Thursday 31 December 2015

Thursday 31st December 2015

So goodbye 2015. I've just finished my lines - started on the 1st January - one for each day of the year on a small piece of paper. Here's the process, started in my old studio at Fenners, and finished in my new studio at the Forge:

Saturday 12 December 2015

12th December 2015

Exhausted but very happy after the Illustrators' Christmas Fair at the House of Illustration. Great stalls and plenty of interested visitors - also people bought things which is pleasing. Bit sad I didn't find a way to have a better look around the rest of the fair - what I did see I loved.

Friday 11 December 2015

Illustrators' Fair Saturday 12th December 2015

Delighted I'll be at the House of Illustration's Illustrators' Fair tomorrow, Saturday 12th December from 12.00 - 6.00, with my books, prints and original art.

More details about the fair here.


Tuesday 24 November 2015

Animation in Progress

Here's a snippet from an animation I am working on. I started experimenting with collage animation before running the 'firebird' animation workshops at Standalone Farm and got very carried away by the process. It's a first draft of a bit of an adaptation of a firebird story:

Wednesday 4 November 2015

3rd November 2015

Loved being involved with the Family Arts Festival again this year, this time at Standalone Farm  which offered a whole range of events inspired by stories and poetry about the firebird.

There were many related events in Letchworth, including at Digswell Arts Trust Fenners Building and at Dot-to-Dot gallery, supported by Letchworth Heritage Foundation. It's great that so many different arts organisations were able to co-operate on this autumn celebration for Letchworth families - thanks largely to Beth McDougall, the Community Projects and Learning Co-ordinator at the Heritage Foundation, Letchworth.

My workshop, which took place over two days, was called "Let's Animate the Firebird" and visitors to the farm were invited to help create firebirds and bring them to life using stop motion techniques, including recycled cardboard puppets, an overhead projector with coloured cellophane and paper and a light box with natural materials.  Over 200 people attended the drop-in workshops over the two days and we had a great time.

Thanks so much to everybody who came along - it was great working with you and thanks to all the staff at Standalone Farm who always make everybody feel very welcome.

Here's a short video showing snippets from the workshops and the animations:


Monday 26 October 2015

26th October 2015

Here is a brief taste of animation from the firebird workshop at Standalone Farm today. These were made with paper and cellophane with an overhead projector - more animation clips in different media to follow. Enjoyed it so much and looking forward our last day tomorrow.

Tuesday 4 August 2015

4th August 2015

Moved into my new studio a couple of days ago, happily still with Digswell Arts but now closer to home.

Keeping it very empty with no furniture - just four white walls and some windows above.  Here is a bit of work in progress:









Tuesday 21 April 2015

Comic

Been working on a tiny graphic novel called Turns which I started at The Prince's Drawing School in Emily Haworth-Booth's class (which is a great way to learn the basics of making comics/graphic novels).  Here are pictures of all the pages - there are no words and it's a based on a hand painted book 'Flute Girl' I made a few years ago.  Enjoying the process of 'translating' it into another medium.
















Sunday 12 April 2015

turn the page, artists' book fair, Norwich

Very pleased I'll be at turn the page artist's book fair in Norwich again this year - on Friday 1st and Saturday 2nd May at the Forum.

I'll be showing the twelve pictorial diaries that I made last year and inviting people to create their own  diaries.

Can't wait to see all the other artists and their work - was great last year - very busy and with a great range of artists and books.

I spent this weekend finishing the diaries and I have been playing with them, deciding how best to display them. Each of the books opens out so that all the pages can be seen at the same time - I'd like to find a way of showing them so that people can touch them.  I have the perfect box for transporting them - an Easter egg box - I like the way they fit snugly.
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Friday 10 April 2015

David Batchelor




Went to the Whitechapel gallery the other day as I was nearby and was hoping to catch 'Adventures of the Black Square' again but it had finished.  So looked at David Batchelor's photographs of rectangles found in cities instead.  I liked the documented real slides on a large rectangular light box, particularly the way they were arranged in a symmetrical pattern, presumably because there weren't quite enough to fill the rectangle completely.  Found myself counting them and couldn't help noticing that there was a mistake in the way they were laid out - was tempted to surreptitiously slide two into what I think would have been a better order but luckily I stopped myself as I enjoy going there and I'd like not to be banned.

Here is David Batchelor talking about the show:









Wednesday 1 April 2015

Wednesday 1st April 2015

Home and Faces

I have left my beautiful studio (and all my friends) at Fenners in order to move to a studio that I can cycle to (still with the Digswell Arts Trust but much closer to home).  Feels very strange to have left Fenners but also good to have a few weeks working from home.  Sitting surrounded by boxes and drawers full of all my stuff - planning to have a big sort out before a studio becomes available at the Forge which will probably be in autumn.

Meanwhile I am a print member at the Forge and spending a day each week using the wonderful facilities and meeting the inspiring artists working there.

