free-not-free

I have a commission opportunity with Nicci Wonnacott (check out international womens art facebook group)

Its run by Double Elephant Print Workshop (www.doubleelephant.org.uk) and Devon Records Office.

Nicci is a performance artist, I’m primarily a printmaker. With her I did my first art action yesterday, Sunday 23rd May, at Clovelly, a small fishing village on the North Devon coast.

Ours was a homage to the Three Suffragettes, who 101 years ago in 1909 on Whitsun (which this year fell on May 23rd), travelled from London to Clovelly, one of their many actions in their fight for ‘Votes for Women’. At Clovelly Prime Minister Asquith was entertaining friends at Clovelly Court. That Sunday morning they went to All Saints Church, dressed in the colours of the movement, green, white and purple (still the colours, see International Women’s Day). They sat in the church, waiting for their moment. Asquith’s wife saw them, and guessed them to be sufragettes, passing her husband a notes to tell him of the danger lurking. He looked as if to say; get me away safely! and at the end of the service he was whisked away out a side door of the church. The ladies, bundled out of the village, returned by foot that night (from some 10 miles away), entered the gardens at Clovelly Court and left ‘Votes for Women’ banners strewn across the flowering bushes in the gardens.

Nicci and I, and her daughter paid homage to these brave young women. Early sunday morning we filmed our action, bemused the fishmen, declined offers to go on their boat. Seriously though, it was very poignant, and moving. People were curious and one or two locals remembered the story of the three suffragettes.

We worked with filmaker Emily Keene, and we’ll edit the footage to a 4 minute film. I plan to create printed documentation too.

Our slogan was ‘What about the Women. Watch the winds of change’. What about the Women is taken from the Fawcett Society’s campaign during the General Election.

We borrowed a dedication from a ‘Votes for Women’ journal, out in May 1909. I gifted typed written dedications, and hand painted stones.

The project is ‘Politics in Print’ and the exhibition will be 4-6 September at X-centre, Exeter.

here’s sight of work in progress

its been a while

march was always going to be a busy month, and then in april I escaped

I’m exicited by printing the large woodcut outside onto fabric using an old lawn roller. My kids were enthralled so that’s the best compliment I could get; they sat totally still through the inking up and rolling. The eldest (5 years) said ‘very good mummy’ before racing off down the garden. I was very pleased with that. Normally he just looks kind of quizzcally at what I’m doing, or says I don’t like it, or says nothing at all and walks off disinterested.

so now I managed to do that, the wood pannelled side of my parent’s garage which caught my eye a year ago, looks very promising as the next case for the lawn roller.

roll up roll up!

here’s a couple of prints I’ve been playing with this evening. Its one movement of my youngest boy.

I wanted orange and yellow to suggest the heat and vibrancy of their lives. Unexpectedly the image looks like a boy soldier in the desert. He looks like he’s holding a gun in this image because in the original photo he is holding a long stick (for bashing the ground as he walks along).

This is part of what is interesting me – putting the small boy figures into spaces and finding out what different manifestations they take on. So to bring out the politics of childhood – I mean, for example; in this country: children out on their own and what this means depending on how they are perceived, neglected/independent/vulnerable; and for example, as these prints suggest, in another country, children forced into combat.

it’d be great to have comments on this; on what I’m saying or the prints themsevles.

I have a little boy waiting quietly by my side, sucking his thumb. He should be in bed.

I don’t much talk of my family here, but the two small boys who occupy a lot of my life are inspiring much of my current work. I am fascinated by their movements; their running fast and free; their small bodies in open expanses, so vulnerable and invincible at the same time.

I’ll put some images of a woodcut on this theme soon – just waiting on an order of ink.

a small finger is touching my elbow and he is standing very very close, I can ignore him no longer!