Grassington Festival Curlew Auction

Our birds from the Grassington Festival public art project (Frieda Curlew and Curlicue) will be auctioned off on Thursday night along with all the other gorgeous birds. See the poster above for details.

Burnett & Catt - Recycled Costume - reposting

This is a costume constructed of recycled materials which we designed and created between March and May last year (2008). We were pretty proud of it at the time. It was commissioned by a Theatre company, although we were given free rein to interpret the theme as we wished. They use it at events promoting recycling. We thought that we'd come up with a quirky and original idea. The 'powdered' wig is constructed entirely of recycled knits/gloves etc. The dress itself is embroidered carrier bags stitched over recycled fabric. There are all sorts of odd bits and pieces, toys and offcuts of fur etc, nestled amongst the embroidery. Her fans are embroidered carrier bags and detergent bottles. These photos were taken on the night we finished the costume and are taken without the full underskirts so unfortunately its not so easy to catch all the detail in them. This is the probably the most viewed collection of images on the blog, 'recycled costume' being,understandably, a very popular search term. Please see more of our costume and carnival work on my website.

http://www.morwennacatt.co.uk/#/costume-carnival/4535101442

Stockton Carnival Parade 2009 - carnival artist

I've been really busy for the last few weeks working as a carnival artist on this years Stockton Carnival Parade,apparently its the second biggest in the country. Each of the five artists commissioned was responsible for a section of the parade based around the theme, "Small wonders, Big world". My section was "play" so I had a great time helping my groups with their costumes and structures. Above are a set of toy soldiers from Teeside Positive Action with a very glamorous drag queen 'Crystal Decanter' in a Rainbow Frock stitched by Anthony (just peeking around Crystals shoulder above).



Stockton Parent Support became dancing Snakes and ladders, using a giant Snake and some Ladder backpacks in their routine. They did a fabulous job in the finale.



St Johns Primary School made toy cars and trains, slightly collapsed in the rain which poured for a few hours before and during the parade.




Play Wrensfield made Chess head-dresses and tabards. They also had two King and Queen backpack costumes. The Queen didnt have enough 'hair' fringing so I ended up improvising with some giant rollers.


Play Hardwick were Pacmen and Space Invaders and made some big space invader standards to carry.





Downs Syndrome North East managed to negotiate a giant bear, a huge doll, a smaller bear backback and a large helter skelter covered in sliding teddy bears through a rainy town centre. All while wearing plasterzote bear helmets and blowing bubble guns.




Navrang Arts are a Bollywood dance group that became a flock of Bollywood Birds for the afternoon.

Colouring Outside the Lines Exhibition - preview images

Images from the exhibition preview this evening.



Images of my Phrenology and Crow works in the show below.




I loved Carolyn Mendelsohn's work (below). The black boxes open to reveal magical lightboxes with accompanying sounds.




Helen Musselwhite is showing incredibly intricate and beautiful papercuts set in bell jars.
I also loved these birds by Abigail Brown, especially the owl...

Colouring Outside the Lines Exhibition

I have work exhibiting in a group show starting this week:

Colouring Outside the Lines

Friday 26 June - Friday 24 July 2009

Preview: Thursday 25th June. 5pm till 7pm

Gallery open: Monday to Friday, 11am - 5pm and Thursdays until 6pm
Other times by arrangement

This group exhibition showcases contemporary British female artists working beyond the bounds of the cultural mainstream. The Colouring Outside the Lines exhibition is a curatorial collaboration between Rachel Kaye from Gallery II and Melanie Maddison from the fanzine Colouring Outside the Lines, which interviews, promotes, encourages, and inspires contemporary female artists from across the world.

Left to right: Wolf by Morwenna Catt, Sailor Blue (White) by Louise (Art and Ghosts), Hedgerow birds by Helen Musselwhite

http://www.myspace.com/colouringoutsidethelines (external link to MySpace)

Gallery II, University of Bradford, Chesham Building, Bradford, BD7 1DP

http://www.brad.ac.uk/admin/gallery/lines.php (gallery link)

Grassington Festival Curlews - Burnett & Catt

After the Lord Mayors Carnival Parade and our refreshing hour and a half sleep (!) we went over to Grassington to find our Curlews. It had turned into a lovely sunny afternoon. This is Curlicue and Frida parked in their new homes. There are about 25 curlews dotted around Grassington, all decorated by artists for the festival.

Lord Mayors Parade - final nights work

We spent the night before the parade constructing the floats. Helpfully, it was really windy and poured with rain for most of the night. By 4am in the morning we were gaffa taping foil to our legs to keep the cold out. The photos are taken as dawn approaches (so a bit dark - like our mood) as we were still feverishly sliding around on the wet floats and up ladders applying ruffles of net and shiny things. We finished at about 5.30 - just in time to get an hour and a halfs sleep before the parade.

If it sits still, give it a ruffle! This is Oscar in the workshop - he used to live in a circus so he's unphased by a bit of frou-frou.

Burnett & Catt - we've been busy, carnival 2009

We make costumes and floats for the Parade but we're also in it. Duncan will be 'Miss' Milky Way this year - this is him testing out the chopper / wide brimmed flying saucer hat configuration.If you look through the telescope you can see the Earth bobbing around on a bit of wire - just like the real thing...




I'll be navigating the Sun costume through the parade. With its backpack it's about 10 ft tall & has a good 'wingspan' with its cloak rods outstretched so I'm hoping for low winds.

The moon costume is also rodded in the cloak, originally the wearer was going to carry the large moon on a stick seen in an earlier post but it's too difficult to negotiate the cloak rods and the pole so now she'll have a bearer to carry it in front of her.
The 'smash' alien will sit in the moon balloon float, I've given him a potato masher, think the other claw needs a fork and a potato.

Miss Milky Ways dress had to be more minimal cos 'she' has to navigate down the parade route on the telescope bike. We still went to town on the embroidery though.


First and second incarnations of milky ways head dress. We preferred the space ship with the sparkly alien look to the crusty comet above it.

Burnett + Catt - Carnival in progress

We've started stitching the large costumes for Bradford Lord Mayors Parade, the Sun and Moon are well on their way with ridiculous amounts of embroidery being applied late at night to massive swathes of cloak - wearing silly furry heads relieves the cold and the monotony.....



The sun head dress just needs attaching to its back pack - easier said than done as its about 5ft tall. The little dog behind the pink hammock is Tilly.
Tonight I made a start on the 'Smash' Robot who will sit in the basket of the Moon Balloon float. His eyes are way too small at the moment, probably mirroring our late night 'pisshole in the snow' squints. I think I'll give him a potato masher and some old forks to hold in his claws.

Burnett & Catt - Flight of Fancy - Grassington Festival Curlews

In honour of the Curlews that flock to Grassington every spring, the festival team have arranged for artists to decorate fibre glass birds to adorn the village throughout the festival. All the birds will be auctioned off at the end. We've had a couple of them nesting in the workshop. This is Curlicue (complete with rollers) and Frieda Curlew (day of the dead), hanging from the workshop ceiling waiting for an extra coat of varnish, all very undignified. They're now fully fledged and waiting to be legged and planted somewhere in Grassington. Please look at the website and see what else is happening at the festival.
http://www.grassington-festival.org.uk