Tag Archives: art connections

Life in the Slow Lane

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I’m currently in Sweden at Ålgården again and for once in my life I’ve had to slow down. At the end of July I successfully completed the Lakeland 100. This is a 105 mile race around some of the most beautiful parts of the lake district and I had a really good run. I spent the followng weeks on a high, imagining the future strength I’d have and planning for a Bob Graham Round attempt. Six weeks and lots of running later and I have developed a mystery knee injury and can no longer walk without hobbling. It could be reactive arthritis or it may be an injury that didn’t hurt at the time but certainly does now! I’m being tested and examined and hopefully we’ll get to the bottom of it but it is really debilitating.

However, I’d already made plans to come to Ålgården with a friend and colleague, Barbara Greene. She wanted me to show her the ropes so I thought I’d come anyway and just do whatever I could manage. Barbara and I met through Chrysalis Art‘s Connections North project and were both selected as two of the ten printmakers from North Yorkshire to take part in the Mirror Images exhibition. I will write a separate blog post about that as it is a fantastic project involving forty Finnish, Scottish, Swedish and Yorkshire printmakers. Barbara and I hope to collaborate on a future project so it was a good opportunity to talk and exchange ideas too.

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(a fellow printmaker or an accident in the DIY shop car park?)

It has been frustrating to be able to see the dense forest but not be able to get into it but I’ve made myself look for inspiration closer to home and am currently exploring the traces of nature found in the city and around the studio. I’m working on a few ongoing projects simultaneously whilst exploring ideas for a future project and I’m using the time and wonderful equipment here to try out things that I wouldn’t do at home. I tested a pot of Akua Intaglio ink which I brought from home to see what it was like to work with. It is perfect for reduction monotypes because it doesn’t dry on non-porous surfaces so you can work with it indefinitely before printing. It also cleans up with soap and water and yet the print has the same velvety qualities of an oil-based print. With some precarious balancing on a stool and on one-leg, I managed to produce an A1 monotype that I printed on the lovely big etching press. It has a bed sized 1metre x 2 metres and one day I’ll use the whole thing.

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Creating a reduction monotype on an old aluminium litho plate.

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The beautiful etching press (the big one, there are three!) with my print drying behind.

Whilst I may not be very mobile, I’m still getting about thanks to my very kind Swedish artist friends. Christina picked us up from the airport and drove us to the studio and she also invited us to her house for dinner, Lennart has lent me a walking stick (he’s 80 but says he no longer needs it!) and Torbjörn collected me and drove me to the Borås hospital to show me their amazing art collection (and I stocked up on painkillers). He is project director for the region and organises the buying and displaying of art for public spaces such as hospitals, health centres and dental practices. I was so impressed by the work on show at the hospital and the thought that had gone into its display and selection. Not just the more figurative and accessible work that you’d expect but very good quality contemporary pieces and in all kinds of media such as painting, sculpture, printmaking, textiles and glass. Tomorrow Anna is taking us both to see an arts and crafts place called Nääs so that will be a lovely trip out too.

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Today I made 12 small collagraph plates from plaster creating impressions in them from the fallen birch leaves that I’ve collected. I will print these and hope that the leaves will be very subtle. I then plan to overprint with further imagery relating to the city. I associate the birches so much with Sweden and I find their leaves everywhere, in the studio, on the pavements, in the supermarket etc. I’ve also been making monotypes of the shadows of plants growing round the studio too. All the traces of nature that creep into the city and that I seek out when confined to urban places. Really I’m just playing but that’s why I like it here, it gives me the time and headspace to do that and who knows what will develop from my experiments.

Return to Sweden

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A quick post to kick off my three weeks back at Ålgården Printmaking Studio in Sweden. I spent four weeks here on an artist’s residency in 2012 as part of the Connections North programme run by Art Connections and it proved to be a real milestone for me.

It gave me time to create work and explore my printmaking without the pressure to sell, a break from the distractions that come from working at home and making a fulltime living from my artwork, the chance to use equipment that I don’t normally have access to and the opportunity to work alongside other artists and experience an international printmaking scene. It wasn’t plain sailing and I had some low points as well as highs as I learned how my own creative processes work and the pressures I put myself under to produce finished pieces but the overall experience was invaluable.

Unfortunately, I didn’t allow myself the time to develop what I learned back then and I spent last year working extremely long hours to fulfil my teaching and exhibition commitments. Apart from feeling frazzled and overwhelmed, I felt that I hadn’t produced much new work because I was busy printing up editions and I certainly hadn’t had the headspace to really push my ideas forward. Being a full-time artist is one long learning experience and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The positives from last year were more collectors, an increased interest in my work from people prepared to pay for it and a very positive response from the people that I met at the shows. This has put me in a really good position to look back and reassess how I structure this year.

