, to discuss design, appraise architecture and have a lovely lunch surrounded by reminders of their old friend and colleague.

And finally how to make this connection even closer?

I asked if Keith knew Christine Rew, Art Gallery and Museums Manager at Aberdeen Art Gallery (Her dad and my dad were best friends from their Glasgow schooldays.)

Aberdeen has a very impressive collection of silverware and actively invests in work by contemporary makers so it was no surprise that Keith has met Christine. Yes he has work in Aberdeen Art Gallery’s collection.

So not bad for a spur of the moment trip for some posh sandpaper!

Examples of David Mellor's designs for street furniture: traffic lights, pedestrian crossing equipment, waste bins, the square letterbox and bollards amongs others. So certainly not "just " the Cutlery King. David Mellor's designs are all around us. He has had a huge impact on our British visual culture.