We caught up with Anne and asked her what she has been up to since leaving Leek College. She said "Since completing the Foundation Degree in Contemporary Art Practice at Leek College, I have been focusing on my family as I have had some family events to organize and support, it’s been a busy summer being ‘Mom’. Now I have the time and energy to spend on my work.

Being a member of Contemporary Mix and planning  with them to be at  the Staffordshire Art and Designers fair at the Foxlowe Arts has given me the focus I needed to get back to the thing I enjoy doing and I can escape into".

email  anne_mann@hotmail.co.uk

We thought that you might just want to know a little about what each one of the artists have been up to lately. So, we shall start with Mary who told us "Since gaining my foundation degree at Leek School of Art I have topped it up to a BA(Hons) in Art and Design and continued to stitch my textile panels.  I will carry on organising one day workshops and exhibiting with Contemporary Mix."

Mary produces the most amazing stitched pieces of artwork using a broad range of materials and techniques. If you want to find out more about her workshops or would just like to ask her a question, her email address is maryworwood@btinternet.com

Fabulous News!
5 members of the Contemporary Mix group will be exhibiting their latest work at the Foxlowe in Leek at the second Staffordshire Artist and Designer Fair Saturday 30th Nov and Sunday 1st Dec 2013 10am - pm

Mary Worwood - Textiles
Sue Gledhill - Mixed Media
Anne Mann - Photography
Suzanne Pearson - Mixed Media
Joanne Reay - Mixed Media
There will be original pieces alongside Fine Art (Giclee) Prints and Greetings Cards for sale. What a great opportunity to purchase something special as an unique Christmas present.

Stephen Hodgetts
Local photographer Stephen Hodgetts is showing a collection of his black and
white images these are in the form of abstract studies of architecture and still
life.
Stephen has been working in black and white for over twenty years and has a
particular interest in producing creative images using the affect of monochrome
to emphasise shape and form. His work has been published in international
photography magazines as well as being invited to talk to the Royal Photography
Sociality about his work.
Stephen explains his approach to photography as “A photographic image is made
up of many elements, it’s up to the individual to interpret the elements and
produce the final image as seen in ones “minds eye”. My work is my personnel
interpretation of what I see. Before I take a photograph I always try to
visualize what the final image may look like “
In the early 20th century The Photo-Secession movement was formed to promote
photography as a fine art. A group of photographers lead by Alfred Stieglitz
& F Holland Day held the controversial viewpoint that what was significant
about a photograph was not what was in front of the camera but the manipulation
of the image by the photographer.

Jon Braley
Jon, who grew up on Leek’s Hargate Estate, studied at Leek College before
studying BA (Hons) Fine Art at University Derby and then gaining an MA in
European Fine Art at Winchester School of Art.
Jon Braley’s paintings are about how we relate to nature in an urban,
technological age. The more we live in cities and cocoon ourselves from the
natural world, the more we become separated from it. In the process, ‘nature’
seems to have become like a commodity or consumable idea that we have come to
see as separate from ourselves. Like ancient myth or legend, the natural world
has managed to become something romanticised but distant: an essential part of
our identity that we nevertheless have increasing trouble reconnecting with.
Jon is a successful modern artist living and working in London last year he
was amongst just 45 artists showing their work at the prestige’s Walker Art
Gallery.

Josh Howard
Josh prefers painting on the large scale and is currently using landscape as
inspiration for his work and is increasingly drawn to more abstraction. He says
of his work ‘my paintings all develop differently although it is the experiment
with paint in the initial stages that decides the tenor of the final piece’. In
many of his pieces previous paintings can be seen under the final stages as the
colour is built up.
Josh Howard is currently studying Art and Design at Leek College. Josh won
joint 1st prize in the 2D/3D category at this year’s Staffordshire Moorlands
Open Art Exhibition and 1st prize in last year’s Staffordshire Moorlands Open
Art Exhibition in the same category. His work is already in private and
corporate collections.

The 2012 Astound exhibition at the Nicholson Institute in Leek, Staffordshire opened on Saturday 26th May and attracted in excess of 250 visitors, many Italians who had visited Leek to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the twinning between Leek and Este. The exhibition consists of the current art work from all students of the Foundation Degree in Contemporary Art Practise course which is run from Leek College. Details of the 3 year part time course can be found on the Leek College website.

Meanwhile, Totally Locally Leek had organised extra stalls to run alongside the Italian Food Market and the regular market traders to include arts and crafts which will hopefully become a regular occurence. Leek College had a stall run by Celia and some First Year Foundation Degree students, Also Joanne Reay had her own stall, selling prints and cards of her work which proved to be popular.