Edinburgh Day 3

This morning I headed off towards the Castle,  but got side-tracked on a mission to find the edinburgh School of Art where some of the full time students are applying.  I walked up with jesse, and we asked nicely of the security guards and were allowed to wander round and have a look, but without going in to any of the studios all we were able to see was the main sculpture/exhibition hall, and get a feel for the atmosphere.  The main building was, I thought, lovely, old, dignified, full of hard work.  The Jesse went to find the museum, and I went and explored the City Art Cetre and the fruit market gallery, both very near the Waverly Station and down the hill form the Royal Mile and the Mound.

The City Art Gallery had an interesting exhibition of contemporary craft-based works.  I particularly liked a huge wall-hangign made out of folded and looped strips of old printed paper, in the main ground-flor foyer, by Jo McDonald whose website, from which this image was taken, is here..

' UNIQUE RECOLLECTIONS ? '       Second-hand books and cotton warp

And some works by Jenny Smith (whose website is here), who had produced etchings to eat away the negative spaces around bold swirling marks (not unlike my own non-writing marks) , and then the a paper had been laser-cut so that only the black lines were left, and the middle bits had been removed.  the pieces were hung a little way away from the background card, so that the shadows added another dimension and depth.  The effect was striking, and the technique highly original.

'Circles'   laser cut and etched into paper, 37cm x 37cm        Image copied from the AA2A website here.
I also liked work by Fiona Hutchison, whose website is here , woven textiles, with simple colours and wispy threads, done in separate vertical strips, and mostly quite small.  This example is taken from her website.

WHERE TWO TIDES MEET    113cm x120cm

Also in the CAC were some striking paintings and drawings.  I particularly liked a rather delicate, tender, quite large painting by Victoria Crowe, whose website is here, entitled Last Portrait of Jenny Armstrong, 1986.  The composition and pose were well balanced and realistic, while the limited colour palette and the gentle brush work was very good.  her website contains images of a range of her work, which i like very much, its calmness and use of colour especially.  This isn't the portrait I saw at CAC, but is in the National Portrait Gallery, of Dame janet maria Vaughan, and the image comes from her website.

There was a pair of David Connearn's line drawings, which paper almost obsessional, and must have taken ages to produce (except that i have had a go at drawing in this fashion, and it is both compelling to do, and rather soothing to look at).   Image copied from IFF Gallery website here.

Then lunch, and across the road to the Fruitmarket Gallery, where there was an exhibition/installation by Anna Barriball (the Gallery website with further information and images is here) makes large drawings by completely covering a sheet of paper in heavy graphite or pencil, developing a deep grey colour with high sheen, and reproducing the indentations and shape of her subjects - often large but mundane things like interior doors or window frames.   I was surprised to find I rather liked these, found them good to look at and soothing too.

 Barriball had also made an installation along one entire wall of the gallery by drawing a regular pattern of pencil dots, some larger and darker than others, using a sound-insulation wall-tile as a template.  Crazy!  But it looked really interesting, and the scale of it made it look absolutely natural, and highly textural.

Then out and across the road again, and up The Scotsman Steps, newly restored and renewed by Martin Creed, (his website is here) as a commission from Edinburgh City Council and the Fruitmarket Gallery.  Each step has been renewed with a different coloured and highly patterned and veined marble, so as you walk up and down you seem to be treading on a slightly battered and faded series of rainbows.   My photos.

By this time I was almost worn out, but went slowly back through the Princes Street gardens to the National Gallery and the Scottish Royal Academy, where there were a series of three linked shows, by the
Royal Scottish Society of Watercolour Painters, (the RSW), the Society of Scottish Artists (SSA), and Visual Arts Scotland (VAS).   There was some degree of overlap between them, with several artists showing work in each one (including both Jo McDonald and Jenny Smith, whose work I had seen at the CAC earlier).  There was a great deal of work on show, very varied in terms of style and media, generally very high quality. I was almost too tired to take it all in, but made notes on several people and bought the catalogues so I can refer back in future.

What a day!  Sketchbooks session with everyone together at 6 pm, and then out for supper and a reasonably early bed.