C4RD AlterWalden at Shankill International Arts Festival, Kilkenny 2010

Started with a June walk in the woods, an ancient woodland in East Anglia and ended in a sensitively converted stone barn in a Kilkenny August. 

In between, it was laughter, camping, giggles, barking foxes, smoky fires, and the unutterable silence and beauty of deep woodlands.

 Andrew and Alex shouldering on...

We all settled amongst Daphne's shaded shadowy coppiced trees, tripping over medieval ridge and furrows, spilling tea and pee behind the tents, making drawings, videos, painting, casting clay, chopping tree trunks, recording conversations.

 Tent? what do you mean, tent?

Sarah sitting by the campfire, waiting for tea...

And to work!- riffing off each other, drawing shades and shadows, 

getting up front and personal with earth, trees, branches, trunks, logs...

 hmm, just what exactly are these curious bumps?

 fire never burned hot enough to do anything but dry the clay, but try we did, Andrew.

Then when the heavens finally broke, we packed the tents and scurried back to review what we had done:

 Casper David Friedrich mountain by Andrew

Afterwards, Daph and I went about locally asking people what they thought about trees. 

Finally we were off to Ireland. Alex drove accompanied by Sarah and me.  Our journey from Richmond took us to a port in Wales for the 4 hour ferry trip.

Then more driving through very beautiful Irish countryside on very bad road (no, Alex, your axle is not going to break - I promise, it's a Volvo) Shankill was an incredible experience. Elizabeth, Geoffrey, Phoebe, Reuben and were all everywhere at once cranking up the efforts and egos of so many artists. 

But the C4RD artists serenely sailed in, helping where we could as needed, secretly pleased at our stone barn 'gallery' space - exquisite and perfect.

Fabric draped over upper half of double door to keep the swallows out...

 

In this double height space the traces of hayloft joists still visible in the stone structure. Glorous light and we were so lucky with the weather...

.

Alex, Andrew, Daph and Sarah's works ringing 'round the room

Daphne's beautiful diary of the days in the woodland

Small table and chair with 'Into the Woods' video embedded in The Real Counties of England

Against the back wall suspended from joists Ridge and Furrow:wave form, cast plaster in situ

Then Elizabeth arranged for us all to be interviewed; here is an excerpt.

The full video can be viewed here at Hedgehog Production. Read Phoebe's blog about Shankill Castle here: http://shankillcastle.wordpress.com

The Threadneedle Figurative Prize, Mall Galleries

Confessional, an exploratory studio work I made during my MA at City and Guilds of London Art School, was accepted in the inaugural Threadneedle Figurative Prize at the Mall Galleries, London. The exhibition is open from 20 August - 6 September 2008.

Selected as a 'wild card' entry by Richard Cork.

MA City and Guilds of London Art School

I was accepted into the MA program for studio-based practice at City and Guilds of London Art School, a private institution with a considerable history in the traditional arts of stone and wood carving, conservation (restoration, gilding, etc), and a fine arts program for Foundation and BA's. The MA program was started in 2005.

Confluences

 

"This exhibition presents relaxing, meditative minimalist installations by Joan Edlis that take you on a deep journey into the depths of your conscious and leave you feeling satisfyingly rested. Joan's work is site specific using different parts of the building to energise and inform her pieces, making them feel more in tune with the world around them.

Her work is also process based meaning the journey of making of the pieces is the most important part to her rather than the end result. However the end result of 'Confluences' are beautiful and interesting, meditative pieces.

The works have a very light and airy feel to them due to their size, colour and materials. Her use of collaged materials that may move over time also gives a heightened sense of depth.

'The Horizontal Expansion of Compassion' is an enormous piece made up of six large sheets connected through flow of texture to create a piece that takes up your entire visual field, and so draws you into its quite contemplative space. It is supposed to symbolise the reaching out to others but its vastness and design takes it further: it is a reaching out to the cosmos. 

'The Breath' is the most exciting piece in the show. Made up of wax disks which move and rustle in the thermals produced by the heating, and creating a rhythm of rustles, shadows and depth that take you to a more relaxing place, an idealized forest on a summer's day.

Overall these pieces are very quiet and it is up to you the viewer to take the time to stand and merge with them in your own way. If you do take this time you will come away having had a very satisfying experience.

Confluences is at Cambridge Buddhist Centre until 1 Feb, 2006"

Janet Barron, Art Editor, Local Secrets

http://www.localsecrets.com/

Curated by Gail Abbott and Daphne Warburg-Astor, CBC Arts

The Arc of My Wrist

"I started drawing squares. They were never perfect. After each square I forgave myself for not making it perfect…and tried again."
Joan Edlis

'Nothing is quite what it seems to be.'

Apparently minimalist, Joan Edlis’ art alludes to human presence, reach, and scale. These aren’t barren geometrical puzzles, but subtle gatherings of overlooked beauty. The Size of my Fist consists of plant matter – from Linden trees, pines, roses, plane trees, and a tree of heaven. Each neat bundle was precisely a handful, though some have shrunk as they dried. Despite appearances Edlis collected the sheaves in cities not idylls.

Everything here has been found. The corrugated plastic squares that constitute one part of The Reach of My Arm were discarded spacers from between stacked paving slabs. Each bears peculiar distress marks individualising the squares.

The title refers to the act of stretching to collect the pieces, an act repeated in the second part of this work, the scattered playing cards scavenged from a Parisian street. These too bear imprints, this time of passers-by and the road’s texture.

At the centre of the exhibition is The Arc of My Wrist, a 100 metre roll of muslin – again found – that Edlis is painstakingly marking with an architectural pattern of squares. 

The process is carefully choreographed: she draws her squares in batches limited by the reach of her pen from the pivot of her hand. Then she shifts position and begins a new batch, the rhythms of the process leaving traces in the pattern.

The delicate beauty of this serial composition plays variations on a geometrical theme. No square is perfect. The artist begins a new batch of squares, gradually unrolling this as yet incomplete work. She reviews her progress, and begins again.

Nigel Warburton, 2005.
http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/philos/nwpub.htm

Sculpture Installation Exploring the Implied Gesture
Govett Kerr Gallery
52 Hoxton Square, London N1 6PB
20 - 24 October 2005

Skywells

"Architecture, object or experience?

This work operates on these three conditions simultaneously or sequentially but only when put into perspective by the presence of the visitor. Insubstantial walls serve to distinguish outside or inside, far or near, up or down, inside or outside and close or closer. Context changes scale from monumental to individual and back in a single breath.

Joan Edlis graduated with a BFA in industrial design and practiced for over twenty years before re-focusing on a variance of land art, object-based sculpture merging with architectural form and landscape design. Her intent is to re-engage participants with the natural world."

Jaqueline Murphy, Curator, Royal British Society of Sculptors
http://www.le.ac.uk/press/artists/sculpture.pdf

"In the Botanic Gardens at Leicester, forty two artists from different generations have created sculptures to be sited in this tranquil setting while others have responded to the surroundings, some including objects found on the site... American artist Joan Edlis, has created connecting cylindrical rooms of willow rods that allow visitors to enter and, like Alice in Wonderland, experience shifts in spatial dimensions.

Sculpture in the Garden is at the Harold Martin Botanic Gardens, University of Leicester from 9 July – 26 September 2005 and is open every day 10 – 4."
http://www.hero.ac.uk/uk/culture___sport/archives/2005/work_in_progress.cfm