she shew me

..only when I moved to Manchester was I told of my incorrect grammar. But back in Norfolk I could say without note that my sister shew me, along the river Wensum, things I’d not seen before. My sister, having now lived there longer than me, walked me through the city along the river with its huge weeping willows and shew me the old pump house near Barn Road, some good public art – it looks like it belongs there – on the Quay side and a parasitic birds house in a tree beside Cow Tower.  She shew me the Jarrolds Printing museum, only open on Wednesdays ( it was a thursday) and a new bridge – rusty metal and wood..mmmm near Pulls Ferry. We walked over to see parts of the old city walls, out past the football grounds and Carrow Bridge House, tucked away up the side of a hill. She says they reckon parts of the wall were taken as raw materials, built in and around. People are living with the wall in their homes today and might not even know they have a lookout post in the attic, flint arrowheads in the cellar.

We also walked into Surrey House the Norwich Union building that took up all the marble Westminster Abbey couldn’t afford, lining almost every surface with it. We saw an  early air conditioning system and a gold and green skeleton clock made for the Great Exhibition. The clock played 12 tunes, 1 for every hour, the workers disabled it as they couldn’t get enough work done, unable to resist the urge to waltz the  marble floors whenever the  chime called them.

-in between- in Glasgow

I’m going to be showing work at the Glasgow Artists Book Fair this weekend (28th and 29th April). Most of the books on my website will be there for perusal and purchase including the ‘proper’ half of the -in between- edition, on sale for a princely £4.50 each. I’m really looking forward to having a mooch about Glasgow again, I might drop the last few misfits whilst I mooch.

Inside collaborations

Next week, as part of the current exhibition at BLANKSPACE, I’ll be running a workshop with writer Annie Clarkson. See below for details.

Thursday 26 April
Free, 2-5pm
BLANKSPACE
Spend the afternoon responding to work and themes from the exhibition with poet Annie Clarkson and visual artist Gemma Lacey. Sharing with you experiences of their own working collaborations the artists will facilitate discussion, writing and making using some of their own creative play as starting points for creating new work. To book your place please email Nathalie.

-in between- more news

 

…this time dropped on a park bench in the beautiful Berkshire village of Waltham St Lawrence.Once again thanks to Matt for dropping and Sarah for shooting.

- in between – news of

 

The first photos from the journeys of the – in between- books.  This one dropped in the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading by Matt who writes a great blog on spaces, places and the like called liminal city, he also wrote a brilliant piece spinning out from the project. It’s nice to know the seeds are germinating out there.  Lovely photos by Sarah , much thanks to you both, can’t wait to see where the next one sets down.

I’ve also had news that one got stuck to a windscreen in Margate on a lovely sunny evening, no visual evidence yet though.

Marrakesh part 2-nooks, windows and holes

The Ben Youseff Medersa had a courtyard with tiled walkways and a hall with intricately carved white plaster walls and high wooden doors in the arches. The students rooms were set around smaller less decorative tiered landings with carved wooden bannisters and eaves opening out to the sky. The rooms were living and study spaces, small, spartan and solid with wooden steps and platforms worn smooth by the students who stood and laid upon them. I enjoyed the inset spaces, windows and tiny connecting doors. Without furniture, it seemed to me the spaces encouraged you to consider them as playgrounds, to climb over, crawl through and tuck yourself into nooks and I wondered if that was how the students lived or played there and if they would be allowed.

the woman who taught me to draw…

and paint, see pictures in squiggles and clouds is dead.

I think my mum probably taught me to draw too, but in my memory it is Nan who stands out. Hours spent at the kitchen table practising the pictures on the table mats, trying to instil in the 8 year old me the need for subtlety of line and a soft pencil.  Memory is a changeable beast, Nan’s was for the last 8 years or so, her stories of life repeated and slowly muddled over their telling.  I remember the screwed up balls of frustrated drawings that filled the waste paper bin, tucked away behind the armchair. I think they were the first clear sign I saw that something was changing. I’m not sure where she went, but I’ve been sending her occasional postcards to make her laugh, I hoped. The words on the back becoming simpler and larger. This one was next, I can hear her laughing now.

Marrakesh part 1-some more pattern

I came away from Morocco simultaneously wanting to get rid of all of my stuff and live very simply whilst colouring all the walls and filling areas with dense detail. Those contrasts seem to heighten the emotion and feeling of each space, making it more tranquil or portent in relation.  The internal and external qualities of the architecture mirroring the Islamic inward and reflective attitude towards spirituality. Lovely spaces for a life well lived.

marrakesh part 1-pattern

The buildings of Marrakesh are so full of pattern it’s awe inspiring. Almost every surface is tiled, painted or carved into. As if in order to emphasise this, domed or raised ceilings, filled with skylights or massive metalwork lanterns, extend the potential area for pattern right up to the light fittings.  It’s rather overwhelming, especially when you think about all the people who would have worked on the embellishment. Somehow it is balanced just right with the simplicity of the outside of the buildings and the vast areas of space given over to courtyards and light. The sense of space and peace created by these elements allows for the intensity of focus and vision the patterns must have needed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

book post

In the autumn I made the biggest edition I’ve managed so far – 100 little concertina books. With images drawn and screen printed from the etchings I had made about the special wilderness found, for example, under tramlines and between canals and railways.  As I’m not the best at anything and hate wastage, around 40 of the 100 books are a little like special wilderness themselves – smudgy, wonky or a bit scruffy. These 40 are being sent out across the country to 10 wonderful destinations where kind people will start their journey off into who knows where.  I hope to keep some sort of track of them here.