Response to
The Waste Land  

By   LSA      Leamington Studio Artists

An exhibition at  East Lodge, Jephson Gardens, Leamington Spa

Curated by Karen Parker

Inspired by and in parallel with "Journeys with the Waste Land" an exhibition at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry. 

The exhibition at East Lodge opened on 31st  October and closes on 25th November.

I presented two woodcut prints for the exhibition 

My title for the work is Dry bones can harm no one

For this exhibition artists were invited to create a piece of art to resonate with a particular aspect of T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land, in whatever medium they chose.

The aspect of  the poem that intrigues me the most is in the final part What the Thunder Said, in particular, line 377: "A woman drew her long black hair out tight......" and line 390: "Dry bones can harm no one." 

In between these two lines are references to "bats with baby faces," and "empty chapel" with "no windows."

Advanced Practice 2

The work I presented  for this module was inspired by a poem written by W. B. Yeats, entitled

The Stolen Child

The title of the work is:       Unquiet Dreams    

Words taken from a line in the poem: 

"Give them unquiet dreams"

Mythology and Irish legends were subjects that Yeats was fascinated by and informed much of his early poetry. He wrote The Stolen Child in 1886, at a time when there were many stories about fairies snatching away children and this created fear and anxiety in the subconscious of a lot of people. The poem describes a world that "is full of troubles and is anxious in its sleep." 

The woodblocks for the above engravings are made from two rough-cut "slices" from the trunk of a cherry tree. Preparing the blocks for engraving revealed many shrinkage cracks and defects in the wood which I tried to repair at first but then looking more closely at the beauty and shape of the pieces I decided to try to find a way to, as far as possible, create the compositions around the shape that was formed by time and the elements. The result is that I practically allowed the shape of the tree itself to dictate both the scale of the work and the final composition.

Part of the work required for the Advanced Practice 2 Module was to make a trial publication. As an experiment in comparing the two techniques of woodcut and wood engraving I used one of the compositions from the images above, enlarged it by 50% and changed the format to the oval shape. The process I then used is known as the multi-block method. First I made a key block (or line block) to make this black and white print:

I prepared another four printing blocks and applied the coloured inks I chose on each block to make the images shown below:  

I then made the final colour woodcut print shown below by inking and printing all four colour blocks on a sheet of Japanese paper and printing the key block over the top:  

   

MA Fine Art  January 2018    Module Title:     Advanced Practice 1

 January 2018: 

This piece of work is entitled Death of the Hag and is inspired by a scene from the seventh century legend Sweeney Astray, translated by poet Seamus Heaney from the original text written in Irish and entitled Buile Suibhne.
These are the words that Heaney uses to describe the scene: "Sweeney..........could not shake off the hag until he reached Dunseverick in Ulster. There he leaped from the summit of the fort, down a sheer drop, coaxing the hag to follow. She leaped quickly after him but fell on the cliff of Dunseverick where she was smashed to pieces and scattered into the sea. This is how she got her end on Sweeney's trail."

Dunseverick in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, is situated near to the famous Giants Causeway. At Dunseverick can still be seen the ruins of the gatehouse to Dunseverick Castle, famous according to records for being visited by St. Patrick in the fifth century.

The process: I began by creating a sketch of the scene, transferring it to the boxwood block and then engraving it.

The engraved block ready for the press

One of the first prints from the block

London visit Monday 29th January 2018: At Tate Britain I was intrigued by this painted screen by Francis Bacon, made in 1929. Bacon worked as an interior designer among other things before he became a painter and the screen is apparently a rare survivor of the period of transition from one career to the other. This is a photograph taken on my I-phone

  
While in London I also visited the V.& A. Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green.
The main purpose of the visit was to see Rachel Whiteread's sculpture titled Place (Village) (2006-2008) This piece of work comprises around 150 dolls houses which were collected by Whiteread over 20 years. On the mezzanine floor at the V. & A.  I also found a large sculpture by by the famous  Jules Dalou. This stunning work is in terracotta and titled Peasant Woman Nursing a Baby:

                             
 Preparations for 24th April Assessment and Exhibition:

February 2018:  In my practice I started making initial drawings for a new piece of work in preparation  for my next assessment. This work needs to be completed for the assessment and the exhibition on 24th April. My proposal is for a free-standing installation 2.4m tall x 1.2m wide.





