Reverting to Type 2020

4 December 2020 – 31 January 2021

I am delighted to have had two posters accepted for the Reverting to Type 2020: Protest Posters exhibition. The exhibition will launch on 3 December at 7pm with a live-streamed broadcast on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.

Inspiration for the first one, METRO STANDARD, comes from Wonk Unit’s We are the England. The poster was printed on the Wharfedale Reliance at Robert Smail’s Printing Works (in the care of the National Trust for Scotland).

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Profits from the sale of this print will go to stablelife a local group supporting vulnerable children in the Scottish Borders.

https://www.revertingtotype.com/posters/metro-standard

BUY BYE is a response to our times and the mess we are in. It is hopefully the starting point for a larger series of works entitled the writing is on the wall. The title comes from an Anarcho-punk vinyl compilation put together by a friend. The original design was adapted for lockdown to be printed at home. My Farley Proofing Press (rescued from Chelsea School of Art in the early 90s) has become an inky lifeline this year.

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https://www.revertingtotype.com/posters/buy-bye

Standpoint Gallery is presenting Reverting to Type 2020, an exhibition of contemporary letterpress protest posters curated by New North Press.

New North Press are holding an exhibition of artwork with something to say – posters sounding a warning signal about the global climate crisis, railing against fake news and surveillance capitalism, calling out racism, sexism and fighting for equal opportunities and, of course, reacting to the coronavirus pandemic.

Featuring the work of 100 letterpress artists from 16 countries, including mæstros Alan Kitching, Erik Spiekermann and Anthony Burrill, the exhibition will be a visual riot, giving voice to all that is worth protesting in 2020.

New North Press have also produced collaborative posters with others known for their activism, such as photomontage artist Peter Kennard, graphic designer Malcolm Garrett, Turner Prize-nominee Mark Titchner, fashion designer Katherine Hamnett, comedian Stewart Lee and Extinction Rebellion Art Group. These prints will be displayed alongside those of asylum-seekers, adults with learning disabilities and young people with downgraded exam results, also invited to make posters.

Accompanying the physical exhibition (and to make sure its content is accessible during Covid-19 restrictions) will be a website showcasing the artworks and allowing visitors to curate their own protest wall and share it on social media.

Letterpress has long been a medium of dissent. Printing technology may have surpassed it in terms of speed but at the core of this centuries-old practice the ingredients to communicate ideas and give power to thoughts remains strong.

Curated by Richard Ardagh and Graham Bignell of New North Press to mark 10 years since their seminal Reverting to Type exhibition, 2020’s show will include progressive work from letterpress studios globally, with prints from established artists alongside that specially-invited collaborators.

Established in 1986, New North Press is an artisan letterpress print studio known for its combination of traditional craftsmanship with contemporary design ideas.

More info on the gallery website here. (Info from Gallery Press Release)

Re:connections Exhibition, Edinburgh

Artists have been active in printing and book production for centuries. Artist books have appeared in a wide range of forms, from the traditional codex to scrolls, fold-outs, concertina and loose leaf, and were adopted by movements such as Dada, Constructivism and Fluxus.

Like everyone during lockdown artists have all been forced to reconsider how to best stay connected with people and life in general and many had to rethink how to physically make their work, what their artworks meant and how they could connect with their audience in unprecedented times. Re:connections features a selection of artist books by over 30 makers on the theme of connections.

The exhibition was co-curated with Edinburgh-based artist Susie Wilson.

(from the Upright Gallery Website)

I was fortunate to have two books selected for this exhibition (details below)… thank you Ian & Susie!

Going around in circles

Going around in circles 

Dimensions: Closed: 50mm x 145mm, standing: 250mm x 145mmMedium: Letterpress, Risograph, Rubber Stamp Price: £30

This work is a pocket accordion book with inserts. This small edition of 9 was created in response to the University of West England Artists’ Book Club ‘One-stamp Mail Art’ project designed to connect with another member in a thoughtful and tangible way in these strange times. Create, communicate, connect with care.

Lest We Forget

Lest We Forget

Dimensions:  Closed: 105mm x 200mm, open & standing: 320mm x 200mm

Medium: Letterpress, Rubber Stamp. £50

This work is an interlocking loop book (a variation of a flag book) and comes with a set of instructional postcards to share. This edition is a response to the soundbite serenade of recent times and an attempt to apply a filter to reconnect to those things that are important… there are lessons to be learned, lest we forget.

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For more information about the exhibition, other contributors and to view the catalogue, click here…

https://www.uprightgallery.com/now.html

100 Days Project Scotland

Feeding off the scraps, sharing the spoils…

100 Postcards for 100 days

The early part of lockdown was a shift and sort exercise to complete structural and decorating work on what was a disused garage. As I found myself getting through the organising (finally) and with my own print space I realised I no longer had an excuse not to get on with things. The closer I got to opening the ink, the more tentative I became about doing it. I realized that I needed something to get me started and so I decided to take part in this year’s 100 Days Project Scotland.

