Let’s play: York Theatre Royal is encouraging theatre activities at home while everyone is in the grip of lockdown limbo
YORK Theatre Royal is to run the Collective Arts programme of “creative community engagement” during the Coronavirus pandemic shutdown.
The St Leonard’s Place theatre is planning a series of digital activities and events to bring together York’s creative community of all ages until the building reopens.
Associate
director Juliet Forster says: “We’re all finding the current circumstances
challenging and are missing the joy of social gatherings, external stimuli and
shared experience.
“But
challenges can also be a great spur to creativity, and we’re really keen to
find as many ways as possible to bring people together, to inspire creative
responses and enjoy what we make together.”
Juliet Forster: York Theatre Royal associate director
One
activity up and running already and open to all is the Lockdown Legends
Challenge, a weekly creative project that invites people to submit responses to
challenges such as filming one-minute plays (week one), designing costumes (this
week) and creating production model boxes (coming next).
A
new challenge is released every Monday morning on the theatre’s social media
channels and submissions are then posted on these channels during the week.
The Theatre Royal is also adapting the delivery of the nationally recognised Arts Award, now to be undertaken from a home setting. The new guide is specially designed to be used by children and young people aged five to 25 years old, supported by their parents/guardians, to keep them busy, engaged and inspired by the arts at home.
Another
project aimed at engaging young people during this time is the Coronavirus Time
Capsule. Working with a group of 20 young people, week by week the Theatre Royal
will create a cumulative video time capsule, recording teenage experiences
during the Covid-19 pandemic.
York Theatre Royal : Out of bounds but stretching the boundaries of theatre. Picture: Matthew Holland
“The
Coronavirus Time Capsule is a new international project run by Company Three
and youth theatres across the world will be taking part and making capsules of
their own,” says Juliet.
In
addition, the Theatre Royal is organising the In Focus photography competition,
open to all ages and abilities who are invited to send in their photos that
show the realities of life in Coronavirus Britain.
The
deadline for submissions is Friday, May 8. All entries will then be judged by a
team from the theatre’s photography group.
Over the next few weeks, York Theatre Royal will release
more projects and opportunities to take part in. All details on how to be
involved can be found on the theatre’s website, yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Nigar Yeva, left, Zak Douglas Aimee Powell, Olisa Odele and Khai Shaw in Pilot Theatre’s Crongton Knights. Picture: Robert Day
YORK company Pilot Theatre will webcast the online premiere of their 2020 co-production of Crongton Knights for free from April 22.
The webcast stream will start at 6.45pm that night when Esther Richardson and Corey Campbell’s Covid-19-curtailed production would have been opening its London run at Theatre Peckham.
Emteaz Hussain’s adaptation of Alex Wheatle’s award-wining young adult novel will be available to stream online at pilot-theatre.com/webcast until Saturday, May 9, the day that the tour’s final curtain would have fallen at Theatre Peckham.
To coincide with the webcast, Pilot, resident company at York Theatre Royal, will put online a series of talks and question-and-answer sessions with the creative team behind Crongton Knights.
The first Pilot
Connects event will be a Q&A with the show’s composer and musical director,
Conrad Murray, hosted by Pilot artistic director Esther Richardson on April 23 (time
to be confirmed).
Kate Donnachie, left, Nigar Yeva, Douglas Aimee, Olisa Odele and Khai Shaw in Crongton Knights. Picture: Robert Day
Performed at York Theatre Royal from February 25 to 29, Crongton Knights takes its audience on a night of madcap adventure as McKay and his friends, The Magnificent Six, encounter the dangers and ultimate triumphs of a mission gone awry.
In this story of how lessons learned the hard
way can bring you closer together, the pulse of the city is brought to life on
stage with a Conrad Murray soundscape of beatboxing and vocals laid down by the
cast of Kate Donnachie; Zak Douglas; Simi Egbejumi-David; Nigar Yeva; Olisa
Odele; Aimee Powell; Khai Shaw and Marcel White.
Wheatle, a writer born in London to Jamaican parents, said he was “very proud” of Pilot Theatre adapting his novel for the stage: “It’s a modern quest story where, on their journey, the young diverse lead characters have to confront debt, poverty, blackmail, loss, fear, the trauma of a flight from a foreign land and the omnipresent threat of gangland violence.
“The dialogue I created for this award-winning novel deserves a platform and I, for one, can’t wait to see the characters that have lived in my head for a number of years leap out of my mind and on to a stage near you.” And now on a webcast stream.
Co-director Esther Richardson said of the teen quest story: “For
us, this play is a lens through which to explore the complexity of young
people’s lives, open a platform for those concerns and show what they have to
try to navigate fairly invisibly to other members of society. It’s the context
in which they live that creates the problem, and these kids go under the radar.
Esther Richardson: Co-director of Crongton Knights and artistic director of Pilot Theatre. Picture: Robert Day
“Alex is writing about how the world is stacked against
teenagers; how young people have been thrown to the dogs; how they to negotiate
this No Man’s Land they live in, when their places have been closed down; their
spaces to express themselves.
“They have been victims of austerity – as have
disabled people – so it’s no surprise that there’s been a rise in knife crime,
with kids on the streets and no youth workers to go to, to talk about their
feelings.”
Crongton Knights is a
co-production between Pilot Theatre, Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, Derby Theatre
and York Theatre Royal, who last year formed – together with the Mercury
Theatre, Colchester – a partnership to develop theatre for younger audiences.
During the four-year cycle, 2019 to 2022, the consortium will
commission and co-produce four original mid-scale productions.
Such co-productions are becoming all the more important against
a backdrop of Esther being concerned by the cuts in arts funding and the
potential negative impact of Brexit too. “Theatre is not seen as an opportunity
to thrive in, especially in this post-Brexit landscape where it’s going to get
worse before it gets better,” she predicted.
“That’s why
we will further shift into co-creating pieces, Pilot creating work with
communities, Pilot co-creating with teens, which we do already do, but we can
do it better and do it more.”
On yer bike: A tense stand-off in Crongton Knights
REVIEW: Crongton Knights, Pilot Theatre, York Theatre Royal, February 25 to 29
EVER since
Lord Of The Flies, York Theatre Royal resident company Pilot Theatre have made
theatre that speaks directly to young audiences.
