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!
Funeral for a friend
An old school friend died a couple of weeks back. I seem to have been to at least half a dozen funerals in recent years, but this one seemed a little different, as it put me back in touch with a group of six or eight old friends whom I haven’t seen since my school days.
There was something rather extraordinary about seeing their faces, older but essentially unchanged, and picking up conversations from forty years ago, as if those days were just a few months back. There’s something there about the human condition, and the way our lives weave in and out of each others as we move through time, that is profoundly beautiful. It helped that it was a perfect spring day, and the funeral was set in a beautiful piece of landscape just outside the city of Bath, where I spent my teenage years.
I spent a good few years riding motorbikes and enjoying visits to country pubs with Tom, the man who has died, and whilst it was sad to say goodbye, it was also interesting to reflect on the way we separated onto totally different pathways in our twenties. He staying local to Bath, whilst I headed to London for a life in art and design, with hardly a backward glance. I’m not sure whose choice was the wiser, but maybe that isn’t particularly relevant, it’s something to think about over the summer perhaps.
Photopolymer etching at Spike
The main event this spring, for the print club at least, is a set of new photopolymer etchings I’m working on at Spike Print Studios, with the help of Martyn Grimmer.
Photopolymer utilises a light sensitive coating on a metal sheet, that allows you to create an intaglio printing plate from any drawing or photograph that you’ve imaged onto a clear acetate film. It could be as simple as a line drawing with a black pen. I’ve completed the work on my first plate this week, and inked and pulled four test prints, the third of which I’m pretty happy with!
For the next stage I’m going to make a bigger plate, and see if I can create a full edition for the club. No small challenge, as it takes a lot of experience, and perhaps a little luck, to ink the plate consistently between each pass through the press. It may be a case of celebrating the difference rather than being amazed by the similarities of the tonality in each print! We’ll see. I haven’t taken many photos of the work in progress yet, I’ll try to take a few more for next time, but I have a couple of images to share here.
Shimano Fuji x Oriel / ONE
My tree peony, Shimano Fuji, has seven amazing blooms on it’s woody branches this week. I’ve had it in the ground here for four or five years now, and it remains the most amazing and beguiling thing. I’ve photographed it, as I do every year, and wonder if I can integrate these images into a print edition. Not sure. There’s something about the blousy impermanence of its flowers that herald the spring, but only for the briefest of moments, as with many things in the garden, each taking their turn to shine before fading back into the borders.
Simultaneously I’ve been working on a new Oriel image for an old friend, and am really pleased with this new lighter, more dahlia like treatment. It’s far closer to the image I envisaged when I drew the work originally.
I guess I’ve become as interested in the impermanence and beauty of the flowers as they pass, as I am in the relative permanence of the drawings I’m making. There’s something deep in the contrast between these two ways of being that is of real interest. I’m effectively wondering out loud if the print work can become lighter in the way it inhabits a space, more ephemeral perhaps.
A garden
It would be hard to recall a wetter spring than this one has been, but still there have been some good opportunities to get outside and work with the soil and the plants, and enjoy a mug of tea too. I’m interested to see if I can rid myself of more of the perennial weeds this year, although I secretly love weeding, getting in close to the soil and sifting between the plants I’m cultivating to remove the interlopers that I don’t want to see prosper.
When you’re deep under the canopy of the leaves, with your face close to the soil, the chaos of it all at ground level is extraordinary. It’s a completely ridiculous challenge of course, pure artifice to think you can control any part of it. There’s something about the push and the pull of it all that is endlessly mesmerising, especially on a warm spring evening. I’m attaching a few photos I’ve taken today, so you can see a little more of the space I’m working in, and inspired by, here.
I'll look forward to being in touch again soon with more news about the next edition. In the meantime, wishing you all the best for the spring,
Chuck Elliott
If you’d like to receive three or four exclusive new editions in the post each year, alongside personal news and views from the studio, and invitations to shows and fairs, please do consider becoming a member of my Experimental Print Club. You can join or leave the club at any time, with absolutely no obligation to stay any longer than you want to.
New works are sent out somewhat sporadically throughout the year, often in line with the changing seasons. Each piece is unique, exclusive, and only available on the day it’s editioned, the size of the edition being determined by the number of members on the day.
I hope the club presents a more personal and intriguing way to connect with the studio, by creating a platform for collecting engaging new works for your home. The club is hosted online here, and I send out fairly regular blog posts and emails about the work too. I’d like to think that it’s an interesting proposition!
Membership is currently priced at £36 per month inc. UK delivery, or £42 for an international address.
