September 2023, Newsletter
Posted on Sep 13, 2023September 2023
Did you notice it? The summer!
What a dismal time it’s been weather wise.
Hope you’ve all made the most of the recent good spell
Thank goodness we had a decent day for our trip to Patchings back in July. Don’t know about the rest of you but I thought there was less there this year. Maybe it was the different layout that gave me that impression. Anyone know of any other Art Festivals we could try? Let us know.
Website
The WSA website is undergoing a much-needed rejuvenation. If you take a look, you’ll see that you can complete or download membership forms and pay via the site. Any events will also be made available and payable by this method, via cards at meetings or, bank transfer. You will also be receiving the submission form and details for the annual exhibition via email and have the option to pay for submissions via the web or at the monthly meeting. Acceptance/rejection forms will be emailed back rather than posted to all members who have email addresses.
Demonstrations and Workshops.
I can’t comment on the last demonstration as I wasn’t there but previous ones by Jenny O’Leary and Steve Woodhams certainly inspired many of you. So much so we were asked to set up workshops with the two artists. This we did, but the response from members was very disappointing. The Jenny O’Leary workshop had to be cancelled as only four members signed up for it and Steve ran his with far fewer participants than expected.
The life- drawing class was also cancelled due to lack of support, we are puzzled as to the lack of support for such events, especially as they had been requested. Are they at the wrong time of day or even the wrong time of year? Is the venue wrong? Are the too expensive?
If It’s the last reason there is little we can do about that as the artists and venues have their costs. The time of day/year and venue can be reconsidered. We need you to tell us.
We would very much like you to tell us what type of events you would like us to try to organise. These can be demonstrations, workshops, days out etc. Tell us at the next meeting or, via the comments box on the website.
September demo.
The demonstrator at this month’s meet will be Portrait and Landscape Artist, Martyn Harris ARBSA.
‘Martyn has 40 years experience as a painter and has gained recognition for his landscape and portraiture work. His style is inspired direct from the natural world representing life with expressive brush work and texture always empathetic with the subject.
As a young artist he was introduced to W R Jennings a respected international landscape artist who agreed to mentor and developed his style of painting.
A resident artist at The Art Yard and an Associate of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA) a member of the Birmingham Art Circle. He has exhibited at the prestigious Royal Society of Portrait Painters at the Mall Galleries, the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists a Winner of “The Smallwood Architects Prize” for contextual Portraiture at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 2023.
Martyn exhibits through independent galleries and has work in private collections in the UK and overseas.’
October, we have a different monthly event. Mark Jackman from Jackman’s Art Materials will be bringing along some of their products for us to try. That should be interesting.
November, the last demonstrator of the year will be Wayne Attwood. Wayne has visited us before so we know it should be a good evening’s demonstration.
Exhibitions
Himley
Our first of two exhibitions at Himley this year, ‘Created Opportunities’, was delivered and hung successfully (despite my time cock-up notification!!!) Viewing ends on Sunday 17th September. The second exhibition should be ready to view from Wednesday 20th September. THIS EXHIBITION HAS NOW BEEN EXTENDED UNTILL SUNDAY 19TH NOVEMBER. EXHIBITORS PLEASE NOTE THAT COLLECTION DAY IS NOW MONDAY 20TH NOVEMBER 10-12AM. (see emails).
It would be good to know that members and friends have supported their fellow members by going along to view the exhibitions. I know it’s quite a journey to get there but it’s worth it. The hall, once the family home to the Earls of Dudley, is quite an impressive building set amongst 180 acres of ‘Capability’ Brown landscaped parkland so you could have a good mooch around, do some sketching/painting (or not!) and treat yourself to a drink, a light lunch, and sweet treats in the South Wing Coffee Lounge next to the gallery. There are two spacious indoor seating areas, including a dog friendly room. It’s open 7 days a week, 9.30am – 4.00pm. If you do go, please give us some feed-back about the exhibitions.
On leaving Himley after the first delivery of exhibition works Simon, Elizabeth and myself had a detour to visit and industrial estate in Willenhall to find a maker of artists canvases.
HM Canvases Ltd can be found at Unit 20, Watery Lane Industrial Estate , Willenhall, WV13 3SU
The canvases are expensive but they are of exceptional quality. Simon had one on display at the ‘4 Artists Painting’ evening. He thinks that if you wanted to do a special painting, a canvas from there would be well worth the expense. Members of Walsall Society of Artists would get a 10% discount. Look them up.
Artists Canvases Made to Measure
Friendly Professional Service | Canvases, Stretcher Frames & Painting Panels made to your requirements | Wide choice of Fabrics & Stretchers | Free Delivery and Multibuy Discounts Available | Visit Our Website to Find Out More https://www.hmcanvases.co.uk
WSA Annual Exhibition (73rd)
This year our annual exhibition at the New Art Gallery Walsall will be on from 15th December 2023 through to 18th February 2024, a little bit later than usual.
Changes have been made to the number and types or works that can be submitted so when you receive the forms, please read them carefully.
Due to price rises we have needed to increase the submission fee to £4 per work.
Remember, you must be a fully paid- up member of the society to submit works.
Details, schedule, submission form out shortly.