In May 2017 Isla Munro, designer and a tutor at Edinburgh College of Art had signed up to be one of the participants in Emma Rogan’s New Zealand 100 Days Project.  With Emma’s blessing, Isla has run a Scottish led version of the project since 2018. The 2020 project started on 16 May and finished on 23 August.

https://www.100daysscotland.co.uk/

I wanted to use the project as a way to connect with people physically from a distance whilst reducing my significant hoard of ‘keep it just in case’. This seemed even more apposite in a time of enforced isolation.

My contribution was ‘feeding off the scraps, sharing the spoils’. I took inspiration from my go to boys Kurt Swhitters and H N Werkman and their respective approaches to adversity productions… use what you have, make what you can with what you know best. For them and Robert Rauschenberg, the make-do and re-use was often the only solution and it is good to be reminded of how necessity is often the mother of creation. There was probably a subconscious homage to On Kawara in these too.

I was also incredibly fortunate to be at a symposium at Bath Spa University in February where John Furnival was talking about his work. What an amazing man, so refreshingly pragmatic about his motivations and practice. ‘If it’s printed and it looks good, use it!’ has become a mantra (in his honour).

Each day or so, I made two postcards, which were repurposed from scraps, offcuts and many of the unresolved ideas I have gathered over the years. The limited time managed the overthinking and I enjoyed the simplicity of responding to and with the materials, I have. I customized and adapted using some of my other ‘commercially obsolete assistants’ Letraset and the typewriter to realise the pieces and of course any excuse to get out the rubber stamps is a bonus…

Some are more successful than others are but I ignored any desire to the edit. I managed my bouts of constructivism and I hope people who know me well will that notice that not everything is 032 red! They are what they are… that is enough. This is a liberation of sorts for me.

One card I kept the other I posted. The chances are if I know you well enough to have your address, one will have found its way to you.

Welcome to the Lady Den

https://youtu.be/ddEC4m3GabA

Really pleased to be part of the https://cfpr.uwe.ac.uk/book-and-print-summer-festival-2020/

This is an online series of free talks, readings, Q&A sessions and In Conversations by visiting artists and poets, and CFPR / UWE staff, on printmaking, artists’ books, poetry, publishing, asemic writing, wellbeing and more. We also have a series of practical challenges: from a Word Break Exercise with Guy Bigland, to a Toast Painting Challenge by Jessica Ho, Pasta Machine Press DIY printing instructions from Stephen Fowler, and how to make your room into a Camera Obscura with Niamh Fahy.

UWE Book and Print Summer Festival 2020

Presenters and contributors include: Beneficial Shock (Phil Wrigglesworth and Gabriel Solomons in discussion); The One Poem Artists’ Books Library is OPEN (Jeremy Dixon reads Hazard Press, with a live Q&A); Jason Urban & Leslie Mutchler In Conversation with Angie Butler; LCBA Collage Challenge summer holidays postcard Wish I Was Where; talks by Cecilia Mandrile, Corinne Welch, Sarah Bodman on artists’ books from the archives; Lucy May Schofield and Hilary Judd Typewriter talks…  Plus ‘Shed Talks’ by Gen Harrison, John Bently, Ian Chamberlain, Catherine Cartwright, Abigail Trujillo, Print Van Go, Pat Randle and many more.

Links via the website (address at top of post)

United in Isolation

I like to make work to send out and keep connected. Much of my practice involves a call and response and so making pieces to post has been a big part of my lockdown process. I started by printing these instructional postcards.

I am now exploring bookworks inspired by Heidi Kyle’s ‘the art of the fold’. I purchased this book as an isolation gift to self and really like the playful structures and their possibilities as containers of ideas that do not rely wholly on the codex. I like it when my pieces convey more than one meaning, encourage differing viewpoints and have a composite element that allows them to work in different ways. I like to exploit the construction and structure as a device, along with process to add medium to the message.

This pocket accordion ‘going around in circles‘ became the framework for the recent UWE ABC Mail Art project and along with the postcards are featured in the United in Isolation online exhibition (unitl 14 August 2020).

The exhibition is organized by Peter Duffin and Samuel Larson from Animales de Lorca press in coordination with the United in Isolation team.

https://www.animalesdelorca.com/united-in-isolation

Dialect Exhibition the Upright Gallery

Upright Gallery | 3 Barclay Terrace, Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH10 4HP | 0131 221 0265

DIALECT

By Gen Harrison & Chris Sleath
Words: Ray French
Audio: Zoë Irvine

‘Standard English is as much a dialect as any other variety, though one to which society has given extra prestige’

David Crystal.