In the Meantime: A Mini Holiday in Iceland:

22nd February 2018. Went to Reykjavik,  for three nights, primarily in the hope of catching a glimpse of the Northern Lights. Seeing the lights turned out to be impossible because of the cloudy weather but spending an evening in the famous Blue Lagoon was an exciting experience. Also, while in Reykjavic, I was able to see some very interesting artwork at the National Gallery of Iceland.
Of particular interest to me was an exhibition of  the work of Asgrimur Jonsson (1876-1958). Jonsson's art focused on themes from Icelandic folk tales, which had never been illustrated before. Jonsson had grown up with these stories in south Iceland and so his work was informed by his background in Icelandic folk culture and 19th century romantic nationalism. I found this exhibition very inspiring and I felt a strong connection with his work and my own practice where I have used inspiration from the ancient myths of Ireland that I grew up with.   Below are some of the photos I took of his watercolours and drawings:

Sunday 25th February:  Back from mini holiday in Iceland
Tuesday February 27th 2018: I did a presentation of my work to tutors and students where I showed a working drawing of my proposal for the 24th April show.

Once again this piece of work is inspired by Sweeney Astray and the composition is made up of seven highly charged scenes taken from the legend.

The work will be a large jigsaw woodcut (1.8 m x 1.2 m ). The intention is to use the jigsaw woodcut block as the actual artwork and also to use it as a block to make coloured prints. I have used the drawing below for a study of the coloured inks I intend to use on the prints:

Here I have transferred the outline of the images in the drawing  to a 1.8m x 1.2m panel of 6mm birch plywood:        

Using a hand held jigsaw I cut around the oval shape and then cut the image into three sections:

Using the fretsaw in the wood machine workshop, I started to cut up the block into separate pieces.
The image below shows the stage of cutting reached on the first day:

With the cutting of the jigsaw completed the the problem I encountered was to find a way of printing this large block in one piece. Even using the largest press available in the print room, this was not possible so I decided to divide the jigsaw into three sections and print each section separately. 

Part Time Part Space Exhibition:  24th April 2018

Birmingham City University, Margaret Street, Birmingham

My work for the exhibition was a floor-mounted installation showing the jigsaw woodblock mounted on a wood panel, set into a wooden plinth (which I made myself for this purpose). 

Fixed to the rear side of the wood panel was the second of two prints I made from the block.

The title I gave the work is Conflict as it relates to the tensions and conflict between the new Christian teaching and the old pagan beliefs and way of life. I am greatly inspired by artist Philip Sutton's jigsaw woodcuts and I was very excited when  I discovered that in the process of cutting up the block and applying the ink to each piece separately, the residue of the different coloured inks left on the block had a very different tone to the print it produced on paper. Also the texture and grain in the wood became highlighted by the ink and I was able to demonstrate this effect by exhibiting the woodblock as well as the print produced by it. 

Front views of Conflict showing jigsaw pieces

Rear view of Conflict showing print

Yertle the Turtle   Jigsaw Woodcut  60cm x 30cm

The piece of work I made next is also a jigsaw woodcut but on a much smaller scale than the previous piece. The work is inspired by the children's storybook entitled Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories, written by Dr. Seuss and first published in 1950. 

Yertle,  the Turtle King, was not happy in his position of ruler of his kingdom which consisted of a simple but very pleasant pond. He took the view that if he was physically higher up he could expand his territory by becoming ruler of whatever he could see. He commanded  the other turtles to raise his throne by standing one on top of the other. All went well until the turtle who was called Mack at the bottom of the pile began to complain about having pains in his back, his shoulders and his knees. Yertle ignored his complaints and commanded more and more turtles to climb on to the stack and make his throne higher and higher.  Once again Mack at the bottom of the pile complained but was again ignored. 



Then plain little Mack did a plain little thing: He burped. The whole throne shook, then collapsed and Yertle the King fell Plonk! in the pond. "And the turtles, of course..........all the turtles are free, as turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be".