St. Ives
In the last week of September, Emma Bennett, Frances Staniforth and I held an exhibition at the Salthouse Gallery in St. Ives. It was something I’d booked a long time ago (a pop-up exhibition space) but due to Covid-19 nothing happened last year, and as we’d actually graduated in the meantime we thought we’d put up our work as a kind of celebration and to get ourselves ‘out there’.
Because we don’t live close to each other we had to do a lot of the admin and decision making by WhatsApp and amazingly it did all come together well. The Cornish Framing Company at Crowlas did the framing for me and are a lovely company to deal with. Coming in and on on the train daily was a nice way to start and end the day although the weather was changeable to say the least. We survived on a diet of chips, paninis, pasties and ice-cream and learned not to walk back with any food through The Sloop car park as the seagulls who patrol it are very fierce and not at all scared of attacking you to get the ice-cream.
St. Ives was really busy, post-Festival, but the Salthouse is tucked away down some alleyways and we weren’t sure that many people would come. In the event, it was reasonably well attended and as well as our friends, we met some lovely people, many of whom were interested enough in what we were showing to spend time discussing ideas, further plans and so on with us. Fellow artists such as Paul Wadsworth and Spencer Shakespeare popped in for a chat and it was great hearing their advice and tips. Some of our old lecturers and fellow students from PCA came to support us as they were in St Ives and we also sold some work each, which was the icing on the cake, really. We also had time in between stewarding to visit the many exhibitions and galleries ourselves, and the work by Sax Impey at Anima Mundi - seascapes - is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful and I highly recommend a visit.
Blog Post: August
Table-top litho printing and experimenting with small paintings
Since I went on the Liz Hough course at St Ives School of Painting in July, I’ve been trying out ideas using acrylic on board.
Last week I went with some fellow artists from Krowji to a CAMP printmaking kin day, organized by Nicky Harwood of the Creative Gym and Caroline Wilkins which was a lot of fun, topped off by an excellent veggie lunch at the local cafe. Nicky showed us how to do a tabletop litho print using very simple materials and this is something that I’ll definitely incorporate into my workflow and I’ll also try to overprint onto a drawing or painting next time I’m in the studio as I’d like to find a way of combining these that works.
The selection of images above shows some of the little paintings I’ve done, the litho print I made, and Nicky demonstrating the litho technique. I’ve also taken some work in to be framed ready for an exhibition we’re having at the Salthouse Gallery in St. Ives from September 25th for a week.
Blog Post 1
It all begins with an idea.
This week I’ve completely redesigned this website. I just wasn’t happy with it because the work it showed wasn’t the work I’m making now so I wanted to take back control and make it look how I had imagined it could do. I also thought it was about time I started a blog so here we are.
Last week I went on a course at the St Ives School of Painting called ‘Paths to Abstraction’; it was very interesting and showed us different ways of making one’s work less representational. Since I started the MA in 2018 I’ve got used to reading around everything that I do, so I’ve looked at ‘Search for the Real’ by Hans Hofmann, ‘Peter Lanyon’ by Andrew Causey, and ‘Ben Nicolson: drawings and painted reliefs’ by Peter Khoroche. I really liked the drawings in the Ben Nicolson book, I had no idea that he was such a brilliant draughtsman but what I liked was that he made the view he was drawing his own, it wasn’t just a representational drawing, it had a life of its own, containing him as well. I found the book engrossing to read as it described the development of his career and artwork and how this intertwined with his family life.