The Building of the Cabinet

I made a grant application in 2013 to BRAF ( The Black Rock Arts Foundation, San Francisco) to help with funds to build a mobile cabinet, which could be used in outreach work.

Having met  furniture maker Kai Venus Demetrio at The New Designers Exhibition in London last year, I decided to invite him to join the project. I was impressed by his work, in particular his desk, which was designed and built for a writer in residence.

We entered into a dialogue and I described the project brief. It was very important that the cabinet was mobile and the need for it to not only house a wide range of artefacts and collections but to act as a display case and mini exhibition unit. 

Animal trailers are iconic shapes in the rural landscape and I was keen to link the design to the shape.

The cabinet is to used in outreach work, not to replace the experience of visiting an established gallery or museum but to offer rewarding experiences and to engage far reaching, hard to reach rural communities in Wales.

The Artists's handling collection - here are some of the examples that artists have very generously donated for the Cabinet of Curiosity's handling collection.

Time for Tea? made by Luned Rhys Parri

The Singing Nut by Rodney Peppe

Snowdrop by Angela Davies                                                  Sheep shears by Christine Mills

Head and sample from the 'tool series' by Claire Curneen

Titw Tomos Las   - written description and images contributed by Artist Eleri Jones

Blue Tit

I own a pair of little blue tit ceramic ornaments that are very precious to me.  They were my Nain’s ornaments, I have very fond memories of the ornaments being displayed on my Nain and Taid’s Welsh dresser in Cerrig y Drudion and how on occasions Nain would let me and my brothers and sister play with the ornaments on their patterned carpet.

Nain was given the ornaments as a gift from two evacuee boys that came to stay on my Nain and Taid’s farm, the boys returned many years later to visit the farm and to give my Nain a gift of thanks.  My Nain was very fond of the pair of Blue Tits and I loved hearing the story of my Nain’s kindness.

My Nain is now 93 years old and sadly has dementia, When we were packing my Nain’s things away before she left her home and moved to a Care home, as a family we were overwhelmed by all of Nain’s precious ornaments that all had a story to tell.  The little pair of blue tits have come to be displayed in my home and as an artist I have painted and drawn them many times on a large scale, to represent their importance in my Nain’s life and her influence on me.

Here are some examples of drawings from the Key Stage 3 pupils during their gallery visit.
The theme for their workshop was transformation and change. They enjoyed studying the carved and polished surfaces in Kevin's work and the references to stories in Claire's work, for example the Greek myth about Daphne who was changed into a laurel tree by her father to escape Apollo's clutches. 

The pupils used clay to create a mould for their plaster casts. They pressed textured objects into the clay to give them relief surfaces when they were cast in plaster of Paris. Some of the pupils painted the casts to highlight the interesting features on the faces.

   

The first workshop was with young people from Afasic Cymru. They took their cameras into the gallery and spent time looking at and recording detailed surfaces in Claire's work. They then developed their own ceramics heads based on the theme of Metamorphosis and change.

During the primary school workshops the Key stage 1 and 2 children  spent time handling related objects and drawing in the gallery. Here are some of their drawings, they were asked to focus on detail in preparation for their hands on workshop later on in the morning.

                                                                             

 

The children used computer microscopes to explore insects in preparation for their artwork based on winged creatures. This theme related directly to Claire and Kevin's work in the main exhibition.

 

Then they explored their ideas and made their own precious jewels.

An adult's response to this box of cicadas from the collection. She made this hand stitched textile, which  links to patterns on the cicada's wings.

 

The images below are objects that adults felt were 'curious'.

In a drop in workshop families responded to the theme of lost keys, here are some examples of what they made.

Four local primary and three secondary schools were invited to participate in a day workshop with myself and their teachers.This involved a visit to the main exhibitions, a gallery talk with a handling collection and a ‘hands on’ workshop. The children were invited to respond to the theme of ‘All things curious’ and to bring an object, which they found curious.

Here are some of the things they brought with them.