Adele studied Fine Art Painting at Winchester School of Art. After graduating she worked in the fine art, craft and commercial sectors before relocating to Northern Ireland in 1999. She has continued to exhibit widely in group and solo shows. She continues to work in both fine and applied arts. Her work is part of many private collections and she has been a recipient of several awards and bursaries.
Ten artists selected from the exhibitors that took part in North Down Craft Collective’s Christmas Fairs at Kylestone Nurseries are showing their work in the Graffan Gallery at Castle Espie WWT Centre this February.
I am showing my cartoon “Sanderliiing” and three little field studies. There will be paintings, watercolours, ceramics and more in what promises to be a beautiful showcase of the talent and skill of local makers.
The exhibition is open Sunday 6th – Sunday 27th February 2022, 10.30am – 5pm daily (Cafe closes at 2.30)
We will all be volunteering to steward the exhibition for a few hours each day, so there will be someone on hand to chat and answer questions across the middle of most days. Any sales can be dealt with by Castle Espie staff at reception. Entry is free to the cafe and gallery. If you want to say hello, my days and times are:
Wednesday 9th February 11am – 2pm
Thursday 17th February 11am – 2pm
Wednesday 23rd February 11am – 2pm
Keep an eye on the North Down Craft Collective social media to see who is going to be around each day.
Here is a quick run down of where you can find me and my work in the run up to Christmas this year.
The Ulster Watercolour Society’s Annual Exhibition
There are still a few days to see the Ulster Watercolour Society’s 44th exhibition at Merville House in Merville Garden Village. There are unframed works available as well as the framed pieces. I have two of each in the exhibition.
The exhibition will be open Wednesday 17th November – Sunday 28 November.
(closes at 1pm on the last day) 11am – 4pm daily (including Saturday and Sunday)
Saturday 27th November 9am – 5pm I am looking forward to being back at Kylestone Nurseries, Groomsport, for the grande finale of the North Down Craft Collective Christmas showcases. There will be 25 makers feeling festive in the glass houses where there will be plenty of space and ventilation. Bangor Ladies Choir will be serenading us at 11am, plus the nursery will have locally sourced christmas trees for sale!
Before the 27th, there is, of course, another showcase of 5 makers on 20th November. You can see which makers will be there by following the North Down Craft Collective Facebook page.
Christmas with the Creative Peninsula
Creative Peninsula Christmas Edit Pop-up Shop and Exhibition
Saturday 27 November – Friday 17 December 2021
Monday – Saturday: 10am – 4pm Late Night: Thurs 9 and Fri 10 December
There will be a chance to meet some of the makers, though, as we are all volunteering to man the show in Ards Arts Centre. If you want to come and say hello , here are the dates and times that I will be there:
Tuesday 30th November 1pm – 4pm Friday 10th December 6pm – 9pm Tuesday 14th December 10am – 1pm
North Down Museum Christmas Made in AND
Wednesday 24 November 2021 – Sunday 2 January 2022
Museum opening times: Tuesday -Saturday 10am-4:00pm, Sundays 12noon-4:00pm, Closed on Mondays.
I am just back from a very enjoyable trip to Scotland. I was there to deliver work to the very lovely Waterston House Gallery, at the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club. the show is called “Wild Moments”. I am showing pieces from my graphic story “Shearwater” as well as some other wildlife cartoons. “Shearwater” was originally inspired by taking part in the Copeland Art Project, Funded by Ards and North Down Borough Council. 12 artists travelled to the Copeland Bird observatory, spending a weekend there before creating exhibitions in response. We were all astounded by the experience of seeing and hearing Shearwaters return to their burrows under cover of darkness.
In 2020 I was lucky to receive a bursary, again from Ards and North Down Borough Council, for a one week stay at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. Here I worked on the Shearwater project, developing the story and planning the 42 pages which I later created for this exhibition.
The show is a 3 person exhibition and also features work from Melanie Mascharenas and Lorna Hamilton. Each of us, as well as being inspired by wildlife, has an element of storytelling in our work. We have also all been recipients of bursaries from the Society of Wildlife Artists to attend the John Busby Seabird Drawing course run at Dunbar, just along the coast from Waterston House.
