Friday 26 June 2009

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...

Monday 22 June 2009

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.

WolkfArt and ghosts.Hedgerow and birds./

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.




Wednesday 17 June 2009

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.

Thursday 11 June 2009

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.

Monday 1 June 2009

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

Burnett & Catt - Carnival continued....with a special preview of Miss Milky Ways 'chopper' in progress




More images from the workshop - 3 weeks to the carnival. We're especially excited about ''Miss Milky Way's" telescopic pushbike in progress - think we're going to have to rethink her crinoline though and maybe go for some diamante cycling shorts.