artist statement

I make my work to create an experience for the viewer, so that they can have their own experience of their world. Their bodies interact with my pieces to re-recognize themselves and their lives. In this experience their body is independent of everything else but their awareness. Their sense of movement, their vision and their tactile sensations come together into my artwork for them to have their own experience. This is what I call self-body awareness

Jedburgh Abbey Artist-in-Residency lead artist

Lead Artist for Jedburgh Abbey Artist-in-Residency, pilot scheme set up by Culture Matters, in collaboration with Historic Scotland and Education Scotland

Transforming Artist Books: Is the Term ‘Digital Artist Books’ a Misnomer?

The Transforming Artist Books research network held a series of workshops in 2012 to discuss the potential of the digital to change the understanding, appreciation and care of artist books. Following the workshops a number of participants contributed further reflections about the themes of the workshops. This contribution reflected on the proceeds of the AHRC network, Transforming Artist Books, set up by Dr Beth Williamson and Eileen Hogan. The network drew researchers together from Tate, V&A, CSW, British Library, Center for British Art, Yale and freelance contributors. Morra's paper considered whether the term digital artist book is a valid definition in the light of examining material properties of a physical artist book

Bernard Leach: graphic artist

Bernard Leach was one of the first, great, donors to the emerging Crafts Study Centre. He donated a substantial body of his own ceramics, including rare early pieces; he also gifted his personal study collection of Oriental ceramics and early English pottery (inspirational pots 'that gave me joy'). His archive of prolific writings, diaries, photographs and extensive correspondence is an unrivalled source for research and study and is called on by scholars internationally. More recently, gifts have been made of new personal papers as well as the etching plates that Leach worked on between 1907-8 as a student and then in Japan until 1920. These etching plates remind us that Leach began his career intending to be a fine artist. Whilst he produced etchings in Japan during his first creative steps, he remained committed to drawing throughout his life and his skill as a painter of pots remains one of his distinguishing attributes. This new exhibition brings together archives. etchings and drawings together with his early ceramics to present a rounded portrait of an eminent artist discovering a life-long interest in and aptitude for ceramics, set in the context of his first love of drawing. The exhibition has been curated by Jean Vacher, Collections Manager of the Crafts Study Centre. Many of these etchings have rarely been seen in the museum environment, and the project, generously supported by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, is intended to stimulate a wider understanding of Leach's output as an etcher, and possibly to bring new etchings to light. The project is published in partnership with The Leach Pottery, St Ives

Louise Jopling: artist, teacher, campaigner

No abstract available

Bohemians and Gentlemen. The representation of artists in British society 1850-1950

How do we understand the artist; how do we imagine he or she lives? Is our view formed by visiting exhibitions or artists' studios, reading criticism, biography or novels, looking at self-portraits and photographs, watching films? Do we feel we know Vermeer through looking at his paintings, reading a catalogue or Tracy Chevalier's historic novel or watching Colin Firth and Scarlet Johansson star in Girl with a Pearl Earring? In this lecture - and my proposed book - I shall be examining the multi-faceted construction of the artistic identity, the imagined artist, and how it changed across an important period in British art history. I shall be looking at the public reception and perception of the artist and the artist's own performance for his or her public, a performance that could be influenced or even controlled by the dealer. I shall trace the relationship, sometimes the battle, between two supposedly oppositional images of the artist, the bohemian and the gentleman. And the impact on these masculine concepts of the increasing presence of the female artist