Collect Connect

Thursday, 15 February 2018

Alan Sherwood-Page (1939 - 2018)

Alan Sherwood-Page

Today we said goodbye to a wonderful artist and a friend of CollectConnect. Alan Sherwood-Page exhibited with us when we took our magnets onto the streets for the first time at FAB Fridge in 2010. FAB Fridge was a tremendous success as part of the Fringe Arts Bath festival and ever since we have been exhibiting in public places.

Alan Sherwood-Page was born in Eastbourne in 1939. At the age of 6 Alan was blinded in one eye, although this stopped him playing sport he channelled all his energies into astronomy and at the age of 10 owned his first telescope. In 1957/58 Alan joined the Royal Observatory which had finally moved to Herstmonceux from Greenwich (the transfer began in 1947). At its peak, over 200 people worked at The Observatory and lived in the local community. Alan was one of the personnel who operated the Thompson 26-inch telescope at Herstmonceux. Called ‘night observers' they were on duty every night when the sky was clear and the Moon not too bright.

Aged 20 Alan studied Fine Art and Stained Glass at the Central School of Art in London. Eventually he became a teacher at Kingston College of Art where he taught Drawing and Film-making. He loved collecting rare books and renovating scientific equipment in his spare time. He was a Deputy Church Warden at St Peter's Church, Petersham and enjoyed the pastoral landscape of the Meadows next door, helping look after the cattle that graze there in the summer.

We know Alan as a painter, a man who created beautiful landscapes of East Sussex. He often worked from his imagination which only heightened this sense of beauty and otherworldliness in his work. We miss you Alan.

Year 3015 - Lesley Cartwright - Small World Futures

Lesley Cartwright, #unsettledgallery No.8

Today we discover the Small World Future of....Lesley Cartwright
The year is 3015.....

Stitched

After the Revolution was put down
They unpicked us,
Unravelled our stitches
between taut fingers,
Their scissor tongues
snapping –
One by one
the threads that bound us
Fell to our feet, unwound,
Severed tangle of loose ends,
dangling the prize
Of Freedom.

Click. Clack.
We come back
Fighting,
Stitch by stitch
and row by row,
Rebuild our silvered spires,
stabbing in the static
throb of rain,
Through every hole
we glimpse the starlight,
Knotting our walls,
Higher and higher –
Our hearts needles,
Our resolution sharp.

Rebecca Lowe

Lesley Cartwright

You can find Lesley Cartwright's Small World Future behind the Greenwood Theatre on Snowsfields, London Bridge, #unsettledgallery No.8. If you can find it then you can take it home, or perhaps you will leave it for someone else to discover.

Lesley Cartwright was born in Liverpool but later moved to Essex to run a Hostel for homeless teenagers. She made her name in the commercial graphic field and music photography until she developed MS and now paints portraits from her Billericay studio. Cartwright is a multitalented artist who is not bound by genre nor convention. The work you see here is an extension of a fabulous Pokémon Go project where she knitted small versions of Pokémon characters and left them in public places for collectors to find. Cartwright has been exhibiting with CollectConnect since the Cardboard City exhibition in 2013.

https://twitter.com/ley9

Rebecca Lowe

Rebecca Lowe is a Wales-based writer, editor and performance poet. She has been featured on BBC Radio 4's Poetry Workshop, and her work has appeared in anthologies including Bristol Poetry Can, Red Poets, Blackheath Countercultural Review, and Three Drops from a Cauldron, an anthology of poetry based on folklore and myth. She also plays hammered dulcimer and zither, which she sometimes incorporates into her performances.

http://www.writerscafe.org/BeckyLowe
http://swanmedia.wix.com/copywriter-cv
https://dizzysheep.livejournal.com/

Wednesday, 14 February 2018

Year 2306 - Dean Reddick - Small World Futures

Dean Reddick, #unsettledgallery No.4

Dean Reddick

Today we discover the Small World Future of.... Dean Reddick

Song collector
Year 2306

Unsurprisingly I came across this song on the east coast. There are many versions, some relating to Holbeach, Burnham and Yarmouth. Some people sing "pray" instead of "stand" in the chorus, or even "praying" instead of "waiting" which is clearly illogical. A melancholy melody, mothers sing it to their babes minus the last verse and I even watched a teenaged girl singing it to her spotty beau. Bizarrely the song has also been adopted by children as a skipping game, with the emphasis on shouting "Clang! Clang! Clang!" to imitate the dead bells as they come back to life, and zombie walking.

