Spring '26 catch-up

A gel plate experiment from last year

Almost half way through the year already! Doesn't seem possible, but here we are. The Society of Staffordshire Artists' Christmas exhibition in Leek went very well, and I'm very happy to say that not only did a framed 'Restoration' (the green and black bottle oven below) sell, but when I posted about it another was sold quite soon after by a customer who saw the post on Instagram, which was lovely. There are now only three of this very limited edition remaining. January

saw one or two sales too from my Folksy store, for which I was very grateful.

I had been brewing one particular project for twenty years, and in February I finally completed it. There's a fuller story here, but it involved scaffolding-clad bottle kilns again (Minkstone pottery, the earlier version of Restoration, was my first outing with this sort of thing) which I had photographed when they were being preserved during the demolition of the old Twyfords factory in 2006. Two versions of the linocut are seen above. There are more that I'd like to do, one being Phoenix pottery's tall chimney when it was repointed a little while back, and if I can find someone willing to allow me to use their photo, the three former Acme Marls kilns in Burslem which were all scaffolded recently as a housing development was being built around them. I'm annoyed at myself for failing to get over to draw or photograph them myself.

Over the last month or so, I've had work in two exhibitions simultaneously, very briefly - I have "Supported 4" in the Brampton Open in Newcastle-under-Lyme until the beginning of June, and had a completely different type of work, a watercolour of ipomoea plants, in the short exhibition GREEN at the Great Bear Gallery, Tunstall. Both exhibit a great cross-section of local artists' work and it's inspiring to see how many great artists and creatives there are in the local area! I've also had my Price Kensington linocut accepted for the Derby Open, which runs throughout June.

This year's Thought Press Project is raising funds for Edible Rotherhithe, as ever, and the second charity this year is Centrepoint, the youth homelessness charity. The theme this year is 'Home is where the heart is". This is the third year that I've taken part, and this time I chose to use a source photograph taken back in the 1980s from our bathroom window of a view that I loved, straight across the backs of the houses behind us to the hills a few miles away.

I'm moving on now to the rest of the year's projects. I've entered "Supported 1" to the 3 Counties Open, I'll find out in the next few weeks if I've been successful this time. It's a VERY hotly contested show, and is free, meaning that there is significantly less barrier to anyone being able to enter. With it being our big local Open, not getting in is gutting, but it's important to stay objective and enjoy the show as it is always a brilliant display of local creativity.

The Society of Staffordshire Artists have a show at Spode later in the year, and I'm planning a couple of pieces for that, one A4-sized linocut and one drawing, which I'm hoping will be larger as I'm going to be working on A3 paper. The subjects will be revealed in due time… I'm also looking forward to continuing my ongoing cataloguing of the remaining bottle kilns and ovens, particularly along the Trent and Mersey Canal. There are two more of these to complete, one being the Etruria Industrial Museum's calcining kiln, and the other site being Oliver's Mill towards Middleport. I'm also hoping to complete an illustration of a chapel in the New Forest in Hampshire which has a particular importance to the family.

Plenty to be going on with in amongst our normal daily lives, and hopefully at the end of the year my work recap will bear glad tidings!

Continuing

This has been a good year, for which I am very grateful. I haven't sold much of my original art, but I have had several exhibition opportunities and my cards have continued to sell well. As I posted last time, my linocut In Limbo was my first exhibited piece as a member of the Society of Staffordshire Artists (SSA) at the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-Under-Lyme.

In Limbo, in orange, on the wall at the New Vic

Dolby Mills linocut had been accepted for the Three Counties Open. I'm happy to say that it sold, which was a massive and lovely surprise! It was also a great experience to have my work exhibited between that of Gary Eite and Ian Mood, the three pictures worked well together. I'm still pinching myself...

My work statement with a red 'sold' dot!

My Dolby Mills linocut in auspicious company

The SSA had arranged an exhibition in the autumn at Stone Heritage Centre, with all artworks to feature scenes within Stone and its immediate area. I had driven through the town a a few months previously and seen the beautiful Christ Church, and was also aware of the old stone-built railway station building, so I decided to use both as subjects. The station lent itself to linocut, while I decided to go out on a limb and attempt my first colour pencil drawing in a very long time, using Derwent Graphitint pencils which have a very particular colour range suited to stone and brickwork, and are slightly water soluble.

Christ Church, Stone

Stone Station

My work in one of the display cabinets.

The Stone Station linocut is now up for sale on this website in the shop, and the drawing of Christ Church, Stone will be on show again soon, but in Leek this time - more on that in a minute.

My Mother-in-Law liked my Christ Church drawing very much, so I decided to make my in-laws a drawing of a church local to them, St Margaret's in Ifield, Crawley. She was able to see progress photos as I worked, but sadly her health deteriorated (she had been ill for a while) and she was unable to see it. My Father-in-Law has had it framed and now has care of it.

St Margaret's Church, Ifield

As a complete change, I have finally cracked Gelli printing - I find it counterintuitive as in a way it's reduction linocut in reverse. However, I managed to get my mind to figure out how it works after watching a number of video demonstrations and joining a useful group on Facebook! Here are my first tentative steps:

Gelli print 1

Gelli Print 2

The SSA stage a Christmas exhibition every year at the Foxlowe Arts Centre in Leek every year, and I'm looking forward very much to taking part. We're delivering our work this coming Sunday, and it will be on throughout December and into the beginning of January.

Next year, there is hopefully going to be a show at the Spode Museum in Stoke, and I'm planning a couple of Spode site pieces. Watch this space!

Catching up again

Well, somehow it's July, and the linocut that I was working on when I last wrote became a double edition. For the Thoughtpress 'Sound and Vision' project for Edible Rotherhithe this year, meet "Colours and Sound" and Sound and Colours"! There are still some available, at £30 each, with all proceeds to children's charities.

Dolby Mills has been in Derby for the Print Open, which has just finished, and I will be collecting it this week - its work is not yet done this year though as it will be exhibited in the Three Counties Open this year, at Fenton Town Hall, Stoke-on-Trent, throughout August, and I can't wait to see all of the other work that's been selected!

I applied to join the Society of Staffordshire Artists earlier in the year, having seen a couple of their exhibitions recently. I thought it was worth asking, and I'm very thankful that after a brief adjudication I was accepted. I will be joining them in an exhibition for the first time at the end of this month at the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-Under-Lyme, and this time it will be "In Limbo"s turn.

Linocut "In Limbo"

So, much to look forward to - I'm also working on a couple of new linocuts too, more of which soon I hope!