I called in to the launch of the collaborative show by Venture Arts artist Michael Beard and ceramicist Sue Cragg at Manchester Craft and Design Centre. The ‘greenhouse roof’ of the Craft Centre amplified the temperature in the recent if patchy heat wave, but the work on show – along with all the other craft makers - always makes a visit worthwhile. 

 

I’ve met Michael before on several occasions and previously written about his extraordinarily energetic work. Venture Arts work with learning disabled artists and champion neurodiversity to help individuals develop their own creative identity. Michael himself is non-verbal, but that doesn’t mean that he stays silent about his work. His own language – as I’ve previously written - portrays his own brand of excitement and enthusiasm for both the work that he does and opportunities to showcase his free flowing, handwriting based drawings, that reflect cities and buildings he observes day to day. Michael chatters away with his own language and greets with his own brand of handshake, which is a two thumb touch to the two thumbs of people he meets. In itself an expression of Michael Beard style communication.

 

In this show Michael has collaborated with Manchester Craft Centre resident maker Sue Cragg. “I’m always so precise with the ceramics I produce,” she told me. “But working with Michael has made me want to free up my own expression. I created the ceramics and then handed over to Michael to add his own love of colour and line. And broadly, because we both love a cup of tea and a biscuit, the ceramics are tea cups, biscuit barrels and plates – all that you need to make afternoon tea a treat.”

 

In studio 19 at the Craft Centre, Sue Cragg and Nicky Jones create whimsical, hand made ceramics. Their studio, next to the shop, boasts a potters wheel, hand build area and a kiln. Both influenced by Scandinavian design, their work is contemporary, often with a rustic feel. Whilst you can watch them both working, I would (I have to confess) have loved to watch Michael being unleashed on Sue’s ceramics with his energy and free flowing shapes and colours. 

 

But the show is not exclusively Cragg crafted and Beard decorated ceramics. Michael’s painting…drawing…calligraphy (which is it?) also displays his work at a different scale. Works where he takes subjects such as Beetham Tower and creates a landscape totally unlike any other person would create, given a building as subject matter. I have to admit that I can’t decipher all of the subject matter of his work, but what does that matter? There is, in some way, a touch of the Japanese in the lines that he creates and combines to produce mesmerising graphics based on his handwriting. Again I’ve not actually seen Michael work and maybe I’ll remedy that one day if I call in to Venture Arts’ Hulme studio. That’s something I’ve not done since before lockdown (that word again/still), but during which Venture Arts continued their work with their artists, providing iPads for example. 

 

Venture Arts have collaborative projects running hyperactively, bringing new perspectives to and for their own neurodiverse artists. The last show of theirs that I went to was at The Lowry and at the time I wrote that I needed ‘an injection of colour on a dark January day.’ Maybe that’s a phrase that sums up both this show and all the others that Venture Arts run. Whatever the weather the one constant with Venture Arts is an injection of colour.