Coastline Traces – Sefton Coastal Path Sculpture Trail

Sea Glass View, number 3 on the trail, stands on top of the sand dunes at Ainsdale and holds glasswork relating to the history of shipwrecks along the coast.

Coastline Traces – a sculpture trail spanning the 22 miles of Sefton Coastline was completed by myself and artist Sian Hughes in 2016.

Wooden Henges, sculpture number 2, is located next to a bridge over a stream in Birkdale sands. It contains wire sculptures inspired by the huge amount of rare and endangered plants that can be found in this area of the coastal path.

Six sculptures have been unveiled at key points along the Sefton Coastal Path, designed jointly by us working with the local community. Each individual sculpture offers a unique creative response to a different aspect of the coastal heritage, history or landscape, offering an creative and informative view of the coast.

Trackway is number 6 and can be found along the path at Hightown heading towards Gormleys Iron Men. Inspired by archaeological digs that have discovered evidence of Neolithic man inhabiting the area.

The sculptures all contain individual artworks developed through a programme of art workshops with the local community working with a variety of mediums.

Sculpture number 1 is the Birdbench located at RSPB Marshside. Using cyanotytpes this piece celebrates the incredible birds that visit the area each.

Phill Gregson, talented local  wheelwright and woodsman brought his formidable skills and experience to help us realize this ambitious project.

Clay Footprint Wall – number 5 and situated in Formby. These modern clay footprints are based on the Neolithic footprints found in the area.

Huge thanks goes to all the groups whom we worked with – Natural Alternatives, Go With The Flow and Free Flow art groups, Creative Alternatives, Bridge Inn Community Farm, Cambridge Road Children Center and Brunswick Youth Club. Special thanks to Verity Pulford Glass artist, Chris Turrell-Watts Ceramicist and photo credits and thanks go to Ted Oonk.

The Lizard Bench -number 4, is located at the bottom of Fishermans path in Formby. Created with mosaics this artwork highlights the beautiful and rare sand lizard that lives on the Sefton coast.

Thanks also to Natural England, The National Trust, RSPB and Sefton Coast Landscape Partnership, with a special mention to Fiona Sunner and John Dempsey for being so wonderful and inspiring to work with.

For more information on this project please visit: Coastline Traces website

This project is part of the Sefton Coast Landscape Partnership (SCLP), which is funded by the Heritage Lottery.

Cecilia – Laura Ashley Shaun the Sheep

A really fun project I worked on earlier this year was painting Cecilia – Shaun the Sheep for Laura Ashley. A beautiful quilt design featuring some of their most iconic prints. It was great working on such a beautiful project, the Laura Ashley …

Coastline Traces – Sefton Coastal Path Sculpture Trail

I am incredibly excited to have been awarded the Sefton Coastal Path Sculpture Trail commission along with my good friend and fellow artist Sian Hughes.

Over the next few months we will be working flat out to deliver numerous workshop for people from Sefton which will form parts of the six sculptures to be installed along the coastal path.

The Sefton Coast is an amazingly rich landscape with rare flora and fauna including the sand lizard, natterjack toad and red squirrel as well as important Neolithic and Mesolithic archaeological sites, shipwrecks and smuggling, asparagus and rabbits and all set against miles of stunning pristine beaches and sand dunes. We will be working with clay and resin, mosaic, glass scraffito, wire sculpture, cyanotypes and embossing aiming to create a visually exciting and information sculpture trail along the coastal path.

 The project is called Coastline Traces and we have a website and facebook page which we will be updating regularly with our progress. Please do follow, like and share us on:

www.coastlinetraces2015.wordpress.com and on Coastline Traces Facebook

 

Arts Award – Inspiring young people to grow their art

  I have been working with young people at The Chapel Gallery and The Atkinson to help them get their Arts Award Discovery and Bronze. Arts Award operates on different levels and offers young people the opportunity to develop their interest …

Contact

a: Arena Studios & Gallery, 1st Floor Elevator Building, 27 Parliament Street, Liverpool, L8  5RN

e: Sarahjanerichards_artist@hotmail.com

The Art Maze, Cheltenham 1st-19th April 2015

I am thrilled to have been selected to create some walls for an Art Maze that is being built in Beechwood Shopping centre in Cheltenham as a Pop Up Exhibition by The Art Playground.

