With the Festival now a distant memory, we kick off the Spin Autumn season with a special visit to WASPS Artists Studios. This former bakery in Stockbridge houses 60 individual artists studios over three floors and features both up-and-coming and established artists. The work produced here ranges from painting, ceramics, jewellery, sculpture, photography, digital media and installation art.
Prior to the annual WASPS Open Studios Weekend (8 & 9 October), Spin has been given special access to some of the artists studios, making this an exciting opportunity for us to find out what goes on behind closed studios doors. We will also be able to explore the creative process first-hand by talking to the artists in their studio spaces.
We will be visiting Michael Craik who creates photo-real, abstract, architectural-inspired paintings; Di Hope who had a recent show at the Open Eye Gallery and creates abstract, collage paintings, Lorna Fraser, a ceramicist, is currently working on sculptural works inspired by exotic plants, Stella Auchinleck, is a figurative painter, whose work, both in terms of content and colour, is informed by her experience of living in Turkey, Shelagh Atkinson who is a printmaker and a painter, uses photography and lithography, and Gerry McGowan is a figurative painter who often works on small canvases or board. He has an eye for capturing figures going about their business where shapes of architecture and angles of light play as much part as the figures.
As well as housing the artists studios, the building also has a successful exhibition space on the ground floor, which features work by new, emerging and established artists. Over the years, Patriothall Gallery has supported hundreds of artists at varying stages in their careers and worked with the local community on many initiatives.