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My goals are to produce a body of new prints inspired by the North York Moors National Park for my exhibition at Inspired By…Gallery at the end of the year and I’ve joined Ålgården as a member so that I can have a ‘creative break’ from my own studio, make use of the fabulous equipment, get well and truly stuck into my work and further develop the photopolymer experiments that I began last time. It is also a chance to forge a connection here that I hope to sustain in the future years. This is the kickstart that I need and I want to make the most of it. I’ve got some battles to fight psychologically but I’m up for the challenge and raring to go…once I get a bit of sleep, I don’t enjoy getting up at 2.30am!

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One last thing, I know it is environmentally disastrous but I can’t help loving being in the air. As a former potholer and errant scuba diver, I love the feeling of being suspended within my environment and the extra dimension that gives it. Seeing things from new angles and worlds that you don’t normally have access to enthrals me and it was great to witness the myriad of Swedish forests, lakes and islands unfold beneath me.

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Extreme Printmaking!

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It’s been a busy few weeks. Last week was an exciting mix of workshops and meetings and culminated in the Connections North Seminar at Harrogate Studio Theatre. This concentrated on the artists residency opportunities available to artists in North Yorkshire . Arts Connections had invited me to speak about my experience of doing my printmaking residency at Ålgården in Sweden. Others giving presentations were representatives from the Finnish, Scottish and Swedish centres as well as Sarah Smith, a fellow artist who did a stone carving residency in Sweden, and a representative from the Arts Council of England. It was an exciting and inspiring day and I was especially pleased to see Christina Lindberg and Anna Mattsson again.

This week I have been mainly outdoors!

A few months ago Paul Mosley, Hackfall Officer for the Woodland Trust, asked me if I would be interested in running an Inset day for teachers at Hackfall Woods with the emphasis on printmaking outdoors. Always up for a challenge and with Hackfall  being a favourite place of mine, I agreed. 27th March seemed a long way away and I was sure that on the day I would be leading a group of teachers happily making prints in the sunshine as the birds sang. Suffice to say that, as the snow fell and then fell again, I have been worrying about the workshop for some weeks!

I’m a bit of a perfectionist and tend to be meticulous in my lesson planning so I knew that the only way to ensure success was to do a dry run of the workshop the day before it took place. That way I could ensure that everything would work in the current weather conditions. So I can actually say that I spent two days printmaking in the snow 🙂

Using ArtisOn as a base, Paul and I met our 12 teachers along with Hackfall volunteer Sue Cockcroft, who was invaluable as a printmaking assistant. We then set off to Hackfall in the minibus. Paul had explained the idea of story sticks and a couple of the teachers decided to have a go. Story sticks are a way to engage a child’s attention right from the start of the visit by getting them to look for found objects to attach to their stick using rubber bands throughout their walk. This provides a visual record of their journey through the woods. Apparently it stems from an aboriginal practise.

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I then discussed the Geoartcache project that I was commissioned to do by Chrysalis Arts for North Yorkshire Open Studios last year. I’ve created a trail in the woods that combines printmaking, book art, wildlife and folklore. Further details are on the Geoartcache website. Originally the trail consisted of 10 caches and the book cache but it has been adapted to allow for the caches that have gone AWOL due to flooding, storms and skulduggery! There are now six stamp caches and the book cache so do go and have a look if you are in the area.

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Slipping about a bit, we headed down the hill for a spot of bark rubbing and the chance to ‘meet a tree’ before heading to the ‘beach’ to do sun printing (ha!). I love sunprinting and it has so much scope as an educational tool. It is based on the principles of cyanotype which was discovered in the nineteenth century and became popular with engineers as a low cost way of reproducing their designs as ‘blue prints’. Anna Atkins used it to record her extensive plant and seaweed collection and these were collected together in what is generally considered to be the first book published with photographic illustrations. She is also considered by some to be the first female photographer although that is open to speculation with Constance Talbot (Henry Fox Talbot’s wife) often being cited as the first (amongst others). Anyway, the process is great for combining science and art and I soon had my teachers creating photograms by looking for interesting found objects such as leaves, twigs, feathers and sand to create images with. They then laid the objects on the light sensitive paper and placed a piece of perspex over the top to hold them in place whilst we waited for the weak sun to do its work.

