A selection of videos and flipbooks reflecting a broad range of styles and techniques. These give a glimpse of the creative process and are designed as much for the art appreciator as the practitioner. It may be that you will not find all the end results appealing, but we trust that you will enjoy these rare glimpses of artists in action which can give you a fresh appreciation of their skill and dedication and possibly set you off on your own new journey of discovery. Items in red available now.
- Carole Bury – making a paper textile piece ‘Golden Feathers’ (2 min)
- Katharine Coleman – glass engraving using the copper wheel engraving technique. (3 min)
- Robert Cox – creating a woodsculpture during lockdown (Flipbook)
- Jill Fanshawe Kato – a potter at work in her studio. (12 min)
- Amanda Lawrence – making a glass wall hanging. (3 min 33 secs)
- Celia Smith – making a wire sculpture installation (6 mins 19 secs)
CAROLE BURY is a Cotswold based artist, has a work, ‘Fossil Fish Ring’, in our permanent collection and has been a regular artist in residence for many years. She works with drawings and paper textiles. Her output has an instantly recognisable style.
Carole works fluidly across and between textiles and drawing reflecting her love and passion with the created world around her. All her work is informed by the inspiration she gets from nature and the experiences she has of it and within it. She is constantly sketching and observing in pencil and charcoal as a means of exploring and understanding subjects and ideas. Through this deep relationship her mark making is pared down to ‘an essential structure and language that sings’. Her drawings fill her studio walls and are the working tools for her paper textiles.
Carole uses embroidery and constructional techniques, which have a beauty, depth and quietness of their own. Working with lightweight and transparent papers she transforms them with scissors, stitch, paint and gold leaf. Whilst always an exciting process, from experimenting and sampling, through to creating the fully worked pieces, Carole undertakes the physical act of making slowly and thoughtfully, in contrast to the energy of the groundwork that is in their origin.
This video gives a brief glimpse of Carole making a piece ‘Golden Feathers’; which is one of a series under the title ‘Rambling Collection’.
KATHARINE COLEMAN has a vase in our permanent collection depicting ginkgo leaves. Perhaps best known for her copper wheel glass engraving, a challenging technique where the glass is held up to the rotating cutting wheel rather than holding the tool to the glass, Katharine’s work has been exhibited widely in in the UK, Europe, USA, Australia, New Zealand and Japan and can be seen in many public collections including Corning Museum of Glass USA, the V&A in London and the Museum of Modern Glass at Coburg in Germany. She was awarded an MBE for services to glass engraving in 2009.
Trained in copper wheel glass engraving by Peter Dreiser in 1984-7 at Morley College London, Katharine likes to explore the optical properties of glass, to draw the eye beyond the surface, creating illusions of one body floating within another. The rigour and refinement of Japanese design and Japanese respect for natural, ordinary objects continue to inspire her work. She also prefers traditional techniques; lathe-mounted copper, diamond and stone wheels obtain the crispness, textures and fine finish, so much more difficult to achieve with sandblast and drill.
This video, made by Anthony Scala, shows her working on a piece depicting ginkgo leaves and fruit. Nature in Art has a ginkgo tree in its garden and several other items in its collection inspired by the same subject.
ROBERT COX has been an artist in residence and tutor at Nature in Art for over 20 years and has work in our permanent collection. He particularly enjoys working with green wood. This short flip book follows the creation of a lockdown scuplture, described in his own words. Use the right arrow to move through the book at your own pace.
JILL FANSHAWE KATO has work in the permanent collection of Nature in Art, including this bird vase, and has been a regular artist in residence and tutor.
She graduated in painting from Chelsea School of Art. Before establishing her own ceramic studio in 1977 she joined the school of potter Yosei Itaka in Japan to study Japanese pottery and later also worked in the studio of potter Ryoji Koie. Her work is widely collected in Japan and is influenced by Japanese ceramic traditions and techniques. Jill has exhibited widely internationally and across the UK. She was a lecturer on the Postgraduate Ceramics Diploma course at Goldsmiths College, London, for 17 years and tutor at Lambeth Institute and Kingsway College. She lectures widely on ceramics, demonstrates and teaches.
Filmed by Paul Vincent, this video shows Jill creating a bowl in her studio. As you watch it you will learn a little about her influences and some of the techniques she employs.
AMANDA LAWRENCE has work in the permanent collection of Nature in Art, Windhover and has been a regular artist in residence and art course tutor.
Working from her studio in the Slad Valley in Gloucestershire, Amanda specialises in engraved glass and kiln formed glass, often combining the two. Her work is inspired by the beauty and power of wildlife and natural forms and by the myths and legends that surround them.
She has been working with engraved glass since 1992 and with kiln formed glass since 2001. After training as a glass engraver at West Dean College and Eastleigh College, she graduated in glass design from Wolverhampton University and the International Glass Centre, Brierley Hill. Amanda’s vessels, sculptures and wall pieces are regularly featured in exhibitions and galleries around the country and she also regularly works to commission.
Amanda is a member of the Gloucestershire Guild of Craftsmen and the Society of Designer Craftsmen and an Associate Fellow of the Guild of Glass Engravers.
CELIA SMITH has been a regular artist in residence and art course tutor at Nature in Art.
Celia studied Fine Art Sculpture at Wimbledon School of Art. Having experimented with many different materials, wire became her favoured medium, with which she creates animated sculptures of birds.
As other artists use pencil, Celia uses wire as a drawing material. Picking up a rusty piece of metal on a farm track, or finding a squashed electrical cable in a road, are for Celia, like finding little bits of treasure. Scrap yards are her favourite place, the textures and piles of wire she finds very inspiring. She intentionally seeks out old and interesting wires and likes using rusty and corroded wires – the patina attracts her. By collecting wires Celia feels like she is collecting her lines with which to make drawings – some are bold and thick like a marker pen, others are hair thin like the faintest of pencil lines.
Her work focuses on birds and she regularly goes out on drawing trips to nature reserves and islands. Recently she has started to pick up bits of wood and metal scraps where she is drawing and incorporate them into the sculptures of birds she makes in that place.
We have a selection of 3D objects from our collection available to view online using our ‘turn an object’ feature. Click here