Tuesday, 3 May 2016

Alice in Wonderland... in Ambleside


Well, it has been quite a while since the last post, but for the very good reason that we've been working like mad on the "Alice in Wonderland" show.  The deadline for the show arrived at the same time as a lot of real-world stress and distraction so it was a bit of a manic effort to get this project over the finish line, hence the lack of updates, but it feels great to have got it there.

We're going to be posting a lot of in-depth entries about each of the pieces we're showing, but this post is by way of a taster for the show.  We have a bit of an ongoing relationship with Rydal Hall and the Lakes Collective, as a friend and fellow former Cumbria Institute of the Arts alumni, Clare, regularly invites us to get involved.  We tend to enter one or two smaller pieces for shows; this represents our biggest involvement with a show at Rydal Hall to date...

The theme for the big Rydal Hall sculpture show this year was the "Alice" books, specifically "Wonderland" and "Looking Glass", and artists were allowed to interpret bits of the books they liked.


Not directly linked to "Alice", but we're showing some photographs in the Tearoom; mainly local interest or more recent projects than we've normally shown, such as the underwater pictures.


Starting with the "Alice" theme, Amy began her exploration of the theme with some cracked and damaged crockery rescued from the skip at Ben's old job, which she mended and painted quotes from the books onto.  They were placed in one of the flower beds.


Amy then got a tad more ambitious with the creation of the 'pig baby' from the book (the baby Alice is holding which gradually changes into a pig). 


Similar in style, Ben's first piece, the Cheshire Cat.


But the main item Ben has spent some months creating, a Steampunk Jabberwock (as per the request by Clare when the idea of us joining in the show was first mooted)... its about 8ft high and weighs a ton.


The main piece produced by Amy, the arch of playing cards.


And finally, the Rocking Horse Fly pieces scattered around.

There's going to be a lot more, both here and on the model making blog, in coming days (as well as some posts on 'normal' photography we've managed).  So apologies for the lack of posts recently, but as the forthcoming entries will hopefully show, the amount of work which went into the bits we made for the show should demonstrate just how busy we've been...  If you're passing Ambleside in the Lakes any time in the next couple of months, why not drop in and see the show- a lot of artists have made a lot of very nice pieces, and its free to visit and look around.



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