Based on some previous small paintings, I have created a large scale triptych painted landscape that explores optical illusions and impossible spaces. Through my use of colour and shape I hope to playfully confuse the areas of the maze and question the mazer-goers spatial perceptions.

Tools

After sketching out the shapes I start to paint in the sky

Blocking in some of the shapes

Using a roller and masking tape I paint in the buildings

Installation at The Art Maze with help from Guy Harvey

The finished piece, installed and ready for the public

The maze is open to the public from 1st -19th April, displaying artwork by Kristi Minchin, Kathryn Rothery, Hannah Ellis, Suzie Early and Jess Polglaze with the centre piece by Emma Reed.

http://artplayground.org.uk/portfolio/the-art-maze-april-15/

https://www.facebook.com/ArtPlaygroundCheltenham

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Books About Town

Books about Town will feature a series of BookBenches, individually designed by top artists, to celebrate stories linked to London and to promote reading for enjoyment. The benches, shaped as open books, will be unveiled in various locations across the …

Saturday Art Club – World Map Project

The first term project for this years Saturday Art Club at The Chapel Gallery was based on a map of the world.

In the beginning we discussed places in the world that the children had personal affinities with – where they may have family living, where they are from, where they had been on holiday or where they would love to go.  We used an atlas and located different countries and discussed if they were well known for anything in particular.

These discussions led to visual interpretations which the children developed in their work. Some had most detail in the sea, some had details in sea and on land whilst others perfected particular painting techniques. We used mixed media – collage, painting and drawing to create personalised maps of the world.

These maps were based on a factual depiction of the world, however creative imaginations took small liberties with new islands popping up here and there. This project was great fun and some really stunning work was developed which the children were thrilled to take home.

Public Art Commission – Reach Art Project Lytham St Annes

I am really excited about being chosen as one of two artists to work on this project related to St Annes Swimming Pool on the Fylde coast.

St Annes Swimming Pool, which is run by Fylde Coast YMCA on behalf of Fylde Council, reopened in January 2014 after a £625,000 refurbishment to changing rooms, the spectator area and café and entrance/reception area.

St Annes Swimming Pool sits within a significant heritage context, within the grade 2 listed registered landscape setting of the Promenade gardens, on the site of the former open air baths. It has a strong connection to its place and with the local community.

The aim with this project is to look to develop proposals that see an improvement in the signage and access to the building, as well as improvements to the external environment within which it sits, all complementing the improvements to date that have taken place within the building.

I will be focusing on visual imagery and how this venue might be profiled  in and around the building and along the main thoroughfare through Lytham St. Annes.  Artist Sophy King will work with the Landscape Architect and focus on the immediate heritage and environment around the Swimming Pool. http://www.palace.co.uk/sophking/

For this first phase of this project Sophy and I will work collaboratively on an intensive programme of creative engagement activity aimed at involving the community in developing ideas and proposals for the art works. This process will involve workshops with community groups, users of the pool and local schools, as well as onsite engagement with the public, to develop ideas and proposals for permanent interventions into the scheme.

This job represents a fantastic opportunity for me to learn more about working within the public art area and to develop my outlay and experience as a visual artist. It also is a great chance to work with the inspiring artist Sophy King and has the added benefit of having mentoring sessions with artist Alan Dunn.

We have set up a blog and face book page as places to exhibit the work created and collected during this first phase and to share the developments of this project, please follow the links below for more information:

http://reachartproject2014.wordpress.com/

https://www.facebook.com/reachartproject

Gordon Matta-Clarke at The Open Eye Gallery Liverpool

I attended a fascinating talk by the charming and compelling Lorenzo Fusi on Gordon Matta-Clarke  as part of the Alvin Baltrop and Gordon Matta-Clarke: The Piers from Here exhibition.

The talk spanned Matta-Clarkes vast and varied output as an artist, including his involvement in creating FOOD, a restaurant cum artwork, which often gave away food for free.  I was particularly enticed by the knowledge that a singular daily special was served  advertised on a chalk board, which may or may not be food. Some of the things on offer on the menu included improvised music and poetry, food for the soul.

My favourite aspect of Matta-Clarkes visual output is his interactions with buildings, specifically his conical intersect project. I am truly inspired by these cuts into buildings that open up new view points and channels of perspective, allowing light to pierce in new ways and creating dizzying effects.

The Open Eye Gallery is located on Mann Island in Liverpool. For more information on their exhibitions and events please visit their website: http://www.openeye.org.uk/