Marged Pendrell
November 2014
When I first heard about the
Re-Take/Re-Invent project I went online to have a look at the National Museum
of Wales’s Collection. A date had been set for a visit to the museum on Dec 12th
but as it has such a big collection I decided to have a good look through at
the works that might not have been on view on that day.
I do remember going to the opening of the
new gallery in the National Museum in 2011 and being particularly excited by
the work of Richard Long –‘Blaenau Ffestiniog Circle’ that was commissioned for
this inaugural show.
However, I decided to keep an open mind
about my choice of work at this initial stage and identified the following to
focus on, in particular during my visit.
Bethan Huws-‘Boats’(2000)
Andrej Jackowski –‘Standing Train’
David Nash-‘Table with Cubes’
Rodin-‘Illusions Fallen to Earth’ and ‘The
Earth and the Moon’
All these works can be viewed on the
National Museum of Wales website.
December 2014
I enjoyed researching the above works,
which are all in my working journal, and realized there were a number of
concepts I could follow. I decided at this point to e mail Bryony Dawkes the
Partnership Projects Curator at the museum and found out that, apart from the
Rodin works I would have to arrange with her to view the Huws and the Jackowski
works as they were in storage. Both the Nash and the Long works were also in
storage but ‘off site’ so that would be difficult within the time limit. I
settled for the above two works and arranged to view these the day prior to the
group visit as I felt that I needed more than one day.
December 11th
Met with Bryony Dawkes at the NMW in
Cardiff who had kindly brought both the
Jackowski work and Bethan Huws ‘Boats’ out of storage and installed the latter
work within the store room . I was very grateful to her for doing this and
enjoyed looking at them both, in particular Bethan Huws’ work, which involved
an intricate installation process.
For
the remainder of the day I was able to, not only view all of the Rodin pieces,
which were so impressive, but allow myself to wander through all the galleries
responding to the vast collection.
December 12th
Met up with the other members of staff who
had travelled down from N.Wales and spent an excellent day, not only discussing
the project but having the opportunity to view the Contemporary Art galleries that
were, at that point, closed to the public.
I was particularly drawn to Max Ernst’s –‘Summer
Forest’ but found that I didn’t get the same response from looking at the
paintings as I did from walking amongst the Sculpture in the galleries. The
physicality of these works excited me.
There was a lot to absorb and I needed time
to reflect. I took a number of photographs and notes of my experience and
decided to let it all sift and settle.
The one constant work that stayed with me
above all else was the Richard Long –‘Blaenau Ffestiniog Circle ’which although I wasn’t able to view
this time around I was supplied with a couple of excellent images of the work
by Bryony Dawkes .I was also able to talk to her about the installation process
that is involved in such a work.
I must admit that I felt a bit guilty that
Bryony had gone to lengths to get the two requested works out of storage for me
and I might not use them. However, there were a number of ideas that came from
both and which I feel, I will return to
at some point.
Working
Process Begins
January 2015
My decision has been made. There are so
many ideas behind the Richard Long’s work- ‘Blaenau Ffestiniog Circle ‘that
excite me and which I am curious to take further.
...............continued on Marged Pendrell page
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