New Exhibition ‘Tread Gently’ Solo Show by Jane Fielder 17 Oct. to 10 Nov 2024

Do come along to the launch 7-9pm Weds 16 Oct

Further text on ‘Tread Gently’ Below

Aselection of Jane’s work on show:

The title of the exhibition reflects Jane’s aim to adopt a more sustainable approach to her life and art, but extends beyond this to focus on the importance of the simple things treasures in life; family, friends, nature and the wonderful world that surrounds us. The origins of her ‘waste-not’ approach go back to her early years – growing up with parents who had lived through a world war. She and her siblings were taught as youngsters not to waste anything. Food left on a plate was particularly frowned upon, with her father reminding her of the many people dying of hunger. Everything was patched and repaired, living a simple life, little things meant a lot. Those childhood feelings never left her. “I still feel the need to rescue everything. I still love darning and mending things. I have even started a series of pictures ‘study of a dying sock!”
Home life continues to feature in her work. ‘Happy Kitchen’ is about the joy she gets each day from the wonderful smell of bread cooking. It also features a favourite plate given to her by the children, her mother’s old, much-treasured, butter dish, a hand-painted mug full of scissors AND a bargain bunch of flowers! A second, joyous painting features flowers gathered from her garden: a precious vase holds the very last of the daffodils, together with the first bluebells and lilac. Bags of recycling and her son, Chris’s prize-winning painting “Mum in a Million” further stirred her soul. Her artist’s pallet features in the foreground.
Jane’s garden is close to her heart and a rich source of subject matter. In ‘Bringing Peace and Love’ Jane expresses her great joy seeing and hearing birds. “I often spot them through the kitchen window. Not only are they good at raising our spirits, but birds also play an important part in the ecosystem, spreading seeds, eating bugs etc. These golden birds magically crept into this painting, bringing peace and love to us all.” ‘Golden Cats’ was painted on top of an artist friend’s canvas. “Unsure where to go next, he asked me if I would like it. After the initial trepidation of painting on someone else’s work it gave me a wonderful freedom to play. Flowers from the garden soon started filling the black void and it wasn’t long before the golden cats gently crept in leaving their golden footprints behind them.”
In summer Jane’s garden hosts life drawing sessions (who knows what the neighbours make of it) Washing lines are often a feature of her works and when the model helped with the hanging out, it was an obvious subject “Sue, deep in thought, looked beautiful amidst the trees and flowers and the precious bird box, painted by my granddaughter. My intriguing sculptures added mystery to the scene.” A second work features the same model, Sue, who being, ecofriendly goes everywhere on her bike.
It comes almost as a surprise to find work amongst this show which is rendered in a more traditional style, and which shows Jane’s mastery of it. For this work, she explained, “A breathtaking view from above The Dog and Gun in Oxenhope, filled my soul with the beauty of the Earth”.
The exhibition also contains a selection of older works that Jane had saved for a long time waiting for the right moment, but which now seemed appropriate for the theme. The elephant series are amongst these. They were painted in 1990 when she went back to study in her 40’s and did a textile design course at Bradford College. The animals are of course now an endangered species, but are so important for the ecosystem, seem to fit perfectly in to ‘Tread Gently’.
In 2020 Jane’s interest in recycling took a bolder step. Just before lockdown she was chatting with other artists about all the plastic and other material that are wasted. They decided to keep any clean plastics that could not be recycled as part of a five-year art project.
Jane made extensive notes as she went along. Her log includes notes such as “interesting plastic with 4 red roses found in street” and comments on supermarket bags which gave the unhelpful instruction ‘not yet re-cycled’ It all took so long working out which were recyclable, which were not, making sure everything was clean etc. A few weeks into the enormous task, Jane decided to take a break from collecting…and hasn’t restarted. She did, however, make a huge artwork from the rescued plastic with a view to showing it somewhere but instead decided to cut it up, framing smaller sections of the work especially for ‘Tread Gently’.
Jane explained that these two framed pieces will be at bargain prices as she doesn’t want them wasted!
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