How do we define our identity? During this period of national self-reflection, the writer Ray French wrote In Praise of Dialect, which dealt with our rich and colourful British regional dialects. French argued that the voices we use to express ourselves are a central part of our identity, and if those voices are seen as less worthy then we feel demeaned. He was concerned that while American and Caribbean English were often seen as ‘exotic’, British regional dialects were not. In response to this, French was approached by Upright Gallery to submit a series of short texts to celebrate the dialects of the British Isles that could, in turn, be brought to life by artists Gen Harrison and Chris Sleath.

Private View: Thursday 24 October, 6–8pm
The exhibition runs from 25 October until 15 November, 11am-5pm (excluding Sundays)

To do list No. 3

Amara (Oi loike it steady)

Oi, Oi

PRINT YOUR OWN DIALECT
Saturday 2 & 9 November 2019

https://www.uprightgallery.com/now.html

 

Show of Hands

Very privileged to know that my ‘Workshop Manifesto No. 2: Don’t think, just ink‘ is part of this wonderful exhibition at Bath Spa University. Thank you Tim Jollands for all your amazing efforts! It is on until 19 October 2019… still time to see it (just) but the exhibition will be travelling on to York at some point in the not too distant future!

 

 

 

Art Walk Porty

 

‘Souvenir’ began as a growing community-making project involving the postcard form, papermaking, and memories of visiting and living in Portobello. Starting points came from the research into the Portobello Paper Mill which once operated from Bridge Street and the tradition of ‘sending home a postcard’ when on your holidays. Within the 2018 theme of ‘Pleasure Ground’, the project sought to explore individual responses to begin to build a collective memory of the heritage of this seaside town. This was achieved via a series of drop-in workshops at Bellfield and on the Prom over the weekends of last year’s Art Walk. This is an evolving body of work and the results, thus far, will be exhibited as part of this year’s Art in Shops programme at the Cancer Research Shop, 208 Portobello High Street (Venue 32).

It always comes back to the inky joy of the word-work and making. The Book Arts permit explorations beyond and between the words and becomes a place to start, continue and re-visit conversations that got lost along the way.

Bookwork and prints on show will include pieces from ‘Souvenir: Wish You Were Here?’ made in response to last year’s Art Walk Porty.

 

c{art}

During the Art Walk this year, I will be printing postcards with the public from my own c{art}. We will be responding to the theme of ‘Land Mark’ and Portobello’s industry history, particularly related to the Paper Mill which once operated in Bridge Street, as well as the tradition of  ‘sending home a postcard’ when on your holidays.

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@typochondriacs

@artwalkporty

http://www.artwalkporty.co.uk

 

Fishing for Compliments

I cannot quite believe it but our MA Multidisciplinary Print Show is up!

Building on the work I have completed for Souvenir (which will be exhibited as part of Art Walk Porty this September) and Word on the Street (which was exhibited as part of the Concrete Collective in January), I will be showcasing an interactive piece called Fishing for Compliments.

I would love to try and send a bit of joy out into the world, but I need your help to do it. I have spent time gathering some of the best compliments people have received (and thank you to everyone who was kind enough to share theirs with me!). I have printed a limited edition of each one and these will be the starting ‘prizes’ in my ‘fishing’ game.

You are invited to come and fish for a compliment at the Arnolfini on Friday 7 June, 6–9pm at our opening event. If you cannot make it along, there will be other opportunities on Saturday 8 (2–4pm), Monday 10 (2–4pm), and Wednesday 12 (2–4pm). We do not always get the compliment we want, but my hope is that you will take the compliment and pass it on to someone who you really think deserves it. All I ask is that you ‘return the compliment’ so I can print it, to keep the show going.

As well as Fishing for Compliments the show will also debut the c{art}. This is my way of bringing print to the people and as such, I will be running ‘Adana on an Art Cart’ sessions on Sunday 9 (12noon – 6pm) and Tuesday 11 (2pm – 8pm), so you can come along and have a go at letterpress printing for yourself.

 

I admit that I may be slightly biased but there is some absolutely breathtaking work on show from this year’s MA folk. It has been such a privilege to study and create alongside these wonderful and supportive people, so please come along and take a look!

UWE MA Print Show

7th – 12th June 2019

Arnolfini, Bristol

PV Friday 7th June, 6-9pm

Saturday and Sunday from 10am – 6pm and Monday to Wednesday 10am – 8pm (no registration required). Maps and travel info can be found at: https://www1.uwe.ac.uk/whatson/degreeshows/creativeindustries.aspx

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