MESH, LOOP & LINE
Mesh, Loop & Line is a collaboration between Ismini Samanidou, Jessie Higginson and Katie Bunnell, exploring line and form in the creation of ceramics, prints, weavings, sculpture and film. Samanidou, Higginson and Bunnell have created new works in dialogue with each other and co-curated an exhibition to visually speak of their common interest in ‘line’. The three artists have collaborated before, ‘Mesh Loop and Line’ invites them to re-connect, inform, invigorate and challenge each other’s practice while engaging new audiences with explorations across their materials.
In addition to making new work, the artists have also developed workshops for members of the Penryn Memory Cafe and pupils from Penryn Academy. Jayne Howard, Director of Arts Well and Ellie Robinson-Carter, a socially engaged creative practitioner, have supported the engagement work.
This project is possible thanks to funding received from Arts Council National Lottery, Feast and Cornwall Council.
See more about the final exhibition HERE
DEVELOPING THE WORK
Earlier this year, the artists undertook a residency at Clayhill Arts where they had time and space to play and share each other’s materials and making processes. Listen to a podcast about their experience of the residency here.
selection of images from the residency below are courtesy of the artists
DEVELOPING THE participation
As part of this project, the artists have developed activities and workshops for members of the Penryn Memory Cafe. One of the artists’ aims throughout Mesh, Loop & Line has been to re-ignite a sense of play in their creative practice. The activities are an invitation for the members, their families and carers to play with some of the artists’ techniques.
Making Marks & Shapes
Simple mark-making exercises invite a sense of playing with line, without worrying too much about what is produced. During her residency, Katie Bunnell spent time filing pages with simple, repeated marks. She then cut out large shapes and overlaid the two, masking and revealing the marks below. The artists felt this would be a good activity to get started with at the Penryn Memory Cafe and it was wonderful to see the very different types of marks and shapes people made. The work made was exhibited as part of the Mesh, Loop & Line show.
selection of images below from Marks & Shapes workshop with the Penryn Memory Cafe. Photo of exhibited work by Oliver Udy.
Memory Mugs
Another technique which the artists experimented with during their residency was using carbon paper, re-producing a line but with a very different quality. The artists enjoyed the soft blue lines made by the carbon paper and how the new line is revealed under the drawn one. Katie Bunnell and Jessie Higginson have often designed patterns for mugs and produced small-batch runs using digital ceramic transfers which are fired onto the mug’s surface. Combining the carbon paper technique with this small-batch production, they decided to invite the Memory Cafe members to design and make their own mugs to use at the cafe.
images below show the Memory Cafe members creating personalised designs using letter stencils of their initials, or other words they like! Their drawings were turned into ceramic transfers and we all had a go applying them to the mugs
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Dr Katie Bunnell
Designer, maker and curator, Katie Bunnell's creative practice explores material qualities, form and pattern in ceramics. She completed an MA in Ceramics & Glass at the Royal College of Art, where she was a Darwin Scholar, and was awarded a doctorate in 1998 for her practice-based research thesis. As Associate Professor of Design at Falmouth University, she created Autonomatic, an award-winning craft research collective. Bunnell is co-curator for Whitegold, an arts and regeneration project in St Austell and a director for Brickfield, a community brickworks based in a disused clay pit in Cornwall's clay country.
Jessie Higginson
Artist-maker Jessie Higginson works across the mediums of print, craft and collage. Her work is process-led and explores the rhythm of pattern, the meditative nature of repetition, and the abstract elements of line, form and colour. Higginson was awarded a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship (QEST) to study an MA in ceramics at The Royal Collage of Art graduating in 2004. She was a project manager for Hidden Art Cornwall and has exhibited in the UK and internationally.
Ismini Samanidou
Ismini Samanidou’s working methods are led by an experimental approach to materials and processes through weaving, drawing and photography. Samanidou has exhibited internationally with solo shows in the UK and US. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Crafts Council and numerous corporate and public collections. She has been invited to take up residencies internationally including an artist residency at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in the USA (2014) where she personally restored Anni Albers looms. A film featuring Ismini weaving was part of the major Tate Modern (UK), K20 (Germany) Anni Albers retrospective (2018-2019) and shown at the Museum of Modern Art (NY) in 2020.