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Fortunately, you can sunprint even when its cloudy so within ten minutes the exposed parts of the blue paper had turned a very pale bluey white and the paper was ready to be developed in my little tub of river water,

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The chemical in the parts of the paper that have not been exposed to UV light are water soluble and wash away leaving the paper white whereas the UV exposed parts turn a dark blue. The blue deepens as the paper dries to become a beautiful cyan blue (a clue is in the name).

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I layered all the developed prints carefully in small sheets of blotting paper to dry and we headed along the muddiest path in Hackfall to check out one of my geoartcaches, ‘Waterdog’. I retold the story of St.Cuthbert and the otters and demonstrated the stamp and then we headed to my favourite folly, Fisher’s Hall, for a spot of monoprinting. I love this folly. Its a magical and meditative spot where you can sit and watch the river whilst listening to the birds. Here it is earlier in the year.Image

I had to use oil-based water soluble relief printing ink from Lawrence Art Supplies as my speedball inks didn’t perform very well the day before because of the cold.

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Everyone managed to make some lovely monotypes despite cold fingers but we decided that plasticine printmaking at the pond might just tip some of the less hardier members of the group into hypothermia so, instead, we headed up to the banqueting house to admire the view across the valley and in the other direction, to Mowbray Castle.

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Chris was waiting with his minibus at the car park to take us back to ArtisOn for lunch. Sue Palin spoilt us with three delicious soups and bread followed by scones and two kinds of cake 🙂 Full up and a bit rosy cheeked from the snow, I then set about showing the teachers how to make prints and stamps from funfoam, how to explore textures of found objects by printing from plasticine and the amazing things you can do with relief collagraph techniques. None of which need a press or any expensive materials. Here’s one of my collagraph sample boards:

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The teachers getting stuck in to making stamps.

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All in all it was an excellent day and proved that the weather should be no obstacle to having a good time! In fact I distinctly recall the first workshop that I ever did for the Woodland Trust which involved me leading a group of printmakers around Hackfall in the pouring rain to gather inspiration for two days of collagraph printmaking. The results were amazing and reflected the weather.

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So, if anybody is now keen to come printmaking in the woods, Paul is running a Family Day at Hackfall on the 10th April, 11am – 4pm. There will be pond dipping and I will be based in the Rustic Temple doing printmaking. Adults and children are welcome to come and have a go. For more information visit the Hackfall website. Booking not required. Hope to see some of you there and perhaps we will have some sunshine! 🙂

 

Final Days at Ålgården

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I started this post whilst I was still at Ålgården but I had so much to do before I left that I never got the chance to finish it so here it is! The final days of my residency were quite intense but very satisfying. On Sunday I successfully exposed my latest graphite drawing as a photopolymer plate. Here is one of the first proofs. I forgot to mention the fact that all my prints are being printed onto cream Hahnemüle paper which accounts for the slightly pink/cream looking photos

I’ve been a bit obsessed with puddles in the forest and wanted to capture something of the feel of the pine forest after the rain.

It was also a beautiful afternoon on Sunday so I went for a long run with my camera to try and get as many photos as possible. I have built up a really good image bank that I hope will help me to continue my Swedish work during the winter months in the UK.

I then went into the studio with the intention of making some small monotypes of the autumn colour in the birch forest. However, I found myself making an enormous grey (not even black) monotype of the birches and it took me ages. I was so tired that I almost gave up on it but forced myself to finish. I think I wanted to make the most of having access to the huge press but it was a bit of a mistake. On Sunday night I thought it was an awful print but I looked at it in the cold light of Monday morning and it wasn’t so bad and will be useful as a reminder of things now that I am back home. Although it hasn’t travelled too well and will need resoaking. I packed all my prints up very carefully and they were fine but this was so big that I had to roll it and stow it in my case. Needless to say it is now squashed flat!

On Monday Ida Brogren, artist and illustrator http://www.syskonenbrogren.se, arrived with her camera and she took photos of me exposing the monotype transparency onto the photopolymer plate. Here are the two transparencies stuck together (there is a lot of overlap of ink).

Following all the steps described in my previous post, we exposed and developed the plate. I also exposed an identical plate using the same timings but using the aquatint screen that Björn had given me to see what the difference was. This is a picture (taken by Ida) of Christina and me examining the screens.

I’m chuffed to bits with the proof prints! (Here is the one made from the plate using the studio’s aquatint screen:

and the one made using Björn’s screen:

The dots on the above screen are more open and so you get a rougher and more grainy effect. It would be interesting on certain prints though and it is great to have it to start me off. Björn has also given me the details of the man in Gothenburg that makes the aquatint screen that I used. It would be a good investment for me to order one from him once I have made my lightbox.

