Year end ... new beginnings

I am patiently waiting for 2016 to end and open a door on another chapter. I hope it will be better than the one we've had this year. It has been like a year like no other in my memory with contrasting highs and lows. Sadly, more lows than highs.

For someone of my tender age we've lost  musical heroes this year in David Bowie and  Prince, and then we lose Rick Parfitt and George Michael within two days of each other. News about Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds seals a week of strange tidings and has had me wondering 'who next?'
A phone call today tells me that 'who next' is an old friend from newspaper days who passed away in Ireland yesterday after a long fight with cancer. We had e mail exchanges this year when he was well enough to write and his humour will leave me with wonderful memories of friendship.

The political upheaval of Brexit in the summer had me wondering if the inmates were now running the asylum. Recent events here and abroad makes me conclude that they might be. So many others seems to have an agenda that differs to mine. I want the impossible it seems. I'd like to see a resolution in Syria in 2017 and hope for refugees. Faint hope I suspect.

I am not usually so introspective but I think the biggest loss, that of the passing of Leonard Cohen, has made me so this year. Revisiting the  words from 'Anthem' makes me realise what an important step change there has been in 2016. Eyes down for something more positive in 2017. Bring it on.

Solstice

So, Winter is finally here. Up early to catch the sunrise, peering out into the dawn and thinking of all those people on Glastonbury Tor or at Stonehenge doing the same thing like an annual ritual. The days have already felt short and very dark so today will feel no different. Amazingly, on the other side of the world, friends are celebrating the Summer Solstice. Do take a look at Barry's incredible sunrise in Australia. Here in Wales it was dull and cloud heavy. I could happily do a swap!
It's one of those days of the year that I try to record in words. I look for a poem that says what I want to say. That means turning to my favourite poet, the outstanding Alice Oswald and the best collection ever - The Thing in the Gap Stone Stile. I have picked 'Prayer' for 2016:

Here I work in the hollow of God's hand
with time bent round into my reach. I touch
the circle of the earth, I throw and catch
the sun and moon by turns into my mind.
I sense the length of it from end to end,
I sway me gently in my flesh and each
point of the process changes as I watch;
the flowers come, the rain follows the wind.

And all I ask is this - and you can see
how far the soul, when it goes under flesh,
is not a soul, is small and creaturish -
that every day the sun comes silently
to set my hands to work and that the moon
turns and returns to meet me when it's done.

Is it really December?

 I am finding this December such a delight. This dry mild weather means glorious sunsets and some misty mornings. Yesterday brought the first touch of frost for us in the west but it disappeared as the sun rose, leaving everything weeping tears. It is all looking decidely ragged out there in the garden now but we resist the temptation to cut down the seedheads of the teasels, eupatoriums and hydrangeas until the bitter end. There's a lot of other seedheads too which are providing food for the birds and huge joy for us as we watch them plunder the treasure. The hardy Shoo Fly seed pod cases are getting more papery by the day and I shall harvest them for next years seed  soon but they look like winter stars on their long stalks and I keep thinking they'll last a little longer yet. It's hard to believe we are in the throes of Christmas lunches although with just over a week to the winter solstice, it has started to get dark here by 4pm and the days are most definitely shorter.  But it's been a magnificent autumn this year and I want it to continue for a bit longer. Please.

Doing lots, showing little

 There's little point in making apologies for the lack of blogging because it has only crossed my mind occasionally throughout this autumn. Hasn't it been a glorious one here? There's been lots of walking, lots of collecting things on those walks and plenty of drawing and prints ensuing. I have been playing around with drypoint print  ideas and working on a few book ideas, one all about beetles and the other looking at childhood memories of my home town of Bristol. It involves learning to sew with my Mum and my great aunt Lilla and the books are both so different that I am really enjoying working between the two ideas in tandem.

 Using some of my imagery from old patterns bought by my aunt in the old Bristol department stores of Lewis's and Jones's I went up to Bristol yesterday and spent the day learning to expose my photos and create screenprints from them. I did a fantastic one day course with an artist named Simon Tozer who was really generous with his time and expertise. The sewing ideas are all part of the book idea but I also produced a two screen  A4 print from a photo I took of some of my 'Batsford' books.

These great little books were published in the 60's and 70's and have some unbeatable titles. Some of them have become very collectable and are no longer a second  hand bargain price, but others are still there for pennies online and the graphics and the ideas are as valid now as they were 40 years ago. Do look out for them!

I think screenprinting is now firmly  'another' of my favourite things but it's that time of year to prepare for something else... but I'm still not going to mention the C word I promise. Instead I'm going to concentrate on the things I intend to do in 2017 such as finish those beetle and sewing books and prepare for delivering more workshops.

I shall be teaching another book workshop at the Yard Artspace in March and do take a look at Sue's programme for 2017 as she has managed to lure Sarah Morpeth to Cheltenham for a weekend of papercutting and bookmaking which should be really exciting. Before that I start a five week mixed media collage course locally which will be five individual all day workshops run fortnightly through January to March. Can't wait to see that happen and I am preparing samples daily for it. This is a course I've devised from scratch so I hope it goes well!

