NEWS

The 2016 AGM of BHAAM will be on Thursday November 24th at The Lamb and Flag pub in Blagdon Hill. It will be in the new function room upstairs in the newly refurbished pub at 7pm with a meal at about 8pm. We are offering an Irish stew, with dumplings, or a vegetarian option for £8 - a bargain carefully negotiated by your committee for your enjoyment.
All Members and anyone interested in joining BHAAM are welcome.

In June 2016, Bhaam members Liz Gregory and Megan Calver organised two walks on the Blackdowns in connection with the Bhaam exhibition Life in the Blackdowns, Hemyock. On each occasion, walkers participated in the production of one joint work on a long scroll of paper.

Championing small, incidental thoughts and observations, the walks emphasised the importance of process in art making and considered the widely different ways artists approach landscape and get ideas. An underlying theme proposed the creation of a sociable event, such as a walk, as an artwork itself — with authorship extended to all participants.

Liz and Megan would like to thank:
Gordon Field and Bronwen Gundry for installing artworks for walkers to discover
Heather Stallard for providing tea for walkers and Open House to view her art collection
Tim Martin for giving a talk to walkers about his practice and the Bhaam exhibition

Flock Together @ The Nissen Hut Barn, Cherry Hayes Farm, Smeatharpe EX14 9RD
Artist-led talk with Debbie Locke RWA and Sara Dudman about their collaborative practice
6-8 pm Friday 10th July 2015. £5 per person for non-members
Delicious refreshments included

This is an invitation to view the rural barn installation of paper-based works from the project and engage in an inspirational and sociable evening of discussion centring on collaboration led by the artists.
Installation also open 11 am-4 pm Saturday 11 July 2015.

For further information or to book a ticket for this event please contact BHaam: email geraldinelf@icloud.com tel: 01823 601162

A group of BHAAM Members visited the 'Faces of Conflict' Exhibition at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter on 5 February 2015. The exhibition curator gave a guided tour of the exhibition in which she highlighted the inspiration behind each of the works, and explained the process of curating this exhibition as part of the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the First World War.

Watch the film of our May 2014 play day.

BHAAM currently hold regular crit sessions for artists to present their current work for discussion.

These extremely important dialogue sessions enable artists to explore their professional practice in the company of other supportive artists

Click on the film to see the 10 'Skills unearthed' commissioned artists talking about their work

Blackdown Voices are Maxine Green and Charlie Hearnshaw. They are jazz musicians and composers who often collaborate with artists from different fields and produced this 2013 podcast in the guise of contemporary bards, traditionally poets employed to praise their patrons' exploits. With rhyme, music and sound design, the podcast tell the story of the Skills Unearthed Project. You can listen to the podcast by copying the following link below into your browser:

https://soundcloud.com/blackdown-voices/sets/the-story-of-skills-unearthed

On the 23rd Nov Emilia Telese, artist and lecturer in art and economics ran the workshop 'dodge the shredder', for eight BHAAM members.

Emilia helps artists identify possible avenues to fund projects/artworks. Members of BHAAM found it a really interesting day that gave an insight into the selection processes involved in submitting project proposals. She also gave feedback on individual proposals.

Report from new member Linda Mattock. 'The benefits of the visit for me have been twofold. As a new participant of the group I greatly valued the opportunity to get to know the other members and to learn about their individual approaches to making work.

One of the group concerns is to consider how to build a vibrant artist led community in a rural environment. Birmingham has developed an exciting creative hub over the last 4-5 years so it was particularly relevant to explore how this is being brought about so successfully albeit in an urban environment.

Over the 2 days we visited various art spaces and galleries. The focus was not to specifically look at ‘exhibitions of art’ but to engender discussion on how to relate the various curatorial practices and studio working conditions we saw to give us direction of how we might move forward as a collaborative group of very disparate artists and craftsmen living and working at some distance from each other.

The dynamics of walking across Birmingham city centre over the 2 days made the greatest impact on my thought processes. I appreciated the evident willingness of a city to continuously evolve and accept rapid change without looking back or trying to imitate. The eclectic mix of industrial architecture; monumental buildings constructed at the pinnacle of industrial wealth: the power of using new materials and technologies to construct new buildings, rebuild and reuse old premises was inspirational. The new is built upon the heritage of the old. The mixing of ideas and ideals giving a harmony that isn’t aesthetic but creates an environment that reflects the unfixed, uncertain and flexible needs of the world we live in today. This is such a contrast to the rural countryside I now live and work in that changes subtly and slowly.

