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Hello and welcome to my first-ever newsletter. It's been a busy few months here and I have some exciting news to share -- including something you can take part in, if you like!
After working over the winter to restore and rebuild a lovely old Greig lithography press, I've been settling in to work, drawing up stones and making prints. I've also taken advantage of the summer to work outside when possible. Above you can see an image of me graining some lithography stones outside in the garden. A tip, should you ever need it, is that limestone comes off lettuce with no trouble at all, but does not easily wash off of lemon balm leaves...
I was keen to name the press ('Stranger Domestic Press') and start thinking about how to connect to others through it, but had to step back from that side of things a little, just for the moment, to focus on making work for an upcoming solo exhibition at Summerhall in Edinburgh.
The exhibition is called 'Our Unfathomable Depths' and is focused on how we relate to coral. For me, thinking of coral worked well from a lithographic perspective -- after all it was coral reefs that enclosed shallow seas once located in present-day Bavaria, trapping the sediments that became the Jurassic limestone that we use for lithography today. Since corals often seem far removed from our lives, I looked at some of the ways that they enter a more human space -- as objects, items from prints, creatures living in aquariums, and I spoke with a scientist who is a specialist in the cold water corals that form reefs in the deep seas off the coast of Scotland.
Some works in progress: 1. Images drawn on fragments of broken lithography stones, waiting on the press bed to be printed. 2. A recently printed edition of lithographs for a boxed portfolio of prints made collectively by this year's graduating Master's students in printmaking at Glasgow School of Art and the technicians working there, including me. 3. An old lithography stone with a repeated pattern of Royal Albert Bone China logos on it, which was likely used for decalcomania transfers of images onto ceramics. 4. A work-in-progress shot of a sculpture made from lithographic limestone, before it was smoothed and printable letters added on to it.
CALL FOR CORAL
I'm also hoping to encourage others to think about the coral, living or not, that they come in contact with in their daily lives, and as part of the exhibition I'm asking people to send in any coral or coral-related objects that they have in their homes. The objects will be displayed alongside my work and I will also be organising an event where we can all discuss these objects together. If you would like to participate, you can find all of the information here. (Please send by 30 September.)
The exhibition will be opening on 11 November, having been scheduled around the time of the COP26 conference, and will run until Summerhall closes for the holidays at the end of December. I hope to see some of you there -- and perhaps some of your corals too! -- and I will definitely have photos to share for those of you who can't make it.
Until then, I'll be keeping my nose to the grindstone, as there's still lots to do in the coming weeks!
