karen joyce
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Especially sketchbooks

1/3/2018

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Back last summer, I entered a couple of prints for the inaugural Trowbridge Town Hall Arts Open, and was lucky enough to get them into the exhibition.  Three winners were chosen - Ali Brown, Nick Andrew and Robin Shelton - and have had a joint exhibition at Trowbridge Arts - it's the old Town Hall, as you might guess, solidly Victorian and with (I think) a couple of rooms given over to exhibitions.  In this particular exhibition most of the finished work was upstairs in the bigger room, while a few pieces of work and a lovely collection of sketchbooks were downstairs.

I have a weakness for works in progress and sketchbooks, regularly preferring them to the finished articles - sometimes they're rough and ready, or - ha! - sketchy, but just as often intricate and precise.  I think quite frequently they have a liveliness that I don't necessarily feel once a work has been completed.  Of course, it's not always true, but that's the reason I've come up with for my preference.  I certainly enjoyed the sketchbooks on show here, particularly Robin Shelton's.  There was a feeling of mood boards about the double spreads, packed to the gills with all sorts of ephemera - I hope that wouldn't be taken as an insult, I really like mood boards!  Some of the drawings were obviously of jewellery pieces, so I wasn't too surprised to discover later that Shelton was a jewellery teacher - somewhat more so when I realised he now writes books.  Some people seem to be able to turn their hand to everything.   
Upstairs wasn't a disappointment, though.  Ali Brown's ceramics, no longer trapped in a sketchbook, inevitably come into their own here, especially with the lighting lending them fascinating shadows, but anyway the three artists are so completely different, each from the others, and that provides a level of zip all on its own.  Shelton's work remained completely to my taste - all the eclectic qualities of the sketchbooks remained in the finished works.  I don't know whether there will be another Open this year - it must be a lot of work to organise - but I hope so; it's exciting to see a wide range of methods displayed together, and there are always some gems. 
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    Hi there

    I make prints and book arts, though nowhere near as often as I'd like - no good reason, just an inability to get on with things.  I occasionally go on about landscape (with which I am mildly obsessed) and various of its elements, and I like to pass comment on exhibitions I visit.

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