"Love of Art": Newsletter & Exhibition

By the end of January 2010 we sent this newsletter announcing the launch of our "Love of Art" exhibition on the 14th of February.
It was also the first Newsletter of 2010:

"Some say that this will be a year for learning...
and finding some truths about ourselves, and that, under the influx of Saturn, those lessons will come at a price.
X-Factor finalist Joe was singing “it’s not about getting there quickly, but only about getting there” again and again over Christmas and so, I adopted learning and hard work as my New Year resolutions.
Now, with St Valentines round the corner I’ve remembered that I recently asked someone very close about his love success, and he said…”I’ve learnt to be wary of anything that comes too easily and doesn’t involve hard work”.

Having heard friends many times mention “hard work” when talking about difficult relationships, his words provided a different perspective on the term and I thought that in art, as in love, the Lady Gaga’s “wanting everything as long as it’s free” can only leads us to a “bad romance”. That both, love and art, need a combination of vision and determination, attraction, but also hard work.

So after the right hand side of the brain has done its part, provided the intuition and inspiration; it’s time for the left hand side to come into action and add a plan. Here comes finding the materials, the drive and the time to solve the gap between ideal and material. Or as Michael Bubble would sing it: “to work to work it out”. In other words, to overcome the distance between platonic and real, and in doing so, to deal with the limitations of it all because, as Anne Klauser says, “who wants to create nothing but perfection, creates nothing”.

But then, for those who dare to take their chances, sometimes reality goes beyond fiction.
Last Sunday I witnessed a truly special moment when a friend sang Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” to his wife in their first anniversary.
The moment still resonates in my memory and so this Sunday, whatever lessons Saturn’s got lined up for the year ahead, I’ll be whistling, as the song goes, that “it might be again my turn to win some…or learn some”.
Join us this Sunday, St Valentines’ Day, to celebrate our artists’ hard work and a love of art!

Presenting Sophie Hamiltons’s quirky retro illustrations and Conchita Machlaughan’s advance of a Scottish-Spanish affair that will culminate in an Easter Exhibition.

Artmag Feb - March 2010

December 09 Newsletter: I would wish you a white Christmas...

...but white has never been my colour.
I never understood why in the Spanish IT consultancy where I used to work, we called those drafts with new ideas “white papers”. As if a fresh start wasn’t hard enough; facing a blank page (or canvas) called “white” emphasises that terrifying moment before anything takes place. The moment of nothing, the empty space, what is yet not there.
The whole idea of whiteness, in relation to creation, is just off putting.

Instead, I would like to focus on what is about to happen. And call them simply “ideas papers”, or “butterfly papers”, to encourage those ideas to fly. Or maybe, “dream papers” to bring in the lightness of what doesn’t necessarily have the pretension to become real. Or, better still, I’d call them “recycled papers” not because of their ecological value, but to stress the idea that pure originality doesn’t exist; that any new creation is actually re-creation and re-elaboration, drawing inspiration from the past.

So, while the “white paper” seems to be detached from the world, like an orphan, a beginning and an end in itself; bullying the shaking author with the written version of “if what you are about to say is not more beautiful than the silence, do not say it”; the recycled paper is warmly received into the world. It assumes its tiny place into the Universe, it puts the writer in their place and lightens up the burden of having to take that small but huge step of …CREATION.

And while the “white paper” gives you only the one chance, and demands a line at a time to make a perfect final piece; the recycled paper invites you to stain it, cross it out and, often, go back to the beginning and start anew. It is part of its circular charm, as mastered by outstanding creators like Picasso, who used to do dozens of drafts before arriving at a masterpiece.

So, like an artist friend who uses only second hand canvasses, I now try to use anything but white paper. I use the back of old shopping lists and bills. Outdated post-its and “to-do” lists: “lived paper” that is already part of the cycle. Borrowed paper or adopted paper, humble, unpretentious paper…even forgotten paper.

But no, never white paper.
So, when time comes, let me wish you a colourful Christmas instead!



The new exhibition at Joseph Pearce's Bar presented the warm, Mediterranean palette of artist Fee Dickson.

Artmag Dec 09

In Christmas 09 Artmag published the suplement "Buy Art for Christmas" which featured one of Kate Lloyd's solder & acrylics fish.

Autumn 09 Newsletter & New Exhibition

In October 2009 we sent this newsletter inviting everyone to attend the private preview of our new exhibiton on Sunday 11th:

Okay!! ...So it was not the summer that we all had expected. The crows were wrong, wrong, wrong. And so was the Met Office, which had forecasted a warm and dry summer.
Instead of a “BBQ summer” with temperatures above 30, it turned out to be wetter than average. In fact, there were 42 wet days with Dumfries and Galloway, home to Edwin Slater, one of our regular artists, registering its wettest August since rainfall records began, back in 1914.

But then, who wants predictions when it is often unexpected things that make life exciting and make us smile? As Sarah Duncan says, there is nothing like accidentally putting a dry-clean only top into the wash and discovering it comes out perfectly, or spotting a new green shoot in a plant you thought was done for. For me it was finding that my Spanish cooking book does not have the recipe for “Tortilla de Patatas” as surely, if you are Spanish, you are expected to know how to cook it from birth!, or finding a huge feather in the toilet of an airplane (during my last easyjet flight to Madrid).