I'm also working on some prints for a postcard print exchange I've been invited to join. There are six of us but I'm the only one in the northern hemisphere. Everyone else is in Australia and I am really excited about taking part. Given posting times and drying times I am already working on my first set of prints which has to be posted in January. No reveals as I cannot spill the beans in advance but when the time is right......

With the days so busy and posting so infrequent it may well be that it is time to shut the door on the blog. Instagram is beckoning me and I feel like it might suit my needs. Who knows?  But if I decide to take the plunge I'll let you know!

Late summer garden

 We had a day out yesterday, popping down to Somerset to catch an exhibition at Lytes Cary Manor, all part of Somerset Art Weeks this year. Called Herbarium, there are four sculpture installations around the gardens inspired by Henry Lyte, a previous owner of the manor, who translated one of the first herbal remedies manuals in 1578 and dedicated it to Elizabeth 1. The National Trust website describes Lytes Cary as a hidden gem, a timeless little world to reflect and enjoy, and it certainly lived up to its billing.

This is a wonderfully intimate house surrounded by a beautiful garden, restored in the early 20th century by the Jenner family after the house fell into disrepair. It feels like you're visiting someone's small patch of heaven and we came away with lots of notes about plants and ideas for borders and pots next year.

I loved the topiary in front of the house. Twelve yews - the Apostles - clipped into shape and acting like sentinels down that path, which is cracked and crazed and full of so many textures that I spent a lot of my time looking down at my feet exclaiming that every one was like a landscape design. Needless to say there are many, many photos of the paving that I am not boring you with.......

The first installation outside of these carved seats and orbs by Alison Crowther was perfectly suited to their setting but I noticed these small owls carved into a roof space and kept going back to stare at them before being chivvied along and reminded that there was a lot more to see.

 Every turn brought more plant combinations into view and I cannot recommend a visit to Lytes Cary highly enough, so much so, that we are seriously considering a return visit soon. I did not expect the place to have such an effect on me as I am not given to fancy, but I truly found it to be very special, something I was hoping I would also feel at the second place on our itinerary for the day.

Lots has been written about the field designed by Piet Oudolf for the Hauser and Wirth Gallery in Bruton and, having seen it on television in  its first year, I was intrigued to see how it was developing.
Well, the answer is, rather wonderfully as it happens.

I think we struck lucky with the day we picked. It was warm and slightly breezy, so all those signature grasses favoured by Mr Oudolf wafted and shook in the wind and caught the late afternoon light to perfection. So many of the 26,000 perennial plants have turned to seedheads already this year but the late season colour offered by anemones, echinaceas, asters and heleniums to complement them  alongside all those grasses is to die for. It is so worth a visit and all for the price of a donation to the local museum. A treat.

Of course, I had to buy a copy of the planting plan to see which of the 115 planted varieties went next to each other. Along with the long list of plant associations from Lytes Cary we did nothing but talk plants and gardening all the way home. Come to think of it, I was doing all the talking and planning and the head gardener was probably totting up the man hours.......

We had spent so much of the day pointing at plants and saying 'we already have that' and 'we have that too' but after visiting these two inspiring gardens, we realise now, like that well known Morecambe and Wise sketch, that we have all the right plants but not necessarily in the right order. Now the question is whether to redesign here and expend lots of energy on a garden we may leave within a couple of years or keep the ideas ready for a blank canvas in the future! Exciting times are ahead of us.

Postscript

I had a day in Hay on Wye yesterday, selling two large book collections rather than buying any more sadly, but the need to de-clutter before we ever move house again is pressing. It was  so lovely to then come home and find comments on yesterday's blog post from three of my fellow Postman's Knock collage chums and be reminded of a wonderful summer of play back in 2011! Where did those five years go girls?
Made me want to do it all over again but before they start to panic that I might suggest it, and while it is uppermost in my mind, I just wanted to let people know that one of our other Postman's Knock friends has written a book that will be published in the autumn. Anyone who remembers Jane's blog will know her thoroughness and all recipients of her artwork know her attention her detail. She will have done her research for this book meticulously so, I have pre-ordered my copy and hope it becomes a best seller!

With a plan in mind

 One day in early summer I was clearing my desk out and found a pack of 12 watercolour postcards that I had bought and not used. It was only a couple of days after a meeting to discuss my lifelong learning classes for 2016/2017 and I'd agreed to trial a 5 day mixed media collage course, each one being like a day workshop and running fortnightly up to the end of term.

So, I had an idea to use the cards to try out different collage techniques and asked my friend Sheila if she fancied a bit of summer fun where I'd give her half of the cards and we'd then exchange them via the postman. She was up for it but works a bit slower than me so whilst I've now posted all of mine I'm still waiting for all 6 of hers to wing my way.

