RAT Walks...

Rochford Art Trail was successful, not least because of the Collector Series funded commissions adding an extra dimension website.  I led Art Trail Walks on five of the Trail days, incorporating the nine Collector venues where possible.  Good feedback received from visitors and venues.  My bay window venue limited my scope but I showed three different studies of model, Lorraine - very suitable to the classy ladies designer shop Mia Elizabeth.

I took one of my walks to see the youth art project by Scott Irving (Brave Arts).  I'm sure he won't mind me showing this panorama.  I had popped round to see Scott while he was measuring up on the Friday and the whole thing was completed on Saturday.  For scale, see one of my walkers at far right - impressive. Braveone.co.uk.

Essex Schools Showcase for The Arts 2013

 Well, we did it again; this time eleven schools participated with visual art and performance.  Each school provided students to host for at least one day and four year 12 students from Chelmsford County High Schools for Girls formed my fantastic Organising Team during the event. For 2014, I am currently endeavouring to recruit long term planning and organising students who will eventually use their work experience to execute their own plan.  That's the idea...

Link to BBC Essex interview with students...

RAT (Rochford Art Trail) 2012
Having got back into film and using individual frames to create photo montage installations, I returned to the original piece using this technique and have re-hung "9 seconds", made in 2008 which has sat on a shelf in the studio since returning from a student show in Beijing.  It was good to see the overall effect  again.  However, as Sam at the Hadleigh Bike shop Velo Virtuoso, wants to keep my installation "Velo" up on the wall, I recreated it  with "Velo 2" at Rochford.  Given a lot of wall space by my venue (Giles Wilson Solicitors) I took on the hanging task starting yesterday afternoon and finished at 4pm today.  I actually hung 530 6x4 prints with 1220 bits of WhiteTak (well you have to think of something while you're doing that sort of thing.)  I was running late to hang the remaining postcards for the Charity postcard sale at Venue 1 who were just closing so I have left it to Tessa to finish off, thank goodness (Sorry, Tess and thanks.)
By the way, as I like doing these installations (which doesn't sell any art) it's rather a paradox that I actually ended up spending by ordering a new bike from my Hadleigh venue. (Is this how art trails are supposed to turn out?)

HAT (Hadleigh Art Trail) 2012 (6 - 13 October)
I was allocated the bike shop Velo Virtuoso midyear and, as I had been lucky enough to get a ticket to both days mountain biking at Hadleigh Farm, I took along my video camera to see what came of it.  In the end I produced a piece using 369 still images (and, therefore, 1476 bits of WhiteTak) accompanied by a looped video of the events.  Sam, the shop owner, seems to like it and I've had good comments.  Only trouble is if they want to keep it, as I had been thinking of adapting it for the Rochford Art Trail later in the month. Ah, well, back to the drawing board...  You can see some images on www.maxdolding.net . HAT at www.castlepoint.gov.uk/arttrail

Too busy to blog...

2012 been busy, firstly instigating the first Essex Schools Showcase for the Arts in Chelmsford which started as an idea to get students to organise and run an arts event around March time. By May, thanks to Jo Bridgeman (Greensward Academy) and Jacqui Watson (Chelmer Valley High School) we had made a plan, they had recruited some of their work experience year 12 students and a week long celebration of the Arts was put on, based at High Chelmer shopping centre, with ten schools participating, filling 3 large galleries and large showboards within the centre with 2D and 3D artworks, students running creative workshops and two days of performance including bands, choirs, dancers and drama.  Thanks to sponsors High Chelmer, Gepp & Sons, Lorica Insurance Brokers and Sterling Insurance, the whole event cost nothing. International artist Grenville Davey judged and presented prizes; Cllr Ray Ride awarded commemorative certificates.  I came up with the idea, organised sponsors and helped co-ordinate plans but all the hard work was put in by Jo, Jacqui, their organising students and all the teachers and students who did a magnificent job within a very tight time frame at a very busy time of year.  Congratulations to everyone - a very satisfying project and the first of an annual event, we hope.

Chelmer Valley High School Olympic Dancers at the Showcase

Link to BBC Essex Interview

Rayleigh Windmill Installation:

Next, I have repeated my film and sound installation at Rayleigh Windmill which runs until 30th September.  I have added a temporary extra sound installation right up the stairwells within the old windmill which seems to have been a success, bring a bit of life to the building, and which I hope to convert into a permanent sound installation in due course.

Item on YouTube c/o Bradlee Nelson at Portfolio Place

Link to BBC Essex Interview

Next: HAT& RAT again...

RAT, the last of the Summer of Art...

Just managed this afternoon to install my display in venue 10 of Rochford Art Trail (RAT).  The unit, 'Beyond the Sun' is awaiting redesign and the owner, Robert Dye, gave me pretty well free rein to install around his eclectic mix of things for sale.  K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid) was my approach.  The unit is not always open, so my work is visible from the street - window screen printed vinyls, mono prints and pastel portraits.

The Trail is on from Saturday 22nd to Saturday 29th October. See this link for details and a pdf Trail Map download.

HAT's off...

HAT (Hadleigh Art Trail 2011) is on this week.  My venue is in the back of beyond in the Regeneration shop.  Originally advised it was an empty shop, I discovered it is still operating 4 days/week at strange hours.  So, my 'view from the street' display of 4 old tellies showing my silent film of the rush hour seemed relevant to the plans displayed within to regenerate the Hadleigh centre and get a little more 'hustle' into this part of town.  So, my experience of exhibiting video is slowly growing (Rayleigh Mill was two projections, this one is multiple monitors).  Next step, I hope (I'm seeking some professional guidance) should be video wall effects.  I have in mind a great pile of old TVs (the Hadleigh ones were £6/each from Sue Ryder) showing various combinations of film.  It's whetted my appetite to extend some of the trial ideas I had around 3 years ago for sound/vision installation.  We shall see...

The display also included some linocuts...all to be viewed from outside the shop.