Posts from — January 2012

Alice Liddle (Alice in Wonderland)

Alice in Wonderland The Tate

A couple of weeks ago we (Tom, Tabby, Jess myself and my mum) all went to Liverpool for the day, to visit the Alice in Wonderland exhibition at the Tate Liverpool.

Pool of Tears 2 (after Lewis Carroll) - Kiki Smith 2000

Untitled (Falling Alice) - John Wesley 1963

The exhibition was pretty extensive.  It started with a look at the life and interests of the author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) and the influences upon him, of the Pre-Raphaelite artists with whom he associated.

Alice in Wunderland - Sigmar Polke 1971

Alice in Wonderland magic lanter slide No 12 1900-1925

He was extremely interested in photography and there were numerous examples of his work on display.  They even had one of his cameras on display, a huge thing made of wood (and there’s me moaning about my little 3 mega pixel wonder of modern technology)

Dreaming Head - John Armstrong 1938

"And to show you I'm not proud, you may shake hands with me!" - Peter Blake 1970

Also in the first part of the exhibition were some of his photographs of the Liddle sisters, one of which was Alice, who would ultimately become the centre piece of Dodgson’s most famous work.

Alice in Wonderland- George Dunlop Leslie 1879

We missed out on part of the exhibition, the part displaying some of Dodgson’s original writings and early editions of his published works (not that I minded).

Alice and the pack of cards - Adrian Piper 1966

The reminder of the exhibition was about how the Alice in Wonderland story has gone on to capture the imagination of artists over the decades since it was first published and how it has been interpreted over and over again.

Proof sheet for Alice in Wonderland - Charles Dodgson

We all enjoyed the exhibition tremendously and would recommend it to everyone.  I think the exhibition is over now and I’m not sure if it is moving on to another venue.  However, the Tate Liverpool is a great day out. Once you’ve finished there you can wander around the docks or, like we did, pop over the road to Liverpool 1. Here you can find the Blue Coat Gallery and also the Walker Gallery.

"she kept on growing" Alice - Graham Ovenden 1970

These are some of the postcards I picked up at the exhibition. To view larger versions don’t forget to click on the image.

Sculpture of Birds in Flight made from old Guiness cans

 Each Monday I teach an art group and each year they enter the competition at the Oriel Mon Gallery, here on the Isle of Anglesey.  Each year several of the group have their work accepted but, this year one of the group won the major prize with the work shown here and it has been sold.  Others in the group also sold pieces  and we’ve all been very excited.  Congrats to everybody!!!

 I did like the way the piece was lit, the shadows it cast on the nearby wall were very  intriguing.

LingLing & LuLu by Susan McShannon-Monteith

Though you may not know it, because she leaves few comments, my Sue visits a number of blogs.  She is always on the lookout and constantly shows me knew things.  I keep telling her that if she likes something she should leave a comment, bookmark the page and add a link to it on her (our ) blog.

To be fair she does try but, for some reason technology doesn’t seem to work for her like it does the rest of us, so she usually gets me to do it.  Well, with me not always being around and my memory not being what it was, I don’t get round to sorting everything out for her.

However, on this occassion we’ve both being reminding each other that we needed to link to this particular blog.  It belongs to another Susan (who is kind enough to leave comments here) and, as my Sue says, she enjoys its poetic style and wonderful iamgery.  So without further ado I’ve added LingLing & LuLu to our list of Sites to Inspire and Enjoy.

Etsy Xmas and I hope an Etsy New Year

 Sue is busy again (gosh, I am a hard task master hee hee) so, whilst she’s creating I have to come up with something for the blog.  I had no idea where to start so popped over to Esty, to have a look and see if there was anything of interest there. 

There are lots of things of interest on Etsy for all you arty/crafty types but, for us back room boys there ain’t that much.  Anyway, after a bit of scratching around I across some of their stats for December 2011.  So, if you’ve ever wondered how big a market place Etsy is; take a look at these:

• $69.8 million of goods were sold by our community in December, 12.9% higher than November’s $61.8 million.
• That represents 3,356,890 items sold for the month, 8.1% higher than November’s 3,106,122.
• 1,939,252 new items were listed in the month, 20.8% lower than November’s 2,449,301.
• 788,562 new members joined the Etsy community in the month, up 124,408, or 18.7%, from November.
• 1.2 billion pageviews were recorded on the site in December.

