Date: Wednesday 20 November 2019, 12:30 pm - 1:00 pm
Venue: York Art Gallery

Join Curatorial Assistant Fiona Green as we explore the history of this genre from the Dutch Golden Age through to the 20th century.

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Dates: Saturday 23 November 2019–Sunday 24 November 2019, All Day
Venue: York Art Gallery

Join York Art Gallery, home to the most significant collection of British Studio Ceramics in the UK, for the annual Days of Clay, in collaboration with the York Ceramics Fair at the Hospitium in York Museum Gardens.

This year’s event has been extended to a whole weekend of hands-on opportunities, workshops, talks and performance art. Perfect for the whole family! Events include:

Saturday 23^rd November

Artist Susan Halls in the Studio/ 10:30– 16:30
Come and help fill part of the gallery with a crowd of watchful clay rabbits. Animal sculptor Susan Halls will be running a hands on workshop showing you a quick and effective way to make a hollow rabbit that will form part of her ‘Meadow’ installation.

Annual Coca Lecture 2019: Alison Britton OBE
TICKETED EVENT – available on Eventbrite https://tinyurl.com/y2u6l8ke

Doors open 5:45pm / Lecture starts 6pm / Q & A 6:45pm
Drinks in Gillian Lowndes Exhibition 7pm
Close 8pm

Alison Britton was part of a group of radical women artists graduating from the Royal College of Art’s ceramics course in the early 1970s. In 1993, Britton co-curated The Raw and the Cooked with Martina Margetts, at the Barbican and Modern Art Oxford, which then toured in East Asia and Europe. In her lecture, Britton will reflect on this exhibition and on being part of an emergence of a radical abstract expressionist style of ceramic work. This year’s Annual CoCA Lecture will take place at York Art Gallery and ticket holders will have the opportunity to visit CoCA’s new exhibition Gillian Lowndes: At The Edge after the lecture, where drinks will also be on sale.

Sunday 24^th November

In the CoCA 1 at York Art Gallery

Clay Participatory Performance /  13:00 – 15:00
Join performers Milena Dragic and Mila Romans as ‘artist’ and ‘clay’ as they sculpt out clay movements and then invite you to participate in making, looking and moving clay to become part of the performance.

Talk: Making Emmanuel Cooper / 15:30 – 16:30

David Horbury discusses how editing Emmanuel Cooper’s memoirs has provided fresh insights into his pots and practice. David’s book on Emmanuel will be on sale in the shop and he will be available to sign them.

In the Studio at York Art Gallery

The Life of a Slipware Potter / 11:30 – 12:30
Join renowned potter Doug Fitch and his wife Hannah, for a talk about their lives as slipware potters, followed by a hands on session where you can try out slip trailing yourself.

Texture and carving workshop / 14:00 – 15:30
Hand building with artist Wendy Lawrence, get the opportunity to get hands on and do some carving and texturing with clay and take your work home with you.

In the CoCA 2 at York Art Gallery

Children Curate in conversation with Anthony Shaw and artist Susan Halls / 11:30 – 12:30
Meet the collector and the artist who helped inspire the children who curated the current Anthony Shaw Collection display.

Alison Britton in conversation with Anthony Shaw / 14:30 – 15:30
Following her Annual CoCA Lecture (Saturday 23rd Nov, 6pm), Alison will be talking with Anthony Shaw about the practice and work of Gillian Lowndes in CoCA’s new exhibition ‘Gillian Lowndes: At the Edge’.

Burton gallery at York Art Gallery

Book Reading: The Ups and Downs in the Life of the Fabulous Bernard Palissey/ 14:00 – 15:00
Join Jane Hamlyn for a reading of a quaint little book about the 16th century French Huguenot potter Bernard Palissy and his desperate struggles to discover the lost secrets of Italian tin-glazed earthenware.

Film Showing/ 15:00 – 16:00

Watch a screening of POTSHOTS – starring Johnny Vegas as Bernard Palissy. Produced by Roger Law and Anya Course. Running time: 25 minutes. Jane will be available to answer any questions.

Both Saturday 23^rd/ Sunday 24^th  November

Installation: The Downfall of the Tower of Pots
The tower of pots was created by artist Lou Gilbert Scott and visitors during our ‘Day of Clay’ event last year. We now invite you to watch as it slowly dissolves, returning to soft malleable clay ready for re-use.

Hands on Here
Get hands on with our historic and contemporary ceramic collection, sessions usually run between 11:00-13:00 and 13:30-15:30

Children’s ceramic trail available at front desk all day.

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Date: Saturday 23 November 2019, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Venue: York Art Gallery

Doors open 5.45pm
Lecture 6pm
Q&A 6.45-7pm
Drinks in Gillian Lowndes exhibition 7-8pm
Doors close 8pm
Postmodernity and Clay. Reflecting on The Raw and the Cooked exhibition of 1993.

Book your tickets here. 

The 2019 Annual CoCA Lecture will be delivered by Alison Britton OBE MARCA Hon Doc.

