Ruthin Craft Centre The Centre for the Applied Arts What’s on Winter 2020

Celebrating Craft and the Art of Making p.02 Gallery 1 Welcome Susie Freeman Gallery 2 As the new year begins, here at Craft Centre p.04 Martin Smith we have 3 brand new exhibitions for you to discover: p.06 Gallery 3 textile artist Susie Freeman takes a different view of, FREE Jane Adam WI-FI and puts to use, an aspect of health familiar to us all p.08 DWELL – but perhaps not seen or encapsulated in quite this way Café R Restaurant Health and Wellbeing before; explores the mechanics of craft The perfect place to take time to Martin Smith p.09 Taste of Craft 50+ relax and enjoy a freshly brewed and invites you to come along and activate his displays; p.09 Adult Workshop: coffee or cup of tea – with food whilst jeweller Jane Adam has been developing and Stewart Kelly prepared and served by our exploring the materials of her chosen craft for many local team of friendly staff. p.10 Show & Tell years, as can be seen within her ‘Bangle timeline’. Exhibition Open daily 10am – 4pm Free on-site parking. Our Retail Gallery is stocked with lots of gift ideas p.11 Studio 2 Residency Coaches welcome. for any occasion (or perhaps just to treat yourself!) p.12 February Half-Term To book a table and we have a host of workshops and activities for all Events call 01824 708099 ages – so why not get involved and help us to p.13 Baby & Toddler Activities ‘celebrate Craft and the art of making’. p.14 Coming soon

Our Retail Gallery Purchase contemporary work NEW! DWELL p.08 from some of the country’s At Ruthin Craft Centre we leading makers. Jewellery, believe that ‘Craft’ is for ceramics, glass, metalwork, everyone. textiles, books and much more! Open daily 10am – 5.30pm It brings people together, starting conversations and Collectorplan, the Arts Council of changing communities... ’ interest free credit scheme, is available on most purchases.

Ruthin Craft Centre, The Centre for the Applied Arts Park Road, Ruthin, LL15 1BB. Tel: +44 (0)1824 704774. Artist Studio Open daily 10am – 5.30pm. FREE Admission. FREE On-site parking. Visit Cefyn Burgess’ on-site Scan the QR code to visit: www.ruthincraftcentre.org.uk studio to see beautiful textiles and fabrics. www.cefynburgess.co.uk 01 Gallery 1 18 January – 29 March 2020 Susie Freeman WOWI+ A Retrospective of work by Susie Freeman including Pharmacopoeia with Dr Liz Lee Susie established herself as a textile artist of great originality early in her career. As a postgraduate student at the Royal College of Art, following Manchester School of Art where she had studied weaving, she invented a knitted network of pockets using a monofilament thread: into each small transparent pocket she dropped a tiny object before safely sealing them with a further row of knitting, and repeating this to construct the cloth. At the same time Susie explored different ways of using and showing these works by fashioning cowls, scarves and jackets. These wearable garments were very distinctive, selling at Chelsea Craft Fair and in galleries – and attracting an admiring, loyal following. As her children grew up her strong ethical concerns for society found a voice through her friendship with Dr Liz Lee. Together they started to question our increasing dependence on medicines and Susie began to imagine how their ideas could be visualised through her work. Taking the name ‘Pharmacopoeia’ their collaboration used innovative artistic imagery to question social concerns around health. …..with the scale of the work escaping the confines of the tiny pockets. Huge suits of armour and flowing garments, constructed from metallic pill packets, describe the issues that the work addresses; issues which become more vital each day. top left: Susie with Brazilian WOWI. Sao Paulo. photo: Marcelo Elídio Curated by Mary La Trobe-Bateman left: Scrabble Scarf, (detail). photo: Susie Freeman In association with Royal College Messages Bag, (detail) by pharmacopoeia. photo: Susie Freeman above: Steve by pharmacopoeia. photo: Martin Parr of General Practitioners Sonia by pharmacopoeia. photo: Lucia Reed 03 Gallery 2 18 January – 29 March 2020 Martin Smith Little Machines

