HBOS 2013 First Day

A great first day of Hebden Bridge Open Studios with many lovely visitors at Brooklyn Studios. 
A pleasure to explain the woodcut process to some delightful children and adults.

A mid Summer morning is the only time the sun shines directly into my space - and here's the new greetings card soaking up the early rays.

Hebden Bridge Open Studios 2013

A frantically busy few days getting my slightly neglected studio space at Brooklyn Studios ready for Hebden Bridge Open Studios.  All is now spick and span although I have aged 5 years in the past week!

I will be in my studio from 11 am to 5 pm tomorrow and on Saturday and Sunday, so if you are in the region, do drop by for a chat and a cup of tea.

This year I've got more woodcut prints on display than ever before, as well as some paintings, artist's books and folded paper cuts.

In honour of 'Open Studio Pink' - (the magenta used on the Open Studios logo and literature) I've given on of my cyanotype cards a make-over via the marvel that is Photoshop. The foxgloves seemed the ideal subject for this shade of deep pink.

The Elephant not in the room - say hello to Rosie

Can't believe its been 6 weeks since I posted anything here.

On May 14th I took delivery of a beautiful 70 kg life-sized baby elephant sculpture to paint for Elephant Parade and my life has not been my own since then. My design had some very intricate elements so all in all a fun but very time consuming activity.

A major difficulty was that Rosie's rotund rear would not go through the door into my newly acquired  painting studio up at Wainsgate Chapel in Old Town so I've had to paint her in a rather dark corridor. My life as an artist is always filled with 'interesting' challenges!

Elephant Parade is a social enterprise based in Holland that organises the world's largest art exhibition of decorated elephant statues to raise awareness of the plight of the Asian elephant and to support elephant conservation. You can read all about it at www.elephantparade.com

In February 2013 I was approached to submit a design for an elephant on the UK tour and formally commissioned in March.  As well as decorating the full sized 150 cm tall elephant, I was required to paint a 20 cm model that will be used to make the replicas sold to raise funds for the real elephants.

I've had to resist blogging about the project for a while as Elephant Parade requested the full design should be kept under wraps until the start of the Parade on 21st July, but now I can start showing what I've been up to all these weeks.

Inspired By Landscape - New Exhibition

Here's the invitation card for the new Inspired By Landscape exhibition I'm taking part in. I submitted images of all 3 of my reservoir valve towers and wish there had been room to include them all as they work much better as a group or triptych.

The gallery is too small to take my 8 ft by 5 ft charcoal drawings and their projected films of moving water, so instead I'm showing three A0 digital prints featuring montages of the tower drawings and photographs of reservoir water.

I've also made a new piece of work called 'What Colour Is Water?' but haven't found anywhere suitable  to photograph it yet.

For someone who loves light, I seem doomed to spend my time in shady places.  I would happily live in a mostly glass house if situated in a natural setting, like the top of a cliff, overlooking the sea...

Hebden Bridge Open Studios 2013 5th, 6th and 7th July

I've been working hard for the past month building a new website for Hebden Bridge Open Studios, editing and uploading all the 84 artists' details and images.

I volunteered in the full knowledge that it would be very time consuming, but have to say I underestimated just how much work would be involved.  I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that loads of work = no money makes no sense at all.

Here's the link to the website:   Hebden Bridge Open Studios 2013

Unfurled (Buds in May)

Just one week ago these big fat pink and silver buds were bursting at the seams and seven days later the whole valley has gone pale green.

Furled - map-fold booklet

Finally after many false starts and unrelenting cold it seems the Spring really is beginning the process of unfurling despite a lack of any significant sunshine here in the South Pennines.  It will probably end up being one of those don't blink or you'll miss it kind of Springs.

Last Spring I made a one-off book form based on what seems to be generally know as the Turkish map fold structure, as part of the 28 Drawings Later project. After much favourable comment I've made a saleable version which is now available to buy on-line at my Big Cartel shop:

angierogers.bigcartel.com

I like the simplicity of the map fold form and enjoy the challenge of creating content that relates conceptually and/or visually to the folding and unfolding action that the viewer participates in.

