This afternoon we went to the Abingdon and Witney College Foundation Art Exhibition. It is on until Friday – up to 5pm each day. Go to reception at the Abingdon College, and they’ll give you a visitor’s badge and point you in the right direction.
There is a great diversity of works. Each piece is surrounded by sketch books to show how the artistic ideas developed. This work is called Stalking the Stalkers and is a study of bird watchers at Otmoor on the other side of Oxford.
This display was very impressive as were the sketch books. There were four screens showing images which were also captured on a framed etching above. There was movement on the screens below, like people emerging and disappearing out of the grass, that had a more sinister feel than the etchings above.
These artifacts were used by one artist in a painting – the first time I have seen a full book of green shield stamps since the 1970s. They were the sticky back equivalent of nectar points.
We did not get to see everything as in one room there was a special tea party for next year’s students. Their summer starter project is to design venetian style masks before going on a trip to Venice as part of an art field trip. It is a great course to do for anybody wanting to go on to degree level art.
The young don’t know how easy they have it – when I were a lad I had to get up at 6am to catch a series of buses to Banbury to do my art foundation course. It was great fun tho’, a bit like an adult play school – you could just experiment which was great after the A levels of the time. The quality of work looks excellent, well done and good luck for the future to everyone involved.
You had it easy, Old Ghost. We lived in a shoe.