“I was one of those children who was always taking things apart and putting them back together again. I wanted to know how things worked and that combined with a love of art and design has given me a living. People often think my work is a bit frivolous, Meet the Maker: particularly when they look at something like Martin Smith FREE Gallery walk and talk the applause machine, but there is often a Saturday 7 March sarcastic or dark undertone. Its cheerfulness 11.00am is underpinned with cynicism.” FREE please call to book a place Martin Smith is a Huddersfield artist engineer whose mechanical sculptures are exhibited worldwide. Collectors include Sir Paul Smith who has several of Martin’s pieces as did the late actress Carrie Fisher. Martin, an avid Star Wars fan is particularly proud Princess Leia owned some of his designs. Everything Martin does is meticulously planned. Ideas for new work are sketched neatly in notebooks and each prototype is made with as much care as the final, finished object. “Something like the heart machine has dozens of different pieces and is entirely handmade. I know some people think that I buy the components in and it’s just a matter of assembly, but honestly it’s not. Every nut, every bolt is made from scratch.” This is a hands-on exhibition which invites you to carefully turn a handle, drop a coin or wave a hand to bring these incredible works to life. In association with Harley Gallery

left: Wishing You Well. top right: Party Popper. right: Applause Machine Photography: Courtesy of the artist

04 05 “I realised I wanted to make jewellery while sitting in the Tube one day in the Seventies, looking at the people opposite. It clicked that what really interested me as a maker were the various ways in which people chose to express their individuality in an increasingly homogenised world. It became my mission to make jewellery that reflected as honestly as possible my own experience of the richness and variety of contemporary life, in the hope that other people would find in it echoes of their own. To this day, nothing makes me prouder than seeing a piece of my work being worn and reinterpreted by a stranger.

For nearly forty years now, I have involved myself in innovation and experimentation with anodised aluminium, a metal that offers unique and infinite possibilities for colouration and mark making. However, more recently I have also been working with precious metals: silver, gold and bimetal (a fusion of the two). My work explores sensuality, both in the nature of the forms themselves and in how they feel when handled and worn. By becoming part of the wearer’s experience and self-expression, my jewellery is transformed and completed.

These days I am less focused on the demands of earning a living, and more than ever on personal satisfaction and the creation of pieces which have meaning to me. So I am pondering on my future direction as a jeweller as well as looking back at the past.”

Jane Adam Talk and archive sale FREE Sunday 29 March Jane Adam’s latest 1.00pm Gallery 3 18 January – 29 March 2020 publication is available FREE please call to book a place to purchase from our retail gallery £7.50 Jane Adam will give an illustrated talk This exhibition features a selection of archive pieces of about her work and career. Jane’s jewellery over the last thirty five years, alongside new This will be followed by a tour of the

