In October 2022 two printmaker friends and I had an exhibition at Harbour House in Kingsbridge, South Devon, Drawn Remembered Imagined, in which I showed a new body of work based on a collection of country pots- these are mostly drypoint with monoprint, and relief prints. The imagery on the pots themselves is folkloric and quickly drawn, and I tried to emulate this in my prints.
Given a basket of pears in autumn 2019, I made a series of drawings, drypoint prints and etchings from them, using a favourite slipware plate to contain them. This is the first time I have used copper sulphate etching on aluminium, and enjoy its immediate and unpredictable qualities.
During the lockdown from March 2020 I have been unable to get to a print studio, so have been making work from home, mostly drawing and remote collaborative work. I have also made some tinfoil lithographs, thanks to videos posted by Double Elephant Print Workshop, and have loved its immediacy and freedom.
Early in 2018 I made two large triptychs from drawings and sketches I had made while walking, one in the Welsh Borders near Hay on Wye, and the other in the Italian hills around Spoleto. The idea for the triptych came from my habit of using concertina sketchbooks while walking, and the need to use 2 or 3 pages for a wide panorama. Each of the prints was made using collagraph plates printed relief. The final triptychs - each of 3 images - are 150cm x 50cm.
I’ve been making a printmaker’s book - Found - about the objects we’ve found in and around our medieval house, once a farm. Discarded rusty farm implements, broken household ornaments, hidden shoe hoards and superstitious marks, have all been made into pages for the book, together with some landscape views showing the hidden folded nature of the Mid Devon landscape. The finished book, together with many others from the Dartington Print Workshop, was on show during Ways With Words, Dartington Hall, Devon from 5-15 July 2019.
A series of monoprints, each 30cm x 30cm, made in 2018 after walking in the hills NW of Rome. The backgrounds were made first on an inked and wiped plate, with collagraphed shapes added as second and third layers.
I was a student in Edinburgh in the 1970s and in those formative years spent time exploring the Highlands and Islands of Scotland – sometimes alone, more often with friends. It was a time of discovery, of wonder and of excitement, and these high mountain landscapes are always linked in my mind to those special qualities of vastness, wilderness, and to the freedom of youth.
I always collected postcards on the way – some were never sent; some were received and kept. 40 years on, I decided to make prints related to the postcards I kept, trying to evoke the intense quality of experience of the place, and for me, the people of that time.
In 2016 I made a series of prints from 10 of these postcards, and made them into a handmade book, with images of the actual postcards together with their messages. This book was made at Dartington Print WEorkshop, with the help of Michael Honnor, and shown at the Devon Guild of Craftsmen in autumn 2016 as part of an exhibition of printmakers’ books to celebrate 40 years of the workshop.
In April 2018 I undertook a residency at Poltimore House near Exeter - a great and historic house, dating from the 16th century but with significant additions and plasterwork of the mid 18th century . Since the 1980s it was abandoned and growing derelict until acquired by the Poltimore House Trust which aims to repair and re-use it as a music therapy centre. In July 2018 an exhibition was held in the house to raise funds for its repair, and I showed large scale drawings and prints in the atmospheric courtyard. The drawings and collage were based on the outside of the 16th century staircase, and the prints on the inside of the stair itself.
Since 2015 I have been making drawings and prints of places and landscapes locally, particularly around the small village of Cadeleigh which has a fine medieval church. In north Devon, the spectacular cliffs of Hartland and around Bideford make compelling subjects.
I made these drawings and prints after we found a hoard of shoes and boots buried in a blocked up staircase in our house in Devon. They were deliberately placed there as a superstitious act – the concealment of shoes near a fireplace or stair was common from the medieval period right up to the 19th century – however this is an unusually modern deposit, only made in 1950 according to a date scratched in the mortar next to them. All of the shoes are extremely worn, and the slippers in particular have holes in the soles; the women’s shoes are narrow and elegant compared to the heavy working boots. Shoes were expensive, and couldn’t afford to be replaced until they were completely worn out, hence the poor condition of most shoe hoards.
My work starts with the world around me. Drawing is the start of my work, and the investigation, whether the intention is to make a print or whether the drawing is the final outcome. I tend to work quickly in charcoal, to change and re-change the drawing, to show the marks which become part of the story. Drawing still life is a weekly practice for me, most often with a group of fabulous women, but also in my own studio.
I like to draw bunches of tulips, large scale in charcoal, and sometimes make drypoint prints from the drawings.