Work by Lorna Hamilton
Work by Melanie Mascarenhas
North Down Craft Collective return to Kylestone with maker Showcases
Closer to home, you can find me at Kylestone Nursaries, Groomsport, on 16th October for a maker showcase. These showcases were originally introduced last year by North Down Craft Collective to enable their members to trade in the restricted conditions of the pandemic while their usual hall in Holywood was out of use. And this year they are back! Each Saturday in the run up to Christmas a selection of NDCC members and friends will showcase their work in a series of mini pop ups. All being well a larger Christmas market will take place on 27 November. If you are local, do try and get down to support your local creative businesses! you can see which makers are appearing each week by following the North Down Craft Collective Facebook page.
And yet more travels…
Towards the end of October I will be on the road again, this time to Waterford to take part in “Imaginings, A Showcase of Ideas”. I will be presenting “Catalan Butterflies” in collaboration with the poet, Laurence O’Dwyer. Our collaboration arose out of conversations while at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in 2020, and in 2021, Laurence contacted me to ask if I would be interested in creating paper objects in response to his series of poems inspired by Catalan butterflies and his travels in the Pyrenees. I was, of course, delighted. The Imagine Festival has kindly awarded us a small grant to present this work in development to an audience on 22 October at the Garter Lane Theatre. We will present along with 2 other collaborative groups. I am very much looking forward to the trip and the evening which will be a new and challenging departure for me and for my paper art work.
Here is a little preview of “Arlequi” – one of the works I will be showing.
After being scuppered in 2020 by a certain pandemic, its great to have the Creative Peninsula Art and Craft Festival make a return for its 20th anniversary. I’ll be taking part in a number of events – read on for details of these. For a complete listing of all the events taking place across the borough of Ards and North Down, check out the Creative Peninsula website.
The Creative Peninsula is also part of August Craft Month, a month long celebration of all things craft across Northern Ireland. August Craft Month did take place last year in virtual form, but this year, its 15th, it will be wonderful for artists and audiences alike to have face to face events once again. Listings for all the events can be found on the Craft NI website. Here are Katherine McDonald, Craft NI Director, and Suzanne Lyle from the Arts Council NI talking about this years August Craft Month:
— Arts Council of Northern Ireland (@ArtsCouncilNI) July 23, 2021
New Makers Directory Listing
Craft NI also has its new Makers Directory up and running. Makers from across Northern Ireland are gradually populating their profiles so the directory will continue to grow. I have just completed my profile which you can view here
For the month of August two Creative Peninsula exhibitions will run which showcase the work of makers and artists from across the borough of Ards and North Down. I have submitted one piece to each show. This year I have chosen to showcase my insect field drawings. These were made in the garden at home and were my response to being unable to make my usual field trips due to the travel restrictions imposed during the first wave of Covid.
As always events will kick of with the an Art and Craft village appearing in Conway Square, Newtownards! this year, for everyone’s safety, a one way system, hand sanitizer stations and careful control of numbers will be in operation. I will also have hand sanitizers at my stall for anyone who requires them.
The event will take place this coming Friday, 30th July, from 11am to 5pm. I will be there with cards, prints, paper birds and original art for you to peruse!
it is always a pleasure to take part in this event which has a relaxed Sunday afternoon vibe enjoyed by makers and visitors alike. Enjoy a coffee from the Coffee Cure at North Down Museum and watch free demos from a range of artists and craft makers. There will be a chance to have a go yourself in some cases. I will be making my paper birds and will also have some free versions to colour in and make. the full list of artists and times can be found on the Creative Peninsula website:
This year I am also delivering my “Drawing a Moving Object” workshop, featuring the famous revolving sheep skull! Although, if the weather is nice we might venture out to the square in search of pigeons!
The workshop is on Wednesday 4th August from 10 am to 1pm. You can find out more and book a place on the Creative Peninsula website
This has been a great project to take part in and we are all nearing the point where we can offer our kits for sale. Generous friends and family are currently beavering away trying to make the kits we have given them. We await their verdicts and feed back with trepidation!
To celebrate our efforts and the successful completion of the project there will be an exhibition at Top Floor Art in Saintfield where you will be able to see and hopefully buy all the kits that have been created.
Details for the Exhibition and meet the maker events at Top Floor Art can be found in the August Craft Month listings.
I am very excited to be taking part in this great local initiative from Emma Whitehead and Top Floor Art. The project is supporting 17 artists to develop what they do into a craft kit. Some of the kits will be designed for sale and some for supplying community groups. Each artist has received a small materials grant. There is also a mutually supportive facebook group where we are discussing our kits and asking for advice and ideas. I am hoping to develop the famous Bob the Robin into a kit.
