Art Residency -Scottish Borders
A newsletter about my recent artwork during a residency in a craft community called Marchmont Creative Spaces.
Welcome readers. Thank you for joining me here on Substack. Apologies if you have received an email with nothing in it. I am moving away from Mailchimp to Substack and clearly learning how to use it, a little more research is necessary but I do hope you will remain with me as reader of newsletters and the odd article.
Allow me to share with you soil research I conducted during a three-year residency at Marchmont House in Berwickshire. The homemade soil/clay material (see below) made it to a thrown bowl but tests proved its brittle result would not be food worthy. The softly cooked umber tones however have inspired paintings and artworks seen below. In the following gallery, you will find stages of development using print on wooden panels and bowls made from clay I made but never fired. A theme repeated in my Rope sculpture below, exhibited during the 2021 Open Studios at Marchmont House.
As I write, I am nearing the end of three very happy years living in the Scottish Borders, establishing a clay practice and managing a ceramic studio/workshop. The residency was part of Creative Space programme run at Marchmont House , a country estate near the old market town of Duns and now home to some of the greatest and most highly skilled craftsmen and women in the country. To name of these now lifelong friends; Stone carvers Michelle De Bruin and Josephine Crossland, Furniture makers Sam Cooper and Rich Platt from The Marchmont Workshop, head Silversmith Ryan Mcclean, and lastly my personal favourites, potters Heather and Nick from Redbrae Pottery.
During my time I gradually re-discovered the properties of stoneware clay and begun making again. The Sculpture seen in the image below show multiple extrusions using my homemade clay woven together to make an unfired work called ‘Sailors Rope’, exhibited in the Common Room at Marchmont Creative Spaces during the August Open studios at Marchmont House. The work was never fired and material reclaimed.
Within painting I used the homemade clay with a blend of binder to build layers on canvas. The triptych below shows this technique in a series called ‘Deluge’, 2022. Seen during a group show called ‘Second Nature’ at Patriot Hall Galleries in Edinburgh. Wasps kindly invited a group of artists from Marchmont to respond to their relationship to nature. Other artists that exhibited included Helen Flockhart, Frippy Jameson and Richard Goldsworthy and Charlie Poulsen.
Annabel,
Well done! Such gifts must be shared.
Please do keep me posted on your adventures and spectacular talents, which continue to surprise and impress.
Much, much love from across the pond.
Bea M M García
Happily Bea, here is to knowing each other as writers, friends. Thank you for your kind words
A