Lucianna with ‘I could have sworn I felt my spirit soar’, oil on canvas. Photo: Photo courtesy of Lucianna Whittaker.
Eye - 06 April 2012
From the Penny Art Auction to Creation
The Penny Art Auction
A Quaker artist in Brighton has embarked on an unusual challenge. The Penny Art Auction is a month-long initiative by Lucianna Whittaker, who was inspired by the simplicity testimony to clear her house of possessions – ‘otherwise your things own you’. In the process she had to examine what to do with paintings she had made over the previous five years that were stored in her studio, and realised she had to let go of these too.
So Lucianna set herself a challenge: to exhibit and auction off these works within a month. ‘It’s about the paintings finding their true value and homes where they’ll be loved.’
The collection of oil paintings range from abstract pieces, which are free expressions of what Lucianna experiences when centring down, to later works featuring deer as figurative elements. The exhibition will be running at the Friese-Greene Gallery in Brighton from 12 to 15 April. Paintings will be auctioned on eBay (starting from a penny each) between 5 and 15 April.
Experiment with Light sessions prompted her on this undertaking: ‘the sessions help you to find the truth within yourself and work out how to live in a way closer to love and light.’
It is also a chance to let go of past baggage, ‘to clear the way for my painting practice to make a transition into a new phase.’ She adds, ‘It’s been a massive learning curve… Experiment with Light has helped with the challenging process of letting things go after I’ve invested so much of myself in each painting.’
Lucianna explains that Quakerism has been a profound influence on her art and life, ‘it’s everything to me really, that’s how I can live most truly.’
To find out more you can visit the Penny Art Auction blog, where Lucianna is writing daily entries about the project and reflecting on the pieces being auctioned: www.pennyartauction.blogspot.co.uk
Sammelband
In answer to a query from Philip Jacob following ‘Going, going… sold’ in last week’s Eye, a ‘sammelband, or some-times nonce-volume, is a book comprising a number of separately printed works that are subsequently bound together’ according to Wikipedia. The Springett sammelband contained a number of leaflets.
Creation studies
The recent series by Stuart Masters on ‘Quakers and Creation’ prompted a Friend to remind Eye of the excellent February edition of Journeys in the Spirit.
The booklet, compiled by the Children and Young People’s team of Quaker Life at Friends House, is published monthly and provides resources and ideas to Quakers engaging with five to twelve year olds in a Quaker setting.
The recent edition was devoted to ‘The Story of Creation’.
It was excellent – full of great images and illustrations, some stimulating writing and terrific ideas to stimulate young minds.
Eye especially liked two quotes. One was taken from the introduction: ‘Creation is out there all around us but we can also look inwards and discover our own creation’.
The other quote was from a master story-teller for children – David Kossoff – whose name will bring back many fond memories for slightly older Friends.
The quote was taken from his acclaimed book Bible Stories: ‘Mind you, before God started to make the world, he gave it a lot of thought. Big job. Not much to go on. No previous experience in such work. No really good materials either. Just a vast midnight, always dark, covering a great waste of nothing but water.’
