I’m a member of an informal collective of printmakers who over the past couple of years have got together to organise group shows (and hopefully sell some prints) and generally to promote and publicise the art of the print.
We now at long last have a website with a little bit about the group and links to portfolios of work by the group members. We will also be sending out newsletters from time to time, with details of group shows and shows involving members. You can sign up to the mailing list on the site, which you can find here:
I originally posted this in a thread on WetCanvas, but I think it has wider applicability.
It has always seemed to me that in the art world of galleries and auction houses, ‘success’ is defined as fetching astronomical prices and generating lots of publicity. I don’t think I’m being cynical in seeing that as a direct consequence of the fact that this is the route to more money for them. If they can sell a painting for $5m or better $50m, and get their 40-60% commission, that’s a lot easier than selling hundreds of much more inexpensive works to people in the world outside the super rich. The world of the highly successful artist is not the world of art. It’s a world that includes not just the super rich, but drug dealers, Russian oligarchs and a range of other undesirables looking for a way to launder their money. The property market and the art market are probably the easiest routes.
From my angle I ask myself if, in the highly unlikely event of my being catapulted into that world, do I want my work stuck in a vault as an investment or used to clean up the proceeds from some drug deal?
I’m never going to have to answer that question fortunately, but to the extent that we accept that world’s definition of success as an artist, we are colluding in the conditions that create it.
The printmaker’s group I am a member of, Wiltshire Print Creatives, has another group show running at the moment. The venue this time is the wonderful Fisherton Mill, in Salisbury. We have almost 50 works available framed, plus about the same again in browsers and lots of cards, which given the wide range of styles in which we work and the varied subjects, means lots of choice for buyers.
Every Saturday between 11am and 3pm, some of the group will be in the gallery to talk about their work and about printmaking in general. You will also be able to see examples of printing plates, tools etc used to make some of the works in the show.
Health issues again have prevented me from doing much work. Nothing life threatening, but chronic nagging issues really drain your enthusiasm! In particular I haven’t been able to stand at the press very much. As an experiment I’ve been trying gel printing.
If you are not sure what that is have a look on YouTube where there are lots of ‘how to’ videos. If you want to avoid 45 minutes of umms and ahhs, look for videos by Ruth Alice Kosnik, Jane Davies and Gerda Lipski. There are also many examples from the main manufacturers of these plates, Gel Press and Gelli Arts. He doesn’t have many up yet, but this video from Canadian artist Bob Pennycook is also worth a look for his ingenious jig to enable precise registration.
A bit late but I’m part of this show. If you can’t make that we’ll also be at the Black Swan Art Boot sale in Frome, Somerset on 8th July. That’s a great place to find a huge variety of work and Frome is worth a trip anyway.
Last year I joined with a group of other artist printmakers who share the same workshop space to form Wiltshire Print Creatives, an informal collective. We had our first group show in November at 44AD Artspace in Bath. We were very pleased with the reception we got and sold quite well, so we are now firming things up to create a more coherent presence with a website and social media. You can already find us on Twitter and get an informal peak behind the scenes but we intend to ramp this up over the next few months and probably add other social media platforms like Instagram.
We also have a couple of further shows lined up – more later – but are still looking for new opportunities and venues, especially where we might be able to establish a more permanent presence.
Because I couldn’t stand at the press for quite a while (see the previous post for why), I also made some small collage pieces. These have no particular theme, they are just playing with the medium.
Fresco – collage, watercolour pencil and acrylic paint
Jungle – collage and watercolour pencil
Red Mountain – collage
geometry 2017-II Collage
geometry 2017-I Collage
Soft – collage and watercolour pencil
All are available in my Etsy shop here (£25.00 each, matted to fit a 10″ x 8″ frame – see the listing for full details):
https://preview.tinyurl.com/y7dt9j9y
This link to an Etsy search on ‘mixed media collage’ also brings up some other items including a number from my ‘Made to Music’ series (£15 for unmatted, £30 matted – see the listing for full details – and making me realise that I’ve worked this way on several occasions.
No Frontiers
On ther Road Again
Humoresque
Dangerous
Dandy
Cajun Music
I have another series called ‘Around Avebury’, which has yet to be added to the Etsy shop. These are all in handmade oak frames. You can find these on my Portfolio Pages.
A bit late in the day for a promo, but I’m taking part in a group show at 44AD Gallery in Bath as a part of Wiltshire Print Creatives. We are an informal collective of printmakers, united only by the use of the same workshop space at Wiltshire College in Trowbridge.
We hung the show on Monday morning. Coming back for the evening Preview and seeing the show as a whole for the first time it was obvious that sharing the same workspace has allowed for some sort of artistic osmosis. Everywhere I looked I could see commonalities in vision and expression across all the work. I was very proud to see what we had achieved. Despite the fact that this is the work of friends I can genuinely say that the work on show is to a high standard both technically and creatively and well worth a visit if you can. My thanks to the other 11 for their support over the years and for their work in putting this together and making it happen.
I’m continuing to add listings to my Etsy shop, (now closed) including a batch from two series of tiny monoprints I made in 2014 and 2015.
The 2014 set were all monoprints made by hand using acrylic paints on watercolour paper. These are bright and colourful and each is only about 2″ square.
The 2015 set are slightly larger and more restrained in colour. They are all made on a variety of papers including Khadi handmade, Somerset and Fabriano. Despite their size, these are quite complex with multiple passes through the press and often several separate plates.
As well as my own work I have a shop on Etsy selling reproductions of a wide range of graphic design, maps, comics, travel posters, advertisements etc. I’ve started playing with some of these, removing text and making freestanding pictures from them. You can see examples below.
My Etsy shop referred to above has now closed. See this post for more details. These and others will eventually be added to the shop here. If you are interested, please contact me for more details