I feel very grateful to have had the opportunity to meet and work with so many excellent artists at Fenners, and to work with other organisations in Letchworth.  Hope to continue to be part of occasional projects in Letchworth, although I will no longer be based there.

Been sorting through some of my work from the past few years - here are all the face pictures from 2013 - one for each day of the year:





Sunday 8 March 2015

Friday 6th March 2015

Richard Long

Delighted that my friend Melior and I were present when Richard Long talked about his work, with an accompanying slide show at the V&A this evening.  This was a lecture in memory of silversmith,  Pamela Rawnsley, who shared Long’s appreciation of walking and landscape.  I first came across Long, along with David Nash and Andy Goldsworthy about thirty years ago and was inspired to go into the woods and make sculpture from found materials.  I have seen his work in a number of exhibitions including a major retrospective, Heaven and Earth, at Tate Britain a few years ago that included: large scale mud drawings on walls, stone circles on floors and books. (See the link below for more information about that exhibition.)
At seventy, Long continues to work with energy and enthusiasm, still walking and still exploring new processes.  He is an imposing figure, at least 6’ tall and he speaks quietly but confidently.

The talk began with standard information about Long’s work, disarmingly unconnected to the accompanying slide show which was on a loop.  He read from notes describing his way of working and some of the actual projects; he several times reinforced the concept of his work being about place, time and himself. 

It was when people started asking questions that it got more interesting.  Not that any were controversial or challenging – it’s just that the conversational aspect of this section made it seem more lively and potent.  Some of the questions that were addressed and the responses can be read below. (Please excuse the paraphrasing and bear in mind that these are the things I noticed, rightly or wrongly!):

How important is the photography to you and what is the process, camera etc?
Answer – very important, a crucial part of the art, to document and explain what has been created, made, thought.  Real black and white film, developed by an expert (who was sitting in the front row).  The photographs can be art in their own right, part of a book, or part of an explanatory slide show ‘like this’.

Is it a compromise making work in a gallery, compared with responding to walking in the great outdoors?
Answer – no.  I am the same artist, responding to different situations, opportunities.

Do you make any connection between pre-Christian religious symbolism (are you picking up on some earthly force) in view of the fact that some of your work looks like those kind of prehistoric sculptures?
Answer – no.  I am not religious.  Clearly many of the simple shapes and symbols in my work coincide with simple shapes and symbols from other cultures, religions, ways of thinking.  (Long made it clear that he is interested in working with simple universal shapes rather than creating his own shapes.)

Other questions led to explanations of how he started working on the walks as a student.  He described how Anthony Caro ruled at St Martin’s but his modernist steel work was considered uninteresting by Long and his close contemporaries.  He described the way Henry Moore seemed ancient and beside the point.  He said he was young and wanted to find new ways of making art.  Earlier on he had explained that his work was influenced by many things including Art Povera and Land Art.  He also said that as a teenager he liked Van Gough, Cezanne and made drawings and paintings. 

Long considers himself an artist and not an explorer.  Neither does he think of himself as a performer (despite that fact that his work can seem like a performance at times).  He was very quick to respond to all of the questions and very sure about how to respond, presumably having met the same questions quite a few times over the past fifty years.

Overall I really enjoyed the evening, particularly the questions and answers (for which I was suddenly wide-awake). 

As I had moved all my stuff out of my studio this morning, I was particularly heartened by the idea of the whole world serving as a studio, rather than a particular room acting as a purveyor for particular processes/materials. 
He said that the only thing he takes in his rucksack apart from a camera is a ball of string (this was in response to a question about how he marks out the circles).

He also explained that most walks are made alone or with a guide if necessary, although he has walked (collaborated) with other artists.  He said that as he gets older the walks might become shorter or slower.

Occasionally he answered ‘no’ to something very quickly and then proceeded to contradict himself.  I got the feeling that his firm dismissal of people’s misunderstanding of the intentions behind his work emanates from years of irritating misunderstandings, leading to emphasis on aspects of the work that are not important to him.  For instance somebody asked him about maths in his work and he was very quick to point out that he is not a mathematician and can’t add up.  However he clearly does have some interest in maths, in universal shapes and even in concepts like the Fibonacci sequence (which was used for at least one of his walks).



  




Happiness
by Emily Carr


Last week I went to see Canadian artist Emily Carr's work at Dulwich Picture Gallery with my friend Lise.  Although Carr is best known for work inspired by aboriginal coastal communities: totem poles, and other symbolic cultural icons, the works I particularly like are the paintings made in woods.  One, called ‘Happiness’ was made in the last years of her working life.  It looks as if it was made quite quickly, on large paper, using oil paints, thinned with some kind of mixer (not sure what it was).  Apparently she would spend time in a wood, looking at a particular view and then, eventually paint quite quickly.  That is how I like to work too and probably why I feel such an affinity with these paintings, of which there are many, all very moving and exciting.  

Here's "Happiness" by Emily Carr