All the galleries and spaces visited shared a collective enthusiasm to work together to make Birmingham a functional and exciting community for artists and curators and a stimulating place for the people who live there. This was proudly summarised by Eastside projects that have a clearly defined vision of where they fit in Birmingham and the broader art scene.

This collective passion and clear vision to ‘make it happen’ was also demonstrated by Trevor ? at A3 [?] Studios. I particularly connected to his approach to the curatorial role as his art practice. His energy to move on, never stay fixed, always take the lead within a group endeavour gives his projects a very clear directive. He is also practical, balancing the functional commercial side of the undertaking with his creative aspirations. A joint role of producer and director I can relate to.

In summary, it has been a very worthwhile and enjoyable visit. Along the way I also saw some very interesting artwork! There’s no doubt that it will inspire and influence what I do and how I approach doing it. Most valuable, I feel privileged to have been part of the group and to have made new friends'.

The first visit to Young Wood by BHAAM artists proved to be a fascinating day.
The autumnal weather was not brilliant but when you are greeted by a roaring campfire and hot drinks it is soon forgotten. Just being in Young Wood is a refreshing and inspiring experience.

Young Wood is a legacy of the Neroche Landscape Project. It’s a place to experience and learn about woodlands through workshops and events as well as looking after them through volunteering.

The project is an experiment in caring for our public forests.Neroche Woodlanders is a social enterprise company set up to runYoung Wood and manage it with the help of volunteers.Gavin Saunders and Jenny Archard of Neroche Woodlanders were our hosts for the day. After a tour of the site, with its covered work area, kitchen and ‘five star’ compost loo, Gavin took us for a walk through the woodlands. A combination of his knowledge of Young Wood and as an ecologist made this an inspiring start to the creating and making session.

Before the work started we had lunch. Jenny had prepared a soup and baked bread on the campfire.Suitably refreshed, we started our own work. Some made wooden spoons from lime wood - cut fresh near the site - and others used it as an opportunity to explore, collect and just play with materials from the wood. Liz created a large mandala of Autumn leaves, nuts and fruits, which with some help from Geraldine was completed before we had to leave. All through the visit we discussed how we could work together to encourage others to experience spending time and working in such a wonderful environment, and to return for more personal input and inspiration.

We will return in the Spring!

Art Exhibition: 14 September – 6 October 2013
Venue: Cotley Tithe Barn, Cotley, Nr Chard, Somerset
For more details see the Project pages

On 17 July BHAAM member Debbie Locke ran a fascinating workshop that explored how artists are more and more using social media such as Twitter and Facebook

Following BHAAM's AGM the 'Skills Unearthed' commissioned artists presented their work through a Pecha Kucha of 10 slides each. The entertaining event was followed by a discussion on the future direction of BHAAM and food!

On 3rd July five painters visited
Cinematic Visions: Painting at the Edge of Reality
at Gallery II, Victoria Miro. Artist in the show included Njideka Akunyili, Jules de Balincourt, Ali Banisadr, Hernan Bas, Joe Bradley, Cecily Brown, Peter Doig, Inka Essenhigh, Eric Fischl, Barnaby Furnas, David Harrison, Secundino Hernández, Nicholas Hlobo, Chantal Joffe, Sandro Kopp, Harmony Korine, Yayoi Kusama, Glenn Ligon, Wangechi Mutu, Alice Neel, Chris Ofili, Celia Paul, Philip Pearlstein, Elaine Reichek, Luc Tuymans, Adriana Varejão, Suling Wang and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. We all absorbed this important show and then discussed what it meant for our own practice.

On the 18 April eight BHAAM members visited Compton Verney in Warwickshire to look around the galleries. They had meetings with staff to discuss the organisations approach to its temporary gallery programme in a rural area. They had a good lunch which was followed by a meeting with Compton Verney's head of communications who gave a talk focussing on BHAAM's future marketing needs.