Yes, things are more appreciated when you don’t expect them at all, when they are out of context. Like having a brilliant idea while waiting for the bus, or having a shower. Apparently proximity to water is very inspiring, says Henriette Anne Klauser. It’s something to do with the negative ions as they stimulate brain activity associated to creativity.
So be pleased for the rain.

I wonder whether this has something to do with the amount of talent in these wet-lands which exceeds the reservoirs of galleries and has flooded cafes and restaurants near you…to get you by surprise.
Just like a warm sunny day at the end of September when you were getting ready for more rain.

Join us this coming Sunday to see what our artists have been up to during all those 504 hours of inspiration and tons of negative ions.



Below: "The Auld Kirk", by Edwin Slater, mixed media.

NEWS RELEASE: Festival Exhibition and another mystery from the Highlands...

On 5th of August 2009 we sent this Press Release about our Festival Exhibition...


Delicartessen.co.uk is today launching its Festival Exhibition at Joseph Pearce's Bar in Edinburgh.
The Exhibition, which includes a wide range of media including slate, collage and solder work by local artists, also includes a mysterious painting brought from Inverness for the show.

Inverness based artist Rosie Newman said:

"Seeing is Believing is inspired by a picture my father used to show us when we were children of Jesus with his eyes closed. He told us that if we looked hard enough - and if we believed in him, we would see his eyes open!
I tried to re-create that face from my memory and it was weird when I was painting him, as I was looking right into the eyes of Jesus, trying to paint his eyes open and yet shut, which was quite intense.
I had painted an under coat of red to go under the gold halo - and just as I looked Jesus in the eyes and he looked back with open eyes, the red paint came down in a stream from his head (as if blood from the crown) which is still there and it was a very strange moment for me, as I was alone in the studio at night!"

Vanessa Davila, Curator of the exhibition and speaking on behalf of Delicartessen said:

"The exhibition definitely has something for everyone, with an amazing range of materials being employed; from fish bone and feathers in Kate Lloyd's solder work, to pants and locally found deer hide in Newman's paintings.
And the strong sense of interaction with the environment is highlighted by Rosie's "Seeing is believing", where she invites the viewer to participate in this "seeing-believing" game of her childhood memories and be part of the mystery surrounding the painting's creation".

And, beyond mystery, the painting offers also food for thought. As Rosie explains:

"I dont believe in Jesus, as such, any more- but there is an element of 'wanting' to believe in 'something' that we all have and how much wanting to believe in something makes it real?
I painted it on camaflouge as the Iraq war was on my mind and the whole issues of using religion as a reason for war and blindly believing in that."



The Exhibition runs until the 30th of September at Joseph Pearces Bar.

Delicartessen is a small Edinburgh based company that promotes the art of young and emerging artists and organises exhibitions in different venues in the city.
Since 2007 it has been organising the art exhibitions at Joseph Pearces on a regular basis.
For more information about the exhibition please contact Vanessa Davila (tel.) or email vanessa@delicartessen.co.uk

ENDS

Notes to editors:

Joseph Pearce’s Bar, 23 Elm Row, Edinburgh, EH7 5HZ - 0131 556 4140

Rosie Newman's artist statement and qualifications:
Rosie Newman
Although I was taught not to ‘mix’ mediums at art school and to limit myself to one art form, I have never been able to stick to this. I am fascinated by the endless variety of materials available and during my career I have produced a diverse body of work, using doors, ironing boards, performance and also canaries.

Currently my paintings follow a theme of repetition versus uniqueness and this includes studies of wallpaper patterns, a series that uses the formal floral print. I use the texture or the paint to ‘set it free’; the pattern dissolves and/or changes, through painting, as though nature has claimed it back. (As with real wallpaper, when it fades and peels and the layers of the past are revealed and mixed with the new).

I like using practical and utilitarian images and putting feeling, wildness and nature back into them and vice versa. I have worked a lot with painting items of clothing and shoes, particularly my daughters red shoes, which I find symbolic and emotive. I have painted them over and over; to me they reflect the passing of time and the joy of the individuality within the mass-produced. I like flirting with pattern, leaving the symmetry and then returning to it.
More recently I have found a good source of deer hide from a forester and have been using it to paint onto. I find that it relates directly to the local landscape and it contains within it, a sense of ‘bringing back to life’.

Qualifications

1989-1992
BA Hons Degree in Fine Art Sculpture
Camberwell School of Art
London
1986-1988
BTEC Diploma in Art & Design
Ipswich School of Art.
England

Edinburgh Festival 2009

On a pre-full moon Wednesday (5th of August) at 6 pm we launched our
Festival 09 Exhibition at Joseph Pearce's Bar.
This new collection brought a touch of Highland talent to Edinburgh,
with works by Inverness based artist Rossie Newman & John Cannavan's tribute to the highland cows!
The show included a wide range of media, themes and styles
by our regular artists which was sure to impress both visitors
and locals alike. And although it also had a painting featuring the castle,
the exhibition went far beyond what this cliched introduction might suggest...

...have a look and judge for yourself!



















Above "McFarquars Bed I & II" by Rossie Newman, mixed media