Helen Peyton

Helen Peyton is a printmaker from Skipton. She has been an artist in residence at the Craven Museum and gallery since 2011. She has been running a project called Smart Gallery, that started in February, in which visitors bring along objects with interesting back stories. Helen uses these to produce her wonderful reduction lino prints.

For more information see http://revealingthehiddenarchive.blogspot.co.uk/

Marx-Lambert Collection, Compton Verney

Enid Marx (1902-1998) was one of Britain's foremost designers. She produced textiles, wallpaper, book jackets, was an illustrator, painter and a prolific collector of folk and popular art. She would often use objects from her collection to inspire her designs. She donated her collection to Compton Verney. They have recently raised funds to be able to display Enid's objects and the work they inspired alongside each other.

The gallery is presented as if it were Enid's own living room, with her wallpaper on the walls hung with items from her collection and her own prints and paintings. A wooden sideboard is used to store an interactive display encouraging visitors to play with pattern blocks.

Artists' responses to Museum/Gallery Collections

 I have been looking a examples of artists who have used existing collections as inspiration for their own work. The most notable from the past few years was Grayson Perry's 'Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman', pictured above. I took a group of my students to see the exhibition and we were lucky enough to hear Grayson speak about his work. He described it as a 'pilgrimage' through the British Museum's collection and a homage to the skill of centuries of unnamed people.

Simon Fujiwara's 'Since 1982' at Tate St Ives explored his Cornish childhood through the work of Barabara Hepworth, Alfred Wallis and other well known artists represented at the gallery.

Last year, Simon Starling produced a film that was shown in the Duveen galleries in Tate Britain. 'Phantom Ride' explored the history of the gallery space and the exhibitions that have been held there.

Bob and Roberta Smith's Epstein Archive Gallery

Bob and Roberta Smith (Patrick Brill) worked with curator Neil Lebeter to 'rifle through' the Jacob Epstein Archive at The New Art Gallery in Walsall. The culmination of two years work was the Gallery pictured below. A combination of Brill's trademark typography and items from the archive tell a narrative about the sculptor and his extended family.

Chiharu Shiota at The New Art Gallery Walsall

I have seen Chiharu Shiota's work before, at 'Lost in Lace' at the Gas Hall in BM&AG. The two installations at Walsall are similar in scale and use the same mass of 'spiders web' threads. What I liked about the exhibit at Walsall was that you could walk right into each room - totally immersing yourself in the work.

In one gallery, over 400 old suitcases were suspended from red rope. Towards one end they almost touched the floor and they gradually got higher and higher towards the other end of the gallery, making unusual use of the large space.

Angie Lewin at YSP

 Finally got to see Angie Lewin's exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I only thought of her as a lino cut printer but I now appreciate the range of print techniques that she uses. There were screenprints, lithos and some lovely little woodcuts.

 I was particularly interested in some one off pieces that Angie had made. She printed onto Japanese paper then collaged these onto small pieces of weathered wood.

This may be a technique that I can explore, that would allow me to print onto different surfaces.

MoMA, New York

Several pieces interested me particularly at MoMA. They had an example of Marcel Duchamp's 'Box in a Valise'. He made more than 300 of these 'portable museums' as he called them. This one consists of 68 of his works in miniature, creating an archive of his career. The technique used is a collotype print. Duchamp had worked as a commercial printer and used his knowledge to make these high quality reproductions of his original work.

They had a small collection of Joseph Cornell's work on display. He juxtaposed collections of found objects, often with little or no clear connections, into boxes. The viewer is free to make their own individual interpretations of these collections of objects.

Ferran Adria at The Drawing Center, New York

elBulli was a world renowned restaurant in Barcelona and Ferran Adria its pioneering chef. This exhibition at the Drawing Center in SoHo was entitled 'Notes on Creativity'. It featured his sketches, diagrams, notebooks, charts and lists which archive the whole creative and intellectual process of developing his dishes. Ferran Adria gave an introduction to the exhibition, talking about his philosophy and his relationship with artist Richard Hamilton.