Following our sell-out performance at the St Ives Arts Club last month, we will again be presenting an evening of music, poetry and spoken word exploring conflict, peace and reconciliation at Perranuthnoe Church this coming Friday at 7.30pm.

The performance will include some of my poems and stories with original songs by Annie Henry. With a repeat of Katie Kirk’s moving performances, this looks set to be a very poignant and memorable evening.

NO MAN'S LAND

An exhibition with work in progress

As we are now in the Centenary year of the outbreak of World War One I am focussing on that phase of my ongoing Evilution Project.  As mentioned in the previous blog, my two week exhibition at the Salthouse Gallery St Ives starts on Friday 2nd May. I will be showing a number of storyboxes, small framed constructions using documents, poetry and various items of ephemera related to life in the trenches on the Western Front.

The Coventry triptych and the Holocaust panel, from the first phase of my project, will also be on show along with the first of my hand made artists books and other related works.

Throughout the exhibition I will be working on a large triptych entitled ‘No Man’s Land’, depicting an area of battleground complete with barbed wire, shell cases, mud and duckboards! 

I am hoping this will generate some interaction with the public who will contribute their own stories or those of their family. I also hope they will leave their thoughts and opinions on conflict on our ‘Siegried Line’.

The exhibition will be open daily 10.30 -4.30 and runs from Friday May 2nd. until Wednesday May 14th. I will be in the gallery each day and look forward to the possibility of seeing friends old and new.

A New Year

Coventry Cathedral

 

Grandfather- third from left

WW1 Storybox

Artists Books

2013 was a year of ups and downs for me; the hassle of clearing and leaving my Island studio after 20 years, the joy of having a small custom-built studio to the rear of our house, the hassle of getting my Evilution panels back from New York and a couple of falls which lost me a lot of time and then finally, the joy of discovering the exciting world of artists’ books - which became a high point to finish the year on. 

However, 2014, is likely to be my busiest and most exciting year since starting the Evilution Project; a year during which many events will  commemorate the outbreak of World War One. My grandfather and his brothers fought on the Western Front and Phase Two of my project, which I started last year, will focus on that period with paintings, constructions and poems.  I will be exhibiting the first of these works from 1st - 14th May at the Salthouse Gallery St Ives.

During the exhibition I will be creating a large triptych construction ( 5ft x 6ft ) in the gallery using paper pulp, barbed wire and various items of detritus of trench life This will be quite challenging particularly as, for the first time, I will be working in the public eye. However, interaction with gallery visitors, with their own family histories of that period, could be quite rewarding. 

The exhibition will include storyboxes; small framed construction / collages using ephemera and photographs from World War One with fragments of poetry.  I also plan to show some of the books I have been making over the last six months or so.   I should explain : artists’ books, are usually made in the studio and can take almost any shape or form - mine use the accordion format and consist mostly of my own hand-written poems on pages created by painting, collaging and printing There may also be some talks, films and/or poetry readings in the gallery during the exhibition.

In November I will also be having an exhibition of the storyboxes in Truro Cathedral during a special week of events commemorating the Armistice.

Sometime soon, three of the five construction/panels that were exhibited in Coventry  Cathedral and at Ground Zero New York, which I have renamed the Reconciliation Triptych, will enter the Cathedral’s permanent collection. In November they were also installed in St Mary’s Church Penzance for the visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

I was recently interviewed by Radio Penwith for programme about the Evilution Project to be broadcast possibly this month. Although its a small local radio station, their broadcasts can be heard live anywhere at www.penwithradio.co.uk    There are a few other possibilities in the pipeline too so I will be putting out regular updates and information via  Facebook e-mail and post.

The Reconciliation Triptych

Three of my four ‘Evilution panels that returned from Ground Zero New York earlier this year, ‘Coventry’, ‘Dresden’ and ‘Hiroshima’, and now renamed the ‘Reconciliation Triptych’, are to be exhibited in St Mary’s Church Penzance. The exhibition ‘Hope in Darkness’ will also include the large ‘ Angel’ sculpture by Tim Shaw RA and works by a number of well known artists. The exhibition will be open daily from 10.30 to 4.00 from the 2nd to the 17th November. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Reverend Justin Welby will be visiting St Mary’s on Saturday 16th. November during his visit to the Diocese.

