The Atlas of Craftsmanship Feature in Cabana Magazine

 Q & A with Cabana Magazine

'Three questions with...' 3 page Feature in Oh Magazine Issue 56

  

http://ohcomely.co.uk/stories/covercompetition56

An Interview with Leslie Tate

I was interviewed by the poet 'Leslie Tate'. 

You can read the full interview at https://leslietate.com

Q&A

At this time of year, I'm often asked about myself and my work by students working on their upcoming art thesis or project. I'd like to take the opportunity here, to answer some of the questions that arise... 

·  Please, introduce yourself and explain what you do...

Me, aged 5

   I was born in Sheffield in 1975 in a small semi-detached house. My mother was a trained nurse, my father worked as a gas technician. As a child, I spent a lot of time playing on my own, in my own make-believe World. 

     I played in the woods near to my home, and believed the trees, that I gave names to, would protect me. I made dens in trees, with made-up curtains and carpets from things that I found around home. I never felt like I fitted in at school, I felt like an outsider looking in, except I loved going to English lessons, where I was in my element writing stories, and letting my imagination run free. 

 I enjoyed doing art at school, but I didn’t like the way it was taught, it was too didactic. 

  I floated out of school, not really knowing what to do next. 
By chance, I happened upon a mixed media textiles course run at the local college, and after being accepted onto the course, I found it was something I really enjoyed, and began to feel passionate about. The course suited me, and my personality. 

I went on to study Textiles at  Bradford College, where I gained a 1^st Class BA Hons, and then a year later, went on to study for an MA in Mixed-Media Textiles at the Royal College of Art in London. 

Since leaving the RCA, I worked for 3 years as an artist-in-residence in schools around Scotland. 

 I started to get my own work seen in some Shows in London, and as my work began to get more well-known, I was travelling to London frequently for meetings with clients, so I decided to move back to London where I lived and worked for 10 years.

·         For how long have you been working with your paper technique? How did it first start? 

I started this technique after graduating from the RCA in 2003. It started after a trip to Thailand, 

where I bought a beautiful second-hand book on the Kao San Road. My father had passed away 

when I'd just started studying at the RCA, and I was thinking about life, death, and the 'in-between'. 

My first book-sculpture was ‘The Quiet American’. I cut moths from the book with a craft-knife. The piece was inspired by a Chinese legend a friend told me about, about two lovers whose souls re-emerge from burnt ashes in the shape of two Moths. One of the reasons I began working with paper as a medium was because of its connection to spiritual rituals that I encountered in South East Asia, and this in turn has led me to work with paper in books, and fairy tales.

The Quiet American, 2003

·         Although yours is such a personal work, whose has inspired or influenced you? 

Artist’s who have influenced me are Ann Hamilton, Annette Messenger, Joseph Cornell  and Jonathan Callan. Jonathan Callan’s 2003 Show titled 'Inteferance' at The New Art Gallery in Walsall was especially influential. 

I’m also inspired by 19th Century Illustrators such as Arthur Rackham and Alice B. Woodward.

Evolution by Jonathan Callan

·         Whose work, besides influences, do you fully admire?  

I love everything Kiki Smith does, also, Christian Boltanski. Mariele Nuedeker, Andrea Deszo 

and Paula Rego. I like that these artists work in such a varied way, with a menagerie of materials.

·     What makes the difference in-between your personal work and those works 

that are commissioned? What remains the same in the process? 

I see it as two different things. In commissioned work, I'm often following somebody else’s brief.  

I find making my personal work more challenging, but in a different way to the challenge I face when working on commissions. When I'm working to my own brief; sometimes that is more difficult, as I feel that I'm putting 'myself' out there, and so there is more at stake.  

·         What are your hobbies and interests? Are they somehow visible though your work? 

I love reading, walking (particularly in woodland in spring), I enjoy nature, bird-watching, and I like visiting museums, art-galleries, theatre, ballet and film. 

·   How do you feel the official world of art has accepted or taken into account your work?

I feel my work sits on the precipitous edge of art and craft, 

and that it crosses over many disciplines. 

 My work has been embraced by design, illustration, fashion, textiles and craft, 

but I do feel I feel a little secluded from the art world in the UK.

I find the art scene overseas in countries such as Japan and Russia are more accepting of my work. 

·  Your work is quite delicate and full of detail, about how long does it take you to prepare one piece? 

I always read the book first, at least once or twice, and then I begin to make the work, cutting out, 

adding details. The detail is what brings it all together, the magic element.  

It is a tediously slow, sometimes frustratingly slow process, one small book-sculpture 

can take approx: 4 - 6 weeks to complete. 

·    Do you preview the whole scenario you’re about to create or somehow go with the material flow?

I have a rough idea in my head, which I sometimes sketch down on paper, 
but I definitely let the materials lead me while I'm making. 

         What do you do for the material preservation of your work? 

How do collectors or conservateurs regularly store it and keep it? 

I sometimes treat the paper to protect it from UV damage, but also one of the reasons I began 

housing the book-sculptures inside wooden and glass boxes was to protect them.

·         

What are the differences in-between your paper and your fabric work?