work in precious metals and in dyed anodised aluminium. left: Adjustable pendants. photo: Joel Degen. exhibition and a special opportunity to above: 1. Spiral bangles. photo: Joel Degen. purchase some archive Jane Adam pieces. 2. Textured brooch/pendant with holes. photo: Joel Degen. In association with Bluecoat Display Centre 3. Robert – Ring & bangles. photo: Robert Taylor photography. 07 Coming soon! Taste of Craft Age friendly workshops 50+ Adult workshop We are pleased to announce that our Taste of Craft workshops are back and Stewart Kelly the programme is now offered to people aged 50+ Two – 1 day Master-class workshop February with textile artist Stewart Kelly Friday 7 Karen Williams Silver Jewellery Friday 14 Rosie Farey Rush Weaving Metamorphosis: contemporary Friday 28 Melanie Baugh Textiles transitions through drawing, collage and stitch March Saturday 7 or Sunday 8 March 2020 Automata Friday 6 Martin Smith 10.30am – 4.40pm These workshops offer a wide range of £65 per day includes light lunch hands-on craft making activities with Please call to book a place. DWELL – Health and Wellbeing different makers, helped along with a nice cup of tea or coffee (and some biscuits). At Ruthin Craft Centre we believe that ‘Craft’ is for everyone. During this masterclass workshop, you These are age friendly sessions and no will explore the possibilities of combining It brings people together, starting conversations previous experience needed – just a drawing, colour and mixed media, paper and changing communities. willingness to take part. Meet new people as fabric, and stitched textile techniques. and learn new skills. This will be an experimental workshop, focusing on exploration, and the process of Join us for one or as many sessions ‘Craft changes lives’ (Crafts Council – Craft Matters) discovery through making. This workshop as you like. will encourage you to explore new ideas and explore new processes to help develop Our current ‘DWELL’ project The aim of the project is a medical collaboration your practice further. funded by the Ashley Family to provide a comfortable, between textile artist Susie Foundation embodies this non-judgemental space Freeman and Dr Liz Lee, These sessions take place on a quote which has allowed us for members of these in association with the Friday afternoon from 1.00am – 3.30pm. deliver workshops to groups groups, and their families, Royal College of General £12.50 per session (all materials and from Child and Mental Health to experience the making Practitioners. The DWELL refreshments provided). Services (CAMHS), supporting process via a number of project will conclude with a carers within the community workshops specifically studio celebratory exhibition (NEWCIS) and Royal National tailored to their needs. in April For more information Institute for the Blind (RNIB). Providing the therapeutic of what’s to come please visit The funding also allowed aspects found in the process our website. us to create new links with of ‘making’ through tactile Young Carers in hands-on creation. and to pilot a research and In spring 2020 we will be development project focusing offering a series of events in on the needs of individuals connection to our on-going coping with anxiety and The DWELL project has been ‘DWELL’ project and our depression. made possible by funding from current WOWI+ exhibition, The Ashley Family Foundation. 08 09 Show & Tell Exhibition – Gethin Ceidiog Hughes Patrick Joseph Artisan Tailor

Studio 2 Residency “I was born in Southern Ireland and come from a farming background. Having always been fascinated by how things are made, I moved to London as a young teenager and began working in the garment industry. Here, I was able to work along side true artisans of the trade and learn the skills and techniques of cutting and making. It was an exhilarating time for British talent in fashion. 1983 saw the birth of the British Fashion Council and London Fashion Week which led me to many years Courtyard Project Space A working with the emerging designers and January – March 2020 producers on men’s and women’s collections. My own education around Garment was a natural process which came from working Textile designer , 27, agent. The new textile range is the result Gethin Ceidiog Hughes alongside people who inspired and challenged from Denbigh, in North Wales recently embarked of six months of painstaking research and me. I worked on catwalk show collections for on a residency at Ruthin Craft Centre which was experimentation. Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan and made possible by a Production grant from the “Japan is known for making the best silk Giles Deacon. I also worked in education on Arts Council of Wales. and denim in the world. Nothing else can the BA & MA courses at London’s Central Gethin studied Product Design at Cardiff compete with the quality. It has taken a lot St Martins, Kingston University London School of Art and Design before going on to of experimentation and research to create and The Royal College of Art. complete an MA in Art and Design. Upon leaving something that is authentic and I’m really Chance plays an interesting role in life and it university, he won a prestigious placement as excited with the results. Essentially, denim is was by sheer chance I visited North Wales part of the Proof Scholarship scheme at the cotton and I believe the denim scarves are in the summer of 2011. I decided to relocate Regional Print Centre, which is part of Coleg unique because nobody else is doing what from London and set up a design studio in Cambria in Wrexham. While there, he spent a I do, traditionally woven on shuttle looms. North Wales. It was here that I moved my summer experimenting with various techniques Denim is timeless and never goes out of focus to the development and production alongside prominent artists and printmakers and fashion. Everyone wears it at some point, it’s of individual bespoke tailoring. it was this work which won him Wales’ most probably the one item everyone has something coveted printmaking accolade – the Eirian Llwyd of unlike other trends which come and go.” I would describe myself as an artisan tailor Memorial Award honouring Welsh artists who rather than a fashion designer. I love to cut, have shown outstanding dedication and creative drape, form, shape and tailor things to a way talent in their field of printmaking. This Courtyard exhibition presents Gethin’s we really want to wear clothes. I have begun creative journey through his recent residency. a residency at Ruthin Craft Centre. Here, I Gethin has previously worked with silk to create am looking forward to continue to design, his textile designs, but has branched out to A selection of his scarves are available develop and produce clothing based around a new textile area whilst in residency at the to purchase from a Retail Focus in the menswear long term as well as continuing our centre. He has created a range of Japanese Gallery Shop. collaborative development, Brethyn Clwyd denim scarves using indigo dye and techniques with The Royal Welsh Agricultural Society.” mastered by traditional weavers – and uses For more information about Gethin’s work Halen Môn (Anglesey Sea Salt) as a finishing go to www.wilding.store www.patrickjoseph.co.uk 10 11 February Half-Term Events Baby & Toddler Activities (suitable for pre-school children including babies) Come and visit us this February half-term, be inspired by the automata ‘Little Machines’ exhibition in Gallery 2 and get making your own creative machines with maker Martin Smith.

