The first step-free art trail: Morph's Art Adventure in London

As we move into "what do we do with the kids in the summer holidays?" month, I'd like to highlight the rather unusual exhibition in London this month called Morph's Adventures in London.

There are 56 sculptures of Morph located on an Art Trail at various locations across the capital. Each is 6 foot tall!

The nice thing is that the entire trail is step-free - which means it's all accessible to wheelchairs and those of us who have a few difficulties with steps.

The four Morphs at Tate Gardens inbetween Tate Modern and the Bankside Art Gallery

on the South Bank of the Thames

Mega Messy Morph, It’s Raining Morphs! Hallelujah!, 

Morph Whizz Kidz Argonaut,  and Mondrian Morph

I encounter quite a few on my way from St Paul's Tube to the South Bank and the Bankside Gallery - where the four above can be found

This one is just outside the precinct of St Paul's Cathedral

Morphflowers Please

These two are on Peter's Hill - the route to the Millenium Bridge - titles of each sculpture are in the caption. 

 

Roll with it

Astromorph

There is a purpose behind the Art Trail. It is brought to you by the charity WhizzKidz and aims to 

• stimulate conversations about diversity and inclusion for wheelchair users in the City of London
• raise money to empower 100 young people with a wheelchair.

This is the link to the Map of the Art Trail (which can be downloaded)

You can also get an app which tells you where they all are and identifies them and tracks your trail steps as you follow the trail

Morph's Epic Art Adventure in London AUCTION

At the end, there's going to be a LIVE AUCTION of the Morphs to raise more funds for the aim of this initiative.

• Where: The Museum of London, London Wall
• When: Live on 12th September 2023 and online now!
• Time: From 6pm

Jackson's Painting Prize 2023 Exhibition at Bankside Gallery

 Jackson’s Painting Prize is showcasing the 2023 competition winners and shortlisted artists at the Bankside Gallery in their first independent exhibition until Sunday 30th July. 

View of the Jacksons Painting Prize 2023 exhibition at the Bankside Gallery

Now in its eighth year

• it received over 11,000 entries (more than the double the number received in 2020)
• from 96 countries,
• AND the exhibition includes over 60 artworks from a selection of shortlisted artists.

(First of all, apologies for the lateness of this post - I saw the exhibition on Tuesday afternoon - but then Blogger decided to misbehave badly and after having a fit of pique (I kid you not) I had to completely redo the post) 

BELOW you can:

• find out about Jackson's Painting Prize
• how to see the exhibition
• view my photos of the exhibition
• find out about the prizewinners. You can also see all the prizewinners on this page on the Jacksons Art Supplies website
• PLUS see some of the artwork 'on the wall' in this post

The Judges for this year's competition were

• Martin Gayford: Curator & author of titles such as ‘Spring Cannot be Cancelled’ co-written with David Hockney
• Ell Pennick: Founder and CEO of Guts Gallery
• Hugo Barclay: Director of Affordable Art Fair UK
• Sahara Longe: Figurative painter, represented by Timothy Turner Gallery
• Kayoon Anderson: Figurative painter, Sky Portrait Artist of the Year Semi Finalist 2020
• Lorena Levi: Artist, winner of Jackson’s Painting Prize 2022

What is Jackson's Painting Prize?

Jackson’s Painting Prize is an annual competition run by Jackson's Art Supplies - a fine art materials supplier which ships to artists all over the world

• It started in 2016 to spotlight talent in the Jackson’s Art Supplies’ community. 
• It is open to artists all over the world - of all ages, abilities, and stages in their careers.
• It has an impressive expert judging panel made up of  gallerists, curators, artists, commentators and critics AND I've judged it (in 2020). 
• It has DOUBLED the number of entries in the last three years. When I judged it in 2020, there were over 5k entries. This year there were over 11k entries.
• This year it debuted the prizewinners at the Affordable Art Fair in Hampstead which is where I saw some of the paintings for the first time

How to see the Jackson's Painting Prize Exhibition

You can see the shortlisted artists on the competition website.