I treat the materials the same, but  paper is much more malleable to the hand, it has a visible memory.

 I find fabric is less forgiving than paper.  

I'm not tired of working with paper, in fact the more I work with it, the more fascinating it gets. 

While you were Sleeping, 2004

·   In some interview you pointed you wanted to develop large scale work, how is that going? 

I tend to correlate smaller elements to create larger scale work. I feel that by just enlarging the scale, some of the intimacy of my work is lost.

·  What are your next projects and activities? 

I'm currently working on a public commission for Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, 

which will be revealed later on in the year. 

Excerpt from an upcoming article in Creativity Magazine on 'Upcycling in Craft'

'I’ve always been interested in upcyling, in taking everyday objects and through their manipulation, changing them into ‘works of art’. This is something, I learnt from my father, who used to raid skips for old electrical equipment, which he would excitedly bring home and fix back to working order.

I began my studies in textiles by using safety pins and tailors pins, all sewing paraphernalia that my nan used when dress-making. She had hundreds of pins, press studs and buttons.

I experimented with different techniques, welding the pins together to create skeletal bird shapes, and bird masks. I realised the pins lent themselves to the shape of feathers, and through the process of welding I was able to create interesting shapes, colours and textures, thereby altering the pins, so that they were almost unrecognisable.

It was while I was studying for my MA in textiles at the Royal College of Art, after recently returning from an inspirational trip to South East Asia, that I began to explore the qualities of the humble paper.

Paper had always been a material I had returned to, using it to draw on, write ideas down on, and I had always loved reading, and creating narratives in my work. 

In South East Asia I had come across paper-cutting artists, and small paper models used in spiritual ceremonies. These ephemeral objects, while simple, had a delicate beauty to them, they told something about the person living. These paper objects were often set a light, sailed down the river, or floated up into the sky by a small candle flame.

As part of my own studies I experimented with different types of paper, folding, sculpting, burning, and even leaving paper cut-outs in a forest, which I photographed over a year, thereby documenting the paper’s disintegration back into the earth’s soil.

It occurred to me that there was cyclical process happening, as the paper came from trees, and here it was returning to the ground.

Paper was now my medium of choice.

The books came later.' 

This is an excerpt from an article to be published in the March edition of Creativity Magazine. 

I will posting the full article here soon. 

Excerpts from an Interview with Rice Freeman Zachery

I'm often sent emails from students studying art and design, to answer questions regarding my practice; how did I start? Who inspired me? 

What processes do I go through when creating a sculpture? 

These are big questions, and require thoughtful answers.

Earlier in the year, I was interviewed by an American journalist for a magazine. 

Here is an abridged version of the interview.
My hope is that you will find it useful, inspiring, and hopefully it will answer some of those questions.

'Su Blackwell’s tiny tableaux have been described as Worlds of “Magical Realism,” imagined landscapes and scenes that, on the surface, seem possible but that, on closer study, are seen to be made of magic: landscapes sculpted from the pages of books and peopled by characters brought to life from the text. In 2003, back to the UK from a trip to Southeast Asia, Su began thinking about paper, books and stories. “I was browsing through the dusty shelves of a second-hand book shop in Carlisle, where I was living on graduating from college, and there was a section of classical children’s books. I came across books I had loved reading as a child but in adulthood had more or less forgotten about, stories such as Alice in Wonderland, The Secret Garden and fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. There was also something about the quality and smell of the books that brought back a sense of childhood wonder to me.”

Alice: A Mad Tea Party, 2007

Growing up in Sheffield, in South Yorkshire, Su remembers being a creative child but not drawn in any particular direction. Art was not considered a career choice, her mother a nurse, her late father an engineer for British Gas, Su was the first in her family to go to college. “I kind of got into doing art as a career by accident,” she says. “I never liked doing art in school, it wasn’t very creatively taught—‘draw a table and chair,’ ‘draw some fruit’—that sort of thing. I loved English classes though, and found my English teacher really inspiring. I loved writing fictional stories, and I did think about becoming an English teacher or, in my dreams, ‘a writer.”

It wasn’t until Su stumbled upon a textiles course at college after a stint of trying her hand at various jobs and different courses that she began to feel that she was on to something.
“I was in my early twenties when I took my place on the textiles course, and there was only 4 other students. It became apparent to me that I had found something that I felt passionate and excited about, and from then on everything slowly began to fall into place. I went from being someone without any sense of direction to being very focused. I went on to study textiles and ceramics at Bradford College, and encompassed myself in my studies. While some of my friends were going out socialising, I was working hard, developing my practice. For weeks leading up to my final project I worked from 6 am to 12 midnight. I was so involved with my art, and everything I did seemed to feed into it.
I wasn't considering my future, I was just in it for the moment''
After a year working as a college technician in the textiles department at Huddersfield University, Su then went on to get her MA in textiles at the Royal College of Art in London. “I was fortunate enough to receive a bursary, and I found a part-time job to get me through college. As soon as I left the Royal College in 2003, I was ready to leave London, and so I applied to residencies in remote parts of the UK, which involved working within the community, but they also gave me time to develop my personal work.”


