Longing Cabinet and print on show

I’m really pleased to have had a print chosen for the Salisbury Print Open. And so from Wednesday evening (1st October) it should be possible to see the print ‘Longing Cabinet’ and the block ‘Longing Cabinet’ it was made from showing side by side* for a month.

*via a line almost straight up the country from Salisbury Arts Centre to Neo Gallery, Bolton.

box plot printing

I’ve been rolling out the ink, rolling on the ink, laying flat the paper and fabric, smoothing over the surfaces and giving them all a good hard rubbing with a barren and my hands. So far s’okay.

The cotton can take the print much better than the Zercal paper can, lovely as it is. The cotton can get into the dips of the brushstrokes left on the surface from the paint job the box got in one of it’s former lives. The cotton wraps around the box with ease, when I manage to put it on correctly and leaves the box looking extra special.  It reminds me of the post in India, where I am told, all parcels are sewn up inside white cotton fabric, to keep them safe. What a wonderful way to receive parcels, I wonder if the recipient sits with a quick pick taking apart the seams carefully, refolding the fabric and storing it for another day before setting to the contents of their parcel. I would. Like a parcel wrapped and waiting, the wrapping of the box adds to the wonder and tension of the contained unit. I’m still printing and working with the box, I’m also fighting the temptation to leave the fabric on at the end of all the process.

Longing Cabinet in Neo Print Prize

I’m really pleased to say that the cabinet I cut as part of the Longing Series was selected for the Neo Print Prize. It will be showing at Neo Gallery in Bolton until 2nd November.  I went to see the show this weekend and felt most honoured to have been selected alongside the other printmakers there. It was a great and varied show and well worth a visit if you are anywhere nearby. Too many good works to mention but for now some that caught my eye and, in parts I think, have shared concerns:  Rosey Prince, Kaori Homma, Fiona Grady, Susan Eyre. Thanks go to the selectors and all at Neo for making the prize happen.

Seeing the cabinet in the centre of a gallery space, rather than it’s original station in the dusty eves of the Islington Mill loft or it’s more recent placement in my living room, was an interesting affair. The cabinet and it’s print were submitted separately for the print prize. In it’s making I felt that the block had become just as important, if not more so, than the print. When the cabinet and not it’s print got selected I wondered if the cabinet could actually stand up on it’s own as a piece of work, without the print to make sense of it. I’m still not sure. The cabinet seemed to puzzle it’s audience, how did I do it, had I burnt it? I wonder if it gets mistaken for a print made onto the cabinet. Does it matter if it does?