Exhibitions
Anna now works as Gallery Development Officer at The Brewhouse Arts Centre, Union Street, Burton on Trent. Her gallery experience started here at The Making House with a changing programme of exhibitions designed to inspire with an emphasis on craft and making, particularly using recycled and/or sustainable materials.
We no longer have an exhibition space but thought you may like to see images of some of our former exhibitions.
‘Hare Brained’ by Michele McDonald, Mixed Media Artist.
16th August to 18th September 2013
Michele’s enthusiasm and love of what she does comes through in her work and her original statement sums it up perfectly:
“I‘m not totally obsessed with hares…well maybe a little! I’ve argued with myself that I should focus on one style as other artists often tend to do. Then my eyes behold another creative technique which has me all a twitter with excitement and the need to experiment becomes unbearable. So for this exhibition I came to the conclusion ‘why not combine my love of hares with my love of creativity…hare brained’ “
CMYK Curated by Rhea Clements
26th April to 8th July 2013
The exhibition is about ‘the visual impact of colour’ People relate to colour in very different ways For Rhea, colour effects her mood and she finds she is a lot happier when surrounded with colour. Since changing the colours in her work and brand she’s had the same feed back from the public.
Rhea says; ‘At events I get so many lovely comments from customers who cannot help but smile when they get to my colourful stand. I also find on my blog and facebook where I share colourful images that I find inspiring make my followers happy.‘
Elaine Thompson
9th March to 13th April 2013
Elaine creates Pictures on reclaimed wood, using the grain as inspiration she creates the picture using pyrography techniques. Her imagery is often inspired by her interest in nature.
Alistair Kennedy’
January to March 2013
Alistair Kennedy is a Visual Artist based in the Midlands, UK. He is a painter / mixed media artist. Kennedy’s work spans a multi-disciplined approach, including film, installation, photography and painting. Much of it is based on aspects of landscape and the self – unobtainable, decaying, desolate.
“I thrive on exploring different techniques and processes, pushing the medium and combining media, creating experimental surfaces. I am interested in language and environment and each piece is a response to a situation or place. Narrative and its subversion play a key role in the development of the work. Each piece is both dialogue and argument.”
“The use of multiple layers of paint applied with the canvases flat on the floor of my studio enables me to create evocative, experimental images. It also allows the paints to be manipulated during the drying process”.
Alistair’s work has been shown both locally, nationally and internationally; including London, Edinburgh, Sheffield, Birmingham, Ireland and Norway. He is also the Creative Director of the PINT Contemporary Arts Festival and runs Burton Creative Network, an online creative industries directory.
The preview fell on Burns Night, so was a fun Scottish themed do!
For more information, please visit the artist’s websites:
‘Secret Santa’
November to December
With a little help from the craft club, we created a really different window display using crocheted and knitted recycled plastic bags.
Our Christmas Exhibition was all about affordable unique gifts everything priced £10 and under.
‘PINT at The Making House’
October to November
October and November was filled with PINT activities, a couple at The Making House, but many more around town. PINT was Burton’s first contemporary Arts Festival, developed by Alistair Kennedy, who put in so much of his time and energy to make it a success. The festival managed to bring a really diverse range of high quality art and craft to Burton.
All images are courtesy of Alistair Kennedy and PINT
There were exhibitions in unusual venues around Burton, including The Library, Jones and Clark, The Uxbridge Arms, The National Brewery Centre and of course The Making House with a gala launch at 107 Station Street, with something like 40 artists exhibiting throughout. David Booth created an amazing sculptural installation at The Brewhouse Arts Centre, created from 100,000 beer mats donated by Marstons Pedigree, you could listen to a story by Rivka Fine as you did your shopping at Sainsburies, the students of Burton College put on a work wear fashion show at Jones and Clarke tools supplies, the craft and art market launched the new market stalls in Burton transforming Station Street for the day, Kitten Pyramid did their demo launch at Tower Brewery (and a downsized acoustic set for The Making House’s Sunday Brunch) Alistair put on a moonlight contemporary art walk and I worked with various people to get hundreds of origami swans made to install around Burton. Think that’s everything covered but if I’ve forgotten anything sorry!
