Hello again Internet! As google, facebook, and any of my loyal readers know, I adore William Morris. ADORE HIM!

 

In case you have forgotten, I have a wee shrine to his work in my dorm here:

Why yes! That is a set of 100 different postcards with his designs on my wall. Cool, eh?

And there is a wonderful museum in London devoted to him: The William Morris Gallery.  Surprise! It’s one of my favourites!

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Clair Twomey: Time Present and Time Past

This year the Gallery ran a crowdfunding campaign with the Art Fund called: Art Happens.

The National Art Fund is a really amazing organisation.  They help museums and gallerys purchase art works for their collections that would otherwise be out of reach for their meagre budgets. By becoming a member you also get loads of perks at various places, like free entry, discounts on exhibitions, or in the shops/ cafes.  I use my Art Fund card alot and I love it. They also promote exhibits really well – I’ve heard of so many cool things since I’ve joined.

 

 

The campaign was a huge success and as one of the hundreds of donors I got invited to the private opening!

About the exhibit:

‘Ceramicist Clare Twomey transforms the gallery into a live studio, where members of the public will work as apprentices on a William Morris-inspired tile panel; an ambitious installation that will bring his ideas to life.Twomey is planning to create a vast tile panel embellished with Chrysanthemum, one of William Morris’s most compelling and intricate designs. Over 68 days, 68 volunteer apprentices will work on the piece. Every day, a new apprentice will work alongside a skilled master painter, slowly transforming the tiles from one state of beauty to another. Visitors will be able to watch this process slowly unfold.The exhibition is a response to William Morris’s approach to making. Like the would-be apprentices, Morris learned his skills through practice and concentration. Skills need to be constantly passed on and shared, from one person to another, to retain their vitality. Twomey’s installation will explore how practising a skill can connect us through time and space to other people. As Morris observed, ‘The past is not dead, but living in us.’

– from the William Morris Gallery Website

At the opening we got to see the first apprentice start painting the tiles of Chrysanthemum!

 

It was a so much fun. And I got to drag my friend Ashley, who was visiting from Vancouver, to it as well!  Here’s the amazing cathedral we built together in the galleries:

 

 

After the speeches and a glass of wine we checked out the gardens and Lloyd Park. They were luminous:

It was such a lovely evening! And I may have converted Ashley into a Morris fan.