The Lady Appears
Mandy is now pulling together the calico book cover for the final finish of The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington; completing the stitching and applying beaded pomegranate seeds. I’ve talked about my own experience on this project in some depth so far, but at this stage I'm going to hand over to my co-author to get her valuable opinion on our shared working process:
“Because we'd talked through all our ideas quite thoroughly, getting to this point was fairly simple. I feel that visiting The Icon Collection at Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery together helped us aesthetically to stay on the same track. I hadn't appreciated how helpful it would be to have Bren working with me at the studio as we went through the general layout, the choosing fabrics and colours, even deciding what type of stitches to use when generating each design.
“Having collaborated with other artists in different ways, I’m used to discussing work together before heading off to the studio off to work on certain elements of a project by myself. However working with Bren at the studio meant we were able to sketch, visualise and realise all the different aspects of the piece together, which made problem solving and decision making much quicker and simpler.'
“As it lays at the moment, a piece of textile art on a calico background, I have reservations about covering the block of wood with it as the untouched space around the illustrations stop the piece from looking too busy or overworked.'
Re-Covering opens at Untitled Gallery, Manchester in June. Follow the process and thinking behind our joint submission in the instalments listed below.
SAVWO
© SAVWO
While I applaud anything that demystifies the process of buying and appreciating art - and by the latter I mean a personal, gut reaction as opposed to reams of theory or an art history degree - the Buy Art Fair that set up shop in Manchester City Centre this week isn't the only means of identifying artists worthy of support. While the local press were devoting more (unnecessary) column inches to the inclusion of paintings by Vic Reeves at the expense of 216 other exhibitors, I was snapping up a bargain by local artist John Powell-Jones (Savage Wolf/SAVWO), one of the many residents at Hotbed Press print studio in Salford on the edge of our Siamese-twin cities.
A Place Called Common
His wolf woodcutter print had been hanging in Common bar in the Northern Quarter for the past few months as part of a group exhibition, a great spot for informal display allowing folk like myself to familiarise ourselves with new artists, spend a few hours in the company of a print, drunkenly argue for/against our favourites and make repeat visits without being made to feel unworthy or worse, unwelcome... I'm talking about you, Richard Goodall Gallery. And so after much umming and ahhing, I snapped up the last in a run of 10 four-colour screenprints for £120, framed. Granted, we're not talking Saatchi levels of philanthropy, but I'm delighted to share my workspace with this brooding, figurative shapeshifter as I wander through a forest of my own imagining.
Washday screenprint
Simon Misra screenprint: limited edition of 50
A new limited edition screenprint from Simon Misra for my forthcoming event Scratch 'n Sniff Cinema presents My Beautiful Laundrette is now available at the frankly astonishing price of just £10. That's right! Around the same as three-and-a-bit beers! And when they're gone, they're gone. For those attending on the evening of Friday 16th July, actor Gordon Warnecke will be attending in person to sign copies, but if anyone wants to reserve one in advance just get in contact via the tab at the top of this page. Have you got your free ticket yet? Friday is almost fully booked, with Saturday heading the same way once the press coverage kicks in. Hope to see you there.
Christiane Cegavske
Christiane Cegavske: Ascension (2003, detail)
I'm currently chatting to artist and filmmaker Christiane Cegavske about presenting her astonishing feature-length debut, the deliciously unnerving Blood Tea And Red String, at Inspace Gallery during the Edinburgh International Film Festival. We have some exciting twists brewing for the audience experience, but I'm gutted to have stumbled across her Etsy store because now I just need to find £900 to purchase this great painting (above). I'm casting my eyes about the room as I type this, wondering what I can flog. As the descendent of Salford dock workers on one side and Irish farmers on the other, my collection of ancestral silver is severely limited - that is, zip.
Science Fiction Art: Mark Weaver
© Mark Weaver
Browsing the web for inspiration to help me jog-along some ideas to supplement a forthcoming event, I struck upon the treasure chest that is UK designer Kieran Kelly's blog Sci-Fi-O-Rama: stuffed with envy inducing vintage cover art from a genre often unfairly sidelined. I'm especially struck by the photo montage and colour saturation of artist Mark Weaver. I can almost smell the yellowing pages. See more at Marks Portfolio Site and his Flickr Photostream. Dreamy.
© Mark Weaver