As ever, I set myself the parameter that everything I used had to be within arms reach in my little cubbyhole that I laughingly call 'the office'. It certainly challenges the mind when you limit yourself and when I look at all six of them together I wonder if anyone would see the same 'hand' in them all but they illustrate some of the ideas I expect to be teaching this autumn and Sheila will be bringing them to class to be discussed and dissected by my ever faithful group who willingly come to everything I deliver. I hope the fun I had with these small pieces translates over to the bigger picture!

If at first...

 Every time my chum Sue phones me her opening line when I answer the phone is usually 'why aren't you in that shed working ?'  Well, I was up there before I went to Oxford for a few days, getting on with preparation of an aluminium plate for some saline  etching. A post on Jac's blog a couple of weeks ago reminded me of an image I'd put together 18 months ago from photos of a mistle thrush in the garden with some text I fiddled about with in Photoshop. Jac had been using the gum arabic transfer medium for getting her image on to a plate prior to etching and I decided to pull my finger out and do mine too after all this time.

So, the day before I headed off to my course I took my photocopies , inked them up and tried to get them centred on an 8x6 aluminium plate. Easier said than done but I was happy enough with one attempt to give it a try. I didn't heat the plate up to dry it out, just left it in the window until my return. Of course by then, six days had passed and the ink was rock hard and although it etched well enough I couldn't get the original background ink off the plate... and as I'd used burnt umber, the wiping was hardly a roaring success as all these proofs on the shed wall testify to. I was printing with Payne's Grey and could not see where I'd wiped and where I hadn't.

 During a phone call this week Sue suggested trying to get the ink off with Brasso and then my husband suggested TCut which was a success! Why didn't I think of that? So, I cleaned it and then I printed it again, trying a couple of two plate options as well. I can see all the things that are wrong with it but I like the image so I'm going to sharpen it up, try to eliminate the errors and do it all over again.

 And whilst I had some left over ink on the slab I printed a collagraph that I made last year and for some reason never got around to printing. Its about 8 inches square and I think I like it in the grey/black so might frame that one and see what it looks like in different orientations.

 I've spent two days in that shed this week doing all this and I wonder why I don't have more to show for the time but it's not important. Sometimes I need to remind myself that it is all about 'doing the work' and who knows what will come out of it. I have so many ideas in my head at the moment that trying to remember them and filter out the wheat from the chaff is a real challenge but onwards, ever onwards eh?

Summer School

 I've been away for a few days this week at the annual Oxford Summer School. I found out about it last year but far too late to get on the course I wanted so as soon as the brochure landed on the mat this time around I was booked on Experimental Drawing with Claire Christie Sadler.

Not only is this lady a fantastic artist, she is a great teacher too. There were 12 of us in the group and it has been one of those workshops when everything was 'right'. The summer school was buzzing with all the different classes going on and everyone in the room just got what Claire was encouraging us to do so we cracked on with trying out lots of materials and then did painting, rubbing, ripping, sanding etc to either verbal or musical stimuli. It was huge fun and I will definitely be going again. Such a well organised and diverse event.

Whilst I have been quiet here in the online world I have been busy this summer and now have even more ideas percolating for the next month or so. Aside from a family wedding August is commitment free so I intend to carry on playing and just 'doing the work' to see what evolves at the end of it. 

What goes around comes around

 It's a couple of years since I wrote a blog post highlighting the book in the left of the picture above. This used a fabulous childrens encyclopaedia that I found, to make a book which is either described as a carousel book or a star tunnel accordion. Every time I put it on the timetable to teach, events conspired to remove it but its turn has finally come this week. So, you can imagine the dismay when I tried to find my star sample and couldn't find it anywhere!

Now, many years of bookmaking leads to lots of crates of samples but it was conspicuous by its absence despite many searches. I was bereft, thinking I'd left it in a venue on display somewhere so I asked my husband to search for it..... and he found it in the first box he looked into....

 After passing through quite a few hands it had lost its ties and needed a bit of TLC so I have repaired it and fallen in love with it all over again. It is one book I could never give away despite its flaws and I am excited to teach it on Friday and see what my group come up with for content.

Because I thought my sample was lost I quickly made a couple more. I usually have blank books in the various 'making' stages for my workshops but always like to have one special one, fully formed, for ideas and discussion. Now I have three.... and lots of ideas for a few more so I am making a couple more samples today but wanted to give a sneak preview of my two new samples......

 I always try to use up materials that are to hand, so one is using silvered card which creates a great mirrored effect. I've had this stuff for years and can't believe how long it has taken me to use it effectively so it will now line up with my new Andy Pandy book made on a whim after a chance comment by a friend the other day about the TV of our childhood here in the UK.

They are time consuming books to make but can look great with a good idea. Andy has now joined my encyclopaedia book in my 'favourites' pile and I'll try to remember the camera to show you what the group conjure up on Friday. Looking forward to it!