I had the pleasure of attending a workshop at Orains, recently, on the beautiful Argyll coast. This was a great opportunity to meet other artists, including Pieter who was our host, and to play around with new materials, techniques and ideas.
We had a wonderful range of materials and a great studio space at our disposal. I spent a day making paper frames, paper stages, and a miniature rough proscenium arch with hanging cloud, which I took out into the landscape.
I wanted to explore ways to ‘break the frame’ and move back and forth between abstracted/pictorial space and sculptural, figurative elements.
A second day I spent playing with different mediums – egg tempera, indigo and natural inks like elderberry juice and rhodendendron ink. Still exploring tensions between figurative elements and absraction, as ever.
I came back, in the end, to frames/doors and figures. Now looking forward to taking these thoughts back to the studio to see where they take me. I plan to make more prosceniums and place them in the landscape, perhaps considering how the figurative ‘wee clouds’ might interact with them.
With grateful thanks to the Balavoulin Arts Grant for funding my attendance at this workshop
Anoushka Havinden 