Monday 14 June 2010


The Get Ready for Work team on their first visit to the Auld Kirk Museum, Kirkintilloch, to see an exhibition of photography. The subject matter and styles are incredibly varied, and so it seemed the perfect place to go to get the group thinking about what they would like to photograph. Back on Tuesday for a bit of a presentation by Peter McCormack, Museum Curator.

We are working together to create an ongoing collage that will change and grow over the duration of the residency.  The collage will be exhibited at the Kirkintilloch campus throughout the residency in its ever changing state.

The piece of work will build from using photography and drawing in a direct response to the surrounding landscape, how we percieve it and how we can change our perception of it.


Some of the team followed up their visit to the exhibition with a return visit which was accompanied by a guided tour by the curator of the Auld Kirk Museum, Peter McCormack.
We got to look round the stores and Peter told us about some of the history of the surrounding area.
  We had a good walk around the museum and into Peel Park looking at the Lion Foundry's water fountain, a similar design can be seen at Burngreen in Kilsyth, and hearing a little about the roman history in the area.

Peter also gave us some insight into the type of objects that make their way into a museum and selected a range of exhibits that  demonstrated past lives for us to have a look at.
One of the most interesting aspects of this was the everyday objects that appeared in the collection.  They demonstrated ingenuity and a change in attitude within society that would change quite ordinary and practical things into oddities and curios.  Some items fell into these brackets through changes in sensibilities and some through changes in ways of living.  The most interesting question had to be what qualified an object to become of museum worth. 

I also met up with some of the team in Glasgow at Tron 103 and the Gallery of Modern Art.

We visited Streetlevel first to have a look at some photography.  The team very interested in the photo montage work that they saw there.  A good tie in to their own photo montage and also showed them the level and quality that can be achieved on an artistic level.

Glasgow Print Studios is always a good place to visit.  It has such a large variety of artists works and techniques on display and is always a good place to inspire questions and ideas about visual art.
The Gallery of Modern Art was also one of our destinations and again provided various styles of art and demonstrated very clear themes and ideas behind the artwork.  It provided a good ground for discourse and hopefully inspired those who attended the visits.
 
I met with the team on one of their excursions to visit the Alan Davie Exhibition in Falkirk.




They took the tour of the working kitchen and had a good look around the house itself as well as visiting the exhibition.

 The curator of the Park Gallery was kind enough to to talk to us about the exhibition.
I also had the good fortune to meet up with my former art teacher from Kilsyth Academy Dougie McInnis.

And here's the last I saw of them (that day I mean) before they headed off to the Falkirk wheel.

We ventured back into glasgow for a show at The Project Rooms at Tron 103. Before going to the Project Rooms we got a chance to have a look at Glasgow Independent Studios Group Show which was on in the foyer in Tron 103, and got to play with Giants' giant kaleidescopes.


And if you have never had a chance to do this before here is what they look like on the inside.
The artist exhibiting at the Project Rooms was fellow Glasgow Independent Studios member, Peter Murray.  Peter kindly agreed to talk to the team on their visit about the work on display at the exhibition.  This was a very valuable talk to the group, as Peter is a self taught glasgow based artist and as such demonstrated to the group an interesting and alternate route into the visual arts.
Eddie Kennedy admiring Peter Murrays work


Explaining techniques and themes


Peter Murray answering questions about his exhibition

Being able to have a talk with the artist who created the show really brought the work to life for the team.
These were the works on exhibit by Peter Murray.












A varied selection of Peter Murray's work in watercolour. The team really liked this exhibition, there is a very minimalistic approach to his painting where every mark is economical, none are wasted yet there is a thorough translation of the environment through the eyes of the artist.



2 comments:

  1. Looks like a great exhibition - will visit when I am in Kirkie.

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