It was a brave and really exciting idea and we’ll hopefully be seeing the second festival this October.
‘A Focus on Nature’
17th August to 1st September 2012
Artwork and photography celebrating nature in all its diversity, by three of our local creatives; Joanne Cooper, Michele McDonald and Mark Smith
Joanne Cooper LIMINAL: a threshold; at the border between two places.
This work explores the boundaries between man and nature. A consciousness of our position in relation to our surroundings allows us to appreciate the vast beauty of existence. We may think we have tamed our environment, but when viewed from this perspective we are humbled and awestruck.
Joanne is a commercial photographer based in Moira, near Ashby de la Zouch, when she is not undertaking a varied range of commissions for local businesses she continues with her personal projects studying our relationship with our surroundings. www.joannecooper.biz
Michele McDonald
I was born in Newcastle NSW Australia hence my alter ego ‘Redroo Creatives’ and have a background in Graphic Design and Fine Art. I love to interpret my vision of nature in a variety of forms and for this exhibition I have mixed collage with digitalisation along with wire sculpting to form some quirky fun artwork, with the common theme being a love heart to depict my love of nature. http://redroocreatives.co.uk/wp/#
Mark Smith – Photographer
I’m fascinated by nature and all of its diversities, which is what draws me to reinterpret what I see to others. The images I’ve chosen depict the wonder and beauty of nature, both in their softness and vibrancy, which I have captured using macro photography. ‘Every photograph tells a story and an image lasts a lifetime’
Katie Stainer Contemporary Papercrafts
22nd June – 21st July 2012
Katie is a Nottingham based designer maker specialising in unique origami jewellery and home accessories, all made using recycled and reclaimed paper. As a child Katie was fascinated by books, stories and papers, and during her time at University this interest developed into a passion. Katie graduated in 2011 with a BA(Hons) in Decorative Arts specialising in paper manipulation, and continues to create unique pieces of wearable art and sculpture using found books and papers.
Katie delivered a fantastic workshop utilising vintage papers, sheet music and ephemera Katie will guide you in creating beautiful vintage collages and cards incorporating simple 3D origami techniques, check out our courses page for more details.
Textiles @ The Making House by Joelle Harris and Pauline Fitzpatrick
16th March to 7th April 2012
Unique wall hangings, embroidery, bags, and accessories, showcase their creative skills and approaches often inspired by the Derbyshire countryside. The exhibition includes peg-loom weaving, various crochet techniques as well altered clothing with interesting detail and machine embroidery.
‘Meikie Designs’
11th Feb to 10th March 2012
Meikie uses her own technique of silk screen painting to create colourful pictures inspired by nature. She uses her designs to make unique tableware, lights, laptop covers, mugs and gadget cases.
‘Mud, blood and Freedom’ by Anna C Roebuck
September – December 2011
The first exhibition at The Making House was of Anna C Roebuck’s degree work. Anna is the owner of The Making House and it was a great opportunity to show her early work. It may at first seem far removed from Bags2riches, Anna’s commercial work but is linked by her interest in environmental issues and using recycled materials. Her degree work explored the inter relationship between manmade objects and nature. She was (and still is) fascinated by the effects of erosion, weathering and decay on man’s interventions. The manmade and the natural were also symbols for the two sides of her personality; sometimes wild and free, at other times constrained by her own fears and perceived pressure to conform.
Much of the work at the time of her degree was installation based using mud, blood, found charcoal and found objects to explore these topics. Faux experiments were carried out; found objects were put together celebrating the beauty of their deteriorated forms; rooms were spaces to be inhabited and overtaken by nature.
The work on show here, explores the ideas or recordings of these events.
themakinghouse 