Red Studio development

We were awarded an a-n Review bursary 2015/16 to facilitate four professional critique meetings to reflect on Obscure Secure and develop our ideas towards Red Studio Enquiry. These meetings took place over an eight month period with Valerie Sinason, Martha Fleming, Rebecca Fortnum and Jennifer Higgie.

Links to a-n blog posts

Post 1         https://www.a-n.co.uk/blogs/obscure-secure-review-bursary

Post 2         https://www.a-n.co.uk/blogs/they-didnt-know-where-it-was-anymore-basically

Post 3         https://www.a-n.co.uk/blogs/they-so-need-content

Post 4         https://www.a-n.co.uk/blogs/a-n-review-meeting-with-rebecca-fortnum

Research presented at the Red Studio Enquiry Residency

We sourced several publications on Mary Potter, including her son Julian’s biography of her, and catalogues for exhibitions of her work at the Serpentine, Oriel Mostyn and Thompson’s galleries.  We visited the Red House in Aldeburgh, Southampton City Art Gallery and Norwich Castle Museum to see the Mary Potter work in their collections and meet the curators. At the Red House we also explored archive material such as letters between Mary Potter and Benjamin Britten, photographs and Aldeburgh Festival brochures she contributed to.

Mary Potter exhibition catalogue at the Red House

At The Minories in Colchester we were given access to the Victor Batte-Lay Foundation archive which included material on Mary Potter such as exhibition cards and newspaper cuttings of reviews for solo and group shows Mary Potter was included in during the 1960’s.

Red Studio Enquiry

Following meetings with the Red House, The Minories and Firstsite and communication with Mary Potter’s family we concluded to pursue our research via a residency in Mary Potter’s purpose-built house and studio at the Red House. This would give us a deeper experience of her work, an opportunity to focus on our own practice and time to develop our ideas through opportunities to engage with the public. This culminated in an Arts Council research and development grant.

The residency was divided into a week each for us alone and a final collaborative week. Each of us responded differently to the location, conducting our research in a variety of ways: documenting the building and location; walking the area; spending time with her work; making observational work and preliminary sketches and holding sessions open to the public. During our collaborative week we walked; visited the Britten Pears Archive to see Mary Potter works on paper and met a friend of Mary’s who told us about her impasto technique. On our final day we created an installation, engaging people in our research and ideas and making them visual through a display of material, publications and some of our work in progress.

Red Studio Conversations

A follow up event at Christchurch Mansion was an opportunity to communicate our research and bring in other relevant speakers / artists to open up ideas and explore connections around the themes of gender, place and working with collections. To plan the event we met with Curator Emma Roodhouse. We also had a preparatory meeting with Amy Budd, Deputy Director of Raven Row, and conversations with The Drawing Exchange, art historian Dr Mandy Bentley and Martha Fleming.