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.

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.

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.

storks nest on the Badi Palace in Marrakech

Re-entering the climate, culture, routine and patterns of home whilst trying to hold onto, digest and understand what you’ve just left.  So many pictures to sift through, I’ll try and post some as I go.  For now, the amazing storks that loom large over the ruins of the Badi Palace and create a raucous rattling with their beaks – CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK.

Graham Sutherland, Entrance to a Lane, 1939

Went to see An Unfinished World at MOMA in Oxford yesterday. 85 of Graham Sutherland’s works on paper, curated by George Shaw.  All landscapes or bombed buildings and mines, looking like landscapes. Landscapes looking like bodies, no bodies but many paths implying the route a body might take into them. I love the life in his marks describing the physicality of the surfaces and the light and darkness that carve the spaces. Especially I love his use of colour, twilight hues on edge and magical, a bit like Henri Rousseau.

Marta Lech: 10.10, linocut 62x90cm

In November I got a lift to Newcastle which turned out to be a lovely city as I discovered walking all over it to visit the International Print Biennale. First stop, the most welcoming Northern Print workshops who co-ordinated the bienale, made me a cup of tea and showed me around.  A very blustery and invigorating walk along the river for a  quick trip to the ‘closed due to electric fault’ Baltic  and back over the river to the Laing, Newcastle and Northumberland University exhibitions too. My favourite were  Marta Lech‘s  large linocuts  of lightplay, beautifully cut if unfortunately set behind wobbly crap flexi-plastic. Other highlights were  Lauren Dreschers etching and wax tattoed figures , Michael Donnelly’s one-plate-9-images-clever-inking, Katsutoshi Yuasa’s massive woodcut shipwrecks, Jessica Harrisons’ Blarney Stone and Elizabeth Boasts’ larger than life consequences woodcuts. Bit of a theme there I’m afraid. Alongside all the rest which was good too, including the Chapman Brothers and Mervyn Peake retrospective (not technically in the biennale but worth mentioning all the same).  Apart from being a wide ranging print show, the biennale is a good introduction to Newcastle. I loved the scale of Newcastle’s buildings  it’s great big bridges and it’s almost-sea air, I hope to get back there soon.

In the summer I had a go at making a short animation of my dandelion books, it was  intended as a quick rough sketch, it took an hour at the most, then I spent the next few months trying to find the piece of music I wanted to add to it. Finally it’s done! Music by David Armes of Last Harbour.

tri-colour of an amzing fuzzy tree in Rye

2 colour photo of a place I love in norfolk, its the gap between the trees that does it, it has a telegraph pole running through it's middle.

I spent 2 lovely days at Hot Bed Press last weekend on a workshop taught by John Brewer who specialises in alternative photographic printing methods. Gum Dichromate is like a photographic watercolour process, so you can build up washes of an image. I think we were all surprised at how many prints we could make in the time we had and it all got a bit giddy on the last day – so much fun and some results I’m quite happy with. The best thing about it is that it’s best to work with digital photos – finally a way ( I can handle) of adding magic and depth to digital pictures.

I forgot to mention the exhibition we had for this project at the end of the summer – a day of showing people around the tribulations of a years collaborative work  accompanied by tea, cake and an ace piano player.