Alison Britton was part of a group of radical women artists graduating from the Royal College of Art’s ceramics course in the early 1970s. Making pots, as well as thinking, writing, and talking about the ambiguities of craft in the art world, has focussed her life. Working from London studios for 45 years, she has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally, and since 1998 she has been represented by Marsden Woo Gallery, London.

In 2011 her work featured in the exhibition Postmodernism, Style and Subversion 1970 –1990, at the V&A, where, and in 2016, her retrospective exhibition Content and Form was held. In 2017/2018 Britton was included in the important UK/USA exhibition Things of Beauty Growing, and she wrote the preface to the related book. She published Seeing Things, Collected Writing on Art, Craft and Design in 2013.

Britton has also curated exhibitions, including; The Makers Eye at the Crafts Council (1981); British Ceramics for the British Council in former Czechoslovakia (1984). In 2009 she curated Three by One which explored three major public craft collections and Life and Still Life in 2012, combining her new work with collected objects, both for the Crafts Study Centre in Farnham. She has been Chair of the Trustees of the Craft Study Centre since 2014.

Alongside making, writing and curating, Britton worked part time in Ceramics and Glass at the RCA from 1984 to 2018, and relished the interaction with students finding their own path.

In 1993, Britton co-curated The Raw and the Cooked with Martina Margetts, at the Barbican and Modern Art Oxford, which then toured in East Asia and Europe. Exploring the way clay is used as a material for making sculptural works as well as functional objects, the exhibition brought together a range of artists and approaches. In her lecture, Britton will reflect on this exhibition and on being part of an emergence of a radical abstract expressionist style of ceramic work.

This year’s Annual CoCA Lecture will take place at York Art Gallery and ticket holders will have the opportunity to visit CoCA’s new exhibition Gillian Lowndes: At The Edge after the lecture, where drinks will also be on sale.

York Museums Trust is able to run this event with the generous support of the Friends of York Art Gallery and the Craft Potters Association.

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Date: Saturday 7 December 2019, 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Venue: York Art Gallery

This lecture by Jeanne Nuechterlein, curator of the exhibition Making a Masterpiece: Bouts and Beyond (c.1450–2020), explores the ideas behind the making of early Netherlandish images, and why these artworks are still so effective today.

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Date: Friday 13 December 2019, 10:30 am - 4:30 pm
Venue: York Art Gallery

Discover how paint was made before the days of art shops and mass-produced tubes. Artist Toni Watts will be talking about where the colours used in early Netherlandish art came from and transforming dry pigments into beautiful paint.

Included in admission, just drop-in!

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Date: Wednesday 18 December 2019, 12:30 pm - 1:00 pm
Venue: York Art Gallery

Join Curator of Ceramics Helen Walsh discussing the show, Gillian Lowndes: At the Edge, a collections display in CoCA 1. Discover how Gillian Lowndes was inspired by ancient cultures and objects to create sculptural collages out of clay and found materials.

Included in admission, just drop-in!

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Date: Wednesday 15 January 2020, All Day
Venue: York Art Gallery

Artist Christopher Cook will consider collage techniques developed by the Surrealist movement that have influenced his work in the current exhibition, Making a Masterpiece: Bouts and Beyond (c.1450–2020).

10:30am-12pm and 2pm-4:30pm

Included in admission, just drop-in.

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Date: Wednesday 15 January 2020, 12:30 pm - 1:00 pm
Venue: York Art Gallery

In this talk, artist Christopher Cook will discuss the ideas and processes that inform the current sequence of works he has on display in the exhibition, Making a Masterpiece: Bouts and Beyond (c.1450–2020), including his responses to individual works in York Art Gallery’s own collection. He will reveal important lessons we can learn from the Dutch Still Life genre, and its relevance for our contemporary age, as well as discussing methods he employs in his practice to unlock the creative imagination.

Included in admission, just drop-in.

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Date: Friday 17 January 2020, 10:30 am - 4:30 pm
Venue: York Art Gallery

Artist Toni Watts will be working on a couple of drawings in the Madsen Gallery. Come and hear her chat about the techniques behind metalpoint. Why did artists draw with silver? How different is it to modern graphite? Why is it still used?

10.30am – 1pm and 2pm – 4.30pm

Included in admission. No need to book.

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Dates: Monday 17 February 2020–Friday 21 February 2020, 11:00 am - 4:00 pm
Venue: York Art Gallery

Inspired by the exhibition, Harland Miller: York, So Good They Named It Once, this year’s Teenage Art School explores how artists respond to a place, combining text and image to produce statements about life. Tom Smith uses augmented reality technology in his work, so that when a mobile phone is pointed at paintings, they reveal a further layer of audio/visual content. Tom and artist-producer Sarah Yates will guide your exploration of working with both paint and pixels, developing work for an exhibition in the Project Gallery at York Art Gallery (exhibition to open Saturday 22 February).

This is a five day course for 14 to 17 year olds. Whether art is just a hobby or something you are studying (or planning to study) at GCSE or A level, Teenage Art School will help you develop your skills as an artist. There is also the potential to gain Bronze Arts Award.

Book your FREE place here. Places must be booked in advance.

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