Lynn Bailey

Eco minded printmaker. Inspired by bugs, hedgerows and reclaimed landfill sites. I make my printmaking as environmentally friendly as I can and it is STILL magic!! My original training in the 1980s was in conservation of prints and drawings and gave a solid foundation in the traditional techniques of the ‘old masters’. Although it was a thrill to handle genuine Rembrandt prints and I was good at “touching up old masters” – this wasn’t what I saw myself doing for the rest of my life. I went back to college in the 1990s to study fine art and found myself gravitating towards printmaking again. On graduating I was very fortunate to be in a position to set up a print workshop in Exeter with Simon Ripley. Double Elephant Print Workshop now has 7 voluntary directors, approximately 90 members, loads of courses and a bank of portable presses that get taken to schools and community groups so that printmaking can reach more people. I use a lot of different printmaking processes because I'm still energized by the possibilities and moments of real surprise you get with hands on printmaking. I love to get my hands dirty – whether it is at the exploratory stage where I’m collecting plants, soil samples, rust, rubbish and goodness knows what from sites that interest me – or whether in is at the printing stage. Some processes can be very messy and I’ll get ink all the way up to my elbows (even behind my ears), but I take pride in keeping the print clean so that the artwork can be float mounted to show the entirety of the paper. Exeter