Reveal Rossendale Valley Art Trail

Ella Cole continues to catalogue Daves work (the pieces shown here are from last week's 'discoveries'), and she is helping me organise the studio in Haslingden so it's ready for a guided tour this coming Sunday morning as part of Reveal Rossendale Valley Art Trail.

We've decided against opening Dave's Haslingden studio for the Art Trail. In previous years we've been overwhelmed by visitors and found it impossible to keep an eye on all the work. Plus with the steep stairs, small rooms, and increasingly overcrowded spaces and we've decided to just have one guided tour on the Sunday (which is already full). But to make up for this The Whitaker (Rossendale's Museum and Art Gallery in Rawtenstall) are using the walls of the new cafe space to mount an exhibition of Dave's work. 

So Saturday 28th (10 - 4) and Sunday 29th (11-4) the local artists studios and galleries will be open to the public - you can pick up a brochure at any of the studios or the Boo - and the Whitaker also has a group show, chosen by the curators, in their main gallery space. Should be a good weekend - not to be missed!

Life returns to 54

It's been a quiet summer for the Dave Pearson Trust. Holidays of course, but mainly other work being done by the trustees is to blame. But now we expect things will begin to pick up again.

We sold the lovely ink drawing 'Yellow Cat' (above) over the weekend, and will soon be making preparations for Dave's work to be shown at Olympia as a part of Art 14. In addition there's the Rossendale Valley wide 'Reveal Arts Trail and Open Studios' on the weekend of the 28th/29th September - and although we're not opening Dave's studio it will be possible to join an organised visit through The Whitaker (Rossendale's Museum and art Gallery). 

If anyone wishes to see Dave's studio over the Reveal weekend then please contact Jackie Taylor at jackie@thewhitaker.org and she will try and fit in a special visit. The reason we're not able to open the studio itself to the public is that every room is now functioning as storage space, so there simply isn't enough display space to show work in anything like reasonable conditions. Ella Cole, who works for the Trust in cataloguing Dave Pearson's output, is also in the process of arranging the top floor in an orderly way - with shelves and drawers of work all properly labelled and numbered in line with the catalogue of work (see photo below), rather like a library, and naturally we can't afford this work to be spoiled.

In the plan chests

Another visit to 54 today, and an opportunity to see what Ella has uncovered in her work cataloguing Dave's work. 

At the moment she is working her way through the plan chests on the top floor. There are six of these, and another three on the middle floor. Each has about 5 or 6 drawers (they vary a little), and at the moment she is going through a drawer that holds a lot of work from Dave's school and student years. So far there have been 200 drawings in this one drawer. Of course the quality varies massively, and some drawers have more work, most less - but all are particularly interesting to us as Margaret and I have never had the time to go through them systematically, so there are lots of discoveries to be made.

The drawing above of a farmyard is a very nice example, but not untypical, and probably done by Dave in the late 1950s. It's on ruled paper from a large notebook. 

Add up the numbers and it could be that the plan chests alone contain 5 (drawers) by 9 (plan chests) by 200 (drawings) = 9000 pieces just in these plan chest drawers. 

This coloured pencil drawing will be from his days at art school, and if it's not directly part of the work for the 'Astronauts' series it appears to relate to it - so probably done by Dave in about 1960.

Early work

I visited Dave's studio to day to catch up with Ella, who continues to patiently catalogue the work. We had expected to meet Greg McGee and Margaret Mytton to discuss plans for an exhibition at Greg's gallery in York. Unfortunately Greg has been taken sick overnight, so the planned meeting has been postponed. 

Instead Ella showed me some of Dave's school and early student work she is currently entering into the catalogue. Some of this early work is fascinating, such as this interior of his parent's home in London, where he would have been living at the time:

But inevitably, with someone like Dave who kept all of his output, not apparently censoring anything, there are many sketches, abandoned pieces and rejects. What to do with these? To put them all in the catalogue, or to start a censoring ourselves? Ella has chosen (with help from the Artlook software people) to create a fresh category within the programme - 'School and Student Work'.

This sketch of a baby is typical of the kind of work I'm referring to. Unfinished or not followed through pieces, probably of interest to anyone approaching Dave's work from a scholarly or research-based point of view, but unlikely to be saleable or of general interest. Putting these into their own section of the Catalogue seems to provide the answer. 

York

It's a hectic period for myself and Margaret Mytton, both with full-time jobs in the arts, and to some extent work on Dave Pearson Trust projects has slowed down as a result. Still, Ella is still managing to continue to catalogue his work, and she sends me interesting images from time to time. The last of these arrived yesterday - and is shown above.  

We're also meeting with Greg McGee with a view to finalising arrangements for a show later this year at his York gallery 'According to McGee'. More news on this as it emerges...

New website!

Finally I've found the time to rebuild the Dave Pearson website - it's at www.dspearson.org - and now it's up and running. 

It has a more extensive gallery than the old site, so dip in and have a look at the selection of paintings, drawings and prints from Dave's major periods. Plus there are a number of essays and writings about Dave. 

I still need to do a thorough check through it, as sometimes things go amiss in the process of uploading, so if anyone discovers any glitches please let me know. The only one I've found so far is that the Search Engine Optimisation programme has picked up a typo - and registers the site as Dave Person! Although I changed this as soon as I noticed it (when it showed up on  Facebook) it doesn't seem to register on search engines yet. My apologies!

Ella catalogues!

Just been to see Ella Cole at Dave's studio. Ella is now well into her stride, cataloguing Dave's output. We're now very, very close to reaching number 3000 in the catalogue - for many artists this would be a sizeable life's work. For Dave Pearson there's still plenty to go. Ella reckons it'll be at least 8 weeks before she'll finishes cataloguing all the pieces in the first room - then there's 5 more rooms plus scores of folders of work. But to be fair this first room does contain many of the smaller pieces - above is a self-portrait Ella discovered earlier this week. 

The exhibition of a selection of Dave's Bestiary paintings and a number of drawings at The Whitaker in Rawtenstall will be on until the middle of June. The Whitaker is the new name for Rossendale museum - if you want to find out more go to the equally new website - www.thewhitaker.org