Now, Pilot
are in the second year of a four-year creative partnership with Coventry’s
Belgrade Theatre, Derby Theatre and the Theatre Royal, their reach spreading
ever wider.
Last year’s
gripping adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s radical Noughts & Crosses is
followed up by another topical story, Emteaz Hussain’s stage account of Crongton
Knights, a young adult novel by Brixton Bard Alex Wheatle, a London writer of
Jamaican parentage.
Co-directed
by Corey Campbell, artistic director of Strictly Arts Theatre Company, and
Pilot artistic director Esther Richardson, it is a play with music, not a
musical, but has the punch of West Side Story, the exhilarating beatbox and
vocal score by Conrad Murray setting the story’s pulsating rhythm.
The
Crongton Knights of the title are the self-styled Magnificent Six, caught up at
a young age in the gangland turf wars of the Crongton Estate, divided into
“North Crong” and “South Crong”, their homestead.
Into the
dangerous Notre Dame estate they venture on a teen quest, a mission to rescue
the mobile phone of Venetia (Aimee Powell, the show’s best singer), in the
possession of her ex-boyfriend with incriminating photographs she needs to
erase.
Leading
them is big-hearted McKay (Olisa Odele); alongside are Jonah (Khai Shaw), Bit
(Zak Douglas), Saira (Nigar Yeva) and, along for the ride, and desperate to be
their lookout, Bushkid (Kate Donnachie), on her bike.
What
follows is a story of “lessons learned the hard way” at the hands of those more
experienced, more streetwise, more ruthless, more desperate, as represented by
Simi Egbejumi-David’s ensemble roles.
In
Wheatle’s words, the Magnificent Six must “confront debt, poverty, blackmail,
loss, fear, the trauma of a flight from a foreign land and the omnipresent
threat of gangland violence”, but the tone is not suffocatingly grim. Even in a
world stacked against teens, there is hope; there is positivity; above all
there is the bond of friendship.
Pilot’s
press release talked of a madcap adventure, and Simon Kenny’s graffiti-painted,
rainbow-coloured, scaffolded set design plays to that spirit, especially when
garage lock-up doors open up to show the Magnificent Six running in slow
motion. Imagine a cartoon crossed with the black comedy drama of Danny Boyle’s
Trainspotting.
Not all the
dialogue is as clear as it could be, and nor is the story’s passage, but the
highly energised performances, especially by Odele and Powell, are terrific,
and special praise goes to Dale Mathurin for stepping into the role of Nesta
with only two hot-housed days of rehearsals.
Richard G
Jones’s lighting and Adam P McCready’s sound design are important too, both
complementing the urban wasteland of troubled teens trying to find their place
when so much is barren.
Not the end for Crongton Knights: The tour had to be curtailed but now the Pilot Theatre co-production can be streamed online from April 22 to May 9
Here Be Monsteras ceramicist Kayti Peschke at work
YORK Open
Studios 2020, the chance to meet 144 artists at 100 locations over two April
weekends, has been cancelled in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, with
doors sadly shut for the April 17 to 19 and April 25 to 26 event,
CharlesHutchPress wants to champion the creativity of York’s artists and
makers, who would have been showcasing their ceramics, collage, digital,
illustration, jewellery, mixed media, painting, print, photography, sculpture
and textiles skills.
Each day,
in brochure order, five artists who now miss out on the exposure of Open
Studios will be given a pen portrait on these pages, because so much art and
craft will have been created for the event and still needs a new home.
Addresses will not be included at this time.
Meanwhile,
York Open Studios artists are finding their own way to respond to the shutdown
by filling their windows with their work instead. Look for #openwindowsyork2020 to locate them.
“If you see one in your area while taking your daily exercise, take a picture
and let us know,” they say.
Camera Obscura, by Jill Tattersall
Jill Tattersall, mixed media
THIS would have been
Jill’s second York Open Studios since she and her The Wolf At The Door art
enterprise moved north from Brighton.
Before turning to art,
she taught mediaeval French literature, leading to her fascination with the creation
myths: Norse, Eastern, European and Aboriginal. “I’m overawed
by early cave and rock art, made long ago with the simplest, most elemental
means. People looked up into the night sky, just as we do, and must have asked
the same questions about their place in the universe.”
Coasts and maps have
inspired her too. “I used to live as far from the sea as you can get on this
island but, like most of us, I was fascinated by coastlines and the sea,” says
Jill. ”I moved, and till recently lived on the south coast, where the
light is fabulous. I try to avoid trite seaside scenes and ration myself
to a few sea-related pieces a year.”
Jill Tattersall: Left Brighton for York
Town and country are key influences as well. “Subjects just crop up: loaves of bread, a stretch of pavement, a passing scene, reflections in a train window,” she says.
“Often I use my own hand-made cast or moulded cotton paper. I then apply washes of paints, inks, dyes and pure pigments to build up intense, glowing colours, combining gold and silver leaf with recycled elements. Labour intensive, highly individual. The paper has a seductive, unpredictable surface: I like the danger and uncertainty this brings. You can wreck a promising painting at any moment.”
Jill’s paintings are in
collections from Peru to Tasmania. Since moving north, she has exhibited at Kunsthuis
Gallery, The Dutch House, Crayke. Discover more at jilltattersall.co.uk.
Here Be Monsteras: Ceramics created in a garage studio in a Wolds garden
Here Be Monsteras, Kayti Peschke, ceramics
KAYTI creates ceramics under the name of Here Be Monsteras from her garage studio in her garden in the Wolds east of York.
Her background is in photography and magazine design, but a year ago she started making pottery and now she has converted full time. “It has become an obsession,” she says.
Kayti makes wheel-thrown
ceramics with stoneware clays to create functional objects for the home. “A
collection of special pieces that bring a bit of extra joy to the ordinary,” as
she put it ahead of what would have been her York Open Studios debut.
“It has become an obsession,” says Kayti Peschke of her conversion to making pottery
She has been working on
new collections, including screen-printing ceramics with artist Jade Blood,
creating travel cups and a full dinnerware set, as
well as collaborating with restaurants and cafés that serve their menus on her
tableware.
“A cup of tea in a handmade cup really
does taste better, maybe because the process feels more special or you take
more time over it? I’m not sure why, but it’s true,” she says.
