All posts by Catherine Fairgrieve

Catherine works across discipline boundaries, excited by the potential of combining traditional processes with new technologies. She is an artist and educator, and lives in Wales.
United Kingdom

A Late Start

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This year I am collaborating with my partner, Griff (Andrew Griffiths) for Heat Exchange, and like Stephen, we are starting a new body of work following an exhausting winter during which we moved house and as yet have no studio.

During the summer we were inspired by World War II pill boxes around the coast of South West Wales, ruins that are both familiar and intriguing, concrete husks that mark a destination or turning point on a Sunday walk.

a WWII gun emplacement in Ferryside
a WWII gun emplacement in Ferryside

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The bunkers are quietly disappearing, immersed by brambles and crumbling from the effects of westerly rainstorms. The architecture is modernist and brutal, ugly in aggressive symbolism but softened through time like fortified castles. They also represent security and protection and bare witness to history though never used as intended and therefore dysfunctional: spaces constructed within a few weeks that are now forgotten scars in the landscape.

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These empty places are now spaces for our imagination and focal point for a challenging shared project…!

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Catherine Fairgrieve

Catherine works across discipline boundaries, excited by the potential of combining traditional processes with new technologies. She is an artist and educator, and lives in Wales.

Heat Exchange 1

will I ever be ready on time?

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the kiln is off  – but its 90 degrees in Phoenix! I’m flying tomorrow and still not ready to go…a bit concerned that 17 kilos of enamelled iron may not make it through airport security! I’ll embrace the experience and look forward to seeing the show…

Catherine Fairgrieve

Catherine works across discipline boundaries, excited by the potential of combining traditional processes with new technologies. She is an artist and educator, and lives in Wales.

Heat Exchange 1

last minute firings

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Hi fellow exchangers,

I have been watching the recent blogs with excitement to see the range of work that will soon arrive in Phoenix, and I feel very lucky to be travelling to USA to help hang as I will get to unpack and look at the work up close. It’s going to be an amazing show of great diversity and energy.

I was able to finally focus on making my own work over Easter because I teach full time: it’s been so frustrating but fulfilling to make sand moulds, pour iron and crack the process for enamelling a different material. My work was poured alongside 600 pounds of iron by CSG BA Sculpture department….

 

 

in exchange for a few beers,

The moulds poured more or less fine with a few air pockets that I have managed to fill with industrial iron undercoat which is very forgiving.

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My results vary in success and my kitchen has had to double as a studio which has brought all attempts at cooking to a standstill: my family will be relieved when time runs out for that last minute firing as will the cats, guinea pig and my daughter’s tadpoles that vie for space on the kitchen table!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I continued to develop my coal mining theme but work has become more abstract because of exploring layering through multiple firings. I  wondered if any of you have also had no time to reflect on a new body of creative thought and physical endeavor? This show has been instrumental in keeping my practice focused on enamel and I have some important ideas about how to arrange my ‘dream’ studio next year – and navigate part time work!

I wish everyone great success for the exhibition, Cath


Catherine Fairgrieve

Catherine works across discipline boundaries, excited by the potential of combining traditional processes with new technologies. She is an artist and educator, and lives in Wales.

Heat Exchange 1

making a start

Heat Exchange presents a moment of significant change in my practice as I start to address a different working environment and routine, and I am fascinated to hear how others of you have navigated the upheaval of changing studios.

In recent years I have commandeered a big kitchen table for drawing, and chaotically processed work on the attic floor and back yard. My choice of materials and processes has always followed concept and I defined myself as a fine artist distracted by a teaching job. Eventually I resolved my work-life balance by going back to college to study an MA. During this intense period I explored many new processes including enamel and most importantly identified myself as a ‘maker’: an applied artist using drawing with objects. So I realised a context for my work but now need a different studio fit for purpose.

Today I am once again constrained by my day job, trying to juggle teaching with exhibitions and grant applications. I have learnt that risk-taking is necessary for inspiration: this exhibition acts as a trigger for change, a transference activity to instigate a new approach to work and lifestyle.

This holiday I finally found time to instigate my project by working at college in lieu of a personal studio

Here are some photos of work in progress: I have taken old mining artefacts as forms for sand casting – piece moulds are made using sand hardened with carbon-dioxide. To complete the sand-surface in preparation for molten iron it is ignited with a solution of graphite powder in alcohol. I like the fact that several heat exchanges occur throughout my project during mould making, melting of iron, and enamel application, and through transference the replicated objects are rendered dysfunctional to become vehicles for reverie…

with best wishes for the New Year, Cath

Catherine Fairgrieve

Catherine works across discipline boundaries, excited by the potential of combining traditional processes with new technologies. She is an artist and educator, and lives in Wales.

Heat Exchange 1

an exploratory approach to enamel on iron…

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hello fellow heat exchangers,

my name is Cath and I recently completed an MA at UWE where I met Elizabeth Turrell. Her enthusiasm for enamel led me to experiment on steel as a drawing substrate and consequently I became fascinated in applying enamel to found objects.

I am currently researching coal-industries within Wales, exploring a means of translating and recoding history to relate a duality between terrible working conditions in a coal-pit with the solidarity of social communities. I am motivated by a sense of mortality positioned in the moment, the power of ordinary objects to convey a sense of humanity, and notions of morality within shifting, ideological perspectives.

In making cast-iron replicas of utilitarian mining-artefacts I hope to simultaneously create an illusion of authenticity with sculptural solidity – like a paperweight, to hold firm or make resilient a snap-shot of history. Through a remnant object I want to capture the implication  of what was there seen through what remains. The heavy material acts as a metaphor for weight of subject matter, giving the impression of permanence to a forgotten industry.

Through my experimentation with enamel I have had some partial success using decals to apply documentary photographs to the 3d cast objects. But I have also discovered infinite technical problems resulting from the porous nature of iron and defects in the material I have access to: my inability to solve these problems has resulted in an interest to take advantage of them: I hope to use this Heat Exchange opportunity to develop a more exploratory approach to enamel on iron, to embrace the learning possibilities of a dialogue exchange.

I am so excited to participate and very nervous about my limited time. This opportunity is particularly significant to me because it holds my focus on enamel processes and demonstrates my need to create a new studio environment. I look forward to hearing how everyone’s response to Heat Exchange unfolds…

Catherine Fairgrieve

Catherine works across discipline boundaries, excited by the potential of combining traditional processes with new technologies. She is an artist and educator, and lives in Wales.