Think, Question, Print

At the beginning of October I met with artist Helen Oxley in Nelson at The Shop. As Helen lives and works locally I was keen to speak with her about Think, Question, Print to hear her opinion on the work and to find out if she had any advice or useful contacts that she could pass on to me. I first found out about Helen through another artist David Armes – I’d seen David around Hot Bed Press for quite a while but we’d never spoken before and I was surprised to find out that he’d been reading my blog. He mentioned that he’d previously taken part in a residency scheme set up by In Situ that was based at The Shop and suggested that I speak to Helen.

We spoke for an hour and she was incredibly helpful agreeing to assist me with setting up events for local residents to attend and share stories and facts about the area and the community that could potentially boost my creative responses. I left the meeting feeling excited; frantically scribbling down plans on the train home. There was talk of weekly meetings and participatory activities or events and even the suggestion of seeking out further funding to extend the work.

Unfortunately however these plans have not come into action. After our meeting I had a busy couple of months beginning two new part time roles and co-organising and managing a print fair in Manchester called Unwrapped. Although these disruptions were necessary or beneficial the timing of them meant that the project ended up on hold for two months which ruined a lot of my plans. Once I had more free time I made contact with Helen to apologise for the situation and to let her know that I’m keen to stay in touch. Although the plans we discussed are yet to be fulfilled I will be keeping hold of my notes for the future.

The conversation that we had was honest and refreshing; we spoke about the struggles of making work happen and the benefits and drawbacks of collaborating with other artists. It felt really important to speak to someone in a similar position to me who succeeds in making work but understands the difficulties of working as an artist and will talk openly about this. I lack confidence in both my work and myself often believing that my ideas or aims are not strong enough or worrying that I don’t have enough to say about my creative practice. In the past the prospect of meeting another artist one on one to discuss my ideas or work would have been a real struggle for me but during the past eighteen months I’ve made strides to improve and develop my confidence by pushing myself to engage in conversations about my work and the impact has been noticeable. This meeting with Helen was another step towards developing my own voice as an artist and I’m incredibly grateful to her for agreeing to speak to me.

I’ve been unbelievably busy with my many part time jobs/other commitments over the past few weeks and it’s been a real struggle to find time to devote to the blog and to the work itself. I did have a really useful meeting with a Nelson/Colne based artist called Helen Oxley recently and I’ll be blogging about that at another time.

For now though I just want to continue with a bit more insight into the work that I’ve been making in response to the areas. I’ll be posting some more images of the drypoint prints and some photos of the plates soon but I wanted to focus on the mono-prints that I made a few weeks after my trip to Nelson. I’ve only ever worked with trace mono-print in the past which is a method of working that I like but I struggle to push it further to create anything beyond simple lines and marks. For this recent work I’ve been using a metal plate, painting directly onto the surface using the inks in a painterly way. I’ve been diluting the oil-based inks slightly with turps and using rollers, brushes, scraps of card and various other tools to apply the ink to the surface. The plate is then put through a press with pre-soaked paper in the same way that an etching or drypoint plate is printed.

Again I’ve been working from the photographs, descriptions and my own memory to create the pieces – they’ve been completely spontaneous; the two locations have only been referenced loosely using colour and shape and I’ve let formed the images and compositions in a way that has felt very fluid. As with the drypoint plates this has been a step away from my usual way of working. Producing imagery in such an immediate and responsive way has been challenging but I’ve enjoyed the immediacy of it. I also noticed that on a day when I was feeling preoccupied with other work and my mind wasn’t as focused as I would have liked I produced work that felt forced and disconnected.

In the past I’ve always worked with quite a strong idea of what the final outcome would look like and even if my mind was wandering it was still possible to produce relevant work. Creating pieces purely from experiences, memories and impressions requires a more intense level of concentration as the link between myself and the work is key to the making process.

The images (photos taken shortly after the prints were made) show the first series of mono-prints that I made. I was happy with 3 out of 4 of the prints – they seemed to follow on well from the drypoint work retaining some of the magic and surrealism but approaching the imagery in a more delicate way. I don’t usually print in colour very often (except for screen print) as I find it difficult to work with colour in a way that doesn’t feel unnatural or unnecessary. I chose a palette inspired by the two towns focusing on more unusual shades of pink and green that I came across in Nelson. The second series of mono-prints works with the same colours but something about them doesn’t quite work. I’ve not had an opportunity to photograph the later prints yet but I’ll aim to upload them next week.

Over the past 5 or 6 weeks I’ve been producing work in response to my day trips to Colne and Nelson. In an earlier post I talked about making collages and quick abstract responses with paint and ink which were then photocopied and used as starting points for creating plates.

In my last post about work I referred to some drypoint plates that I had made and printed at Hot Bed Press. I began with 6 plates in response to Colne which were produced quickly; gouging into the plate with the help of a Dremmel and applying loose sections of carborundum for solid areas of black. Below are some photos of the prints from these first plates:

In the past I have only attempted drypoint a couple of times – I liked it but the looser marks weren’t quite suited to the type of work I was making at the time. For this project however it felt right to use a process that is more immediate, changeable and loose. I wanted the plates to reflect my thoughts and reactions to the two towns and the documentation that I had made and something overly planned or laboured wouldn’t have had as much of a connection. It’s also been really useful for me to step away from my rigid style of working and play and experiment with my work. These responses are far removed from my usual practice but it still feels like my work and there are characteristics within the prints that are constant in my style of illustration and image-making.