Besides developing our kits for sale, We will celebrate the project with an Exhibition at Top Floor Art in Saintfield in August.
Alongside the challenge, there is a crowd funding campaign to raise further funds to support the project. You can see a video about the project at Go Fund Me. Yours truly features briefly! www.gofundme.com/f/The-Great-Kit-Challenge-2021
My ant drawings are now live in The Wild Things virtual postcard exhibition on the Beach Gallery, Orkney’s website. Everything is postcard sized and everything is £25. All the pieces can be seen in their online shop:
The exhibition also got a mention on BBC Radio Orkney just before it opened. Here is the blog that Carolyn, the gallery owner, wrote about the experience. follow the link there to hear the recording and a very lovely Scottish accent in the form of the interviewer, Cameron!
In between developing a Bob kit, I have been busy making my lockdown vector drawings into new cards. Here are some of my new designs. In addition to single cards, I have created two new packs of five – “Scottish Wildcat” and “Rivers and Lakes”. Hopefully I will be out and about in person with them this summer, but in the meantime you can buy from:
Its been all about the ants in my house! With lockdowns still continuing, I’ve been making field trips, armed with my magnifying glass, to our polytunnel in search of beasties to draw. When you get up close, ants are magnificent beasties. they are such a rich, dark red-brown-almost-black colour, like tiny pieces of articulated mahogany walking about and so shiny I could see my shape reflected on their backs. I brought them some cake one day which they seemed to enjoy, though there was a fight at one point. Too much sugar so early in the season maybe? I broke it up with a grass stalk and they soon forgot about it and got back to business.
Wild Things at the Beach
Three of my ant drawings have already been sent off to the Beach Gallery on Hoy in Orkney. They will be part of the “Wild Things” postcard exhibition which will run on their website from May to September 2021. The gallery hosted an exhibition of my work a couple of years ago and, although I was unable to visit, I had great fun creating videos to compliment art classes being run in the gallery and getting thank you videos back from the participants! I was delighted to get the chance to be involved with the gallery again. All the pieces in the exhibition are postcard sized and all are priced at £25.00. Check out their website to browse all the pieces submitted and their facebook page for news of new pieces arriving:
Yet more ants are also in Kilmood Art Club’s latest virtual exhibition “New Beginnings” now showing on our facebook and website. The club has been unable to meet for over a year but the committee has made great efforts to keep activities for members going. this is our 5th online exhibition and it is great to see members the engaging so enthusiastically with over 40 entries. In addition to exhibitions we have been meeting by zoom for painting nights and for art demos from artists. We have even done an online life drawing class thanks to Boom Studios in Bangor! Here are the links where you can see the new exhibition:
I am delighted to once again be taking part in the lovely Exhibition Wildlife art, albeit virtually, this Summer. There are high hopes that the physical show can take place again this year at Gordale Garden Centre, but there will also be an online gallery available for browsing and purchasing. With all the uncertainty around travel, this is the option I have chosen. I’ll be posting again nearer the time when I have chosen and uploaded my images. You never know, I might just send them some ants!
Welcome to my new website, I hope you like what you see! You would probably be surprised if you knew how much procrastination, confusion, indecision and general brain hurtyness has gone into the outrageously long time it has taken to put these four small pages together! but here it is at last. I am excited and slightly intimidated to now have a proper blog page. I will use it for news and events and any other musings that seem appropriate. hopefully it will be a chance to show you a bit more of what I get up to behind the scenes and the ideas and projects I have on the go. In the mean time I hope you enjoy reading a bit about me and looking at a selection of my work.
I am grateful to the Arts Council NI and the Department for Communities for awarding me a grant back in October under the individual Emergency Resilience Program which was set up in response to the widespread financial difficulties being felt in the arts in Northern Ireland as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The grant has enabled me to survive the new lockdowns we are now in and finally focus my mind on making this site and producing work, as well as giving me a much needed respite from stressing about my finances.
Lockdown Lookbook
As you might imagine there isn’t a whole lot of news to tell you just now. I am, however, included in this lovely virtual catalogue of local makers the “Lockdown Lookbook”. I has been put together by the brilliant folk from the Fine and Dandy market as a way to support their regular stall holders while the markets are not allowed. It is available now to peruse on ISSUU. Do have a look and support your local makers if you can. You can also see the promotions for all the makers taking part by following the Fine and Dandy Facebook page.
2020 was definitely the year that never was, here’s hoping 2021 has something better to show us!