I'll also be uploading an album of my photos to my Facebook Page this afternoon.

If you want to see them in person you can see the artwork this week at the Bankside Gallery

• Dates: Tuesday 25th – Sunday 30th July 2023
• Hours: 11am – 6pm daily
• Admission: Free public entry, pre-booking not required
  
• Artwork availability: Selected artworks are for sale. Please enquire at the desk, or at gallery@jacksonsart.co.uk
  
• Social Media:  #JPP2023 @jacksons_painting_prize and @jacksons_art www.jacksonsart.com/paintingprize/ 
  

It's notable that the exhibition includes artworks which are very significantly bigger than those typically accepted by most open exhibitions.

The exhibition includes some very large paintings

Jackson’s Painting Prize 2023: The Prize Winners

You can view the 2023 Winners on the Jackson's Painting Prize website - and in my photos of the exhibition.

There are winners, however I'm going to highlight my personal favourites first.

NEAC 2023 Annual Exhibition METRICS

It's been a long time since I reviewed the metrics of the Annual Exhibition 2023 of the New English Art Club. 

Below is a summary - essentially for those artists submitting via the Open Entry, however I think NEAC members and others will learn something new as well

New English Art Club Annual Exhibition in East Gallery, Mall Galleries

What are Metrics?

The metrics I use are numerical indicators of:

• what the exhibition comprised
• how many member / open entry artworks - and the average per artist
• how many works sold
• what price works sold for
• how performance varied between NEAC members and open artists

Below is my summary of of the metrics - the performance indicators - for the exhibition.

• number of artists exhibiting - members and open
• number of artworks exhibited - split between members and open
• number of sales of artworks - categorised by price band and split between members and open artists.

Number of artworks exhibited and exhibiting artists

399 artworks were exhibited in the 2023 annual open exhibition - across all three galleries of the Mall Galleries of which all but 14 were for sale.

Artworks included:

• paintings - in oils, acrylics, gouache, watercolour, egg tempera and distemper
• drawings - in charcoal, pastels, conte, colour pencils, graphite, ballpoint pen and mixed media
• fine art prints (very few) - etching, aquatint, wood engraving, nkjet print, 

[The exhibition of watercolour paintings by the former Prince of Wales - in the guise of AG Carrick - appears to have ceased.]

Of the 399 artworks hung in 2023

• 257 (64%) artworks for sale were by 75 (43%) members (of whom one had died in the previous year); 14 artworks by members were "not for sale" 
• 118 (29%) artworks were by 97 (55%) non-members 
• 12 (3%%) artworks were by 3 (2%) NEAC Scholars (who have been counted as non-members for the purposes of other calculations
• 14 (3.5%) artworks (by 3 deceased member artists and two living members) were not for sale and were excluded from the calculations below.

Note: 

1. Prints have been excluded from the calculations if sold as "unframed" / direct from the artist. No figures are provided for prints sold.
2. all figures subject to rounding.
3. Back in 2015 some 1,000 entries resulted in 94 paintings, drawings, prints and watercolours (i.e. 9.4%) were hung alongside the 293 works by members - so the exhibition is now showing more works from the Open Entry.

NEAC Member Artists

Of the NEAC members:

• the vast majority of living / practising artist members exhibited artwork in the exhibition
• The majority of member artists exhibiting displayed 4 artworks with a few (typically older members) only displaying one or two.
• 4 deceased members (Fred Cuming, Antony Green, Ken Howard, Dawn Sidoli) also had exhibits

In relation to sales: a very large proportion of member artists had no sales at all. The pricing section will explain some of the reasons why.

Of artists with sales, those who sold more than one artwork included:

• sold 3 artworks: Diana Calvert, Melissa Scott-Miller. 
• sold 2 artworks: June Berry, Francis Bowyer, Judith Gardner, Mary Jackson, Charles Rake, Richard Pikesley, Glyn Saunders, Sarah Spencer

Between you and me, I think the ladies have the right idea!

