Finding Solitude – an exhibition of drawings

31 January, 202431 January, 2024 | Claire

Venue:
The Coffee Stop Café, St Mary’s Market, St Helens, WA10 1AR
1st February – 30th March 2024
9am-5pm Monday – Saturday

You can also view the works in an online space if you are unable to make an in person visit to St Helens.
View the exhibition in an online space here

Claire Weetman presents a collection of drawings of chairs that invite you to sit down, but that time to rest alone is just out of reach.

This collection of pencil drawings, created by Claire in 2023 and 2024, began by thinking about how time alone either physically or mentally is difficult to achieve as a parent. Chairs are perched precariously on branches or balanced on top of a tottering tower of bins that need emptying. The chairs are inviting, you’d quite enjoy that seat for yourself, but ultimately, all of these chairs and their offer of rest are unusable.

Each chair is based on a real chair. Three of them were seen abandoned outside while walking to school with her children. Other drawings feature real chairs that have been moved to a more surreal setting to elaborate on the feeling of never being able to find time alone.

Claire started making this series of drawings during an artist residency in 2023 with Wild Rumpus and (M)other Collective, where she and a group of artist-mothers stayed in the woods for 4 days. While sitting on an old wooden dining chair in the middle of a field she read Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida. In that book he compares familiar landscapes with the maternal body. “There is no other place of which one can say with such certainty that one has already been there.” Within these drawings, Claire has aimed to capture the familiarity of a chair and to set it in a location that we feel we might have visited. But within each drawing there is some barrier, either physical or emotional, that prevents us from sitting down in peace.

Finding Solitude - never disconnected. A pencil drawing of a wooden chair in a field of long grass. A telegraph pole is visible in the distance.

Finding Solitude - precarious balance. A wooden chair with an arched back support is balanced high up in the branches of a tree.

The original drawings are available to purchase at a cost of £150 each, and prints will be available at a cost of £15 each. Please use the contact form on Claire’s website if you wish to make a purchase.

We Reside* Here

29 November, 202316 January, 2024 | Claire

As the lead artist for Artists Together – the artist development strand of work for St Helens Libraries and Arts NPO – I’ve been working on a programme of work during 2023 called Reside*

During 2023 St Helens has been the Liverpool City Region Borough of Culture, so for this creative year the programme was built around this thought:

“What if every artist who is RESIDEnt in St Helens was recognised as an artist-in-RESIDEnce for the year?”

We started the year with a pop up exhibition at The World of Glass that mapped the locations of artists around the borough and shared what they were planning on working on during the year. Following opportunities for artists to get help with funding, planning and commissions, opportunities to make work together, 1-2-1 feedback from curators and producers and chances to share ideas with each other, we have arrived at the end of the year and the production of We Reside* Here.

We Reside* Here is both a publication and exhibition that maps and showcases the work of over 60 artists in St Helens. The document features a map, illustrated by Cady Davies and with graphic design by Karen Hitchcock, that places each artist in the area of St Helens that they are based, showing our audience that artists aren’t rare beings, only to be found in the big cities of Liverpool and Manchester. These artists are our neighbours, the people you meet on the school run, the folks standing at the bus stop, and they are only a small proportion of the people who bring light, colour, stories and the joy of creativity into St Helens.

As well as mapping some of the artistic population, the We Reside* Here document provides guidance to artists. There are examples of how a number of artists are making their work, designed to provide inspiration and support to other artists seeking to develop. A list of organisations who support people’s creativity features, along with a breakdown of what the process of Reside* was during 2023, so that other artists can pick this up and make new work in the future.

The exhibition that accompanies We Reside* Here is installed at St Mary’s Market in the large event space from 25th November – 20th December. This features an installation of the map, with its cardboard-cut-out style illustrations and showcases the work of many of the 60+ artists, whilst signposting audiences to other works that exist in locations around the town.

Reside_onscreeninfopack Download

ResideMap-only Download

Artists Together and We Reside* Here is supported by

Constellations of Kindness – Thatto Heath Primary school

2 October, 202328 September, 2023 | Claire

I tested out a few new things for my Constellations of Kindness work this month. I’ve developed how the project can connect with themes within school, using a selection of prepared images to tie in with the school’s Around the World themed week. Two Y5 classes worked with me to create two globe structures that you can fit your head inside and are now installed in the school library.

Black circles of card hang in front of a window. Words are written on each card with tiny pin holes that form the letters. Fragments of words meaning peace, love, and kindness in english, polish, arabic, french and japanese can be seen.