Chorus: All rang the bells at Romney shore
In vain above the ocean's roar,
And now we stand here, waiting for
The Romney bells to ring once more.

Verse: My dead love lies upon the beach.
There was no better man than he.
Now all my hopes sink out of reach:
I watch his warmth and colour leach
Into the sands of New Romney.

Chorus: All rang the bells etc

Verse: My dead ma comes to me in dreams,
Her image floating in the sea
Immortalised in gifs and memes.
But still no peace for her it seems
Beyond the sands of New Romney

Chorus: All rang the bells etc

Verse: My dead nan's voice comes on the phone
Each week she used to speak to me,
“Love, death is cold, I hate to moan,
But I am chilled unto the bone
Upon the sands of New Romney.”

Chorus: All rang the bells etc

Verse: My dead child took my last belief.
No more a mother, no more me,
But barren as a blasted reef.
Truly lonely, only grief
Upon the sands at New Romney.

Chorus

Natalie Low

Dean Reddick

You can find Dean Reddick's Small World Future on top of the orange dispenser on Snowsfields, London Bridge, UK, #unsettledgallery No.4. If you can find it then you can take it home, or perhaps you will leave it for someone else to discover.

Dean Reddick is an artist, an art therapist and a lecturer. He uses a range of media and enjoys experimenting with casting processes using plaster, metal and resin to explore the tensions between organic and geometric forms, positive and negative space and the distortions that occur in producing casts. As an artist and art therapist Reddick has a keen interest in the role of art as a cultural phenomenon and as a container for inter-personal meaning. He enjoys working collaboratively and has been a regular exhibitor at Walthamstow's E17 Art Trail as well as exhibiting with CollectConnect. Recently he published Art Therapy in the Early Years: Therapeutic Interventions with Infants, Toddlers and Their Families (pub. 2016, Routledge) alongside co-editor Julia Meyerowitz-Katz.

Natalie Low enjoys putting words on paper and believes that everyone has a book of some sort inside them. She lives in Twickenham, UK with her rather charming family. She has published two chapbooks Dementia (2015) and recently School Run (2017).

Tuesday, 13 February 2018

Year 2132 - Wayne Sleeth - #smallworldfutures

Wayne Sleeth, #unsettledgallery No.6

Small World Futures is a collection of 38 miniature sculptures depicting what life could look like in years to come. Each of these small artworks will be placed in public spaces (#unsettledgallery) around London Bridge. Every day throughout February we will be featuring one of these worlds here on the website. A writer will also use the world as inspiration to create something new and fresh, their words describing the shape of a new world.

Today we discover the Small World Future of.... Wayne Sleeth
Year 2132

'Stand in line children, hold your partners hand, don't push'
The children crane their necks and jostle to get a view of the exhibit.
Safely encased in translucent aluminium sheeting, Exhibit Number 5 seems to hang in mid air, untouchable and pristine.
'Now class, can anyone tell me what we are looking at here?'
Dorotha puts her hand up, 'It's the RealPlant, one of the last RealPlants left alive since the Chromocrisis in 2085.'
There is a murmur of agreement from the fifty or so children in the class.
'Yes, well done Dorotha, this is a RealPlant, unpolluted by any of the genes that destroyed 90% of the planet's vegetation last century.'
'What's it for' asks Pimlico.
'Good question, any ideas class?'
'It's a small vegetable transformer, turning carbon dioxide into oxygen and sugars using sunlight as a fuel'.
'Yes, a very clever and elegant little transformer'
'It's quite pretty as well Ms Dalex, I like the colours'
'Mmm, yes I suppose so TamTam, I never really thought of that before. Does anybody else have anything to say before we move onto see the next exhibit? No? Okay, don't push, hold your partners hand, keep the noise down!'

