84 Colston Street

Colston Street – a typical Bristolian hill – played a big part in my teenage years because at its bottom sits the Colston Hall venue where very many bands from Mott The Hoople to Roxy Music to Television exploded into my dreary suburban world.

The exhibition space

So it was particularly special for me to be at the top of Colston Street last week helping Jane set up her first Found & Chosen joint exhibition in a fabulous venue called Blaze, which was established as a shop-cum-gallery by a makers collective in 2003.

Jane’s work is on show at Blaze alongside that of the lovely Lucy Roberts, a long-standing member of the Blaze collective – in their joint exhibition which runs until April 26^th (more info on the Blaze Facebook page here).

From memory boxes to mugs…

Like Jane, Lucy is an obsessive collector of “found objects” which she curates and creates with great sensitivity and beauty, for instance, her “memory boxes” – in which eclectic assortments of “tiny things” are ordered in delightfully unlikely visual harmony.

It was thanks to Instagram that Jane and Lucy met, and their shared love of scouring through the lower strata of car boot debris is evident in the exhibition where their respective pieces sit happily side by side for some long-lost love and appreciation.

… to elephants and the alphabet

If you can make it to the exhibition you will see that Jane has created some great new collages from her massive collection of old children’s books, along with some new mixed-media pieces based on old Bristol scenes, combining them with other eye-catching work like the Alphabet prints that are also available in our Etsy shop.

The exhibition runs until April 26th

As Bryan Ferry once sang, just down the hill,  don’t “hesitate or stall” – get along to Blaze – “for the thrill of it all”.

David