This is my studio for the summer. In January I had the great good fortune to meet a man whose passion for art extends far beyond acquisition. Over the years, he and his wife have quietly and consistently looked for creative ways to provide practical support for working artists. This place, on a hill in the... Read more »
All day today I have been working at the printshop …and thinking about Helen A rare and lovely bird. When I last saw her, a week ago in the hospice, I had told her about finding a dead moorhen – ‘perfect, undamaged,’ I said. ‘Oh, so quite damaged on the inside!’ She replied. She told me... Read more »
“The ash tree growing in the corner of the garden was felled. I heard the sound and, looking out and seeing it maimed, there came at that moment a great pang and I wished to die and not to see the inscapes of the world destroyed any more.” So wrote Gerald Manley Hopkins in around... Read more »
This story begins a long time ago, when I was a little girl in what felt like a simpler time. Out on my bicycle one summer’s afternoon, I found a wounded crow in the lane. Carrying it carefully home, my nan explained to me that farmers will deliberately maim a single crow – knowing... Read more »
After the excitement and exposure of an exhibition, it always takes some time and solitude to settle the mind and heart back down to work. The energetic period immediately before a show is all deadlines, printers, finishing, perfecting, and then reaching out and making a lot of noise – ‘look at me! look at my... Read more »
Here’s a nice story of social media meeting the world of the hand-made…. I’m always on the look out for nice paper and take a good deal of trouble to always choose and use the right paper – the right colour, the right weight, and almost above all the right surface, (Hot Press, Not or... Read more »
Nothing is ever quite as perfect as it can seem at first glance.Although the latin name for Dragonflies is Odonata their infraorder is Anisoptera which comes from the Greek meaning ‘uneven wings’. This is my second attempt at a dry-point of the same dragonfly. What attracts me most of all is indeed the play of... Read more »
Nothing Lasts. Nothing is so delicate or so finely hinged as the wingsof the green mothagainst the lanternagainst its heatagainst the beak of the crowin the early morning. Yet the moth has trim, and feistiness, and not a dropof self-pity. Not in this world Mary Oliver(Proof of Magpie Moth etching on studio wall – etching... Read more »
“These things come unbidden”The finished print from my earlier post – Printmaking at John Howards’ studio. I found this Hare at the side of the road, very early one morning in March. Eye-bright and leaping but stone-dead. Taking her carefully home, I drew for days, strangely compelled to sit with her and try, despite knowing... Read more »
This week I’ve been printmaking at John Howard’s print studio in Penryn. Love it as I do, I don’t really think I’m a proper printmaker. For me it is just a wonderful extension of my drawing practice, so I tend to stick to the labour intensive but direct methods of dry-point engraving and mezzotint, relishing the chance... Read more »
First bees are humming in the garden this week – but news today of research from Stirling university into the devastating effect of one particular group of commonly used pesticides on the queens in particular, makes each one feel especially precious as it bumbles around in the delicate pink froth of the short-lived cherry blossom. Bizarrely I... Read more »
Drypoint of a dragonfly – always reminds me of the Peter Green song…”but was the garden worthy of so fine a guest?”