In her home studio, the cups of tea flow
and her puppies hang out in the sunshine as she listens to BBC 6Music or podcasts.
“I absolutely love being out there, creating, and hopefully this shows in the
things I make.”
As testament to that, her ceramics can be
found in York at Kiosk, Fossgate; Sketch By Origin, York Art Gallery; Walter
& May, Bishopthorpe Road; Lotte The Baker, SparkYork and Botanic York,
Walmgate. Take a look at herebemonsteras.com.
Gold needle necklace, by Joanna Wakefield
Joanna Wakefield, jewellery
DESIGNER jeweller Joanna’s
work combines her two passions, jewellery and textiles, with the third
essential element of her memories, observations and musings.
Joanna creates silver
and gold jewellery inspired by textiles, haberdashery and her vintage collections
and found objects.
Her work invokes a sense
of nostalgia. Alongside button-inspired pieces is a delicate interpretation of
handcrafted bobbins, thimbles, measures and needles.
Joanna first trained in design,
specialising in textiles, having grown up in a family environment of three
generations of needlewomen.
Joanna Wakefield: Switched from textile designs to jewellery designs
She travelled the world
as a Fair Trade designer, but after more than ten years she could no longer
ignore her desire to develop further creatively, leading her to re-train at
York School of Jewellery.
“A huge part of my jewellery designs is influenced by textiles and haberdashery, stemming from a fascination that grew from admiring my Grandma’s talents and fond memories of sorting through her button stash,” says Joanna, whose work was to have featured in the MADE shop at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, near Wakefield, from March 7 to June 21.
Take a shine to Joanna’s
jewellery at joannawakefield.com.
” I’ve always had an interest in natural history and the British countryside,” says Mark Hearld
Mark Hearld, collage, printmaking and ceramics
MARK studied illustration at Glasgow School of Art and an MA in natural history illustration at the Royal College of Art in 1999 before breaking into the artistic world with exhibitions at Godfrey & Watt in Harrogate and St Jude’s in Norfolk and in London’s arty Lower Sloane Street.
He specialises in bright collages, paintings,
limited-edition lithographic and lino-cut prints and now hand-painted ceramics,
his work often involving animals and birds, flora and fauna.
“I’ve always had an interest in natural
history and the British countryside,” says Mark, 46, who is strongly influenced
too by mid-20th century art and design. “I like the idea of the artist working
as a designer rather than making images to stick in a frame,” he reasons.
Mark Hearld: Birds, beasts, flora and fauna
He undertook a set-design commission for the 2005 film Nanny McPhee and has done design projects for Tate Britain – cups, jugs, plates and scarves – and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, near Wakefield, where he held a solo show, Birds and Beasts, from November 2012 to February 2013.
In 2012, Merrell Books published Mark
Hearld’s Work Book, the first book devoted to his work, and he has illustrated
such books as Nicola Davies’s A First Book Of Nature (2012) and Nature Poems:
Give Me Instead Of A Card (2019).
He curated the Lumber Room exhibition at
the re-opened York Art Gallery from August 2015 after its £8 million
development project, as well as a re-imagining of the British Folk Art
Collection at Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park. Contact him via
mark.a.hearld@googlemail.com.
Lauren Terry, Lauren’s Cows, painting
Out in the fields: Lauren’s Cows artist Lauren Terry
LAUREN has moved out of Bar Lane
Studios, not too far away, to a new studio workspace overlooking Micklegate Bar
and Blossom Street, where her focus remains on creating vibrant cow paintings,
prints and homeware.
Lauren’s Cows had began with a one-off painting of a cow that
she painted while working as a waitress and actress in the heart of London.
Growing
tired of city life, she craved a window to her country childhood. What better
view than a curious cow peering in on her kitchen table?
Scarlet, by Lauren Terry
The
framer in North Yorkshire was so taken by the characterful cow that he offered
to host an exhibition if Lauren agreed to paint 20 more of her beautiful beasts.
The
response this debut show generated gave her the confidence to change career
tack by launching her art business and brand, and so Lauren’s Cows was born in
2012: a daughter-and-mother partnership where Lauren paints character-filled cattle in heavy-bodied acrylic paint and designing
items for the home in her York studio and Jude takes care of business from the
family home at Crackenthorpe, Appleby-in-Westmoreland.
Lauren Terry in her new studio in York
“I love what I do,” says Lauren. “Cows have such a curious
nature and humorous personality that they just make me smile, and I take great
pleasure in passing that smile on through my vibrant paintings. It’s all about
capturing all the character while still remaining true to the breed.”
Lauren’s Cows can be found at laurenscows.com.
TOMORROW: Sharon McDonagh; Jane Dignum; Carolyn Coles; Adele Karmazyn and Nathan Combes
YORK Open
Studios 2020, the chance to meet 144 artists at 100 locations over two April
weekends, has been cancelled in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However,
with doors sadly shut for the April 17 to 19 and April 25 to 26 event,
CharlesHutchPress wants to champion the creativity of York’s artists and
makers, who would have been showcasing their ceramics, collage, digital,
illustration, jewellery, mixed media, painting, print, photography, sculpture
and textiles skills.
Each day,
in brochure order, five artists who now miss out on the exposure of Open
Studios will be given a pen portrait on these pages, because so much art and
craft will have been created for the event and still needs a new home.
Addresses will not be included at this time.
Meanwhile,
York Open Studios artists are finding their own way to respond to the shutdown
by filling their windows with their work instead. Look for #openwindowsyork2020 to locate them.
“If you see one in your area while taking your daily exercise, take a picture
and let us know,” they say.
Ovoid On Ball, by Ben Arnup
Ben Arnup, ceramics
BEN defines his ceramics
as art pottery, wherein an early obsession with perspective has developed into
a play between drawn description and form.
“I like to play a game: setting the prosaic nature
of clay against the unlikely structures of the drawings,” says Ben of his oxidised
stoneware with inlays and colourful
porcelain veneers, fired in an electric kiln.
The son of the late
Mick and Sally Arnup, painter and potter and sculptor respectively, he grew up
learning ceramic skills and technology.
Ben Arnup: “I like to play a game,” he says
Having trained as a
landscape architect at Manchester Polytechnic, he worked for Landscape Design Associates in Peterborough,
before he returned to making pots influenced by the design process in 1984.