Artists from the Open Entry

The selectors this year were treated to another record number of submissions allowing us to indulge in picking only the very best from so many good entries. Catalogue

I'm very much not a fan of the term "record number of entries" in the introduction to the exhibition in the catalogue - without a NUMBER! Tell us how many!

Of the 97 artists from the OPEN Entry:

• 7 were members of other national societies (most of which are based at the Mall Galleries).
• Leaving 90 artists with no affiliation to a national art society
• The majority of the non-member artists only had ONE WORK selected from the open entry for the exhibition, with a few having two works.

Average artworks per artist

Member artists typically had four artworks hung. Overall the average was 3.4 artworks for sale per exhibiting member artist as some only submitted one artwork.

Similarly, the NEAC Scholars each had four artworks hung. It's certainly an opportunity to make a big positive impression which not all capitalised on.

Those artists selected via the open entry typically had just one artwork hung - with an average of 1.2 artworks per artist. 

My advice to those submitting via the open entry is to submit just one - and make it a stunner!

Artworks sold and price of artworks sold

Now for the charts! I have to confess I've been through these numbers 4 or 5 times and keep coming up with a discrepancy of 2. I've given up trying to find it since the overall numbers stay very much the same.

I'll start with the Overall Picture and then comment on the charts for NEAC and the Open Entry (which includes the NEAC Scholars artwork).

Below the yellow is sales and the burnt orange is artworks exhibited. 

NEAC 2023: Comparison of number of sales to artwork exhibited by price range

HEADLINE: irrespective of how artworks were priced and/or how good they were - most sales were priced at less than or equal to £1,500. 

I have been making this point for a very long time.  If you want to improve the chance of an artwork selling it needs to be priced at a level that the market is prepared to buy.

BLOGGER Archive Albums are STILL available

I must confess when I was writing GOOGLE BLOGGER: Album Archive no longer available after 19 July 2023 I couldn't quite work out how Blogger was going to keep images on Blogger Blog live unless they had an ACTIVE ARCHIVE somewhere.

It used to be part of Google Archive - but we were told Google Archive was going away - and now has (see image at the bottom of this post). In effect the old user interface was deleted - but not the albums.

THE GOOD NEWS is that, although the old Google Archive interface disappeared last week, the BLOGGER ALBUMS ARE STILL AVAILABLE!

The URL is https://www.blogger.com/mediamanager/albums - which I assume is the same for everybody and brings up your albums when you are signed in.

I have absolutely no idea how you find this URL independently. So for those of you who want to keep their access to the Blogger Album Archive, I highly recommend you make a note of it.

UPDATE: Google finally got round to communicating more effectively and explains where images are now - and how to find them in Google Album Archive changes and What will happen to blog photos now that Album Archive is going away?

A selection of my early Blogger Archive Albums - which used to be limited to 500 pics.

My last album for Making A Mark was ENORMOUS - with 6,602 items to date - and that just would not download.

However I tried Takeout and that did finally download ALL albums - in named and dated albums - in an absolutely enormous archive zip file. However it took ages (DAYS!) to appear - and I very nearly missed the email!

I have however been spending a the last few days reviewing the 6,602 images in the last Making A Mark folder and downloading ones I want to make sure I still have. That was some journey down memory lane! 

One of the reason I like the albums is that, for me - being a regular blogger for many, many years - it's rather like walking back through my life!

The message left on the Google Album Archive Page
after the web gallery was discontinued

A rather different series of Master Craftsmen on Sky Arts

A new and different series about Master Craftsmen started on Sky Arts / Now TV last week. 

In 2022, Sky Arts ran the first series (in 8 episodes) of Master Craftsmen. Last week the second series started - which is shorter and had a change in presenter.

Bill Bailey’s Master Crafters: The Next Generation seems to be taking a somewhat different tack and may well keep my attention to the end of the series. (Note: I only watched a few of the last series)

What are the programmes about?

This is what Sky has to say about it. 