I will be giving a talk at St Mary’s  about the panels and the Evilution Project on Armistice Day, Monday November 11 at 1.15.

The three panels which make up this triptych, were formerly part of a five panel installation called ‘Where Their Footsteps Left No Trace’. They were memorials to the millions of innocent men, women and child who became victims of conflict, many because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time or from the wrong country or race.  The original five panels, Coventry, Dresden, Hiroshima, Auschwitz and 9/11, each represented places synonymous with our ability to make extraordinary advances in science and technology only to turn those advances into the means of killing people. A phenomenon I have called ‘Evilution’ and the name of an ongoing project which is likely to occupy me for the forseeable future

The original installation was exhibited at Falmouth Art Gallery, Truro Cathedral, St Ives Parish Church, Coventry Cathedral and St Peter’s Church, Ground Zero ,New York.

The 9/11 panel is now in the permanent collection of the National September 11 Memorial Museum at the World Trade Centre, New York and this triptych is soon to become part of the permanent collection at Coventry Cathedral. I hope to announce the future of the Holocaust ( formerly Auschwitz ) panel in the near future.

   

The Panels at Coventry Cathedral  2010

NY panels back in St Ives

At last I am pleased to announce that after an absence of almost two years, four panels from the installation ’ Where Their Footsteps left No Trace ‘ have at last arrived safely back from St Peter’s Church near Ground Zero, New York.  I’m told they had a profound effect on the many thousands who visited the church during that time. As mentioned in an earlier blog, the fifth panel ( 9/11 ) is now part of the permanent collection of the National September 11th Memorial Museum at the World Trade Centre.

As mentioned in my previous blog, Hurricane Sandy scuttled my plans to go across and repack the panels and get them from the church basement to the shippers in New Jersey so I had to leave it to them to organise it. More delays ensued as New York truckers will only pick up from the kerbside and not basements. As expected, only one thing would resolve this impasse - money ( lots of it! ). 

When the crate finally got to my shipping agents in Exeter the term trucker took on a whole new meaning when Dennis Oates, well know St Ives trucking and tour bus operator heard the story and said “we’ll get them back to his studio for him”  So a few days ago a 40 ton truck turned up at the end of our narrow road and did just that.  The story was well covered in the local press as Dennis had spent his childhood years living in the Battery building on the Island at St Ives which for twenty years and until recently was my studio  and where the panels were made. There’s more to the story which can be found on my website www.evilution-project.com    

I have now renamed the Coventry, Dresden and Hiroshima panels ‘The Reconciliation Triptych’ and the Auschwitz panel ‘Holocaust’. Talks are at present underway about their future and I hope to be able to tell you more in my next blog. 

Susan Rescorla visit

I’ve written much about 9/11 hero Rick Rescorla and his widow Susan who has become a family friend. During her recent visit to Cornwall she attended a ceremony at Launceston College where a newly built wing was named after her husband. She was accompanied by film executive and producer Martyn Auty who is planning a film about Rick’s life. Susan also visited Penpol School ( his childhood school) in Hayle where the children have established a wildlife garden in his honour.  Susan stayed with us for several days during which time she hosted a gathering of friends and family and visited the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Garden - a favourite spot during her visits with Rick.

The Move

My decision to quit the Battery studio on the Island after twenty years was prompted by a new direction of work on a much smaller scale ( more about that soon ), two winters of storm damage, regular rat invasions, vandalism and the last straw - arson!  So the decision was easy. Dealing with the accumulation of twenty years in that large building was a different matter.  If you’ve ever emptied a small garden shed you’ll know what I mean. It took over two months with many trips to the local dump. The good news is that during that time I had a custom made studio built at the rear of my house.  Although less than half the size of the previous one it is perfect with the bonus of being warm, dry and accessable at any time.