Now a fellow of the Craft Potters Association, he works out of a basement
workshop in his York home, exhibiting his ceramics in Britain, Europe and North
America. Learn more at benarnup.co.uk.
Linked pendant, by Jo Bagshaw
Jo Bagshaw, jewellery
THE central theme of Jo’s
work is to create beautiful, wearable collections of silver jewellery that
follow simple lines and shapes.
“I’m
inspired by everyday objects, vintage items and novelties,” she says. “I
sometimes include these elements directly in my work, encasing and embellishing
them with precious metals to give a fresh perspective to a familiar object.
Jo Bagshaw: Inspired by everyday objects, vintage items and novelties
“I often
weave a narrative into my jewellery, incorporating messages or well-known
sayings to an item that convey meaning to the wearer.
After
completing a degree in metalwork and jewellery in 2004, Jo launched her
jewellery business in 2006. Since then, she has combined this with teaching
jewellery-making skills at The Mount School, York. More details at
jobagshaw.co.uk.
Clay in hand: Feet in Clay ceramicist and multi-media artist Francesca King
Francesca King, ceramics/multi-media
FRANCESCA founded her ceramics practice in 2016 to explore surface, texture and formation of agate clay. She has exhibited nationally, alongside undertaking ceramic portrait commissions and teaching.
Now in the second year
of her MA in fine art, she was awarded first prize in an international art
competition, leading to a week’s residency at Urbino University, Italy.
Francesca, who is also a
clay therapist, is taking clay into a more interactive aspect of sculpture with
her Feet in Clay installation: an interactive
sculptural exhibit that “promotes the positive aspects of clay in motion,
stimulating the corporeal experience for participants”.
Francesca KIng at work
The Feet in Clay experience would have
been offered during Francesca’s exhibition for York Open Studios 2020, for which
she was one of the annual event’s multimedia bursary recipients.
This bursary enables artists to create
experiences such as digital works, installations, films or performances as part
of York Open Studios.
For the full picture, take a look at francescakingceramics.com.
Photographer Simon Palmour: Likes to remove the glass barrier between viewer and image
Simon Palmour, photography
SIMON has been a
photographer for 35 years, having his work published and exhibited at many
locations, not least the Royal Geographical Society.
Abstract images are
extracted from landscapes and reproduced on several media, such as aluminium,
acrylic and board to “remove the glass barrier between viewer and image”.
Last year, his photographic essay on The Yorkshire High Wolds was published. This year, he was timing the publication of his new project on the Yorkshire Elmet flatlands to coincide with York Open Studios 2020.
The Tree On The Beach, by Simon Palmour
A theme of his photography is ambiguity, whether of scale, subject, point of view or colour (much, although not all, of his work being monochrome). “The aim is to invite contemplation, to reward repeated consideration and to cause a little confusion,” he says.
Simon also carries out
portrait work, commissions and workshops, as well as teaching groups and offering
personal tuition.
After the cancellation of this year’s York Open Studios, he is holding a Virtual Show instead throughout April. Visit palmourphotographics.blogspot.com/p/virtual-exhibition.html daily.
“Each day, I’ll add a different piece to the show, with the story behind the shot and the cost of a print,” he says. Those images can be bought at palmour@gmail.com.
Julerry, by Elena Panina
Elena Panina, textiles
ELENA is a Russian-born
textile artist who works with wool, silk and decorative fibres.
Using wet felting
techniques, she makes wearable art pieces: necklaces, shawls and throws,
bracelets, headwear, belts, hand bags, toys and wall hangings.
Elena was born and brought up in St Petersburg, moving to Britain 15 years ago. She attended arts college in St Petersburg and her past artwork centred on ink drawings, until she discovered wet and needle felting three years ago.
Elena Panina: Drawn to the magical qualities of felting
Studying felting from
Russian felt makers, she was drawn immediately to its magical properties as she
learnt how to produce cloth out of fibres.
As well as an artist,
she is a teacher. She can be contacted via yelenavpanina@sky.com.
TOMORROW: Jill Tattersall; Here Be Monsters; Joanna Wakefield; Mark Hearld and Lauren Terry.
Nouvelle Vague: Playing Leeds City Varieties this autumn
FRENCH fancy covers band Nouvelle Vague will play Leeds City Varieties on October 13 on their 15 Years Anniversary Tour, now running into a 16th year.
Nouvelle Vague translates as “bossa nova” in Portuguese and “new wave” in English, explaining Marc Collin and Oliver Libaux’s choice of moniker that encapsulates the Parisian group’s concept of remaking classic New Wave singles with a Brazilian pop twist.
By appropriating the punk and post-punk cannon and running it through the
Bossa Nova filter, they re-invented the cover-band genre, revealing new singing
talents along the way such as Camille, Phoebe Killdeer, Nadeah, Mélanie Pain
and Liset Alea.
Bossa Nova + New Wave = Nouvelle Vague
The group’s first two albums, 2004’s Nouvelle Vague and 2006’s Bande A Part, defined their urbane retro sound , while third album, 2009’s NV3, featured collaborations with Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore, Echo & The Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch, The Specials’ Terry Hall, Barry Adamson, The Saints and Minimal Compact.
Subsequently, they have released the live album Acoustic in 2009; Best Of Nouvelle Vague and Couleurs Sur Paris in 2010; I Could Be Happy in 2016 and Curiosities and Rarities in 2019.
Nouvelle Vague will perform their 23-date autumn tour with a line-up of Collin, Libaux, Pain, Killdeer and Elodie Frégé. Killdeer and Pain will sing at the shows from October 9 to 20, including Leeds; Frégé and Pain from October 22 Tickets for the only Yorkshire date are on sale at cityvarieties.co.uk.
KENTMERE House Gallery always intended to devote much of this year’s exhibition programme to Jack Hellewell, as 2020 would have been his centenary year.
Ann Petherick’s gallery, in Scarcroft Hill, York, is closed under the
Coronavirus lockdown, but the website is being updated regularly, especially
his section.
“You may not be able to go to the Yorkshire Dales over the Easter break,
but you can still enjoy Jack Hellewell’s views of Yorkshire and elsewhere
online until such time as you can see the real thing,” says Ann.
“There will be a rolling exhibition of Jack’s work from the date of the
gallery re-opening, including works on paper and on canvas, with prices ranging
from £500 to £1,500.”
