Carnival celebrations and photographic creations!

Last night we opened our doors to well wishers, supporters, friends and organisers of 2 celebrated Island organisations, the Isle of wight photographer of the year group and the Ryde Carnival Centre.

As always the IWPOY have selected some breathtaking 50 finalists and we are extremely happy to have them back to display their 'wall of photography'. You can come along and see the exhibition in the cafe until monday 28 april.



Carnival Magic kicked off in the learning curve with true carnival spirit! Well done to all the students at the Carnival centre, A really great exhibition. You can come along and experience carnival magic until26 April. And just so you know, the carnival centre now has a beautiful new building in ryde and they're looking for friends to enrole, so sign up and get your dancing shoes on!

Water Feature

You know what people say about Mondays? They are right! Perhaps the best example of this is yesterday. Starting busily enough, with Shakespeare workshops for schools upstairs, dancing tots downstairs and Grant from Mozzo arriving to deliver the new coffee (see http://www.mozzo.co.uk/) but soon it was increasingly clear that all was not well with the river.

We had received various communications from the Environment Agency that there was a possibility of flooding and... they were not wrong. By lunchtime, life drawing and various other events were canceled, the cafe was shut and water was trickling into the building and threatening to pour over the quay wall and swamp the centre.

Due to some valiant work from the staff, including a daring drive by our Operations Manger Jo to Cowes to collect sandbags, which included battling hysterical grown men trying to wrench them out of her hands as she collected them! (come on guys where's your blitz spirit?) the water did come into the building at times, but we managed to avoid the worst case scenario of having to abandon ship altogether!

For more about the floods see http://www.iwcp.co.uk/News/ISLANDERS_GO_ON_FLOOD_ALERT.aspx

Chef's Review!!

Head chef Martyn has his say on the current Rope Store exhibition, Still Life by Janice Thwaites.





I understand completely what Janice is trying to achieve but she just doesn’t achieve it. The Rope Store Gallery is the wrong type of space for this exhibition, so it doesn’t achieve its purpose. It would need a lot more duvets to achieve the feeling of entrapment; the windows of the Rope Store would need to be blacked out and the duvets should be made into a corridor in order to create darkness in this space, this would give the feeling that Thwaites wishes to achieve.

Is this art? If it is why is it art? The only reason anyone has given me is because not everyone can do it. However, Thwaites hasn’t managed to achieve her goal and so it’s not art – according to this definition, it’s art because it’s here [at the Quay].

Art is the way in which a person uses their chosen medium in order to recreate the ideas which are in their head. This particular installation doesn’t do this. I challenge anyone to walk in the room without knowing the description of what is trying to be achieved and understand the artwork in front of them.

I think the space should be filled with something with the wow factor. Might I suggest that we display glassware by Amanda CP in this space.

Last night

Nearing the end of my first year, and I think I finally understand what cultural overload might be!

Last night we had the preview drinks for the Royal Watercolour Society exhibition in the Michael West Gallery at Quay Arts. For all sorts of good reasons we chose the same night to put on the Robert Mitchell and Omar Puente gig in the theatre.

Quite a few people turning up for the Robert Mitchell and Omar Puente gig were drawn unexpectedly into the exhibition preview. And these poor souls, having already succumbed to the visual feast on display, then went into a gig in which the term "virtuoso" was really put to the test.

For those who caught the Jhelisa gigs and were blown away by the fireworks wrought by her pianist (one Robert Mitchell) this was still a revelation. He had a soul mate, an alter ego in Cuban violinist Omar Puente, a musician who could match him stroke for stroke and idea for idea in a duo built on challenge, inspiration and glorious entertainment.

Needless to say, long before the end of the gig the audience was on their feet (and by the end, almost on their knees) with the joyousness of their virtuosity. I, myself, was often caught between "I'm in heaven!" and "make it stop!"

Deservedly, the duo was held to two encores and a standing ovation. I was left just feeling glad (and slightly smug) that this kind of cultural overload could be had, on (as Omar was at pains to point out "Friday night, Isle of Wight". Long may they reign! (Mick)

Quay Arts presents: Finetuned Relay exhibition

Finetuned's Relay Exhibition

Finetuned curators and Gavin Peacock and Julian Weaver present Relay. 7 newly commissioned installations and text works by artists Giles Drayton, Clare Gasson and Bernard G. Mills, writers Yve Lomax and Mo White.

This exhibition is already into its first week here at Quay Arts and has gone down a storm so far. The exhibition is based mainly on a set of simultaneous online broadcasts, avaliable to view through http://outlet.finetuned.org/ and also through screenings at the Ruskin School of Drawing, Oxford, Farnham Maltings, Surrey and here at the Quay.

The broadcasts are live throughout the day from 9am through til 9pm each day at http://outlet.finetuned.org/. For full lineup, visit www.finetuned.org.

Tangled Wood

A big Welldone from the Quay Arts team to both the students and gallery educators who worked together to create Tangled wood, an installation by medina High students, Tim Johnson and Chris Jenkins.

The magical wood was created using willow. The students created drawing and Ideas inspired by their visit to East Weaves West, our current exhibition in the Rope Store.

The Students are returning for a second workshop with artist Chris Jenkins, and will be exploring experiamental drawing.

If you have already visited tangled wood come back and see the results of the second workshop, exhibition runs till Saturday 29 September!!!

Free Quay at White Air

We took part in White Air as part of a programme of activities which took us to other places and events over the summer. We did this project as "Free Quay" in partnership with SCAN City Eye and John Cattle, all of whom did some excellent filming of tricks and extreme sports action. These were then edited into short clips, previewed on our plasma screen in the marquee and downloaded by request into people's phones via bluetooth.

Meanwhile Andy Jones of Emusport helped people create music tracks and play DJ on laptops in the marquee. All this frenzied multimedia action, as well as the wonderful chill out area, created by Lyndsay Meyer and Jo Hummel-Newell was made possible by the financial and in-kind support of White Air and Collonade Holdings , thanks guys, you really helped to make this happen.









And about those video clips... here's a taster, more to come soon

SUMMER OUTINGS AND SCHOOLS

SUMMER OUTINGS AND SCHOOLS

It already seems so far away, but we had a great summer, with outings to Art on the lawns at Northwood House in Cowes (a great event) as well as marquees at both White Air and the Bestival. These last two deserve separate posts, so that's what I'll do.

Also worth a mention is the Summer School activity, which has been happening throughout the summer. As well as our regular Arts and Crafts Summer School, this year saw the first Digital Arts, Music and Film Summer School programme which took place between July and the end of August. Please let us know what else you would like to see, as this was a first for us and something which we would like to develop more over the next year.

Also worth a post of it's own, but also a mention here, is the Wight Words season, celebrating writers and writing of all kinds. This is still on until 15th October, with a range of events and courses, see the Wight Words website for more details.

That's all for now, don't forget to post comments about any of the above, or any other aspect of Quay Arts

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