Dave in Gold

I've had an email from Robin Morley and Jane Short. Robin and Jane are old friends, and last time they visited I took them to visit Dave Pearson's studio.  They sent  me some pictures this morning of the Goldsmiths' Review, from the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, of whom Jane is a member; she's an extremely accomplished gold- and silver-smith.  

The Goldsmiths' Review recently commissioned Jane to make a new piece - and here it is on the front cover of their annual report. The piece is inspired by her visit to and showing her Dave Pearson's paintings and drawings. She loved the intense colour and texture of the mark making which suits her use if colour and engraving. The piece is called 'Colour Junction'...and what a wonderful tribute!

Another hoard...

I've mentioned many times in this blog that Ella Cole spends two days each week cataloguing the collection of work left by Dave Pearson. In his three storey studio she started work on the top floor, and after almost two years has catalogued over 9000 pieces - all on the upper level. We thought that work on this top floor was almost completed, but late in the day discovered a hoard of a dozen or so large boxes of work - a lot of it early work, from Dave's student years. 

This week Ella open a new box, and discovered 300 pieces of work in it. It's particularly interesting - small experimental coloured sketches and trial pieces, with a dozen or thereabouts on each page. Above is a small selection of these from the corner of one such sheet. 

One of the fascinating things about these pieces is how assured they are for such a young artist (Dave must have been in his 20s) but also how so much about them prefigures the forms and approach of the later work around the Byzantium period of the 1990s.