Author Archive

Are you a Romantic?

October 29, 2011
By Alison
Are you a Romantic?

Do you ever yearn to get away from it all, to walk by the sea or sit on a mountain-top, to lose yourself in nature? Or to live the simple life, free from the rampant materialism of the modern world? Do you ever fear that science and technology may go too far?...
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Posted in Art & Design, Music, Photography, Writing | 6 Comments »

Behind Bars

September 12, 2011
By Alison
Behind Bars

Tutor Hilary Beachamp has a new show of collaborative work opening this week and the One And A Half Gallery in North London. In this collaborative project, she has worked with John Dawson whose finely thrown porcelain forms are decorated with her
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Posted in Art & Design | No Comments »

An artistic vibration

April 12, 2011
By Alison
An artistic vibration

If Winifred Nicholson were alive today I’m sure she would have approved of Prof Brian Cox’s explanation of the significance of light in the last of his series Wonders of the Universe. For Winifred Nicholson art was a means of exploring and exp
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Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments »

Nancy Spero, part one

April 5, 2011
By Alison
Nancy Spero, part one

Last Saturday afternoon a small group gathered in front of the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park. After a brief exchange of information --how far we had travelled, our connection with the OCA, what courses everyone was on – we were straight in.
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Posted in Art & Design, Events | 2 Comments »

Narrative and dialogue

March 8, 2011
By Alison

Paul, our webmaster, is off at Focus on Imaging so we can't touch the main OCA website. Having announced the Creative Writing Degree at the end of last week, it wasn't long before someone noticed that we need a third level one course in Creative Writ
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Posted in Writing | 1 Comment »

Two more degrees…

March 5, 2011
By Alison

Aspiring writers and textiles enthusiasts take note! The OCA has just had two new degrees validated -- a BA(Hons) Creative Writing degree and a BA(Hons) Textiles degree. The BA(Hons) Creative Writing degree offers a wide range of specialist modul
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Posted in Education, Textiles, Writing | 5 Comments »

Strange and wonderful egos

February 3, 2011
By Alison
Strange and wonderful egos

There was another fascinating BBC4 programme on Monday evening called Ego: The Strange and Wonderful World of Self-Portraits. I only caught about half of it, and mean to watch it on iPlayer over the weekend. Below are the things that struck
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Posted in Art & Design | 4 Comments »

Reality changed

January 18, 2011
By Alison
Reality changed

There have been a number of musings on this blog recently … and here are mine on a recent BBC 4 documentary, called Beautiful Equations. (Repeated, 20 January at 20.00) Artist and art critic Matthew Collings explored connections between art an
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Posted in Art & Design | 15 Comments »

On “M”ness

October 7, 2010
By Alison

On “M”ness As announced recently on this blog, the OCA is developing an MA in Fine Art in conjunction with the University of the Creative Arts – see here.  Last week we were invited to their Epsom campus in Surrey for an “M”-ness works
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Posted in Art & Design, Education | 7 Comments »

An extraordinary event

July 19, 2010
By Alison
An extraordinary event

Art in Action is an extraordinary event.  It’s a 4-day celebration of the arts and crafts held every July in the grounds of Waterperry House, somewhere near Oxford, and attracts some 25,000 visitors.  Marquees house displays of paintings, sculptu
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Posted in Art & Design, Events | 4 Comments »