Ebb Tide, Filey, by Jack Hellewell
After his death in 2000, Kentmere House Gallery was appointed to manage
Jack’s artistic estate on behalf of his family, since when exhibitions have
been held in Ilkley, Leeds, Stoke-on-Trent, Bristol, London and Vienna. “There were
several more planned in 2020, although some may now have to be deferred to
2021,” says Ann.
Ever since Ann saw Jack’s work in a gallery in Ilkley 25 years ago, he
has been one of her gallery’s most loved and respected artists and work from
his studio is on show there permanently.
“Jack lived for his painting, describing himself as ‘a fanatical painter’
and spending all day and every day painting, especially after his wife died,” says
Ann. “Towards the end of his life, his daughter said the only way she knew he
was really ill was when he stopped painting
“He loved it when he sold work but hated having to be involved with the
selling and, as a result, most of the work we show will never have been seen
before outside his studio.”
Ilkley Moor, Yorkshire, by Jack Hellewell
Jack’s attic flat overlooking Ilkley Moor was always neatly
stacked with canvasses and work on paper. “Initially he would say ‘I
haven’t done much’, and then the paintings would start to appear: astounding in
their quality and consistency and always singing with colour,” says Ann.
“The gentlest, quietest and most modest of men, there were few who were
privileged to know him, but he had a delightful sense of humour, which also
appears in his paintings.”
Jack Hellewell was a
Yorkshireman through and through. Born in Bradford in 1920, he trained as a
painter at Bradford College of Art – where David Hockney studied too – from 1949
to 1952 and in later life lived in Menston and Ilkley.
He saw war service in
Egypt, North Africa and Italy and he then worked as a graphic designer. His travels with his family took him to Australia,
Austria, New Zealand, the South Seas and, frequently, to Scotland.
Socotra, Indian Ocean, by Jack Hellewell
In 1976, he gave up his design work to become a full-time painter,
returning to West Yorkshire to do so.
“All his work was
executed entirely from memory – he always refused to sketch on site, believing
that ‘it ties you down’ – and everything was derived from personal experiences,”
says Ann.
“Jack’s travels and
encounters had a dramatic impact on his painting and he had an amazing ability
to retain the essence of a place, so that years – or even decades later – he
could produce a painting from it.”
Much of his work used
the visual experience of intense light in warmer climates, as compared with the
more subtle light he found in Britain.
The front door of Kentmere House Gallery: Closed until further notice, but gallery owner Ann Petherick is still operating an online service
“Jack always worked in acrylic, enjoying the contrasts it offers between strong and subtle colours, and the feeling of movement, which is such a feature of his work,” says Ann. “He had the ability both to use the medium neat on canvas or diluted on paper, the latter giving the effect of the most delicate watercolour.”
Jack exhibited at the
Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition on several occasions in the 1990s; his
work was featured on the Tyne Tees Television arts programme North-East Line
and he has an entry in the definitive publication Artists In Britain Since 1945.
“All this leads me to wonder how many other such artists there are:
producing superbly rich and inspired work, yet largely unknown to the public and
even more so to the art world, and never receiving a penny of public funding,
nor any public recognition,” says Ann, who continues to ensure that all’s well
that’s Hellewell by promoting his art assiduously in his centenary year.
Did you know?
WORKS by Jack Hellewell are in the collections of British Rail; National Power
Company; Sheffield Museums; Mercer Gallery, Harrogate; Rochdale Art Gallery; Rutherston
Art Loan Scheme, Manchester City Art Gallery; Barclays Asset Management, Leeds
& Birmingham, and Provident Financial, Bradford.
YORK Open
Studios 2020, the chance to meet 144 artists at 100 locations over two April
weekends, has been cancelled in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However,
with doors sadly shut for the April 17 to 19 and April 25 to 26 event,
CharlesHutchPress wants to champion the creativity of York’s artists and
makers, who would have been showcasing their ceramics, collage, digital,
illustration, jewellery, mixed media, painting, print, photography, sculpture
and textiles skills.
Each day,
in brochure order, five artists who now miss out on the exposure of Open
Studios will be given a pen portrait on these pages, because so much art and
craft will have been created for the event and still needs a new home.
Addresses will not be included at this time.
Meanwhile,
York Open Studios artists are finding their own way to respond to the shutdown
by filling their windows with their work instead. Look for #openwindowsyork2020 to locate them.
“If you see one in your area while taking your daily exercise, take a picture
and let us know,” they say.
Wool scarf, by Angela Anning
Angela Anning, textiles
ANGELA
makes one-off wearable art – scarves, shawls and jewellery – using fine silks,
cottons and wools.
She also creates highly textured wall art, applying wet felting
techniques to bond and sculpt natural materials, sometimes overlaid with hand
or machine stitching. She
designs lampshades too, decorated with fabric paint and machine embroidery.
“The
theme is treasures in nature,” says Angela, whose textile art is inspired by
sketches and photographs of landscapes and natural objects she experiences. “My
work is always influenced by the qualities and characteristics of natural
materials as I work with them.”
Angela Anning in her workshop
For Angela, textile art is a second career, after a degree in fine art and English and years as an educator, researcher, academic and writer, working mainly in Manchester and Leeds.
“But
I sustained a passion for and active interest in textiles and fashion alongside
my professional life,” she says. Fifteen years of developing work in fine and decorative arts has
ensued. Take a look at anningtextiles.com.
“My aim is to translate the dynamism and sensitivity of my former career as a musician into a ‘visual music’ in clay,” says Pamela Thorby
Pamela Thorby, ceramics
PAMELA left behind a distinguished career in music as a recorder
virtuoso and academic to pursue a new path in fine art.
Her stoneware-fired porcelain sculptural vessels are “imagined but
reminiscent of a multiplicity of organic forms”: whether interstellar, fossil,
micro-organism or coral.
“I aspire to make work light enough to be hung in the air;
strong enough to be placed piece inside piece, creating new possibilities of form
and meaning,” says Pamela. “My aim is to translate the dynamism and
sensitivity of my former career as a musician into a ‘visual music’ in clay.”
Pamela Thorby: “Making work light enough to be hung in the air”
She was “so excited” to have been selected for her first participation
in York Open Studios. “This was another one of the goals that I set myself and
here we are, in my second year as a ceramicist, and I’m working towards a major
body of work for this fantastic event in April,” she said at the time.
