Wood for the Trees

I have been warmly welcomed to The Print Shed (http://www.theprintshed.net/) for the start of my time as artist in residence there by Jill Barnaby (owner and artist) and Richard Bavin (studio artist based at The Print Shed).

Getting started at The Print Shed today I sketched in the grounds to get my bearings and familiarise myself with the setting.  I would love the take this opportunity to get stuck into printing.  I have a feeling there is a lot I can do in printing in my exploration of writing, listening and communication.  The Print Shed is in a thoroughly rural location 6 miles from Hereford.

August is a disrupted month, productivity-wise, for me (and much of the UK!) being a holiday month.  The time after the end of the college year and after Christmas tend to be very reflective times for me to take stock of where I am and where I want to be.  I am trying to be less outright critical of my own every move and just make /paint when possible.  I often think I haven’t done much, but then get the work I’ve produced together from the various ‘safe’ (!) places around the house and sheds and find there’s tonnes there.

I am working at breaking up text and seeing/altering what happerns with the gaps in between the fragments.  The piece I did in Whitchurch in May/June this year is on my mind and I am curious about what these fragments might do on a large scale or on a 3D surface.

I need to decide which pieces I’m putting into the Young Open Exhibition at St Peter’s Church in Hereford in early September (any media) and Paper Fields exhibition in London, mid October, (works on paper).

While on my recent (quick) visit to Liverpool to attend the John Moores Painting prize PV – I noticed on my early morning walk back through the city that some of the paving has similar qualities to the sandstone clay I’d used as pebbles in my stone writing.  Cut to paving stones and laid as they are I find them fascinating.

Some of my intuitive painting from this month.

Responding to Sam White’s postcard which was an oblong with ‘onand’ machine stitched onto it in red thread (top) and black underneath.  Her words on the back of the card are ‘ whether we like it or not – Life goes on and on and on…’

I pondered how to respond for a while (I’m meant to return the postcard within a week of receiving, but went way over this time limit)

With this I’ve tried to just ‘let go’ and work in a way that feels right, not try and come up with anything clever and contrived.  I definately can overthink these things sometimes!

When I started threaded strips of handmade paper through Sam’s stitching I intended to then weave more paper strips through and so have the writing rising out of the card.  Instead, as carried on threading, what was happening by building up strips like this was that it appears to be growing out of the base.  Growth is a theme I touch upon every now and again. If I then wove strips through this growth would become something else, something overworked, perhaps.