Coast Exhibition in the News!

Coast: the sea, the sea is in the View from Lyme news this week!


Click here to go to their website.

And apologies for the quiet week online, we have been recovering from the Coast exhibition and regrouping a bit for the year ahead! We'll be back, and in top form, from Monday!

Guest blog by Lauren, Artist of the Week

Hello Shed Creatives!


It is certainly a pleasure to be featured Artist of the Week this week, although a bit strange to turn the spotlight to myself! As many of you know, as well as being a Shed Creative myself, I am also the Social Media Manager for the Shed, which basically means I work on the blog, represent us on Twitter and Facebook, and also put together the Newsletter, as well as keeping in touch with you all via email.


It's been really brilliant to start getting to know all the Shed Creatives over the past 4 months or so. I know some of us have had more correspondence than others, but I hope I'll have the chance to work closely with all of you in time. You're a talented lot, and it's wonderful to be part of a project that is really about celebrating, and recognising people's artistic and photographic skills. Chelsea always says how she feels like she has the best job in the world, especially when she is putting together a show, and gets to choose the work from such a massive range of fantastic images - and I totally agree. It is great to know that through my work at the Shed, I am promoting and supporting the work of photographers and artists I genuinely believe in and admire. 


As well as being a part of the Shed team, I am also a sculptor, as you'll have seen from my shameless self-promotion this week, here on the blog, as well as across our social media networks :-). I spent last year studying and making in Barcelona, and at the end of last summer returned to the UK, where I have a great studio down by the sea, and plenty of space to really explore and experiment with my work. My latest piece, The Old Man of the Sea, is in our Coast: the sea, the sea exhibition - hopefully those of you who have come down to the show noticed him suspended! He is a piece I'd had in mind for a long time, and really enjoyed making. For me working with metal is brilliant, I love the transformation of such a hard and unforgiving material as steel into something with soft lines and curves, that can appear almost fluid, and gently graceful. Playing with the materials is such a joy, metal, wood, plaster, ink......so that is where a lot of my work comes from. Enjoying and exploring and learning as I go. (Some more thoughts on welding a steel octopus here.)


And as you can see from the Shed gallery, I dabble in photography too - but currently don't have a good camera, so am limited to saving ideas on the camera on my phone, that I hope to return to with the right equipment at a later date!


Ok - that's all from me for now - but once again thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Shed Blog so far, and who has kept me informed of their news, exhibitions, ideas, etc. It's brilliant to hear from you and to get your work seen, so do keep me up to date! And thanks too, to all the Shed Creatives, who  make the Shed such a brilliant, creative community to be a part of. 


May 2012 be a fantastic year for all of you, and for the Shed Photography!


- Lauren


My blog - Welded Rockets
My Shed Profile - Lauren Fox
Follow me on Twitter @WeldedRockets

The Rocket Series - by Lauren Fox, Artist of the Week

My rockets are about the dreams of freedom. The aspirations of the grounded astronaut. And the journeys we might one day make. 

- Lauren

@WeldedRockets
Lauren's Blog
Lauren's Shed Profile

In My Own Skin: Self Portrait Series by Lauren Fox, Artist of the Week

This is an ongoing series of photographs Lauren started work on at the beginning of last year. It is based on the idea of embodying someone else's skin for a brief moment, and becoming someone else for a fraction of a second, that brief moment before the viewer realises they are not looking at the iconic portrait of someone famous, but at an intruder. This series explores our physical limits, and plays with the idea of an icon. 

Self portrait, Ellen de Generes

Self portrait, Anthony Gormley

Self portrait, Che Guevara

Self portrait, Albert Einstein

Self portrait, Marina Abramovich

Self portrait, Patti Smith

Self portrait, Sarah Lucas

To read more about this series, visit this page on Lauren's blog. Do also have a look at her Shed Profile to see more of her other work!

Demos and workshops at the Coast exhibition this week

Paula Youens spent the day at the Coast: the sea, the sea exhibition on Sunday 1 January, doing demonstrations of mono-printing, and getting lots of folk involved. Thanks very much to all who came along, and a big thank you to Paula for running the demos!

Paula doing a mono-print demo

There is another workshop this coming weekend: 


Maisie Hill will be running a Photo-day workshop on Saturday 7 Jan with the aim of getting you to try out a few different approaches with your camera, have a more critical look at the photos you take, and enjoy spending a day with other photographers. We will spend the morning around Lyme and the sea front taking pictures, and then the afternoon having a look at, and discussing the images.

The day runs from 10 - 4 with a break for lunch (please provide your own) and costs £30.

For any more details please email : maisie@maisiehill.co.uk or phone 01297 443069

Artist of the Week: Lauren Fox

Our first Artist of the Week of 2012 is Lauren Fox! Lauren is primarily a sculptor, and is exhibiting her 'Old Man of the Sea' in our Coast: the sea, the sea exhibition currently on at the Malthouse, Lyme Regis. 


Lauren also takes photos, and images of her 2 & 3D work can be seen on her Shed profile. Based in Edinburgh she has a studio by the sea, in Portobello, and works mainly with driftwood and metal. Recent projects include the Rocket Series, Urban Warriors, and most recently, the Old Man of the Sea. 


As well as working on private commissions in Edinburgh, Lauren is our Social Media Manager here at the Shed Photography and is also training to be an Art Psychotherapist. She'll be guestblogging on here later in the week, but in the meantime do have a look at her own blog, Welded Rockets, and visit her Shed profile to see more images of her work. Here are a few pics of her sculptures and photographs.

 SCULPTURE

Urban Warriors

Old Man of the Sea

Rocket Series

PHOTOGRAPHY

Sky Scoop, Lauren Fox

Monster in our Midst, Lauren Fox

Lauren's Shed Profile
Lauren's Blog
Follow Lauren on Twitter @WeldedRockets

Coast: the sea, the sea Private View

A very big thank you to all of you who joined us on Friday evening for the Coast: the sea, the sea Private View at the Malthouse in Lyme. It was a brilliant evening, with well over 100 visitors to the show! And we are really, really proud of the exhibition - the work looks fantastic, and as ever, we couldn't do this without the contributions of our fantastic Shed Creatives - photographers, artists and sculptors. 

Lyme Regis TV have made a video of the PV, which includes interviews with Chelsea Davine, Paula Youens, Jess Douglas, Pete Hackett, and more Shed Creatives. Do have a look, and they have also written a very nice blogpost about the event, with more photos etc.

Their blog is here and the link to the video on youtube is here.

Caroline Collett, a Shed Photographer

Some of our youngest supporters

Starting young!