In her esteemed career in music, Pamela was professor of recorder at the Royal Academy of Music in London until 2019; the regular recorder player for Welsh composer Sir Karl Jenkins’s projects and a member of such groups as La Serenissima, New London Consort and Palladian Ensemble with Baroque violinist Rachel Podger.
In May 2007, she performed a radical fusion of jazz and folk
music with Perfect Houseplants at the National Centre for Early Music in York,
an innovative experience she described memorably as: “I’m a bit like a
gherkin on a salad plate: I’m adding piquancy to the mix.”
To discover more, go to pamelathorby.com.
Andrian Melka, sculpture
ANDRIAN began studying art
and sculpture at the age of ten, graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in
Tirana, Albania, in 1994.
He
moved to England in 1997 with a Getty scholarship and spent a year at the
Building Crafts College in London, where he was awarded the City & Guilds
Silver Medal for Excellence and granted the Freedom of
Carpenters’ Company and the Freedom of the City of London.
He headed to York to work as head sculptor with the renowned carver Dick Reid on high-profile commissions such as the Jubilee Fountain on Sandringham Estate to commemorate HM The Queen’s Golden Jubilee and figures of Christ and Madonna for St Mungo’s Church in Glasgow.
Since opening his own studio near York in 2003, he has taken on commissions from Lord Rothschild, HRH The Prince of Wales, Lord Conrad Black and the Earl of Halifax.
His work in bronze, marble and stone ranges
from figurative sculptures and portraits to abstractions based on the human
form.
Attention to detail and the right finish are important to
Andrian, who approaches his work differently from most other studios, working
directly in stone without the need for full-size models in the same way
Michelangelo would have done. See the results at melkasculpture.com.
Teapot, by Isabel K-J Denyer
Isabel K-J Denyer, ceramics
ISABEL loves to know
that her oven-proof stoneware and porcelain pottery will be used on an everyday
basis, for all occasions and celebrations, as she aims to make the presentation
of food “sing”.
“It
gives me great pleasure to think that they are part of people’s daily lives as
they serve and enjoy food in different ways, from a family meal to special
occasions,” she says. “This, for me, makes the process complete and
creates a mutual message between me, the maker, and the user and is the essence
of my working life.”
Isabel’s stoneware and porcelain pots are thrown on an electric wheel and are reduction-fired in a gas kiln. “Form and function are absolutely integral to the work and my objective is to make pots to be used, handled, cherished and cooked in,” she says.
Isabel K-J Denyer at the wheel
The making of pots gives Isabel a sense of peace. “I’m attracted to the forms made by the Etruscans, Koreans and the early Bronze Age Cycladic period and these are the pots I mostly draw in museums,” she says.
“For my own work, I prefer to work shapes out by making them first, helped along by exploratory drawings at a later stage and then allowing them to evolve and change over the years. This makes for a constant voyage of excitement and discovery.”
Isabel
trained in the 1960s on the Harrow Studio Pottery course, later potting in the
United States and Jamaica. Since moving to
Yorkshire in the early 1980s, she has been a member of the Northern Potters
Association, serving on the committee for nine years and as chair, and she is a member
of the Craft Potters Association too. Learn more at isabeldenyer.co.uk.
Pennie Lordan: Art on the Edgelands
Pennie Lordan, painter of landscapes
PENNIE’S oil paintings explore
the stark contrast and parallels that exist between loss and hope, sensitivity
and brutality, isolation and connectedness through the theme of Edgelands.
“My paintings are
developed from studies that come directly from location sketches, often on
pre-prepared grounds that reference a sense of composition and atmosphere,” she
says.
“These studies then
develop into oil paintings, built on varied prepared grounds and developed
through the process of multiple thin layers of oil paint and cold wax, often
applied, wiped back and re-applied.”
Pennie Lordan: painter of landscapes
Her work is both on linen, incorporating subtle stitching, and on disregarded found materials, such as pitched pine, board or aluminium.
Londoner Pennie runs two creative businesses in York with her husband, arriving here with a background in animation, art and education. Recently she completed three years of studying landscape painting at Leith School of Art in Edinburgh. 2020 would have been her first year in York Open Studios. More details: pennielordan.com.
TOMORROW: Ben Arnup; Jo Bagshaw; Francesca King; Simon Palmour and Elena Panina.
BLAME Tim
Brooke-Taylor for the stereotype image of the mithering, miserable, tight but
bragging Yorkshireman.
Well, not
only Tim, as we celebrate the comic genius and geniality of this son of
Derbyshire, Cambridge Footlights president, Goodie and stalwart I’m Sorry I Haven’t
panellist, who passed away yesterday, taken by the Covid-19 blight at 79.
The Four
Yorkshireman sketch is often attributed to Monty Python, but wrongly so. It was
in fact co-written by Brooke-Taylor for At Last The 1948 Show, the ITV series
he made with Marty Feldman and future Pythons John Cleese and Graham Chapman in
1967 and 1968.
Monty Python were subsequently to appropriate it and so too was The Secret Policeman’s Ball charity bash, when performed by Cleese, Terry Jones, South Yorkshireman Michael Palin and a young Rowan Atkinson.
“And you
try telling the young people of today that and they won’t believe you,” you
might say, borrowing the sketch’s pay-off line.
Tim
recalled the sketch’s motivation when interviewed ahead of his An Audience With
Tim Brooke Taylor show at Selby Town Hall in November 2014: the year when the grainy
black-and-white footage of the original recording for At Last The 1948 Show was
re-discovered.
“I come from
Derbyshire, so all Yorkshiremen are a pain in the neck and we have a chip on
the shoulder about them,” said the Buxton-born Brooke-Taylor, not entirely
seriously.
“In the Seventies,
I was asked by five different publishers to write about Yorkshire because I’d
picked on the county, but then Yorkshiremen were not at their best in the
Seventies, were they!”
“Geoffrey Boycott!”
scoffed the cricket enthusiast. “But I’ve since met some very nice Yorkshiremen
and I’ve had to change my attitude, which is rather annoying.”
Tim, the perennial wounded innocent in
The Goodies alongside Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie, went on to say why he loved
being a team player, rather than performing solo. “I find that comedy is
funnier in groups; there are great stand-ups but I love seeing people bouncing
words off each other,” he reasoned.