Dean Reddick

Wayne Sleeth

You can find Wayne's Small World Future located down Gibbon's Rent alleyway at #unsettledgallery No.6. If you can find it then you can take it home, or perhaps you will leave it for someone else to discover.

In his mature work since moving to the Lorraine region of France in 2001, Wayne Sleeth reiterates and re-explores the source and schema of his more formative sensations; the big skies above the flat lands of both the Lincolnshire coast of his father and the polders of maternal Flanders, where he also spent his childhood. The Lorraine region for this confirmed European is not only geographically strategic, but offers an echo of that very play of horizontality and verticality where the artist draws freely on “l’espace” as he knows and feels it, as far as the canvas edge…
http://www.waynesleeth.com/

Dean Reddick is an artist, an art therapist and a lecturer. He uses a range of media and enjoys experimenting with casting processes using plaster, metal and resin to explore the tensions between organic and geometric forms, positive and negative space and the distortions that occur in producing casts. As an artist and art therapist Reddick has a keen interest in the role of art as a cultural phenomenon and as a container for inter-personal meaning. He enjoys working collaboratively and has been a regular exhibitor at Walthamstow's E17 Art Trail as well as exhibiting with CollectConnect. Recently he published Art Therapy in the Early Years: Therapeutic Interventions with Infants, Toddlers and Their Families (pub. 2016, Routledge) alongside co-editor Julia Meyerowitz-Katz.

Monday, 12 February 2018

Year 5,000,000,000 AD - Jenny Meehan - Small World Futures

Jenny Meehan, #unsettledgallery No.8

Jenny Meehan

You can find Jenny Meehan's Small World Future at #unsettledgallery No.8, in the garden seating areas behind the Greenwood Theatre on Snowsfields, London Bridge. If you can find it then you can take it home, or perhaps you will leave it for someone else to discover.

Jenny Meehan grew up in Teddington (Middlesex) and achieved a BA Hons Degree in Literature at Kingston University before studying for a Post Graduate Certificate in Education at Roehampton University. As an artist Meehan takes a process led approach, creating art that is informed by her research activities, her outlook on life, and personal experiences. Her visual art is intimately connected with her writing and poetry, and the relationship between these two strands of her creativity is a lively and interesting one. She is particularly interested in the relationships between creativity, spirituality and health and wellbeing, and uses both Christian contemplative practices and participation in regular psychoanalysis to inform the direction and development of her artistic practice.
http://www.jamartlondon.com/
https://jennymeehan.wordpress.com/

Natalie Low enjoys putting words on paper and believes that everyone has a book of some sort inside them. She lives in Twickenham, UK with her rather charming family. She has published two chapbooks Dementia (2015) and recently School Run (2017).

Sunday, 11 February 2018

Year 2218 - Tracy Boness - #smallworldfutures

Tracy Boness, Weston St, London Bridge, UK

Tracey Boness

You can find Tracy Boness' Small World Future at #unsettledgallery No.1, built on a pebble beach behind some railings at the North end of Weston Street. If you can find it then you can take it home, or perhaps you will leave it for someone else to discover.

Tracy Boness (b. Canningtown, East London) studied for a BTEC National Diploma in Art & Design at East Ham Community College then a BA Hons Degree Fine Art at West Surrey Institute of Art & Design. She consistently exhibits her work, undertaking commissions and taking part in community based workshops. Painting and drawing are essential to her work practice. Recent black and white drawings take inspiration from 18th Century engravings and botanical drawings of the era. Boness also likes to experiment with new materials, sometimes sewing and layering surfaces to create tactile pieces of work.
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/craftylittlehouse100/

Natalie Low enjoys putting words on paper and believes that everyone has a book of some sort inside them. She lives in Twickenham, UK with her rather charming family. She has published two chapbooks Dementia (2015) and recently School Run (2017).

