Printmaking, poetry and handmade books
It’s hard to believe that it’s over a month since I wrote the last entry. The main reason for the gap is an injury to my shoulder which has prevented me from sitting at the computer for any length of time.
This entry is mainly to announce the start of my new weekly printmaking course starting next Wednesday 17th October, 1 – 4 pm. My Thursday morning class is oversubscribed and so it made sense to think about adding another class to my weekly teaching schedule. These regular weekly sessions are, of course, primarily about printmaking but they also generate a real sense of community amongst us artists, and provide us with opportunities to exchange our experiences and give each other feedback and support about our activities both at the studio and outside it. I am very grateful for the fact that I have a unique resource here and it is fantastic that so many people can take advantage of it.
I’m back at work (in between pressing bags of frozen peas against my shoulder) preparing for the next handmade book, Arc-en-ciel – A Rainbow in Verse, to be published in November 2013 and launched at the prestigious High Cross House, Dartington, Devon. The book will comprise 25 hand-printed pages in various different printmaking media (etching, collagraph, linocut, wood engraving) reflecting the colours of the rainbow as gathered from specially chosen bits of poetry. I am one of six artists collaborating on this book – the others are Val Jones, Moira Mellor, Jenny Pery, Rita Smith and Shirley Smith. The colours and excerpts from poems I have chosen are “Atlas of Iceland in Nineteen Pages, p.11” by Alyson Hallett – white, “High Flight” by John Magee – Indigo, “Bornholm” by Elisabeth Rowe – Indigo, and The Force that through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower by Dylan Thomas – Green. My interpretations will be loose to say the least! But will have sprung from my personal responses to the poems in terms of the colours that come to mind, even if the colours themselves are not specifically mentioned in the excerpts. At present, all four prints are still evolving whether they be on the plate or in the mind!