Had Tim ever been tempted to write his
autobiography, came the final question? “I’ve been offered deals, but I think
the interesting ones are written by those with nasty things to say, like Roy
Keane’s book,” he said. “My book would be too happy.”
Too happy? For all four of the grouchy Four Yorkshiremen, maybe, but not for the rest of us. Thank you, Tim Brooke-Taylor, for all the years of happiness and laughter your brought us.
“We’ll lead you to a better life,” you
sang. “Goodies, goody, goody, yum, yum.”
YORK Open
Studios 2020, the chance to meet 144 artists at 100 locations over two April
weekends, has been cancelled in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, with
doors sadly shut for the April 17 to 19 and April 25 to 26 event,
CharlesHutchPress wants to champion the creativity of York’s artists and
makers, who would have been showcasing their ceramics, collage, digital,
illustration, jewellery, mixed media, painting, print, photography, sculpture
and textiles skills.
Each day,
in brochure order, five artists who now miss out on the exposure of Open
Studios will be given a pen portrait on these pages, because so much art and
craft will have been created for the event and still needs a new home.
Addresses will not be included at this time.
Meanwhile,
York Open Studios artists are finding their own way to respond to the shutdown
by filling their windows with their work instead. Look for #openwindowsyork2020 to locate them.
“If you see one in your area while taking your daily exercise, take a picture
and let us know,” they say.
“The imperfections tell the story of the making,” says Kate Buckley
Kate Buckley, sculptural porcelain
ORIGINALLY
from North Wales, Kate has lived in York for two decades as a partner, mother,
teacher, artist and designer.
Having taught for more than 20 years, now she has graduated with a first-class contemporary craft degree from York College and is a UK prize winner in the Eleanor Worthington International Art Prize in Tertiary Education (Italy and the UK).
Porcelain meets origami in her thought-provoking sculptural works that favour a stripped-back colour palette focusing on light and shade. She uses slip-cast and press-moulded folded parchment and linen, together with folded surface distortion in concrete and plaster.
Kate Buckley: Demonstrating the delicacy of paper in porcelain
“The product is the sum
of the process and the imperfections tell the story of the making,” says Kate,
who is a member of the British Origami Society and artist-in-residence at York
College.
“My time there is spent
striving to express the delicacy of paper in porcelain and investigating how
geometry, repetition and folding capture the interplay of shadow and light and
embrace the space between.”
Since 2017, Kate has exhibited in York (According To McGee, Village Gallery), Harrogate, Newcastle (Holy Biscuit), London (Art. Number 23) and Urbino, Italy, and last year at Kunsthuis Gallery’s Shades of Clay exhibition at The Dutch House, Crayke, and Art& York, York Racecourse. She will return to Art& York from October 23 to 25 this autumn. Go to katebuckley.co.uk to learn more.
Wet York, by Kay Dower
Kay Dower, painting
KAY is the resident
artist at Corner Gallery, which she first ran in Scarcroft Road for 18 months and
now operates from her home.
“Having more space allows me to showcase more art to more people in the context of a relaxed, contemporary home, and of course there’s the excuse to make more of a party out of it,” she reasons. “I’m all for a casual approach to art with a dollop of fun and fizz thrown in for good measure.”
Kay Dower in her studio
Starting out as an “unserious, serious artist”,
she now paints with lashings of acrylics, using a
palette knife to give her paintings a sense of freedom and texture. Subjects
range from everyday ‘still life’ objects, whether pears or Prosecco, gerberas or
gin bottles, to quirky scenes of York.
Among these are classic
York buildings and corners of York, depicted from fresh angles, such as York Racecourse
and Bishopthorpe Road. “These are artworks that don’t want to hide
behind glass,” she says.
YORK retro book-art photographer Claire likes to encourage people to think about their favourite books in a different way when she brings vintage book covers and iconic characters to life through the lens
“I’ve always
had an interest in photography and creating pop-up books,” says Claire, whose primary influence was American photographer
Thomas Allen, who would cut characters out of pulp-fiction books and then
photograph them.
“I loved this concept so much, I started doing my own versions.
His were a bit sexy and I wanted mine to be cleaner.”
Inspired by
vintage fictional books, Claire uses
paper-cutting techniques to partially free the characters from the book, before
dramatically lighting and staging the shot to give the impression of the figure
coming to life from the pages, creating a 3D, retro-cool image.
Claire Morris pictured when she exhibited at Pocklington Arts Centre
Claire divides her time between working in the health sector and scouring charity shops and second-hand book sales, sourcing images and materials for her next art piece.
“I find inspiration from the characters on the front of the books. There’s something so iconic about book covers from the 1950s,” she says. “I like to highlight the emotions that the characters are showing and telling their story by placing them into a new situation.”
As well as
being a permanently featured artist at Kay Dower’s Corner Gallery, Claire has
exhibited this year at Pig & Pastry, Bishopthorpe Road, The
Gallery, Malton, and Pocklington Arts Centre. Take a look at clairemorris.photography.
Answering Light, by Emma Whitelock
Emma Whitelock, painting
DEPICTING evocative land and
seascapes in an expressive style, Emma’s work often incorporates a lone female
figure as a tiny abstract symbol.
Seeking to portray an emotional
connection to land and sea, how the outer world can reflect the inner, the expansiveness of nature acts as a foil to human concerns with
memory and solitude.
Her inspiration varies from the dramatic Yorkshire moors and coast, to the exceptional light and vibrancy of Cornish summers.
Emma Whitelock: Depicting land and seascapes
“Using acrylic with
mixed media, I build layers that evolve intuitively to create textured,
semi-abstract works, where I aim to transport the viewer to wild places,” says
Emma.
Her use of colour is both dramatic and ethereal, often giving the
works the feeling of being poised on the borderline between day and night. “They
are charged moments, filled with remembrances past and possibilities for
the future,” she says.
One of Emma’s paintings, featuring a seagull, was used by York
Settlement Community Players for artwork for Helen Wilson’s production of Anton
Chekhov’s The Seagull at the York Theatre Royal Studio earlier this year. Head
to emmawhitelock.co.uk for more info.
Peter Donohoe: Exploring the relationship between two people
Peter Donohoe, sculpture
PETER’S sculptures explore
the relationship between two people, friends, lovers, real or imagined.
