3 minute read
Uno22: Twelve
A Festive Merriment!
Thursday 1st December – Thursday 22nd December. Gallery Uno, 14A High Street, Seaford BN25 1PG. OPEN DAILY: Mon – Sat 10am – 4pm and Sundays 12pm – 3pm.
Advertisement
This December, all at Gallery Uno will be turning their attention to their final exhibition of the year; ‘A Festive Merriment!’: a special presentation for the forthcoming season of goodwill and conviviality.
There’s much to be celebratory about at the gallery as a new fourteen-month lease on the premises has now been confirmed, meaning they will be continuing to show spectacular quality local artwork until at least Christmas 2023. MThis means you have even more opportunities to track down that illusive and unique gift or indulgence, either for yourself or your nearest and dearest.
This month’s featured exhibitor has been showing with the Sussex Arts Collective since 2006. So it’s high time that this honour was bestowed upon her.
Caroline Dorling – Woodturner
Caroline’s youth was spent moving around the Home Counties as her father’s career with Marks and Spencer progressed. Her fondest memories were made in Sussex; collecting tadpoles in Ditchling Pond and visiting Jack and Jill windmills by bus.
As an adult she returned to Sussex in 1985. Astride a horse or walking the dog, she explored the Downland landscape captured so succinctly by Eric Ravilious in his prints and paintings, which she so much adored.
Her love for woodworking was sparked by her carpentering uncle. Thirty-five years ago she bought her first lathe with a bucket of random tools that had been housed in a converted railway carriage in the corner of a farmer’s field. Ignorant of turning, she ‘hacked’ away for a couple of years until a new business venture running Flint House Centre for Healing and Learning devoured her time and woodturning became a fond memory.
Twelve years later, with changing commitments and time on her hands, she attended several weekend courses at West Dean where she discovered that she still had a passion for the material, and subsequently bought a new lathe and set about improving her skills.
Caroline has an infectious enthusiasm for her medium and has built up an extensive knowledge of how each wood behaves: Sycamore can cut like butter; Jarrah Burr is hard and dusty, but shines up beautifully once oiled. She sources a wide range of English grown and exotic woods chosen for their inherent vibrancy, surface design and contrast in colour and texture.
Her shapes and forms are inspired by a wide range of sources; not only design work in wood but also in silver, pottery and by the work of Barbara Hepworth, David Linley, Eric Gill and Roman pottery amongst others. To help her clarify her intent and give her a sense of scale, she will always sketch out a piece before starting turning.
Testament to Caroline’s craftsmanship she has fulfilled a number of varied and unusual commissions. Notably when the ancient and much-loved Tulip tree in the Grange Gardens Lewes had to be felled, it was Caroline the Environment Agency chose to make a baton for the Ouse Valley River project. She has replaced a door knob on the All Saints Centre, produced a wooden base for a dinosaur egg and most recently she recreated a tiny ebony finial, missing from a chair for over 60 years.
MEECHING AMATEUR DRAMATICS
presents The The Flint Flint Streetpresents Street NativityNativity
Written by Tim Firth. Performed by kind permission of Concord Theatricals
