Raised vessels.
Recently I completed a pair of raised vessels for clients as wedding gifts. I’ve always enjoyed the process of hand raising vessels in sheet silver, the textures and soft organic forms that emerge are very seductive, calm and tactile. As a maker I find the process quite relaxing, despite its physical nature, the repeated hammering has a very meditative quality and to me represents the essence of being a smith.
Enriched silver vessel sealed with wax on a shoreline stone base.
Returning to this process again has renewed my interest in making raised vessels, seeing fresh possibilities in the forms. I’ve started exploring making more to produce a limited series of small hammered forms as collectible pieces, starting with whiskey tumblers and playing with found objects in various ways as bases, perhaps handles or other additions to tie them to the landscape I love.
Copper and silver tumblers.
Resting, returning and finding.
Recently I’ve been getting back into my rhythm of walking, looking and collecting, experiencing and recording the environment, reconnecting with my core practice. At its best I think any creative practice is best driven by immersion, so it comes simply from how you live and view the world. Immersion is about repeatedly stepping into the mindset, place and activities that you are drawn to until it becomes who you are. Recently I had to step back somewhat after a particularly busy few years had left me feeling burnt out. Taking a break , a pause, is no bad thing and it was done with the knowledge that I will always be pulled back to the inner drive to create, explore and play.
Returning is tricky, it’s stop-start and stumbling in the dark for the light switch. It’s moments of brief illumination, like a struck match, a bold step forward and then back to black, unsure of exactly were you are and what you had just seen.
This is a familiar place now through years of practice, so finding the way through is easier, even in the dark.
Now back to work…
Vessel drawings
Some recent vessel drawings just playing with simple shapes and forms, layering and allowing colours to bleed into each other.
Silver form echoing seaweed.
Revisiting an oxidised silver form I had made a few weeks ago I have found the oxidising medium has developed salt crystals on the surface. This echoes the sea salt crystallisation found on seaweed which the silver form was echoing. I’ll be developing this further and playing with the natural processes of the landscape to see how I can develop this further.
Shore walk, grey day, Belfast Lough.
One of those still grey days, when everything is that bit hushed, a delicate layer of mizzle sitting over everything. A perfect day for a dander along the shore – calm, drawing in a contemplative, mindful walking pace. Today threw up an array of finds and observations, a brief beach clean and a quick sea swim. A good day.
Ephemeral Coast Exhibition
Really pleased to be part of the Ephemeral Coast series in the Mission Gallery, Swansea as Maker in Focus this month. I will be showing a series of my implements/tools/utensils, some vessels and a few of my landscape drawings.
The show opens on from the 23rd of May to the 25th of June.
Ironically Iconic- Jouw Store at Milan Design Week
Delighted to have my work featured as part of Ironically Iconic at Milan Design Week through Jouw Store.
The Riverbero Project with Mak9
Opening Thursday the 9th of March and running until Sunday the 12th of March, 12-4pm at St.Martins Church, 88 Newtonards Road, Belfast. The official opening is on Saturday the 11th at 1pm, hope you can make it.
Art Arcadia residency pt2- materiality.
5 days In and some themes are coming through in my photography and my collecting. Finding interest in the local walnut trees, with their dark, inky husks and leathery fallen leaves.
The local paths have given up a collection of shotgun shells in differing colours and states and the exotic quills of porcupines.
This is in addition to my usual accumulation of metal, wire and twigs.
Drawing with walnut husk and water.
Shotgun cartridge, quill tip and oak hall- collection of finds from a walk.
So the points of material interest are set, looking forward to developing new work from this.
Art Arcadia residency in Italy.
I arrived yesterday in Italy for an 8 day residency in Pietrafitta, Italy hosted by Art Arcadia with my creative collective Mak9. The residency is aimed towards our next project, Riverbero, which will be an exhibition/installation in St.Martins in Belfast, a deconsecrated church now used for community projects as well as series of talks and workshops supported by the University of Ulster as part of the Festival of Art and Design.
So far I’ve been just settling in and getting over the travelling. Paola took me on a walk to get a feel for the area, Pietrafitta is her home village, very rural in the mountains south of Rome. Here are a few initial observations.
Stuart Cairns 