Having graduated from
Leeds College of Art in 1969 with an honours degree in sculpture, he worked in
mainstream theatre and the museum display industry as a prop maker and
commercial sculptor. This gave him a broad experience of both materials and
technique.
Peter Donohoe has developed an alternative approach to figurative sculpture
In 2005, he left full-time
employment to concentrate on his personal work and to develop an alternative
approach to figurative sculpture.
His sculptures are in
hand worked copper, patinated and mounted on stone. Visit his website at
peterdonohoe.co.uk.
Showgirl memoirs: Katy Owen, left, Etta Murfitt and Gareth Snook in Wise Children. Pictures: Steven Tanner
YORK Theatre Royal’s co-production of Angela Carter’s Wise
Children, made with Emma
Rice’s company Wise Children and The Old Vic, is now available to stream on BBC
iPlayer.
Adapted and directed by Rice, ever-innovative former artistic
director of Cornish company Kneehigh Theatre and Shakespeare’s Globe in London,
the show marked the debut of her new Bristol company.
Wise Children was co-produced with The Old Vic, London, where the world premiere opened in 2018, Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, Oxford Playhouse and York Theatre Royal.
In March 2019, a performance of Rice’s exuberantly impish,
musical vision of Carter’s last novel was filmed live at the York theatre with
support from The Space.
The 138-minute play will be streamed for free for two months
on BBC iPlayer as part Culture In Quarantine, the BBC’s arts and culture
service to “keep the arts alive in people’s homes”. A screening on BBC 4 in May
will be confirmed at a later date.
Billed as a big, bawdy tangle
of theatrical joy and pain, Wise Children is a celebration of show business,
family, forgiveness and hope as Nora and Dora Chance, twin chorus girls
born and bred south of the river, celebrate their 70th birthday in Brixton.
Wise Children artistic director Emma Rice
Across the river in Chelsea, their father and greatest actor of his
generation, Melchior Hazard, turns 100, on the same day. As does his twin
brother Peregrine. If, in fact, he is still alive. And if, in truth, Melchior
is their real father after all.
“When I set up Wise Children, I knew I would open with an
adaptation of Wise Children after calling the company that name, presenting Angela
Carter’s open love letter to theatre in all its aspects, its power and glories,”
said Rice.
“I was a great fan of Angela Carter in my 20s. She has had a magical
impact on people’s lives; she’s breath-taking in allowing the unimaginable to
happen, so we fit together well!”
To create her adaptation, Rice read Carter’s novel, then wrote down the story or “what I remember of it”, she said. “I then started working on it with the actors, using their collective imaginations, so that they can pass on their own experiences in theatre.”
Rice has a track record for picking unconventional casts, typically so
for Wise Children. “The actors I’m drawn to over and over again, and the
way I tell stories, reflect how I always like to open up to diversity, expanding
on my own experiences of humanity, especially in these polarised times, by
looking at people who have had different experiences to your own,” she
reasoned.
Against the 2019 backdrop of so much drabness, division, enmity and
lost hope, Rice was determined to champion showbusiness, family, forgiveness
and hope. “They represent a lot of my life,” she said. “When I
talk of family, I mean not only blood family, but how we connect as
humans.”
Emma Rice’s company Wise Children in Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers at York Theatre Royal last September
Now, Rice is delighted that Wise Children is being streamed from this
week on BBC iPlayer amid the Coronavirus lockdown. “I dreamt about adapting
Angela Carter’s Wise Children for years before it became a reality, and, when I
finally did make it, it was the first piece I made for my new company,” she says.
“It’s a show I carry deep in my heart; a love letter to theatre, to
survival, to family and family of choice. When The Space commissioned us to
film it for the BBC, I almost burst with pride!
“I delight in the fact that we now get to share this glorious story
with so many others, and hope that the fun, truth, love and generosity poured
into it will find its way into sitting rooms across the country.”
Reflecting on Wise Children being part of the BBC’s Culture In Quarantine programming, Rice says: “What feels even more perfect is that we’re releasing it now. Today, more than ever, we need joy, resilience, hope and love of life, which runs through the veins of Wise Children. As Nora and Dora Chance tell us: ‘What a joy it is to dance and sing!’. Never has this been more true. We hope you enjoy.”
Last September, Rice and Wise Children returned to York Theatre Royal
for a second co-production, Enid Blyton’s “original post-war Girl Power story, the naughty, nostalgic
and perfect for now” Malory Towers: her “happy Lord Of The Flies”, as Rice called
it.
Wise Children and the Theatre Royal are
to complete a hattrick of collaborations in 2021, this time in tandem with the
National Theatre for Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights.
The butterfly effect: Emma Rice’s Wise Children company in Angela Carter’s Wise Children
Charles Hutchinson’s review of Wise Children at York Theatre Royal, March 2019. Copyright of The Press, York.
IMAGINE a Victorian
vaudeville troupe or a circus travelling across Europe picking up performers,
musicians, speciality acts, en route.
It would look not
unlike Emma Rice’s new Wise Children company, set up since she left the
artistic directorship of Shakespeare’s Globe and more in keeping with her 20
years leading Cornish company Kneehigh.
Do not take it the
wrong way when I say Rice’s Wise Children are a modern-day freak show, not in
the overt manner of the Circus of Horrors, but in how Rice celebrates, liberates
and embraces beauty in all forms: a message for this age of Brexit intolerance
for “outsiders” and fashion magazine photo-shopped
“perfection”.
Vicki Mortimer’s design
echoes circus in its lighting, while the set is dominated by a caravan, again
recalling travelling troupes in Rice’s adaptation of Angela Carter’s last
novel: a “celebration of showbusiness, family, forgiveness and hope”
that receives a big, bold, bouncy, exuberant, darkly imaginative, saucy
interpretation.
Opening on the 75th
birthday of The Lucky Chances, Brixton showgirl twins Nora and Dora Chance,
Rice’s hyper-production jumps around in time to tell their life story.
On the way she
employs puppetry; glorious live music; theatrical in-jokes; old Bob Monkhouse
and Max Miller gags; Shakespeare quotes; much mischief making, scabrous scandal
and mistaken identities; men playing women, women playing men, and multiple
versions of the same character at different ages.
