York Open Studios 2008

11:58am Friday 4th April 2008

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The seventh York Open Studios weekend starts this evening at 30 locations within a ten-mile radius of the city centre.

More than 40 artists and craft makers will be opening their studio doors tonight, tomorrow and Sunday to invite visitors into a world normally hidden from view.

A third of the exhibitors are new, maintaining the fast turnover from last year when half the participants were making their Open Studios debut.

This spring's event is the first not to be organised by co-founders Anne Hutchison and Gail Fox, who stepped down last year.

The studio weekend is now run by an expanded committee, chaired by ceramicist Ruth King, of Shipton by Beningbrough, who will be exhibiting her salt-glazed stoneware at Bedern Hall, off St Saviourgate, York.

"Just having someone else chairing the committee must have had some effect, but Anne and Gail did such a magnificent job that a lot of it was just a question of stepping into their shoes, " says Ruth.

"We're delighted that more than a third of the artists will be new this weekend. There are many people in and around York working in art, and the younger faces are especially welcome, as are those working in new media. It's nice for the public to know that art moves on all the time.

"It's also about giving them something to think about, not just giving them decorative objects.

That's why York Open Studios covers the whole spectrum from paintings, ceramics and classic bronzes, through decorative textiles and jewellery, to something more obscure.

"We try to represent the range of what's going on, though that is dependent on who applies to take part. Sometimes the most difficult aspect can be getting the word out that the event is taking place, because there's no arts centre in York to get that information out, and that's a gap in the city's facilities."

Ruth suggests the lack of cheap, rentable space in the city compounds the problem.

"It's difficult for an artist to set up in York, particularly if they want to work on any scale, so it's not surprising they end up in Leeds or Bradford or Manchester, where the property prices are so much cheaper, " she says.

Nevertheless, York Open Studios continues to play an important role in the York art scene, not only in the annual studio weekend, but also by making two further contributions.

"We participated in the Illuminate festival, as a way of fulfilling lots of requests for us to do more than one show a year, and that led to our showcase exhibition at York Theatre Royal, " says Ruth.

In a second new project, the Open Studios ran five two-hour workshops last month hosted by York Art Gallery, funded by City of York Council through Arts Action York, and led by printmaker Milena Dragic, textile artist Jacqueline James, collage artist Mark Hearld, painter Eddie Saul and jeweller Elizabeth Redfern.

In addition, the Open Studios committee has established a "very fruitful relationship" with Gill Greaves, arts officer at York District Hospital.

"Gill's remit is to make the hospital environment more visually interesting for the people there, whether they're in-patients, outpatients or they're visiting, " says Ruth. "Gill sees our involvement as a mutually beneficial way of showing art.

"Through these different ways, art can reach people it doesn't usually reach without them going to a gallery."

This year's crop of Open Studios artists has been selected by two committee members - the two will change each year - plus Askrigg artist Piers Browne, art historian and curator Mark Hallett and London painter Peter Bunting.

Artists range from established professionals, such as illustrator Mark Hearld, to newer talents including a showcase of work by two students each from York College and York St John University.

Hearld will be opening up the doors to his flat in Portland Street, which has featured in The World Of Interiors magazine.

Along with his paintings, prints, ceramics and textiles, on show for the first time will be a new lithograph commissioned by Tate Britain to accompany an exhibition later this year in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Curwen studio.

Mark says: "My work is heavily influenced by the 1920s and 1930s and early 20th century British art and design, including a number of artists that worked with the Curwen press, so I'm really delighted at this commission."

Argentinean couple Andres Jaroslavsky and Veronica Ongaro will be opening up their home too.

Jaroslavsky will show a selection of his painted portraits, while biologist Ongaro's love of nature is reflected in her linocuts, woodcuts and etchings.

Bedern Hall will display new ceramics by Jane Blackman and Ruth King; contemporary jewellery by Elizabeth Redfern that combines silver, vintage textiles and found objects; and soft furnishings, wall panels and cards by designer Rebecca Stoner.

Elizabeth and Rebecca are joined in the list of first-time exhibitors by Joanna Bramley, David Campbell, Ben Clowes, Harriet McKenzie, Penny Phillips, John Potter and Clare Wake, plus students Xanthe Cunliffe, Kay Kisi, Catherine Scriven and Annetta Wormald.

Studio visitors will have the opportunity to meet and talk to the artists and buy art from the makers themselves.

"Determined art-lovers can, if they wish, visit all of the artists during the event, and the footpaths and cycle route will be in operation as usual." says Ruth.

"One of the reasons that York Open Studios is so successful is that it's so concentrated. You can get around everybody on your bike or travel around on foot, and if the weather is nice, it's a lovely chance to walk along the river or go on and off the city walls.

"But the one thing we really would like to do is to attract more young visitors, aged 16 to 25 - and it's not that they're not interested in art, they just need to know that this event is happening."