FOR 5–11 YEAR Craft Club OLDS ‘Bubble Machine’

Thursday 20 February 10.30am – 12.30pm or 1.30pm – 3.30pm £5 please call to book a place Creative Sessions Suitable for children aged 5–11 (primary) for Little Hands Come and have a go at making your very own Mechanical Bubble Machine with Wednesday 8 January maker Martin Smith, this February half- Wednesday 5 February term. Taking illusion and clever tricks of the Wednesday 4 March My time and yours: eye as the theme of this magical workshop. Wednesday 1 April Play with Clay 10am – 11.30am FREE Plus a VIP tour of the ‘Little Machines’ £2.50 please call to book a place, Wednesday 26 February

automata show in Gallery 2. limited spaces available 10am – 11.30am FREE, please call to book a place, All children must be accompanied by an adult...... limited spaces available Our Little Hands sessions are jam-packed ...... with joyful learning, especially designed for These sessions are not only playtime for the Family Friendly Workshop little artists to explore their inner creativity, little ones but for the grown-ups too. During this be curious and MAKE! with Automata by Martin Smith session you’ll have the opportunity to try your Creating environments and activities inspired Friday 21 February hand in Clay with Ceramicist Ceri Wright. by our exhibition programme which are Pop in at any time between In the meantime Ticky Lowe will have all sorts sensory and playful for you and your little 10.30am – 12.30pm or FREE of clay inspired activities to keep your little ones one to discover and enjoy. 1.30pm – 3.30pm engaged (in the same space) whilst you’ll try These session are led by Ticky Lowe FREE no need to book your hand at Craft. Artist and Director of Making Sense (Lots of messy fun guaranteed with this session, Suitable for children aged 5+ including adults. www.makingsensecic.org.uk please bring spare clothes) All children must be accompanied by an adult. Spare clothes needed – Please inform All adults to be accompanied by children! us in advance of any food allergies. Talks, Events & Workshops To book call 01824 704774. To book a place please call 01824 704774. For the latest listings visit www.ruthincraftcentre.org.uk For more information contact Sioned Phillips, Education Officer. Email: [email protected]

12 13 Eleri Mills

Jennie Moncur Peter Lord

Gallery 1: Eleri Mills Exhibitions Gallery 2: Jennie Moncur Coming soon... Gallery 3: Peter Lord

4 April – 11 July 2020

14