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The Birthday Party
25 September - 21 November 2009
Flow will be celebrating its tenth birthday this September. As a tribute to its
collectors who are mainly women, flow is staging the Birthday Party exhibition
featuring twelve artists nominated by twelve passionate women collectors of
contemporary crafts.
In 1714 Joseph Addison wrote dismissively “China vessels are playthings for
women of all ages.” In nine short words he manages to dismiss both women
collectors and the porcelain they collect.
Almost three hundred years later we are little further on. Women collectors of
contemporary crafts are undervalued and attract little attention from the
media. Yet they are doing such a fantastic job of supporting artists and their
talent. We hope our exhibition will encourage others to collect contemporary
crafts and demonstrate the importance of their contribution in the art world.
The exhibition, The Birthday Party will pay homage to all the makers and their
patrons who have made the last ten years at flow very memorable and the
gallery such a success.
The artists featuring in the Birthday Party have been asked to create a place
setting for the festive table: they vary from well known ceramicists such as
Hylton Nel, based in South Africa, who is collected by Miranda Richardson to
Stuart Brockman a book binder selected by Nali Dinshaw. Dame Stephanie
Shirley, a great patron of applied artists elected the stone carver, Tom Perkins to create an interesting place setting. A great ceramic collector Sarah Griffin
has chosen Jacob van der Beugel along with Lady Frances Sorrel who has
selected the Swedish ceramist, Mia E. Göransson who takes inspiration from
nature. Cathy Giangrande has asked Jim Partridge to represent her
collection with Charmian Adams nominating the silversmith, Chien-Wei
Chang; Jean Botts who is passionate about ceramics has chosen the Kate
Malone who is designing a place setting comprising of ceramics acorns.
Lady Wrightson collects contemporary crafts from many diciplines has
selected the metal artist Ane Christensen and Lisa Von Clemm who's love for
book binding informed her choice of Angela James. Vivien Woodiwiss, an avid jewellery collector nominated the jeweller Kathie Murphy. Craig Mitchell was chosen by Julie Mcarthy who collects mainly figurative work.
In addition to the collectors' selection, flow has added a number of makers
with whom the gallery has worked in the last 10 years these include-
Julie Arkell, Stephenie Bergman, Lin Cheung, David Clarke, Marion Kane,
Hyejeong Kim, Anna Lorenz, Wiebke Meurer, Grant McCaig, Miranda
Meuilleur, Cathy Miles, Bruce Nuske, Hans Stofer, Maxine Sutton, Kaori
Tatebayashi, Simone ten Hompel, Peter Ting, Jacob van der Beugel,
Nic Webb, Hannah Woodhouse.
It is hoped that the exhibition will be followed by a book on Women Collecting
Craft who share a love of contemporary objects. It will feature twelve women,
all from different backgrounds, at home with their extensive collections of
beautiful handmade craft by makers from all over the world using very
different techniques and disciplines.
We hope that this book will inspire other people to collect fine craft and raw
attention to this sometimes neglected area of contemporary culture.
The book is the joint creative venture of Yvonna Demczynska, Director of Flow
Gallery, and Emma Crichton-Miller, a writer specialising in the arts and collecting.
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