Saturday, 10 February 2018

Year 2041 - Jill Hedges - Small World Futures

Jill Hedges

You can find Jill Hedges' Small World Future located down a little alleyway called Gibbon's Rent #unsettledgallery No.6. If you can find it then you can take it home, or perhaps you will leave it for someone else to discover.

Jill Hedges has had a lifelong fascination with the Moon and the stars. She is an artist who naturally uses different materials and alternative art forms to convey her ideas. In 2015 she created A Space Walk map, an imaginative 5 kilometre walk that has conveniently scaled down the solar system to a manageable size. This map was first exhibited at the ‘On the map’ exhibition at the Sunbury Embroidery Gallery, Sunbury-on-Thames. In 2017 she published Christina's Moon, a charming little chapbook that tells a tale of enduring love through the phases of the Moon. Hedges was one of the original artists behind Gallery 202, a contemporary artist led non-profit initiative based in Northamptonshire. Bringing contemporary art to rural and urban communities through exhibitions and artist involvement with the public. She has been a regular contributor to CollectConnect exhibitions since 2011.

Alban Low is involved in many creative projects, these include album artwork, publishing chapbooks, making films, maps, conceptual exhibitions, live performance and good old drawing. He is artist-in-residence at the School of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education at Kingston University and St George's University of London. Low spends his evenings in the jazz clubs of London where he captures the exhilaration of live performances in his sketchbook. On Wednesday evenings he sketches the performers on the radio show A World in London at Resonance FM. He is about to open an exhibition of these drawings at the Yehudi Menuhin Concert Hall on the 14th February 2018.
http://albanlow.com/

Friday, 9 February 2018

Year 2118 - Ann Kopka - Small World Futures

Ann Kopka

Living on the Skin
What if we didn't live on the thin skin of a rocky planet?
Separated from the sucking, endless night of space by nothing more than a few miles of whimsical gases it is of little wonder that human kind lives a clinging, fearful life.
Ann Kopka's Small World Future offers a less tenuous existence.
Safely encased, on the inside, we are protected from the annihilating fear of living on the edge. No longer between infinity and a hard rocky place we could feel contained, held firmly in rather than on. What new mind sets would evolve in such a place? What new societies would emerge if we were free to delve inwards rather than circling forever round and round with only the desperate fantasy of a mad flight outwards into the deadliest unknown as an escape?
Ann's enticing world, like a brain holds folds and layers, spaces within spaces to explore, niches, planes and curves, organ like, body like.
Her world is green not blue, armoured against invasion from cosmic radiation or imagined aliens and lush.

Dean Reddick

Ann Kopka

You can find Ann Kopka's Small World Future on Weston Street at the back of Guy's Hospital #unsettledgallery No.1. If you can find it then you can take it home, or perhaps you will leave it for someone else to discover.

Ann Kopka studied Fine Art at Central St Martins College of Art and Design and the City Lit. She has studied The Practices and Debates of Modern Art and graduated with a First Class Honours degree from The Open University. She has also studied Museum Curating at Tate Modern. Kopka has exhibited in London, the UK and USA. Her work is held in private collections in France, Spain, UK, Australia and Australia. Her experimental work engages with the research, process and transformation of discarded everyday ephemera and disposable objects of little or no intrinsic value. Through the concept of ‘making something out of nothing’ Kopka seeks to draw attention to the throwaway nature of consumer society and question our perception of its value systems.
http://www.artcontemporary.co.uk/

Dean Reddick is an artist, an art therapist and a lecturer. He uses a range of media and enjoys experimenting with casting processes using plaster, metal and resin to explore the tensions between organic and geometric forms, positive and negative space and the distortions that occur in producing casts. As an artist and art therapist Reddick has a keen interest in the role of art as a cultural phenomenon and as a container for inter-personal meaning. He enjoys working collaboratively and has been a regular exhibitor at Walthamstow's E17 Art Trail as well as exhibiting with CollectConnect. Recently he published Art Therapy in the Early Years: Therapeutic Interventions with Infants, Toddlers and Their Families (pub. 2016, Routledge) alongside co-editor Julia Meyerowitz-Katz.