Performance in Country Park, Scotland, 2003

She worked in primary schools in the Scottish Borders and at at a school for children with special educational needs in Carlisle for 2 years, and it was in between these residencies that she made the trip to Southeast Asia. “My journey through Thailand and Laos brought me into contact with paper art and artists. Simple paper designs are often used in spiritual ceremonies right across Asia,” she says. “We came across a Buddhist funeral on a visit to a temple, and were handed a small paper-cut flower, which we were invited to place upon the pyre as an offering, before the whole thing was spectacularly set alight. The experience was pivotal to me - it got me thinking”.
On the way back to the airport, Su stopped off in Bangkok's Khao San Road. In a second hand book shop, she picked up a copy of The Quiet American, gently used and heavily annotated in the margins. Su had no particular plan for the book, but it intrigued her enough for her to carry it home. "On returning to the UK, I began to explore the use of paper as a medium.”

The Quiet American, 2005

In Carlisle, with access to the grand bookshop filled with books from her childhood, Su began to experiment. She chose specific books to work with, and created a scene from the book cut out of only the pages of that book, using nothing more than a scalpel and glue, honing her techniques as she went along. “After three years, I had built up a body of work, what I came to term as my ‘book sculptures,’ and after exhibiting a few of these in various group shows, I was successful in applying to an exhibition in London in 2006 called ‘Origin.’” Simultaneously, one of the pieces was published in Vogue magazine. “The piece in Vogue quickly sold,” she says, “And my show at Origin was a sell-out.” Su had found her audience, just like that. “From there on, my practice began to snowball, I was offered commercial projects, such as the Christmas window display for Harvey Nichols and an advertisement for Beringer Wine.”


 Harvey Nichols Window Display, 2007

She had hired a web designer to create a website, which opened up her work to a wider and more widely-flung audience. “Within a few months of doing ‘Origin,’ I was taking commissions and starting for the first time to be able to make a living from my art. Luckily this has continued to the present day,” she says. Lucky, indeed: when Su first began sculpting books, she gave herself five years. If, at the end of that time, she wasn’t able to support herself making her art, she would have looked for another line of work. Luckily for her collectors and fans, that was never an issue.

Crabtree & Evelyn Worldwide Campaign, 2010

In addition to her own work and her commercial work for companies such as Crabtree and Evelyn, Su also creates private commissions, sometimes from favorite heirloom books provided by clients. Asked about how she feels about cutting into books, Su explains that she’s often torn. However, the books she uses are usually salvaged from used book shops. Most of the books themselves are not valuable as books, and the magic wrought in Su’s studio guarantees them a life far beyond the one they would otherwise have.

Although the pages are often old and sometimes fragile, the conservator Su consulted said that, since the book sculptures will be housed in custom-built wooden boxes, longevity shouldn’t be an issue as long as they’re protected from sunlight.
For her own part in creating paper sculptures, permanency isn’t a consideration.
Su admits to being fascinated by work that is deliberately ephemeral.
“I am in awe of artists who make amazingly intricate sculptures and then torch them, for example” she admits.

Wooden Sculpture to commemorate 'The Great Fire of London', by David Best, 2016

To read the interview in full,
Somerset Studio Jul/Aug 2016 

An interview for Do What You Love blog

Here's the link: http://bit.ly/1ZdEnK8

Interview for Cass Arts Blog

To celebrate World Book Day, which was last Thursday, I was approached by Cass Arts for an interview for their blog. Here is a snippet of the interview, to read it in full, go to http://www.cassart.co.uk/blog/world_book_day_su_blackwell.htm

World Book Day Interview With Book Sculptor Su Blackwell

World Book Day; when children and adults alike dress up as their favourite book characters, celebrate their favourite stories and dig out their best books to read again. And we all know that art and books go together beautifully - a piece of art preserves its own story, meaning and piece of history, just as the published book does.

Some artists take the marriage of art and books even further. Su Blackwell, an RCA graduate and artist who works primarily in paper, makes book sculptures and installations out of second-hand books. She has been commissioned to make work for several publishers and magazines, and well-known brands like Crabtree & Evelyn and Volvo.

But it's World Book Day, and we wanted to talk to her about her page-turning, story-telling inspiration that comes from the beautiful book itself. 

Happy World Book Day Su! Before we talk art – do you have a favourite book of all time?
It's hard to choose one above all others, but I could pick out some of my favourites...Alice in Wonderland, Wuthering Heights, The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and most recently The Crane Wife by Patrick Ness. I love the fantasy elements in these stories.

Betty in Cloudland

Can you tell me how you got into making Book Sculptures?

I studied mixed media textiles and sculpture at the Royal College of Art, and during a trip to South East Asia, I was introduced to paper folk art for spiritual ceremonies. On returning to my studies, I began experimenting with paper, and this led me to cutting things out of books. It has been a progression since then, as I began sourcing books as materials to work with.

http://www.cassart.co.uk/blog/world_book_day_su_blackwell.htm

Interview in Corner Magazine

for the full interview, go to 

http://web.cornermag.com/?wv=s%2FCorner%2520Magazine%2F632e90aa-00a9-55aa-81e6-35b5893b5aca%2FIssue6%2F0_cover.html