Online resident Artist:
IMOGEN RIGDEN
OCTOBER 2024: UPDATE
I would like to share a few images and a short video of my ongoing work and give you some idea of what I’ve been doing.
This year, as usual, I’ve been learning new skills and meeting new people, face to face and virtually on Instagram, a good meeting place for artists who are working across the world from one another.
I have an account with Fibre Arts Take Two, https://www.fibreartstaketwo.com and I will always have access to the courses that I follow on the site. This works very well for me as I can study when I have time and access to the internet and can always go back to check if I’ve forgotten how to do something.
My first Fibre Arts course was Form to Freedom – Weaving for Fibre Sculpture with Harriet Goodall who is based in Australia.
I find weaving natural materials hard but also somehow calming and it fits very well with my practice generally, which is to use plants from the garden in my work.
In April while I was in Scotland I embarked on another of these courses – called Sensing Place – A Material Response, led by Debbie Lyddon, who is based in Norfolk. I worked in my studio with materials from the garden and beyond, playing with new methods and ideas.
One of the best ideas was to make a sketch book before going off to draw in the open. This preparation has become important to me and I’ve continued to do this since. Debbie Lyddon talks about recording sound in the environment and this is something that I’ve been attempting for several years now. It’s been wonderful to fill up my tool box of techniques.
I became very interested in making handmade books and decided to practice Coptic binding, which is a fine way to connect pages together securely and allows the book to open flat – a great idea for sketching. As usual in my practice I found this hard but I am determined, some might say obsessive and I’ve almost cracked it after spending five weeks in Finistère, Brittany and making books at every opportunity.
Medium: water soluble oil and ink on cradled wood panel
My studio in Wilcote is full of paintings from the 72 Microseasons of Impermanence series, some of which have been shown in the Terre Verte gallery recently.
I’m gathering my work for my next solo show, to be called Impermanence, February 11th to March 1st at the North Wall Gallery in Oxford – https://www.thenorthwall.com.
As I’ve explained I try to challenge myself with a solo show every couple of years or so and the fallow years in between are a delight because I have the freedom to play. Somehow life caught up with me this time, ideas needed to result in final pieces and the play had to stop, although never entirely in my case. I’m working on making a book to contain the 2023/24 Look Outside Project for the solo and I’m holding my breath and hoping that this works out.
I’ve noticed that there’s a pattern developing for the show.
My birthday is in February and I love this very early spring period with the increasing light and waking life. The Look Outside Project, a collaborative collection of observations of the natural world, runs from February to February.
The ancient calendar ’72 Microseasons of Impermanence’ also runs from February to February.
Flora, my imaginary muse since 2014, will appear somewhere in some guise at Impermanence. In my last solo, Wilderness Bewilderness, she was made of naturally dyed, nålebinded sheep’s wool and had her own plinth. (Nålebinding is also known as knotless netting).
As director of Urban Heritage she was behind the installation of blue plaques for wild plants in Oxford City. She was also director of the Back to Buddleia Building Deconstruction Company which encouraged the reestablishment of wild corners of land in cities.
Her main role is naturally Goddess of Spring, a tough job I should imagine.
I’ve also been leading art classes. The most recent one was for adults who didn’t believe that they could paint. It turns out that they could and it was so much fun.
Imogen, October 2024