I spent the rest of Monday printing and organising all my stuff for transporting back to the UK. I then found out that Modhir Ahmed was coming back to Ålgården to film people looking at his exhibition and then sharing their thoughts on his paintings. He arrived in the late afternoon and Ida stayed behind to help with the filming. She also made a beautiful meal for us of pea soup with creme fraiche and caviar with olive ciabatta and her friend arrived with the most delicious apple cake. It was a nice surprise because I’d intended working through and just snacking on a bowl of cereal! 🙂

Once we’d eaten, Modhir insisted that we were filmed looking at his paintings. I have to admit that I was a bit reluctant due to the large amount of work that I wanted to do on my last night but I managed to say a few words that I hope were meaningful before scuttling back to the studio. It got to about midnight and I decided that I needed to wind down a bit so I went to the lithography studio and made some acetate screens to take back to England. You may remember that this involves using a large and a small lithography stone with carborundum and water and it is a meditative thing to do. I made four which took about 25 minutes so I felt quite relaxed by the time I went to bed.

Tuesday was my last day at Ålgården and I was determined to say goodbye to the forest so I went for a 5 mile run in the rain. It was lovely with lots of jays and nuthatches flying about and I saw the friendly woodsman and was able to say goodbye to him too. I got back to the studio and Modhir Ahmed had a surprise in store in the gallery. He wanted us to come and look at his exhibition and in the night he had painted over all of his paintings in black and chalked a single English word on each. It was something of a shock but exciting too. He is a very interesting and well-respected artist in Sweden, full of ideas and energy. I found an article on the Ålgården facebook page that talks about it: http://www.bt.se/kulturnoje/konst/konstkuppen-malade-over-tavlorna%283472160%29.gm

I wasn’t able to do any more work but had the whole morning to pack everything up carefully and prepare a couple prints that I wanted to give to Christina and Björn and also one for Lennart who arrived just in time for my farewell lunch. He and Ute had made a print together for me too, I was really touched. Björn made veggie spaghetti bolognese and eight of us sat down to eat together. Then it was time to say goodbye 😦 Anna Mattsson kindly drove me to the airport and it was really good to spend the time with her. I managed to get through the luggage check in even though they had to mark my bag as ‘heavy’ and send it down the oversize baggage chute. They also let me on with a very heavy rucksack as hand luggage and a large parcel of prints. I was quite surprised but the plane turned out to be half empty so perhaps they were being generous with regards to the usual baggage restrictions.

I will really miss everyone that made me so welcome at Ålgården and I will also miss the fantastic opportunity to immerse myself in my printmaking without the pressures to teach or sell my prints. I already feel that it has been an extremely valuable time and I suspect that it will have a profound long-term effect on my printmaking and the way I view my work. Being amongst other professional printmakers in well-equipped studios exchanging ideas and learning new techniques has all the best attributes of being at art college but with the added maturity and insights that come from actually making a career from your artistic practise. I’ve been through some low points and some self-doubt but I have also reaffirmed the fact that printmaking is what makes me tick and is how I want to make my images. I find it exciting that, after eighteen years of printmaking, I am just scratching the surface of what can be done in one small area and now the photopolymer combined with my monotypes could be a whole new avenue for me to explore. 

I now have a really hectic couple of months with at least seven group exhibitions to prepare for and two printmaking courses to teach but I have light at the end of the tunnel in the form of the quieter months of December, January and February. I usually find this time quite uninspiring and my creativity is often at a low so I tend to just use it to restock my editions and prepare for the coming months but this winter I want to consolidate some of the ideas that I have had in Sweden, make further prints based on my experience of the forests and explore photopolymer printmaking further and see where that takes me. I need to build a light box but I have good advice from Christina and Björn as well as a good book on the subject and a friendly contact in the form of Rebecca Vincent at Horsley Printmakers (check out her lovely monotypes and etchings http://www.horsleyprintmakers.co.uk/rebecca_vincent.html).

I’ll continue to write here so please do check back in the future to see what I’m up to. Oh yes, I’m already considering the possibility of returning to Sweden once I’ve developed my ideas a bit further and also I am hoping that Art Connections will be able to develop their link with Ålgården. It would be great to see some of the Swedish artists in Yorkshire in the future and perhaps we could collaborate on something. Before I sign off for now, I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone at Ålgården who made me feel so welcome and have become friends and also to Christine Keogh and Rick Faulkner at Art Connections for giving me this opportunity, it’s been just what I hoped for and more!