Print Club News / May 2024
I’m minded to write a little more personally here than I perhaps have before, and continue in that direction over the coming years. As I get older, it seems to me that the personal is blending with the professional, into some kind of singular existence that blends the art I make with my day to day life, in ways that become ever more inseparable. I recently heard success described as the ability to simply keep doing what you do each day, that success lies within the activity itself, not the outcome. That resonated with me!
Lyric / cyan base / EPC edition #26
For at least a decade now I've been exploring and writing about my interest in the hybridity between the digital and the analogue, what is gained and what is lost in the transition between these two very specific ways of working, and seeing if it's possible to navigate a path that uses components of each to create new works that couldn't have been made in the pre digital era; but that still evoke some of the beauty and magic of the more traditional techniques from our shared history. Looking backward as a method for moving forward as it were.
The Cyanotype is one such process, discovered by Sir John Herschel in 1842, it's one of the first methods artists discovered for fixing a light based photographic image permanently to paper. The studios at Spike incorporate a traditional darkroom, and so it's entirely possible to experiment with a wide range of photographic techniques there.
Print Club News / Editioning at Spike Print / November 2023
I’m feeling quite excited about the week ahead, and so wanted to drop you a note to let you know that I’ve finally arrived at my first week editioning prints at Spike Print Studio.
I’ll be continuing to work with Martyn Grimmer, at least initially, the task in hand being to create an edition of Cyanotypes for the Print Club.
Print Club News / November 2023
I just wanted to post a quick note to say that I am actively pursuing the next Print Club edition this week!
The last couple of months have been strangely busy here, in part because I’ve been working towards the Woolwich Contemporary opening, and in part because I’ve had an unusually large number of commissions moving through the studio.
Print Club News / October 2023
I’ve been making and refining my glass edition, entitled Vessel, over the summer. It remains a work in progress. The top image in the newsletter is of a 3d printed, one to one scale PLA maquette of the work, ready to be burnt out in the kiln, ahead of being cast into glass.
I’ll be working with Dr Angela Thwaites, a noted British glassmaker, in her London studio later in the autumn, in the hope of completing the work before Christmas. There’s a lot of polishing and grinding involved to complete the 11 glass components that make up the work.
Spike Print Studio / Intaglio etching with Martyn Grimmer
I’ve been enjoying expanding and improving my working knowledge of intaglio printmaking techniques under the brilliant tutelage of Martyn Grimmer at Spike Print Studio here in Bristol.
The studio offers open access to some fabulous printmaking presses, all set within what must be a Festival of Britain era daylight studio with curtain wall glazing looking out over the new cut.
Print Club News / December 2022
I hope this finds you well in the run up to the Winter solstice, Christmas and the New Year. I have to say I was hoping to be a little further on with the latest Print Club editions by now, but in fact, it has been pretty busy here, with a lot going on in the past couple of months, and the foil work I'm experimenting with hasn't been totally straightforward. It's an interesting challenge though.