In the third instalment from August’s artist in residence, Neale Howells leads us on a frenetic journey of work and vision by exploring his personal beliefs, detailing here his collaboration with Jayne Pierson and his experience of the heady world of fashion. , Artists in Residence. Throughout 2017 artists, including Neale Howells will take a leading creative role in what Wales Arts Review publishes, centring their skills on a challenging project over the course of a month. We were inundated with applications, receiving hundreds of emails about the positions, and it was no easy task whittling down all that talent to this final eleven. Our team of six editors debated long into the night, and in the end, we decided on a collection of people who we most want to work with, and whose work excites us. We think you will be excited by them too.
so jayne pierson is back and now we have a date for london fashion week: 15th september 2017… august and january has for me been about with working with jayne for these shows… its our fourth collection together in two years so this is a very busy time… but showing you what the new collection will look like is held as a strict secret until their opening… and it’s been like that for me… ‘their opening’… it’s like the clothes have a life of their own… for instance, the recent use of a jacket worn by alicia keys on the opening night of the voice america… the jacket literally looked alive… when you are helping to create these objects you can get a sniff of what they will look like on the catwalk being worn by the models but its when they turn up in public… well that’s the real kick… musicians and celebrities such as ellie goulding lianne la havas amber rose louisa johnson and lately all saints and kiiara are some of the people and places that bring an extra dimension to the work… it’s taken from the catwalk/gallery and used in real life… for a moment you can look at them as kenetic sculptures on the catwalk, then taken into the urban idenitiy of reality… how many artworks do we really take home with us… well not enough perhaps… they left where we saw them…
so being involved with jayne in fashion has proved a positive step for the work and myself.. but i have always wanted to expand the creative ideas in the studio so that i can feed them back into the paintings… what i mean is take time out from what you usually do… so over the years it’s been animation, which i will expand on over the coming weeks, sculpure and printing… it all helps… but textiles has for me been in the back of my mind for many years… it’s an area where i always thought my images could work well… so… (this is the part i talk about how it all started with me and jayne)…
it wasnt until i came across jayne pierson’s name, i think it was CCQ magazine run by emma eliot… jayne’s name was under its fashion editorial… so i looked at her website… and that was enough… blown away actually… you just know when someone is good… so i had to get in touch… plus she was welsh… bonus… and had a studio in wales… we became friends on facebook… and later jayne was given a project about 40 years of punk rock that was being celebrated in london and fortunately she thought of me…
so it was full range… do what ever you want… well, it was punk, so anything goes and it proved a success… the collection looked great… it appeared in vogue and other fashion magazines so an excellent response and jayne was invited back to do another and again asked me to collaborate…
let me just add that an opening at a fashion show is unlike anything i had experienced before… so responsive with music and imagery… it all lasts no longer than 30mins and in that time the band is blasting, the models are streaming out and the whole place is alive with flashing photography and crowds of people… then it suddenly ends and the whole place turns into a big party which lasts all evening… i mean who would really get involved in the fashion industry with this amount of hardship… ha..
but seriously it’s all hard work up untill then… to the last minute because that one photograph has to be right… it’s the one that is seen everwhere so you really need a good photographer working with you… and now it’s actually seen on the internet within minutes of a show finishing… but apart from that, what is there not to enjoy with a free bar and nice people…
so yep the fashion lot really know how to enjoy themselves after the hard work… but hey i like the way we do things here though at our art private views… a great night usually found at the elysium gallery swansea with the mumbles gold going well and crowd of friendly people… a bid for swansea city of culture is totally unconcieveable without jonathon powell and sarah williams who help run the gallery… better mention jane simpson gallery swansea who also has a fantastic openings…
this all reminds me of those other openings… like the arts mundi ones which i did get and invite to once… it was the award night… which i just may talk about over the month… perhaps along with my other favourite arts previews over the years… of which there is a lot…
This contribution by Neale Howells is part of the Artists in Residence series.
