Jedburgh Abbey

During the month of February and March, an exciting artist-in-residency scheme is being piloted at Jedburgh Abbey, an Historic Scotland property. This magnificent ruin of an old monastic Abbey, is the first building that rises to greet you when you drive in over the Northumberland hills into the Scottish Borders town of Jedburgh.

This is part of a nationwide pilot scheme set up by Culture Matters. I am working together with two artists, whom I brought to this project; Rachel O’Dell and Amy Neville, both locally based artists working with glass too. All three of use are involved in the extensive outreach programme involved with this residency and we will also be creating some of our own work there too.

For my part, I will be looking at mapping; and use mapping tecnhiques and visuals to create new work inspired by the geography and location of the Abbey which I hope to have completed some time on April.

Kathleen O’Neill is the national Project Manager for this project: “The Jedburgh Abbey Project is being created to offer a bespoke learning opportunity to young people through a close relationship with Youth Borders. The work will include young people at various levels – to learn basic glass skills, to learn to educate other/ fellow young people and for some perhaps awards for achievement through working with glass on this project. The project will also include staff training for Youth Borders and Council CLD staff adding to value for sustainability and ongoing work in glass in the area.

After a whirlwind week, where I collected lots of data to now be perused, thought about and experimented with, the week long residency also took in a press conference launching the idea of the residency and creating some expectancy of the new work to emerge; the pressure is on!

Some great images and connections are emerging, so over time I hope to be able to give shape to these. On the image posted here, you can see the sections of the paper print which make up the globe which Mercator made; he left instructions…

Today however, I was in the Museum itself looking at the collection of 16th century maps, atlases and globes. I had the delightful privilege of being able to handle these 500 year objects, photograph them in detail without any interruption as I had the collection to myself with the Museum now being closed for refurbishment. I am as such very much in debt to Harry who has made this all possible.

Tomorrow there will be  press conference where this project will be introduced by the Cultural Alderman of the City Council, or in this case Alderwoman. This will make this project suddenly more tangible.

The huge resources gathered here this week; books, digital images and data and the start of conversations, will continue to take shape over the months and will result in a new body of work inspired and informed by the 16th century work of Gerard Mercator, re-interpreted in the 21st century.

]]> http://www.idagos.co.uk/mapping/mercator-museum-residency/feed/ 0 http://www.idagos.co.uk/mapping/mapping-out-the-future/ http://www.idagos.co.uk/mapping/mapping-out-the-future/#comments Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:59:08 +0000 inge http://www.idagos.co.uk/?p=1161 Well it has been a while…. Happy New Year! Whilst the year has ended all things Mercator are coming together… I spent the Christmas holiday researching the life of Gerardus Mercator, the cartographer who invented the map projection as we mostly know it today and coined the term atlas. Because of my interest in mapping, and remembering the old school maps and history lessons about the famous Flemish cartographer Mercator, I thought that would be a good place to start. When I started researching Mercator and his work, I accidentally discovered 2012 is also the 500th anniversary of his birth, an event which has not gone unnoticed of course so this year so there will be lots happening to celebrate his life and legacy. One of the events will be an international  cartographic conference, where I will be speaking about Map-i; a large mapping project, I am in the process of developing. It will kick start next week with an-artist in residency at the Mercator Museum in Sint-niklaas in Belgium, looking at the collection of 16th Century maps and globes. The Museum will of course also be celebrating this event in 2012. Taking inspiration from its collection, I am hoping to develop a personal take on these with very much a 21st century world view. This new body of work will be developed over the next two years and will hopefully be premiered in Sint-niklaas in 2013! I am very much looking forward to getting stuck into doing more research as I enjoyed writing the 5000 word paper over the festive break, and will going back in the studio later in the year to start and enjoy MAKING!  On which note, I thought you might like this clip from the V&A from their Power of Making exhibition from last year, which celebrates very much the making of things.

The ‘Christmas Fusing Frolics’ glass class took place on Sunday and had five adults and five children taking part, with Sarah and Rachel lending a much needed pair of hands in this busy class! The idea of the class was to make your own glass Christmas decorations to which the class took with gusto. The children’s imagination had no barriers and soon strange and wonderful creatures were being created; amongst the customary baubles, snowmen, Santa’s and reindeer were also robins, owls, sharks or perhaps orca’s and other wonderful creations.

The kiln was emptied today with the eager students curious to see the transformation of their glass in the heat of the kiln.

More classes will follow in the new year!

Tomorrow the idagos online shop will go live at midnight with five lines of glass jewellery; the Rhuby range has been expanded and now includes some funky rings and a round brooch.

Four brand new lines have added, which were premiered at the open-studio. The Pebble range (see picture above) proved the favourite; this will be available online tomorrow from midnight! Happy shopping.

On Sunday 20th the idagos online-shop will go live and you should be able to purchase some lovely brand new glass jewellery, of which you can see a preview in the studio sale!

More details and images to follow later in the week.

So thank you for all of you who came and joined us with a first in season glass of mulled wine, and Sarah and I look forward to more for the rest of the week.

Inge