We also took an opportunity to develop mass participation with the pin-pricking technique with 11(!) KS2 classes, which required a busy night for the Cricut machine that cuts out all the shapes. The whole of the juniors of this 3-form entry school heard the story of Hoshi and the legend of the lucky stars, before returning to class with instructions on how to make their own mini constellation of kindness. A selection of words about kindness and community were translated into the languages of the countries being studied, plus the languages spoken in school and each child was able to create their pin-pricked contribution to the community installation. The result is a window installation of approximately 300 circular constellations, all connected and suspended from each other.

A black background has drawings made of dots of light. Drawings include a happy cartoon-like frog, the Japanese flag, a silhouette of a figure holding hands and the word Japan.

One of the classes I worked with were studying Japan, and whilst hanging these, they felt like fortunes, blessings or hopes for the future that might be found in a Shinto shrine. I think there could be something in this process for when I hopefully expand the project into one with the wider community.

Thanks to Thatto Heath primary for the space to try this out.

George Groves Sound Heritage project

29 September, 202328 September, 2023 | Claire

During summer 2023 I’ve worked with Dave Bixter and Rebecca Ainsworth to deliver a project with Buzzhub St Helens. This is a collaboration where art, history, and innovation converge, in the creation of a mesmerising film that celebrates the legacy of the pioneering Hollywood sound engineer, George Groves who was born in St. Helens.

A table has artworks and sculptures laid out on a black cloth.

The creative workshops have offered Buzz Hub’s film club participants the chance to delve into experimental music-making, sound recording and editing, musical and visual collages, etching into wax disks, and the captivating world of film-making. The result? An enthralling 6-minute film that weaves together ambient and abstract sounds and visuals, all born from the very heart of these workshops. Alex, a member of Buzz Hub’s film club said, ‘I really enjoyed working with Dave, making music and putting together different sounds, it was just amazing!’

Artwork is laid out on a table, viewed from above. The artworks are circular discs with gold engravings, vinyl records and record sleeves with collaged images over them.

The project pays homage to George Groves in a way that not only honours his contributions but also ignites a spark of inspiration and creativity in the hearts of our community,” The film was unveiled during a Heritage Open Day event at St Helens Town Hall in September 2023 and can also be viewed below. Soon, some of the artefacts created during the workshops will also be on public display at Lucem House Community Cinema alongside their existing mural that marks Groves’ achievements.

This project was made possible by National Lottery Heritage Fund as part of ‘Creative Underground’, a two-year heritage project coordinated by St Helens Libraries & Archive Service.

Chester Contemporary Schools Programme

The base of a glass cabinet has small books made from paper that are printed with colourful architectural shapes and feature words including "quote, stage, performance, feel good"

28 September, 202328 September, 2023 | Claire

Chester Contemporary is a new visual arts event curated by artist Ryan Gander. For the Contemporary, international and Chester-based artists, emerging talent, and the city’s people have been invited to make and show work for Chester’s unique places and spaces, inspired by the theme ‘Centred on the Periphery’.

I’ve been working on the schools programme as part of this new festival with Mickle Trafford Village Primary School creating ‘The City Unfolds’

Chester’s city centre is characterised by its secret passageways, hidden staircases, buildings on multiple levels and interesting places to be discovered. Year 5 pupils from Mickle Trafford Village School have shared some of their favourite places and studied the architecture of the city with artist Claire Weetman to create artist-book sculptures combining paper folding techniques, printing and poetry.

A black wood framed glass cabinet is painted deep purple inside. Suspended inside are snaking shapes made from coloured paper.

Two sculptures made from coloured paper - one is arch shaped, the other like a wheel laying flat on a shelf. Reflections of the city can be seen in the glass of the cabinet that they are in.

Inspired by both Claire’s artist-book practice and Unfurled, a University of Chester exhibition at the Grosvenor Museum (which ran until 2 July), the class have explored how to use the text, images and storytelling that can be found in books. They’ve combined these book-making elements to create their own sculptural artwork that reminds us of places in the city, including Chester Cathedral, the Rows, the Walls, dance and musical performances, the sound of food being served at the new market, and their top tips for the best pancakes in Chester! Their work can be seen in the display case outside Waterstones on Eastgate Row.

Thanks to the staff and pupils of Mickle Trafford Village School, Mickle Trafford, Cheshire.

Find out more about Chester Contemporary here