The $69.8 million of goods sold by the community represents a 69.9% increase from December 2010?s total. At the same time, items sold were up 56%.

The team over at Etsy refer to these as “Weather Reports”.  If you are curious then you can view the “Weather Reports2 for previous months here

A friend called round the other night, before I’d had time clear up my little photo shoot of the “Red Shoes” assemblage and, we got to talking about photos and how old our camera is.  Anyway, she brought out her HTC mobile phone and showed me what it could do, the results are amazing. The phone also has “apps” which you can use to edit the photos and filters and all sorts……….   I’ve included a gallery of the shots below, some of them are a little shaky but wow, I’m not too sure now if I want a new camera or a new mobile phone.

First published as a fairy tale, The Red Shoes is a story by the famous Danish poet and author Hans Christian Anderson, and the source which inspired my latest piece.   Forced to dance continually in her red shoes, it recounts the tale of a young peasant girl punished for her vanity.

Assemblage - The Red Shoes

History has it that Andersen’s inspiration for the tale centered on an incident he witnessed as a child.  His father, a shoemaker, was sent a piece of red silk by a rich lady customer, to make a pair of dancing slippers for her daughter. He duly produced the slippers, made of red leather, but the customer was dissatisfied and less than complimentary when she saw the results. She claimed he had spoiled her silk rather than creating a wonderful pair of slippers, to which he retorted,  “In that case I may as well spoil my leather too,” and he cut up the shoes in front of her.

Assemblage - The Red Shoes

To find out more about the Hans Christian Anderson story visit Wikipedia .  If you would like to read The Red Shoes or any of his other fairy tales, it is available free and in several different formats (also as an audio book), here at the wonderful Project Gutenberg.  But, Tom says, if you would like to own your own hard copy try following this link  Complete Andersen’s Fairy Tales (Wordsworth Library Collection) .

Tom has said these photos are somewhat samey.  I may have some others somewhere so I’ll try and get them up later

I don’t remember the begining of December being particularly hectic but something must have distracted us; Tom has just noticed,we didn’t post anything about the two assemblage art dresses I made from vintage lace, the lace which one of my art students gave to me last November (remember this post – http://www.messiejessieblog.co.uk/lace-assemblage/ ).  

 Both dresses have been listed on Etsy, one has sold (I may get to introduce you to the buyer soon, if Tom gets himself sorted) but the other remains available.

So, as usual, here are some photos of the dresses, including the photos which didn’t make it onto the Etsy pages.

Assemblage Art Dress - Vintage Lace (1)

And…

Assemblage Art Dress - Vintage Lace (2)

The Ogewn Valley in North Wales

Sue and I used to be very keen walkers/scramblers and regularly walked the mountains of North Wales (they are only a forty minute drive away).

Looking up the Ogwen valley toward the Glyders, Idwal Slabs and The Devil's Kitchen (what is that pink thing on the left?)

Last Saturday we had a great afternoon, having been invited out by some very good friends, to go walking in the Ogwen Valley.

Strange and rarely seen Bluebird of Ogwen

I asked Sue to take some photos as this could be an opportunity to show our blog readers the human side of Messie Jessie.  The camera spent most of its time in Sue’s pocket but these are the results. 

Popular with outdoor entusiasts of all kinds, this is also where Prince William trains as a rescue helicopter pilot. (This was the only photo of Sue I was allowed to put up).

The day ended in the pub, much as it did in the old days but, on this ocassion we had a very nice meal rather than a bag of peanuts and a pint. (Sorry we were too tired to take any photos in the pub).

And so we retired to the Seacroft, where we had our meal and is also where Prince William has the occasional meal.

Sue may be good at the old Etsy shots but I must have a word with her about these outdoor shoots

No Prince Williams were hurt during the making of this blog event