I don't quite get the inclusion of the presenter's name in the title. He's a musician/comedian/actor - since when are the presenters the stars of the show about crafts?

Bill Bailey’s Master Crafters: The Next Generation

Celebrating traditional crafts, Bill Bailey’s Master Crafters: The Next Generation, will spotlight the stellar work of expert crafts professionals across Britain and follow junior crafters as they refine their skills. Filmed across the UK, this series will explore three traditional heritage crafts in all their glory: wood carving, stained glass and silversmithing. The show will also highlight the work of The Prince’s Foundation in supporting new generations of crafters and keeping traditional building skills alive as a key part of our national and international heritage.

The series seems to be working in collaboration with The Prince's Foundation - established when King Charles III was the Prince of Wales - in relation to his support for heritage and traditional arts and crafts, which he has been doing for a very long time. (I'm rather expecting it to become The Royal Foundation - in the same way The Prince's Drawing School became the Royal Drawing School). 

The Foundation champions a sustainable approach to how we live our lives and build our communities. It runs a diverse programme of education and training for all ages and backgrounds and it regenerates and cares for places where communities thrive and that visitors enjoy.

What crafts are covered?

There are four episodes in the series and the series works as follows

• each of the first three episodes covers:
• a heritage craft: stained glass windows; wood carving and silversmithing
• introduction to an expert master craftsperson / demonstration of their craft in terms of outputs and practical aspects
• introduction to three junior crafts people - already trained but at an early stage in their careers (nine in total across the series)
• the development of a new piece of work - to time and a deadline
• the final fourth episode involves commissioning the early-career craftspeople, as a group, being commissioned to create an heirloom piece, which will sit in the gardens of Highgrove House, the summer residence of King Charles and Queen Camilla.
  

What looks very promising is that:

• this is NOT a competition - nobody gets voted off
• there's rather more attention given to process and technique - and expert commentary on same
• fewer jokes and more respect for the craft (i.e. I only spotted one pun)

Who are the craft experts?

The three craft experts are:

• Stained glass: John Reyntiens - who is a leading glass artist in the UK. He helped restore Windsor Castle after the devastating fire and recently completed the recreation of all the glass during the clock dial restoration of the four faces of Big Ben in London
• Woodcarving:  Two experts:
• sculptor: Clunie Fretton - an award winning and classically trained sculptor, carver & gilder, who graduated from City & Guilds of London Art School in 2015. She is a member of the Master Carvers’ Association.

 Bill wood carving with Clunie Fretton

• wheelwright: Mike Rowland.  He is a Yeoman with the Worshipful Company of Wheelwrights. He was made a Master Wheelwright in 2016 after over half a century of experience in the trade.
• Silversmithing: The experts who guide the junior silversmiths through a plethora of silversmithing techniques are:
• Ndidi Ekubia - awarded an MBE for silversmithing in 2013, she has work in various public collections across the UK; and 
• Thomas Lyte - a Royal Warrant holder as silversmiths and goldsmiths to HM The Queen. 

Thomas Lyte disrupt and rejuvenate this industry by pioneering the use of modern technology and innovative methods during our handcrafting process.

Bill Bailey hammering silver with Ndidi Ekubia

Where do the episodes take place?

The first three episodes and the masterclasses will take place in Messums Barn (Tithe Barn, Place Farm, Tisbury,) which is a recently restored 13th Century Monastic Barn, owned by Messums the prestigious Art Gallery. The intention of the restoration was that it should open to the public as an arts centre and become a cultural institution for the South West of England.

The reception to date

Responses to the announcement of the series on my FB Page produced the following

Bill is perfect as the new presenter. I actually watched this one and enjoyed it.

Really enjoyed it and preferred the different format from the previous series with Jim Moir.

I’ve watched the first episode. Fortunately Bill understands that inane jokes aren’t necessary and appreciates that craft can be sublime.

I now get the inclusion of the presenter's name in the title. 

It's to tell people that this series is not the same as the last series!

I'm going to be watching the second episode on Thursday 20th July!