Looking forward

I've been ill with a kidney infection, not nice but the antibiotics have sorted me out and the sun is streaming into the house today making me feel much better and giving me the energy to start tackling the tasks I have been unable to do.

There is a lot of work going on towards the Rally for a frack free Ryedale  on 25th April in Malton. I am very behind with making the banners and placards but think I'll manage to get them all done next week.  Plus cakes, always we have cake!

http://www.nyos.org.uk/

My entry can be found here: http://www.nyos.org.uk/Artists-Makers.aspx?&fR=64&nR=114

My studio has been very neglected so far this year; I have managed to reorganise and tidy it ready for when I have time to get out there and make work.  At least it is ready for North Yorkshire Open Studios.  I am really looking forward to it this year because Jenny Pepper http://www.jennypepper.com/ is opening her studio up as well, so it will make our venue really worth visiting with two artists on site and of course, cake!

I am feeling a bit desperate about studio work; missing the routine of it, especially as this was going to be the year where I concentrate on that as my major activity.  Unfortunately my work with Frack Free Ryedale and Frack Free Kirby Misperton has taken up lots of time, energy and head space, which leaves me in the wrong frame of mind for my own work.  Still, once the rally is over I hope to be able to concentrate again.

 From this:

Studio clear up, from the left over chaos of last year to a reorganised space ready for work and NYOS 15.

To this!

I have finally taken the plunge and having a series of works on paper reproduced using giclee printing.  As a rule, I don't like doing this but these twelve pieces make up one work and to sell one of the originals would destroy it.  Therefor I am very excited to say that thanks to Ian Mitchell's recommendation, http://www.ianmitchellart.com/, I am happy to be working with Norton Print and Frame, http://www.fineart.co.uk/directory/fruit-art-ltd_100032.aspx?DirectorySearchPageId=5, who are excellent.  I will be going to check the proofs on Tuesday and then will give the go ahead for a limited print run of each.  

The series, called Laminar Flow,  is one that was made as an experiment; I wanted to try and express what each season feels like and how they form a whole cycle and to do this, I made twelve pieces, acrylic on paper.  Each painting started out the same or as near the same as hand made paintings can be, and then each successive painting had one more layer added, equally as identical as I could make them. The twelfth painting is therefor much thicker and heavier than the last.  There is one painting for each month of the year; my concerns about the passing of time and memory reflected in each. These were made a few years ago, have been in a local pub for a year and generally forgotten about until I had them home again and realised that they were too good to be stuck on the storage rack.  I'd be happy to sell the piece as a whole but devastated to break them up, hence the giclees.

Here is April:

My plan is to have one or two complete set of prints for sale packaged in archive boxes and then the others available as individual prints.  I may even have packs of cards made, but not sure yet.

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March ends - an update

It has been a hectic end to the month.  Lots of activity for Frack Free Kirby Misperton and Ryedale, I finished the piece for "Democracy Rocks" and helped to set up the exhibition, which opened yesterday. Plus a good experience at a local printers, where I took a series of paintings that work as one piece, to be printed in a short edition of each, with a view to selling some.  I am actually preparing ahead for North Yorkshire Open Studios!

My piece for "Democracy Rocks", The Mud and the Sheen*, is a first for me, because I have never made an installation of my own work before.  I am pleased with the results, although, against my better judgement I have  scattered too much preparatory work at its base, losing the cleanness of where the loops of paper almost touch the floor.  If I ever install it again, elsewhere, I will avoid that.  In the end, it was installed near a back corner of the gallery, simply because it was easier to suspend the work from there and it looks good; the added height of the gallery ceiling enabled me to increase the height of the work too, making it even more relevant to the meaning of the piece.  I have really enjoyed the challenge of creating a two dimensional print and presenting it in three dimensions.

*p194, Jackson Pollock's Abstraction, Timothy J Clark, in Reconstructing Modernism, Art in New York, Paris and Montreal, 1945-1964.  Ed: Serge Guilbaut, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England.

The private view was quite well attended, there has been a lot of media interest too.  I hate posing for photographs, why is it that newspaper photographers always seem to work to such awful, cliche ridden ideas of what makes a good photograph?  It makes me laugh and shudder at the awful banality of it!

I enjoyed being part of the team that set up this extraordinary exhibition that includes work by young people and professional artists.  I can thoroughly recommend a visit and when you do, don't forget to post a vote for your favourite pieces and write on a post it note about what democracy means to you, using the polling booth.  You might even like to have a go at drumming on one of the decorated ballot boxes!

Seasons

Artist Ian Mitchell http://www.ianmitchell-art.com/  recommended Norton Print and Frame http://www.fineart.co.uk/directory/fruit-art-ltd_100032.aspx?DirectorySearchPageId=5  to me as the best people to approach about having some prints made of a series of paintings I made a couple of years ago. I continue to be fascinated by ideas that explore the passage of time.  Called Seasons, the piece comprises 12 paintings, 30 x 40 cm, acrylic on paper. An experimental series, each piece started out exactly the same, or as near as I could get it, given that they are paintings.  

March

Each successive piece was added to in the same way until I reached the final, twelfth painting.  The paintings each represent one month of a year and are a result of careful observation of colour and light levels.  NP&F have produced some superb photographs of each painting and I am really looking forward to going back in a few days to look at the proofs before we go ahead and produce a short edition of ten of each painting.  I plan to have two full sets available, and the rest can be sold separately.  The point of this exercise, because I would not as a rule produce prints of my paintings, is that I cannot sell any individual paintings from the originals as they collectively comprise one piece of work.  

September

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A Glorious Day!

The sun shone all day.  All day today!  And the sunset was beautiful too.  The drain work has gone well and the new water main pipe is in place ready for when we connect up, I finished mounting the twelve paintings I'm sending down to my local and started mounting and wrapping the work that will be in the browser during my show in April, so all in all a pretty good day.

Winter: January, February. December

This series of twelve paintings, done with acrylic paint on paper, were an experiment; each painting started with the same layer and design and each successive piece had one more layer added so that the final painting consisted of all twelve layers, if that makes sense!

Spring: March, April, May

Summer: June, July, August

Autumn: September, October, November

Unfortunately, because of the bright sunny day, I could not find anywhere to take these photos without nasty reflections.  I am waiting for my resident photographer to check the colour balance   of the ones he took before I can upload them, but you get a sense of the way they work.  They were all based on observations of the colours and weather of the seasons and I think each set of three paintings reflects them quite well.  Framing them up has made such a difference too.

 Two more membership forms for Ryedale ArtWorks arrived today with cheques , I am membership secretary, and it is looking like we are on target for another good Directory.  So, as I said earlier; all in all, a pretty good day.