The idea of folding something to make it fit in a smaller space does relate neatly to the reality of leaves curled up tight in their buds, waiting for the unfurling of Spring as well as the concept of holding someone close in our hearts. Hence 'Furled' where the text reads 'You are furled in my heart like a leaf within it's bud'.

Furled comes in a translucent paper origami fold pocket, has a cover made of 300 gsm Snow White Canford card and is ink-jet printed on acid free cartridge paper, follow this link for more details.

My original interest in the artistic possibilities of the map fold was facilitated by google images so it seems only fair to include the following pictures documenting the making process. Apologies for the not brilliant photography, there's just not enough light in my studio to make life easy.

Poisoned Seabirds

A recent holiday in South Cornwall was slightly overshadowed by the discovery of a beach full of dead seabirds, poisoned by pollution believed to be PIB, legally discharged from boats into the sea.

All the birds on Lansallos beach near Fowey were heavily coated in the Polyisobutene which looks like PVA glue clotted in their feathers.

There seemed to be about 150 birds on the beach and I was very sad to see many beautiful gannets which are a particular favourite of mine for their incredible acrobatic diving and purposeful flying.

Britain is the lucky custodian of some of the worlds greatest seabird colonies and we need to protect them so I urge you to sign the on-line petition to control the dumping of PIB at sea:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/signup/save-our-seabirds#petition

A living charcoal drawing

I do so love it when the snow turns our landscape into a giant charcoal drawing and this very recent photograph shows the same hillside that features in my charcoal drawing of the previous post. The scoured fields look just like the grainy texture of charcoal on rough watercolour paper.

Once I had some wonderful Winsor & Newton paper with a really crisp, rough surface that was perfect for this kind of thing but I think it is now discontinued.  Its  frustrating when a good material becomes  unobtainable, and it seems to happen a lot these days.  If you find a paper you especially like, its a good idea to investigate alternatives from the start so you are less dependent on the whims of the manufacturers.

This dry stone wall at Old Town (a hill top settlement above Hebden Bridge) had developed such an intriguing geometric pattern.

Even yesterday it was still possible to make snowballs up on the hills but finally the cold white stuff is disappearing fast.

Failed at sorcery

So much for my attempt to conjure up Spring.  The landscape is back to the depths of Winter with huge snowdrifts and fields scoured back by the fierce wind all the way from Siberia.  This charcoal drawing was made quite a few years ago now and the original long owned by someone else.  I still miss it.

A series of drawings of snow in upper Calderdale led to the making of my accordion fold book 'Winter Calligraphy'. Dimensions 12 cm x 12 cm, 10 pages, Epson UltraChrome ink on Hosho paper with Bockingord 300gsm covers. The edition was 35 and I still have some copies left so if anyone is interested contact me for more details at angie(dot)rogers(at)talk21(dot)com.

Conjuring up Spring

It may be officially Spring in the UK but no signs of it here in the South Pennines.  I can't wait any longer and have created this Spring themed display in the studio to cheer myself up.

Same old weather, different window

Shadows 3

Shadows 2

Shadows

Shadows - intangible, ephemeral and frequently overlooked yet so powerfully present and intriguing.

These ones are cast on beach sand, canal ice and puddle water.

Watershed Revisited

A final exhibition of selected work by all the resident artists and writers who participated in the Watershed - Inspired By Landscape Project over the past 3 years will be on show at The Studio, Bradford 1 gallery in Centenary Square, Bradford Saturday 22 June to 24 August 2013.

I am hoping to give my huge charcoal drawings of reservoir valve towers another 'airing' but in a slightly different form. The space is a lot smaller than the giant room I had with writer Char March at Cliffe Castle, Keighley, and there will be work from the two other artists - Sally Barker and Simon Warner and two more writers, Andrew Mcmillan and Anna Turner. The exhibition is being curated by Lara Goodband and should be an exciting culmination of this award winning project.

This photo is one of my personal favourites, taken in the basement of Machpelah Mill in Hebden Bridge (my temporary studio courtesy of Trevor Smith). The sunlight reflected off the canal water and through the window somehow, echoing the window in the valve tower and contrasting with the blue light of the projected video of Upper Gorple Reservoir water.