Category Archives: collections

Collections Update

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cox-h-the-collectionAs I am not a very prolific blogger, I need to post a project update before I can tell you about what I’m currently doing in Sweden! Collections opened at Masham Gallery in November and has just come down after a very successful first run with lots of visitors, great feedback and plenty of sales. What more could we ask for? I’ve updated my website with a gallery featuring all of the prints that were shown. Above is a piece called ‘The Collection’ which is inspired by my own collections and features collagraph prints on wooden blocks in a traditional printer’s type case. The prints are sealed with acrylic wax to protect them and the whole piece can be hung on the wall.

The Dipper and the Mudlark
The Bare Bones of Winter
And all the while the skylarks were singing…

The above pieces (two of which have sold) are collagraph prints on blocks displayed in box frames with found objects. The one featuring Pen-y-ghent came about as a result of me finding some skylark eggshells whilst running the Yorkshire Three Peaks Route! I carried the shells nestled in an emergency bivvy bag and was totally amazed that they remained undamaged for the remaining 19miles of the run. It was a glorious day and the larks sang at every step.

Our next exhibition of Collections will be at the lovely Ryedale Folk Museum Gallery and will run from 27th May – 16th July 2017. We will be supplementing the Masham exhibition with new work and also some pieces inspired by the museum’s own collections. We were very fortunate to have a guided tour by museum director Jennifer Smith and one of her colleagues. Soon we were handling ornate fragments of green glass made illegally in Rosedale by French Huguenots fleeing from religious persecution at home; leafing through a scrapbook full of amazing fragments of historical handprinted wallpaper & admiring the eclectic objects in the Harrison Collection.

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I’m really looking forward to starting on the new work but in the meantime…I’m back at Ålgården Studios in Sweden and I’m working on the first of 7 x 12′ hangings for my print installation in a field barn for the Grassington Festival in June/July this year. More on that next time.

Collections

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So…what am I up to this year (apart from the usual exhibiting and selling in galleries)? Well, I’m making lots of new work and the majority of it will be for a joint exhibition in November. The show features my printmaking and the work of two friends and colleagues, Josie Bezant and Charlotte Morrison. Josie is an artist (and owner of Masham Gallery) who creates assemblages, collages, mixed-media pieces and paintings and Charlotte is a ceramicist. Charlotte and Josie also run Crafted by Hand (a multi-talented pair!). We’ve all exhibited together before but this is the first time the three of us have worked so closely on a project and shared a common theme.

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I’ve always collected natural objects: stones, bones, feathers, skulls etc., and whenever I am walking or fell running I am constantly on the look out for these ‘natural treasures’. The significance of my finds is important to me. For example I am not so interested in the skull of a rabbit, a very common animal, as I am the skull of a curlew which, for me, symbolises the wilderness, moorlands and the arrival of spring. Coming across a pile of linnet feathers with one lone tail feather from a merlin was so exciting and told a complete story of an act that is rarely seen by humans. It triggered the work below which is called ‘The Huntress’ and features a collagraph print, linnet feathers and a twisted heather branch.

The Huntress

I’m really enjoying using some of my finds within the finished pieces and there will be a number of ‘one-off’ multi-media works at the exhibition. Over the next few months I’ll be writing posts about some of the works that I’m making and you can also read more about the project at our website. Josie, Charlotte and I envisage that this will be an ongoing project and that the exhibition will tour to other venues and perhaps collect more artists along the way.