The composition of each image came from carefully selecting sections of the preliminary collages and piecing together in a way that depicted an element of my time in Colne or the feelings that I had towards the town. It’s difficult to explain how the images work or relate to the Lancashire town but they convey some of the atmosphere or mood that I picked up on. As I mentioned in previous posts I’m interested in folklore and stories relating to the area but also the idea of inventing new folklore and I wanted a sense of magic or mystery to come through in the prints. This wasn’t something that I wanted to force though – some of the images work and some of them don’t.

With each plate the first print picks up the tone of the plate giving a light grey background however I found that after printing once it was easier to wipe the plate back further to give a cleaner print. This gave me the opportunity to control the wiping and leave some shadowy/cloudy looking sections adding to the character of the overall image. On some plates I added further carborundum or more marks after the first print to edit the parts that didn’t quite work. This is something quite new for me with printmaking – in the past I’ve printed and then moved on rather than revisiting an image that I wasn’t sure about.

A couple of weeks ago I carried out my second residency day this time visiting Nelson, a neighbouring town of Colne and home of The Shop. I’ve previously mentioned The Shop, a creative space ran by In Situ, and the support that they have been offering me.

For my research day in Nelson I used The Shop as a base which changed the dynamic of the day quite a lot in comparison to the visit to Colne. In practical terms it freed me up as I could leave bulky items and bags at my work space and wander without the extra weight. Having a base to work at also meant that I was able to create plates and collages directly rather than waiting until I was home to make responsive work.

My approach to documentation altered slightly in Nelson – I planned less only pinpointing a few areas on the map rather than plotting specific routes to follow and I refrained from setting specific tasks to follow. I found that during periods of exploration I was less inclined to document through drawing or writing preferring to work directly onto plates or photograph areas or items of interest. In some ways this felt better as the work felt less forced; making observational drawings in Colne didn’t come as naturally as I expected as I wasn’t interested in the architecture, landscape or people as whole entities but rather as starting points to transform, combine or manipulate. In Colne I still went through the motions of capturing scenes or figures in a literal way however while working in Nelson I missed this stage out and responded in a more abstract way from the very beginning.

On reflection I feel that I let myself down slightly by skipping this step and although I’m happy with the experimental printmaking that I’ve been working on in response to Nelson I feel it is lacking something in comparison to the plates produced inspired by Colne. I’m unsure however whether this is solely down to creative approach or whether it’s because I’d visited Nelson a few weeks earlier so I was already familiar with parts of the town. It might also have been due to the fact that I had contacts and a location to work from; I didn’t feel quite so much like a stranger, the sense of anonymity wasn’t as strong in Nelson. Obviously the differences in the work will also have been caused by the differences in the towns themselves – there were similarities between the two but Colne definitely had a stronger connection with the landscape and wilder countryside whereas Nelson felt man-made. It’s hard to express in words exactly what that means but it’s a feeling that stuck with me.

Since the residency day in Nelson I’ve developed further plates and responsive collages using the photographs and written documentation as a starting point. I’ve been struggling with time however so I don’t feel as connected with the work as I’d like but I’m hoping to push through this and keep making when I can. As much as I’d love to dedicate longer periods to creative production, research and evaluation it’s just not feasible. I think at the end of the project the work will reflect this struggle with time and will serve as a learning experience for the future. This will be an important part of the process and I need to remember that my personal and professional development is the aim of the project rather than the production of a finished series of works.

Since my day in Colne I’ve been working on translating my experience into visuals. As I mentioned in my summary of the residency day I didn’t want to simply produce a series of works depicting the town and the landscapes/architecture that I saw. I do intend to use the sketches that I made at some point but my initial creative outputs have been produced in response to the photographs and written accounts that I made.

In an attempt to step away from rigid observational drawings I’ve been looking more at shapes, patterns and textures using collage and solid blocks of ink, paint or pencil to create a foundation. I’ve then been layering marks and painted lines on top to produce experimental compositions that echo elements of Colne but are much looser and more personal.

These mixed media works use coloured papers, inks, crayons etc. but I’ve been flattening the images by photocopying in black and white as I’d prefer to add colour during the printmaking process if I feel that it’s relevant. Below are photos of the black and white versions:

On Saturday I began developing these visual into plates using drypoint and carborundum. I combined elements to create new compositions or simplified and revised existing images. I produced six plates on Saturday working in a much quicker way than I normally would. Compared to the residency day in Colne I felt much more at ease and really enjoyed the process of working without too much thought or rigidity. I started to add in new marks and lines and found that the images developed even further. I made changes to the plates after printing and took the time to look closely at each print considering how to make improvements. I’m back at Hot Bed Press on Tuesday to continue printing and possibly make some more plates and on Wednesday I’m travelling to Nelson for my second residency day.