So like I said, Fringe Arts Bath (FaB) was on. It's part of the Bath Fringe Festival, so there was a lot more going on than visual arts but that was where it intersected with me - it flagged itself up to me first on Walcot Street, where I happened upon this.
Anyone who's read Robert Macfarlane's 'Holloway' (and doubtless many Radiohead fans besides) will know that this is by Stanley Donwood, and it didn't take too long to find that it was there as part of FaB. I fell across a pair of group exhibitions at the Octagon Building next - I'm sorry to be a little vague, but one (Commensalis Collective) was from Swansea(?) and the other, in the main octagonal room, wasn't. There were pieces I liked across both exhibitions, including Jane Sargeant's work, Julia Penrose's Transportation Series and Rose Davies' Degenerate Artists. I managed to pick up a programme to FaB there, too, which at least told me where other shows were.
Jane Sargeant - sorry for any blurriness. Earth Studies on the left, Still (and close up) centre (and right).
Julia Penrose - Transportation Series 1 & 2
Rose Davies - the backdrop to her Degenerate Artists. It's the Berlin Holocaust Memorial in the snow, I discovered from her blog.
My trips to Bath tend to be limited by parking time and by the fact that I'm supposed to be visiting my parents, not popping back to theirs for meals and to sleep, and this influenced how I approached FaB. I would like to have seen everything, but I knew I wasn't going to manage that - however, I ended up rushing what I did see in order to fit in more. I think that's why I reached saturation point - it would have been better to limit myself and look more slowly. I suppose in a way I did limit myself, in so far as I wandered round one or two of the venues in minutes without forging any kind of a link to anything there and swiftly moved on.
The invigilator at the Octagon pointed me in the direction of a five storey building full of art, but I never did find that. Instead I ended up at FaB3 on (hang on, let me check, in umpteen decades of living near and visiting Bath I never have managed to absorb the street names there) Cheap Street. Ground floor and cellar; A Dialogue on Nothing in Art. I particular liked two muted, abstract pieces by John Taylor, Expressions of Oppression and Hope, and a grid of nine even more muted and abstract images by Lee Riley, entitled Un, but downstairs in the cellar I liked the cellar best - that's not a judgement of the audio pieces down there, I just found the cellar fascinating, with its low arches and old tiles and little off-stage rooms full of darkness, the weight of a whole building just above my head.
On Stall Street (and I never knew before that there was a Stall Street) I found a couple of shows where I did linger. Out of the Box drew me in - I'll call it Cornell-like, and hope that anyone who knows better and disagrees will accept my ignorance and move on. Essentially, we're talking art in boxes, dioramas, something contained. I've been trying to pin down the appeal - is it exactly that containment, rather like a 3D version of an artist's book? Or that it's quite miniature, with a touch of dollshouse? The setting up of a stage, a still life? Probably a combination of all those and more, but whatever the reason I really liked them. Here's a selection.
The invigilator at the Octagon pointed me in the direction of a five storey building full of art, but I never did find that. Instead I ended up at FaB3 on (hang on, let me check, in umpteen decades of living near and visiting Bath I never have managed to absorb the street names there) Cheap Street. Ground floor and cellar; A Dialogue on Nothing in Art. I particular liked two muted, abstract pieces by John Taylor, Expressions of Oppression and Hope, and a grid of nine even more muted and abstract images by Lee Riley, entitled Un, but downstairs in the cellar I liked the cellar best - that's not a judgement of the audio pieces down there, I just found the cellar fascinating, with its low arches and old tiles and little off-stage rooms full of darkness, the weight of a whole building just above my head.
On Stall Street (and I never knew before that there was a Stall Street) I found a couple of shows where I did linger. Out of the Box drew me in - I'll call it Cornell-like, and hope that anyone who knows better and disagrees will accept my ignorance and move on. Essentially, we're talking art in boxes, dioramas, something contained. I've been trying to pin down the appeal - is it exactly that containment, rather like a 3D version of an artist's book? Or that it's quite miniature, with a touch of dollshouse? The setting up of a stage, a still life? Probably a combination of all those and more, but whatever the reason I really liked them. Here's a selection.
And at the back of the same space was Timeslip, each artist presenting their own translation of the theme. Although it was good, by then I was due somewhere else and had anyway almost completely lost the ability to concentrate. Here are some images from a couple of examples - Timeslip/temps perdu, by Nancy Mitchell (left), and Timeslip/taking time, by Alexander Hamilton (centre and right). Both works had a lot more to them than this - these are just tasters, but in each case a good flavour of the whole.
And that was it. I didn't follow any of the art trails (never found them); I didn't search for fridge magnet art by the river; and in spite of repeated attempts, I never saw the exhibition at the Walcot Chapel. Who knows when it was open? Never when I was there, that's for sure. One other moan - I didn't find either the programme or the website as helpful as they might be, but maybe I wasn't tuning in as well as I could have. Whatever, I never did find the Octagon in the programme, and what I mostly seemed to find on the website was something along the lines of 'nothing here yet'. Still, a minor quibble. I think the whole festival (by which I mean the visual arts I saw) was great and I'd like to give it slower, deeper attention another year.
Finally, a quick mention for art in shops (there was just so much art knocking about on this trip!). Newly opened Anthropologie (this is not a plug) had at least three artists showing there, including Sally Muir, she of the dog a day website, who had a wall to herself. And I found somewhere called Cethegrande, which describes itself as an antique shop but has to be the definition of a curiosity shop, with fantasy window dressing and all sorts of fascinating things inside, from old chemist shop bottles (complete with unidentified powders and other residues) to a bottled jellyfish (very small), a lamb's heart, various shellfish carapaces, and a ton of other unexpected items. It wasn't so much that there was art in the shop, but I think you could argue that the whole shop was a piece of art. Amazing.
Finally, a quick mention for art in shops (there was just so much art knocking about on this trip!). Newly opened Anthropologie (this is not a plug) had at least three artists showing there, including Sally Muir, she of the dog a day website, who had a wall to herself. And I found somewhere called Cethegrande, which describes itself as an antique shop but has to be the definition of a curiosity shop, with fantasy window dressing and all sorts of fascinating things inside, from old chemist shop bottles (complete with unidentified powders and other residues) to a bottled jellyfish (very small), a lamb's heart, various shellfish carapaces, and a ton of other unexpected items. It wasn't so much that there was art in the shop, but I think you could argue that the whole shop was a piece of art. Amazing.
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