• York Open Studios is open tonight from 6pm to 9pm; tomorrow, 10am to 7pm; Sunday, 11am to 6pm. Admission to all 30 studios and venues is free. Look for the York Open Studios 2008 sign displayed at each location.

• A free directory with details of all the artists and maps is available from all York Libraries and creative outlets across the region, or by downloading from www. yorkopenstudios. co. uk or by calling Ruth King on 01904 706123. The libraries will stock a cycle route map too.

• York Open studios is run by artists and volunteers and supported by Arts Council England and City of York Council and sponsored by Harrowells Solicitors, York.

Charles Hutchinson rounds up the artists

Ben Arnup displays hand-built stoneware ceramics, at The Cottage, Love Lane, The Mount, York; Sally Arnup, bronzes of birds and animals, demonstrations at 11am, tomorrow and Sunday, Panman Lane, Holtby.

Jane Askey's floral and decorative paintings will be joined at Bootham School, Bootham, by Joanna Bramley, printmaking and mixed-media drawings and paintings; Andy Evans (alias Rory Motion), playful stilllife paintings, interior landscapes and text pieces; Freya Horsley, landscape paintings, capturing light and weather.

Jane Blackman presents sculptural earthenware vessels and abstract landscape paintings, Bedern Hall, Bartle Garth, St Andrewgate, alongside Ruth King's salt-glazed stoneware; Elizabeth Redfern's jewellery inspired by childhood memories; and Rebecca Stoner's hand and digitally printed soft furnishings, wall panels and greetings cards.

Petra Bradley displays hand screen-printed fabric designs, 18 Emerald Street; David Campbell, large-scale botanical images on canvas and paper, 22 St Mary's; Ben Clowes, drawing and painting using found objects, Studio 20, West Offices, Station Rise; Susan Dennis, landscape, still life and memory paintings, 35 Wentworth Road, York; Peter Donohoe, figurative sculpture in hand-beaten copper, and Bim Hopewell, mixed-media constructions with reflections and refractions and retro acrylic paintings, Walnut Cottage, 17 Tadcaster Road.

Isabel Denyer's stoneware domestic pots and necklaces and Adrienne French's semi-abstract, multilayered paintings can be seen at 85 East Parade; Milena Dragic's non-figurative, colourful prints, plus 2pm demonstrations, tomorrow and Sunday, and children's activities, 10am and noon, are at 28 Danesmead Close, Fulford, along with Chiu-I Wu's one-off ceramics combining oriental and Western influences.

Mary Greene's quirky, figurative painting, printmaking and constructions are on show at 3 West Moor Lane, Heslington; Mark Hearld's printmaking, painting, ceramics and textiles, inspired by the natural world and modern British design, Flat 2, 11 Portland Street; Jacqueline James's hand-woven rugs and wall hangings, 4 Rosslyn Street, Clifton; Andres Jaroslavsky's paintings and drawings of portraits and nudes and Veronica Ongaro's linocut prints of nature, 29 Lesley Avenue.

Sam Jones shows jewellery in soft Italian glass and sterling silver, and Eddie Saul, moments-in-time paintings in scratchy pen work, paint washes and mixed media, at 22 Moss Street; Pamela Knight, landscape painting and printmaking, and David Patrick, landscape and cityscape drawing and painting in monochrome and colour, 11 Norfolk Street; Jane Marsh, contemporary batik textiles of nature and Yorkshire landscapes, 34 Rawcliffe Lane.

Harriet McKenzie uses inks, acetate, film and Perspex in her layered and 3-D drawings and moving images at 4A Shipton Street; Jonathan Newdick presents figurative and semi-abstract sculptures in wood, bronze and stone, The Studio, Sugar Hill Farm, Stockton Lane; Penny Phillips seeks harmony between food and the vessel in her ceramics, 25 Allerton Drive, Nether Poppleton.

Simon Palmour exhibits stark, abstract photographic images, 60 Hob Moor Drive; John Potter, canvas prints and books of landscape photography, 14 Carr Lane, Acomb; Lesley Seeger, semi-abstract paintings of plant life, 43 Broadway West; Ilona Sulikova, raku-fired pots, with raku firings from 1pm to 6pm tomorrow, Holmfield Community Centre, Peel Close, Heslington; Clare Ware, acrylic, watercolour and pastel paintings, 61 Fountayne Street; Linda Wormald, floral paintings, 3 Windmill Lane; Peter Wray, printmaking and painting investigating the personal journey, Handprint Studio, 100 The Village, Stocktonon-the Forest; 12 Manor Park Road, Rawcliffe.

The student showcases comprise Xanthe Cunliffe, 3-D mixed media, and Kay Kisi's sculptural heads and figures, at the Gallery, York College, Sim Balk Lane; Catherine Scriven, digital images and drawing, and Annetta Wornald, photography, York St John University Art Block, Lord Mayor's Walk.