All change!
Some life changing events occurred within our wider family over the past year and these led me to do some serious thinking about the whats, the whys and the what-ifs. As a result of this introspection, I’ve taken the decision to give up the lease on the studio at RAMP and put that money into enrolling onto the one year landscape course at Newlyn School of Art in order to push my practice forward, and also my husband can come on the weekends in Newlyn, too. I have a large studio on the top floor of our house, where I can, if I wish, print and paint in my pyjamas, so what’s not to like, moving forward?
We went up to Scotland again to visit my two younger sons and revisited Findhorn, such a beautiful place. We are season ticket holders at Plymouth Argyle and have had some real highs and lows this season - beating Liverpool 1-0 in the FA Cup and of course getting relegated to League One. Such is life.
Over the last month or so we’ve enjoyed visiting some truly excellent exhibitions, the highlights of which were the RWA Biennial Open: Paper Works in Bristol and the Original Print Show at the Velarde Gallery, Kingsbridge. Both exhibitions were well hung with lots of interesting, thought provoking and varied works of exceptional quality that were a delight to visit. I’ve also been fortunate to be a part of two exhibitions where I’ve had the opportunity to show some prints, one was at the Print in Action weekend at the Royal William Yard, Plymouth and the other is on show until the end of May - the Contemporary British Printmakers exhibition at Delamore House, Ivybridge, Devon. The Print in Action weekend was full of exhibitions, demonstrations, stalls and talks and I enjoyed helping to hang the work and give collagraph taster sessions in the studio.
I’ve also attended the monoprint session at AUP run by Jemma Gunning as part of PiA and a one day lithograph introduction at Elm Street Studio in Bristol run by Catherine Ade. Being taught these processes by two exceptional printmakers has fired my imagination and excitement for what to do next.
