8:55am Friday 11th April 2008
Visitors to the Taking Space exhibition that has just opened at the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro will be rewarded with a wide variety of works from the thirteen women artists who make up the art collective.
The eclectic mix includes a ceramic dog that looks so real you feel you want to stroke it, paintings of different styles, subjects and textures and an interesting site-specific installation that looks at the damage plastic bags and other rubbish is doing to our environment.
I normally put oil paintings into exhibitions but this time I decided to do an installation on a very topical theme,' said Sonia Sjoholm, from Wendron, who has been with Taking Space' for two years. I've made pebbles out of plastic and other jetsam I found on the beach. The piece is entitled Sign of Things to Come.' Seventy nine year old Helen Savage, from Falmouth, only started sculpting when she was sixty, after doing a week long stone carving residential course in Wales. Almost twenty years on, she is still producing beautiful ceramic sculptures at the adult education class she has been attending in Penzance for the last seven years. As well as Hound Dog' which was attracting a good deal of interest at the exhibition's private view, she has also got Papuan Dude' and Looking', a female nude, on display.
I always wanted to do stone carving but didn't start until relatively late in life,' said Helen. After a few years I had to stop using stone because it was too heavy for me so now I make ceramics. I sell quite a lot - particularly my animal pieces.
Having an interest keeps you going. Someone else in the class I go to is 85 so I'm not the oldest and there are people there who have been coming for 40 years. I joined Taking Space' about three years ago.' Elizabeth Lees, from St Agnes, who paints under the name of E J Lees, has two paintings in the exhibition which look at different aspects of water. Badaidh' depicts a Scottish loch and Aquarium 4' features fish swimming in a tank. She has also been with the collective for three years.
Artists can be quite selfish and isolated so joining the group is a great way of meeting other women artists,' she said. We are able to pool our expertise and skills and that increases the opportunities we have to show our work.' Four generations of one family, from Helston, came along to the private view. None of the family knows anyone in the collective but Muriel Davison visits the museum regularly and is on its mailing list.
I enjoy coming to exhibitions here so when I got an invitation to this event I brought some of my family along,' she said. At two weeks old, Stewie is a little young to appreciate it but he's been very good so I think he's enjoyed himself.' Taking Space was first formed in 1993 by Mary Fletcher, Joy Elliot and Ursula Gleeson. The group meets once a month in West Cornwall.
Admission to the Royal Cornwall Museum in River Street, Truro, is free.
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