On a sun-drenched day in April, the artists of York welcomed visitors into their homes as part of the annual Open Studios Weekend. 160 creatives opened their doors citywide in what was Open Studios’ biggest event in their 24 years of running. The weekend allows the public a glimpse into artists’ creative process by inviting them to see where the magic happens.
Venues come in all shapes and sizes; I visited sitting rooms elegantly converted into galleries, cosy eclectic home studios, and a market hosted inside a school hall. Here, visitors have the chance to speak to the artists, learn about their inspirations, creative processes and even take a piece of their work home. The range of talent on display is dazzling – from established local leaders to dynamic newcomers – you can find jewellers, painters, sculptors and more!
Daisy Age Art
Inspired by the playful Daisy-Age ethos, which embraces freedom and rejects expectations, Emma creates unique mini-worlds that celebrate joy. Each piece is unique, characterized by vibrant expressive colour and the eclectic mixed media approach that Emma employs. I adored these textured, vibrant, intricate pieces of art, each curating a beautiful storyline packed with meaning.
(Image: Freya Hughes)
I asked Emma what inspired her to use a variety of mediums?
“I did set prop and costume design at university. I could never settle on one thing because I liked using lots of different things. I liked playing, I liked texture, I liked just mixing up and being playful. I think that’s why I tend to use loads of different things.”
How does colour play into your creative process?
“I tend to work by colour rather than by medium, so I’ll just surround myself with stuff and then just pick out what feels like the right colour […] they’ve each got their own little story.”
In the creative process Emma asks herself: “What’s the feeling I’m trying to get across and what colours make me feel that. They’re quite psychology-based because in the rest of my time I’m a counsellor.”
What connections do you try to create between the viewers and the art?
“My hope is that people get lost in the story and it either gives them a little break from what’s going on for them but also something they can relate to and think about how it relates to them.”
ARTWORK SPOTLIGHT: “Behind the Lens”
“It’s about how people – especially through social media – are supposed to be happy and smiley at occasions like a birthday party. But it’s not always that. Sometimes it’s ok to be a bit grumpy and not enjoy things that we’re supposed to.”
The artwork explores how life is about authenticity rather than expectations. Despite being surrounded by decadent colours and celebratory memorabilia the young girl frowns. There are nods to the princess and the pea with vines and pea pods festooning either side of the box.
(Image: Freya Hughes)
Rachel Holborow
Rachel specialises in printmaking, representing the organic shapes of flora and fauna in vibrant colour. Rich folkloric iconography is used as a vehicle to connect us with our spirituality. Her investigation of wildness and humans’ relationship to it is joyful to explore, prompting you to question how we can reclaim what has traditionally been seen as a negative quality.
(Image: Freya Hughes)
How did you find the medium of printmaking?
“It’s often a twisty turny journey especially as a female artist, I think because I had a family along the way.”
“When I was younger I was in bands and I ran a record label, I did a lot of the artwork for that. Then, when I had younger children it moved into more craft-creativity.”
“During the pandemic, I got to be 50 and I got into lino printing. My daughter got a lino kit and she just didn’t get on with it so I started and I just couldn’t stop. The carving itself is really compelling and the printing is a whole different skill – but you can do it at home, it does feel manageable. I can work gradually on it, some of them occur as I’m going along, some I haven’t planned at all.”
What is York’s local artistic community like?
“The Open Studios is a brilliant thing in that it’s independent and means you can bypass galleries and meet other artists who are doing such a large range of things. I also do Riso Club at Thin Ice Press – it’s great! You can just drop in and do printing, so that’s quite empowering and very affordable.”
ARTWORK SPOTLIGHT – Seven for a secret
“This references Seven for a Secret, which is from the little rhyme about magpies and there’s seven different magpies. But it mainly considers the secrecy of patriarchy and how we can’t speak about various things.”
“This character is an Eve-ish character, she is asleep. I was also thinking about waking up and the knowledge of good and evil which the fruit in the Genesis stories symbolises. It’s a good thing. If you can reclaim that relationship and not have something like the Church between you and spirituality. I think it’s quite a tangled relationship and we need to reclaim trust in our own integrity and the natural world can bring that back to us.”
(Image: Freya Hughes)
Cathy Denford
By harnessing Cubist and Abstract techniques to suggest movement, Cathy’s artwork is able to transcend the traditional stillness of paintings and suggest the passage of time. The subject of her mixed media paintings are often the flight of birds, conveyed by deftly painted lines and curves. It was fascinating to speak to Cathy and learn more about her advanced techniques and pastoral inspiration.
(Image: Freya Hughes)
Why do birds feature so frequently in your work?
“I think birds have a wonderful freedom that humans don’t have. They can fly. Birds can fly and perhaps I’ve always thought that was the most miraculous thing. I’m very interested in fish that can swim as well.”
How do the cubist and abstract elements of your work facilitate your exploration of nature?
“It may just be that I’ve always admired the Cubists but it would also be true to say that the futurists and the Cubists were interested in movement and they were some of the first people who attempted to suggest movement.”
“Picasso, as I understand it, presented views of the same thing from different standpoints. That suggested movement, it moved you around the subject. I suppose what I thought you could do was use that to suggest different positions of the object. So instead of the object being stationary and the viewer moving – the object moved. In order to suggest movement those techniques could be adapted to do what I wanted to do with them”
“I like the straight line. Picasso was very good at combining straight lines and curves and the relationship of the straight line to the curve is a wonderful tension, so I’ve gone on playing with that tension for years. He seemed to be onto a lot of great things, he did get all the credit but there were a lot of artists doing things long before he did.”
ARTWORK SPOTLIGHT – Flying the seasons
“I see jay birds coming out of some oak trees, close to a place where I’ve got a studio out on the moors. I’ve watched the birds, which are quite secretive, but they are so brilliantly colored I’ve always thought they were beautiful birds.”
“The thing they do in nature, of planting acorns, taking them off the trees and then planting them to harvest later and forgetting where they’ve put them and a tree growing. The idea that nature should replenish itself and grow new trees is wonderful to me because I love nature. With the terrible things that human beings do to nature I would love to think that nature would get its own back and sort things out. I wish we would help them more but if that weren’t to happen any help from the animals and the birds, so much the better!”
(Image: Freya Hughes)
Many thanks to Cathy, Emma and Rachel for speaking to me! You can find their work below:
- Daisy Age Art – https://www.etsy.com/shop/daisyageart/?etsrc=sdt
- Rachel Holborow: https://www.etsy.com/shop/rkwanderings/?etsrc=sdt
- Cathy Denford – https://cathydenford.info/
