Saturday 25 August 2012

Seeing Red


Every month my friend Catherine and I spend one day visiting an art gallery.  We have visited quite a number in the West Midlands area (often several times!) including Wolverhampton Museum and Art Gallery,  Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Compton Verney, New Art Gallery, Walsall, Herbert Museum and Art Gallery, Coventry, the Barber Institute to name a few.  
 
We have also travelled as far as Oxford and visited the Ashmolean Museum and Art Gallery as well as the Oxford Modern Art Gallery.  We enjoy these visits very much and have interesting discussions about the exhibitions we visit.  Sometimes we take photographs, or if there is enough time we pull out our drawing materials and attempt to do some sketching.
We often decide that there are exhibits that we like, but also others that we hate.  Mostly, I am looking for that extraordinary unique piece of Art that stands out above everything else, something that has me saying “Wow!”  To me, looking at Art or Sculpture, or Textiles or whatever piece it is, is all about the “Seeing”.  What I, or you see; what the artist sees; and often I try to get inside the artist’s head to see what they are seeing, and then I ask myself: What they are trying to say with their Art?  It is a question that is not always clearly answered, but it gives me food for thought.
When I thinking about what to write for this post I had also been thinking about making a Pinterest board using the colour red as my theme, so I decided to link the two together and so here you have my “seeing red” post!
 
Seeing red often means a state of irritation or annoyance.  It is often associated with becoming angry or losing self-control.  The colour red has many associations - heat, heated emotions and violence, communism, a sign of warning (as in traffic lights etc), ripeness (in fruit etc), and of course, blood.  Seeing red has many other associations.
 
 
For me, “seeing red” is also about seeing something unique, something beautiful, seeing something that catches my eye, or stops me in my tracks!  I selected a small number of red craft items from folksy and have used them to illustrate this blog post.  Red is a popular colour and there are thousands of craft items on folksy that have red as the principle colour.  I do hope you have enjoyed my selection, and liked “seeing red”.
 
 
If you are interested in seeing the full Pinterest board that I have created then here is the link.
 
BFN
Edwina
TOP TO BOTTOM:  Handmade by Edwina, Dottery Pottery, Maisy Muffin Rag Dolls, noodleBubble, Abyjem handcrafted jewellery, Handmade by Mrs. K, Raven's Stained Glass, Marthamoo Beads.

 


3 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for including my ceramic apple decoration. Red also signifies "something special" for me too. Red is one of the most expensive glaze colours - so I only use it on a few items. Each of them seems more precious than normal - lol!
    Sarah x

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  2. Lovely, interesting blog Edwina.

    I love the idea of going to a different museum every month. Might try that myself.

    Shirley x

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  3. A thought provoking blog post and you put me to shame as I've never visited any of the galleries or museums in Oxford and I only live up the road a bit (hangs head in shame!)

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