Thursday, 8 February 2018

Year 2101 - Alban Low - #smallworldfutures

Alban Low, Weston Street, London Bridge, UK (#unsettledgallery No.1)

Small World Futures is a collection of 38 miniature sculptures depicting what life could look like in years to come. Each of these small artworks will be placed in public spaces (#unsettledgallery) around London Bridge. Every day throughout February we will be featuring one of these worlds here on the website. A writer will also use the world as inspiration to create something new and fresh, their words describing the shape of a new world.

Today we discover the Small World Future of....Alban Low
The year is 2101

Wheeze

It started with The Burning Of The Tower. A new way of being seemed possible. They told us they were sorry. Many of them meant it. They told us, ‘Change Will Happen’.

Our external world had always been Kindness v Money. And Money had always won. Because within each of us the battle is between Need and Desire. And Desire had always won. Night is always stronger than Day. Or was.

After The Burning Of The Tower, for a while we were breathing loud and wheezy, but we were breathing with possibility.

They tried at first to close the gaps, patch up the wounds, cover our mouths, fill the lung-holes with bullshit and Strictly and post-post-truth and my-identity-is-more-important-than-yours and splitting and spitting and hate.

Yet they could never fool us completely. And as we began to learn how to ignore them, we began to rebuild. First, the government went. Then all governments went. Then we set about looking at our darknesses, holding them out to others, holding them *for* others. The cladding was stripped away. We could be who we were, hiding neither our black nor our white.

Soon, we were raw and hurt and joyous and unbound. Many died. A God came, a Saviour. Then another and another. Some fell under their spell. But others - the majority - started to regain their curiosity, their love of truth, their open-aired doubt, their willingness to say, ‘I don’t know.’

Corporations began to slice themselves into small pieces, to turn towards communities, to sink themselves gently back into the people. And the people were happy. Most of them. Or - rather - most people were accepting, more whole, more aware, no longer striving for happiness or avoidant of pain. The new century, we agreed, would be a great one.

And then - in 2101 - came The Second Burning Of The Tower.

Kevin Acott

Alban Low

You can find Alban Low's Small World Future on the concrete barriers where Weston Street meets St Thomas Street (London Bridge) at #unsettledgallery No.1. If you can find it then you can take it home, or perhaps you will leave it for someone else to discover.

Alban Low is involved in many creative projects, these include album artwork, publishing chapbooks, making films, maps, conceptual exhibitions, live performance and good old drawing. He is artist-in-residence at the School of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education at Kingston University and St George's University of London. Low spends his evenings in the jazz clubs of London where he captures the exhilaration of live performances in his sketchbook. On Wednesday evenings he sketches the performers on the radio show A World in London at Resonance FM. He is about to open an exhibition of these drawings at the Yehudi Menuhin Concert Hall on the 14th February 2018.

http://albanlow.com/

Kevin Acott

Kevin Acott is a London-based model, cult singer and poet. He divides his creative time between writing, photography and collaborative projects. His stories and poems can be found on the websites Sad Paradise, Londonist, Smoke: A London Peculiar and Ink, Sweat And Tears. In 2017 he dedicated six months to travelling and writing. Starting in North Carolina (USA) he eventually ended his adventures in Limoux, France. Along the way Acott spent a month as writer-in-residence in Qaqortoq (Greenland) where he wrote several short stories. He has released several books with publisher Sampson Low and is currently working toward a one-man show at this year's Crouch End Festival in June 2018.
www.kevinacott.com