The Crossing, Walsall
The Crossings in Walsall, near the bus station, is undergoing some form of refurbishment. The new Chair of the Board, who is very keen to promote creativity in the town, contacted the society asking if we would become involved. This was an offer not to be turned down as the venue is in the centre of the town. WSA’s committee, in conjunction with Walsall Poets, will launch a new programme at The Crossing with an exhibition and poetry reading, on Thursday 21st September. There will also be a demo day on Saturday 23rd. The exhibition will last until Saturday 28th October. Please come along and support your society, and spread the word about it to anyone and everyone.
In the last newsletter I asked you to let me know if you were doing anything interesting during the summer. One of our members, Ramesh Mungroo, mailed me to say he would be involved with creating sand sculptures in Mauritius. He also said, ‘Perhaps one day I can organise a trip to Mauritius for members who may interested visiting the island.’
Next year perhaps, instead of Patchings!!!!!!!
We have a new addition to the issue, ‘The Chair’s Spot’, some arty information. So,
1. Read that.
2. Tell us what events/activities we should be organising and at what times.
3. Read, thoroughly, the new information about the annual exhibition.
4. Check on the website changes.
5. Start saving for Mauritius!!!!
Pam.
And all at once Summer collapsed into fall.
Oscar Wilde
The Chair’s Spot
When I joined Walsall Society of Artists about twelve years ago, the then Chairman Gordon Turner wrote a series of essays about different aspects of art, such as the Impressionists, the art of the Black Country, Surrealism and so on, each being accompanied by the inclusion of a few images. I enjoyed reading these so much that I would like to resurrect the practice for inclusion in our newsletter.
So here goes with my first attempt, hope you like it.
***
The YBAs Shocking • Celebrated • Controversial • Notorious
YBA is an acronym coined around 1994 for the Young British Artists, also referred to as Brit Artists or Britart, a group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Mostly born in the mid-1960s, many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsmiths but some trained at the Royal College of Art.
What brought them to prominence was their deliberate policy of ‘ shock tactics’, the use of throwaway materials, wild living, and an attitude both oppositional and entrepreneurial. They dominated British art in the 1990s and were initially supported by Charles Saatchi. Leading artists of the group were Damien Hurst and Tracey Emin, but many more prominent names are included such as Rachel Whiteread, Fiona Ray, Gary Hume, Jenny Saville, Sam Taylor-Wood, Mat Collishaw, to name but a few.
Staying at first with Hurst and Emin, they both produced works that, whether we love them or loath them, we cannot ignore them. They are artworks known by artists and non-artists alike, and the debate still goes on ‘Is it really art?’ I have the feeling that it will never be concluded.
’Take Damien Hurst’s ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’ 1991, which is a conceptual installation consisting of a tiger shark, glass, steel, and 5%formaldehyde solution, based on the subject of life and apparent death. 
My view is that it makes the viewer think in a way that representational artists do not think. It is there to stir emotions in the viewer, perhaps fear, as if confronted by a shark when swimming on holiday.
Emotional reactions will of course be different from each viewer, but in a speech to the RA in 2004, art critic Robert Hughes used this work as a prime example of how the international art market, at that time, was a ‘cultural obscenity’. So much for emotion, and as to the entrepreneurial attitude that I referred to earlier – did it work? It certainly did for Damien Hurst who is reportedly the UK’s richest living artist with wealth estimated at US$ 384 million in the 2020 Sunday Times Rich List. I’ll keep plodding along in hope.
On a more domestic scene Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed’ 1998 was shortlisted for the Turner Prize. It is an installation of her bed with bedroom objects in a dishevilled state, and although it did not win the prize, its notoriety has persisted, and was sold at auction by Christie’s in 2014 for £2,546,500
. 
Most of us reading this have been or still are parents of teenage children. It reminds me of the sign my daughter placed on her bedroom door – ‘My room, my mess, my problem’.
But isn’t part of the thinking behind installation art, particularly in ‘My Bed’, to conjure up memories of viewers of when they were young, or to reassure parents that all kids are the same and they will eventually mature to compliance, though some sooner than others.
In terms of portraying the human figure Jenny Saville’s approach also does much to shock, as shown in ‘Closed Contact’ 2002 (left) and ‘Branded’ 1992.
Part of her work was of monumental subjects that came from pathology textbooks that she had studied that informed her on injury, bruise, burns and deformity
Rachel Whiteread’s artworks often read like riddles. Her monumental sculptures appear at first glance as familiar architectural forms, but they lack utility, she makes rooms you can’t enter, stairs that you can’t climb, and doors you can’t open.
In 1993 Whiteread received nominations as both the best and worst artist in Brittain, but ‘House’ 1993, a temporary public sculpture cast in concrete, on Grove Road in London’s Tower Hamlets, won her the Turner Prize. None of her sculptures, however, earned her as much simultaneous praise and loathing, but at the same time this sculpture’s political dimension helped it to become a lightning rod for all kinds of public housing debates
In this brief article I have barely scratched the surface of the YBAs. And what is the significance of this bunch of British avant-garde artists labelled by this imprecise term? The Tate states suggests the label turned out to be a powerful brand recognised world wide and a useful marketing tool for the artists associated with it, and cites the YBAs’ ‘can do’ entrepreneurial approach to showing and marketing their work. I agree, but I feel that it could only be done once.
David McGuire – August 2023
Chair’s Spot