Forward to Far

Russell Mills: Heat Signatures 2009-10

Russell Mills: Through Those Eyes 2005

Our wet afternoon in Ambleside gave us a chance to soak up some creativity.  I liked the Old Courthouse Gallery and would have loved to buy any number of pieces of glass, pottery and jewellery.  For work that inspired and challenged, I really enjoyed my visit to the Armitt Gallery and Library to see an exhibition of work by Russell Mills and Ian Walton.  Celebrating the medium of collage and walking in the footsteps of Kurt Schwitters who lived and died in the Lake District, the work was set against an auditory backdrop.  There was a sense of the past, of capturing the fragments of life, of unatainable moments and unfinished endeavours.  I felt drawn to the hinted narratives and haunted by the snapshots of people and the clues to their lives.  On a technical level I deconstructed the pieces, trying to work out the origins of the papers and the marks they contained.  I've returned inspired to carry on with my own collage work but to try and bring in some stronger mark making, be it through found papers or by making marks in the studio.  Today I started a piece that I worked on far more gesturally with a bamboo ink pen and I like the results.