The ArtSpark Archive
The ArtSpark Archive
Twenty-five years of creative exploration, art projects and community participation
Twenty-five years of creative exploration, art projects and community participation
Embedded Files
Please feel free to rummage around in the vaults to see what you can find to enjoy and maybe inspire.
Our specialism was working in new and interesting ways with people and communities in public settings using art as the catalyst.
Times change, and we are now focused on individual artistic practices but always with a keen eye on creativity that; nurtures, encourages and transforms.
Thanks for looking
Selected projects
Selected projects
Knitted Zebra Crossing
The life sized Zebra crossing was knitted from recycled plastic bags by Julia Warin and Sara-Jane Webster, with the help of 38 knitters and cutters over 9 months.
The inauguration was in Bradford on Avon town centre during the Arts Festival with Councillors, makers and festival organisers being the first to safely cross followed by the Festival procession.
This is the first of many outings for the zebra crossing at events in the town and further afield.
Available for hire.
Email Julia: juliaartscool@btinternet.com
Erosion Zone
"Hilarious, witty, pretty, thought provoking and more"
Taking coastal erosion as the theme, artists Jeff Pigott and Julia Warin have set out to explore the issues, misunderstandings and fascinating geological science that makes the Jurassic Coast so unique and beautiful.
Their approach is to represent the point where people and landscape meet and the relationship that then develops as a result. What we see, encounter, walk on, are at risk from and are inspired by has been formed over hundreds of millions of years. It is not fixed in time, but in a constant state of change and flux – made evident by the extreme storms, floods and coastal change witnessed this past winter (2013-14).
Erosion Zone replicates seemingly familiar products, advertising, marketing and the popular media to present an important message - that we cannot own, control or stop nature - or turn it into neat packaged commercial products. We have to learn to live with a changing landscape and embrace the opportunities that this offers us. As individuals we need to form our own personal and unique relationship with the natural environment and come to realise that erosion is the process by which the land is formed and how it continues to evolve.
Exploring Erosion was commissioned by the Jurassic Coast Trust with funds from Arts Council England (Lottery) and also supported by West Dorset District Council and Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The project was managed by Bridport Arts Centre on behalf of the Dorset Arts Trust, with support from Dorset County Council.
DIY Fracking Kit
In this box is everything you will need to start your own personal drilling and fracking operation. (Access to a power supply is required).
Note: Drilling and shale gas extraction uses a lot of electricity. Experience has demonstrated that using someone else's supply is sensible in order to avoid a diminished financial benefit from your project. The manufacturers take no responsibility for any incidental side effects related to the use of this product:
earthquakes, tremors, subsidence, explosion, fire, air-contamination, water pollution, reduction of ozone layer, injured kittens, lost children, neighbourhood disputes and noise pollution. Take care using explosives and chemicals – they can be harmful to your health. Damage to sewers, utility pipes, cables, wires and ducting is best avoided. In the unlikely event of an accident the manufactures accept no liability – and you should do the same.
Drill not supplied. Gas storage facility not supplied. Check contents of the box carefully before assembly. There are lots of small bits to swallow should you want to.
Personal safety: Wear some clothes when operating the equipment. Flip-flops should preferably have steel toe-caps. Avoid smoking if you find gas. Don't drink more than 14 units of alcohol during operation of this kit. Protect puppies from loud noises.
The Art Supermarket
An artist led initiative, transforming the Ale and Porter Gallery in Bradford on Avon into an art supermarket with display aisles running the length of the gallery, a check-out counter and customer services desk.
Special offers, fresh produce, art recycling bins, shopping trolleys, the a-mart jingle, plus an 'Own Brand' range of art multiples.
a-mart opened in November 2004 and was an annual event programmed for the Christmas period to show the work of artists from around the UK and abroad . The art supermarket was devised by Fiona Haser and Ale and Porter Arts in collaboration with ArtSpark.
Original a-mart team:
Caron Elgey, Fiona Haser, Jeff Pigott, Julia Warin
Kiosk
Kiosk has evolved into its present form over several years, and is effectively the result of the recycling of our own artworks into a new entity.
Our first experiments with the genre of packaging and marketing as a means of creative expression came during a Year of the Artist Residency, when sea-side shopping and beach combing inspired us to make "souvenirs" and "inter-active art kits" for the show Journeys to the Edge.
Our fascination with the kitsch, mass-produced, impersonal detritus of the gift shop, contrasted with the wide open beauty of the shore. The mysteries of chance finds and washed up debris made beautiful by the elements were treated as special and became our souvenirs and memories of that moment.
Those first explorations led to both idiosyncratic, multiple souvenirs and one-off special finds, raised to iconic status in niches and frames – questioning the power of an object to hold a memory. It also led to our first installation of retail display stands as gallery exhibits and the first confused viewers trying to grasp the concept of a sales display which is not for sale.
Later, we revisited this theme, when the failure of town-planners to see the benefit of a temporary public sculpture, gave us the opportunity to work within an empty shop window instead. Briefed to highlight waste and recycling issues, we returned to the source of much household waste - the advertisers, designers and manufacturers of the product packaging which seduces us all into our purchases
Objects of Desire
Objects of Desire was born and became a high street shop window installation made almost entirely of recycled materials. In showing that we can literally re-package rubbish to become a desirable object we ridicule our gullibility in a market-led culture. Our role in this is not to preach or blame, for we are all vulnerable to falling for the glamour and illusion of the marketers and image-makers. As artists we paint out and question the anomalies, but we laugh at ourselves alongside the viewer.
"One small step" Space Mission
Rocket
Height - 4.6 metres
Base width - 3 metres
Materials – recycled metal, cardboard, paint, paper, found objects, wood, imagination.
Astronauts – 2 m and 1.4m tall
Materials, recycled wood, tents, pillows, paint tins and found materials.
Artists/tech - Julia Warin, Jeff Pigott, Keith Wright, Holly Pigott, Karen Pigott
Brief – to create a spectacular object to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the moon landings as a centrepiece for a marquee at a County Show.
Research – NASA rocket and moon lander images, footage and recollections. Collected designs, imagery and music circa 1969. Sci fi, fantasy and comic book imagery.
Construction method - Wallace and Grommit, in ”A Grand Day Out". The deconstructivism of Ikea. Looking at collected, found and leftover materials on the studio floor.
Journeys to the Edge
Two artists and a writer embarked on a creative journey, exploring the common urge to travel to the sea. Using the train service that runs from Bristol through Bradford on Avon to Weymouth, they travelled to the edge of their country. The result, presented here, is a collection of objects and artefacts gathered by the artists, plus their responses in words, photographs, paintings, sculptures and ceramics to the journeys they made.
Members of the public were invited to contribute their impressions and memories of the sea, and their responses to the exhibition by creating a poem on a magnetic board, or writing and making a beach flag.
Jean Edmiston, Jeff Pigott and Julia Warin
Golden Valley Nature Reserve
Golden Valley is located in the village of Wick in South Gloucestershire. Much of the reserve is the site of a former ochre mine and processing works, but now only traces of its former history exist as the wildlife has returned.
ArtSpark worked with local residents to design, fabricate and install a range of artworks and outdoor furniture, using local materials and reflecting some of the industrial heritage of the site. Concrete for the seat bases was coloured with re-claimed ochre and cast in purpose made moulds, and the seat tops cut from green oak from the Forest of Avon.
We worked with local school children to make ceramic leaves and mosaics, using gravel from the nearby quarry, and the youth group shot a video with artist, Jackie Calderwood, about the bike trails around the reserve.
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