Dancing on the Ceiling

No, not a reference to songs by Lionel Ritchie or Ella Fitzgerald but rather the name of my latest print, which includes elements pertaining to an unusual type of performance from the 19th century – ceiling walking. This is the first of a new mini-series that I’m doing on an ongoing basis that will be smaller both in the scale of the series and in the size of the actual prints, making them more suited to selling through outlets such as the arts markets and in shops. This one will also be part of this year’s Edinburgh Printmakers Winter Exhibition which opens on 14th November and they will be for sale through the gallery there and also at the Christmas Arts Market at Out of the Blue on the 5th, 12th and 13th of December. Oh and on my website and etsy shop too (incidently I’ve set all shipping costs on my website to zero hence the higher price). I will be trying to produce as many new ones before the market as possible, as well as a new Christmas card design for this year and a re-print of last year’s design too. I’ll also be putting up simple instructions here soon on how to float mount these small prints, which is the best way to display them.

‘Dancing on the Ceiling‘ Screenprint, © Sharon Whyte 2009

All of this does not mean that work on the major new series has ceased, however. It is still in the development stage, and no actual printing will take place until early 2010 (other than the odd test print). Producing these smaller prints keeps me in the workshop though which is good, and with screenprinting I find that I learn something new with every print I produce – therefore it’s all preparation for ensuring that I keep producing better and better work. Indeed I am feeling extremely enthused about the new project and the book, especially since my recent visit to the home of magic historian Eddie Dawes and his wife Amy, who herself has done a lot of research and writing on the subject of female magicians. They have an incredible collection and their generosity in sharing it and in sharing their knowledge is truly inspiring and I feel incredibly privileged to have been able to spend that time with them.

My recent series of prints on the subject of learned animal performers are still touring the Highlands as part of the magic themed exhibition Now You See It, with the show in Inverness opening on the 14th of November at Inverness Museum and Art Gallery. I’ll be going to the private view on the 13th armed with my camera to record this, the first showing of a full series of my work in a public art gallery, which I’m a little bit excited about! I’ll also be represented at the Edinburgh Art Fair this year for the first time by the Mansfield Park Gallery who will be at stand 16.

I’m very happy to report that two of the learned animal prints are now in the collection of Paintings in Hospitals for London and the Southern Regions. The Java Sparrows and Munito at Work were chosen by the curator and could now end up on display at any hospital in the region that they cover (there are different collections for each region). I do really think that having art in hospitals is of benefit to people, so I was really happy to donate to the collection.

That balanced out the rather negative experience of being involved in the fiasco that was the closing of the Artworks Galleries in Newcastle. I won’t go into too much detail because I’m trying to just forget about it all now, but basically I had work there when the bailiffs were sent in to seize everything due to the owner Matt Forster not paying his rent and sub-letting part of the property but keeping the money himself (he’s also angered a lot of artists by allegedly not giving them the money owed to them from work that he has sold of theirs – and he’s supposed to be an artist himself!) and it was a real pain trying to get my work back. I’m pleased to say that myself and two other artists I know who had work there Chantal Powell and Annabel De Vetten did all get our stuff back, but when I visited the auction house there was so much artwork there and I very much doubt that all of it made its way safely back to the artists who made it as we were not told about any of this happening and only discovered it by chance.

The fact that things like this can happen so easily makes it very hard to want to do the things that you have to do as an artist in order to have your work seen – ie: just hand over your work to people – especially since the insurance that’s available to artists is either prohibitively expensive or just not that good (often it doesn’t cover the full cost of the work, or it’s only for one off exhibitions, not usually for long term loan on a sale or return basis) but then again the vast majority of galleries are not in the business of ripping people off and provide a good service to the artists they represent. I just wish there was some way of knowing beforehand if the person you are dealing with has a bad reputation or not.

Anyway, on a more positive note to end with, please do come along to the Arts Market and the exhibition at Edinburgh Printmakers if you live in Edinburgh and support local artists and crafts people by buying original Christmas presents – much better than 3 for 2 at a certain high street retailer! And if you come to my stall and tell me about 3 non-bog-standard presents that you’ll be giving people this year then I’ll give you a discount. For years I’ve been considering giving up on Christmas altogether – what with my being completely non-religious just for starters, but also because I can’t stand the ritual exchange of either absurdly expensive or absurdly crap commercial presents (especially since I can’t afford the absurdly expensive ones!) – but I’ve now decided that instead of giving up on it altogether, since there are aspects of it that I really like, that I’m going to produce a special print edition every year that will be exclusively for friends and family and won’t be sold anywhere and give those as gifts instead. If you were hoping for an unnervingly pink bubble bath gift set with matching eye mask you’re out of luck I’m afraid.

Autumn and talented friends

Autumn already, and for me the start of a new project. I always love starting new things in the Autumn – I’m still tuned into the old school year I suppose, so it seems like the right time to be starting something.

Getting this project off the ground should be easy – I’ve been working with the theme (female magicians) for over a year now, doing research for the book I’m writing – but I have to admit it’s off to kind of a slow start. So far I’ve done one test print just to get some ideas going but there’s a enormous amount of preparatory work to be done before I can really make headway. I’m also using this time to re-examine the way I work, as I’m worried I’ve become too set in my ways and that the end result will suffer and not be as good as it could be. One downside of having become so focused over the past couple of years is that I realise I may not be giving myself any room to explore and experiment. I need to address this before much progress can be made.

I’ve been very lucky this year to have made the acquaintance of some great artists and to have been able to spend a bit of time with them just chatting about work and stuff. It makes a huge difference to my outlook be able to do this. Art is so much about communicating but it’s amazing how little of that actually happens in the day to day life of an artist (at least the ones I know!), especially with other artists. I think this is part of the reason why I love printmaking so much – because of the workshop and being around other people making work and getting to see what they’re doing. I love it.

Recently I got to meet up with Roxana Halls again and to see her amazing studio in London. It’s in the disused bar of an old theatre that has been a bingo hall for many years. The room is enormous – it makes my studio look like a store cupboard – and still has the actual wooden bar stretching along one side of it. It’s full of books and all the materials that she works with and lots of wonderful weird things (I got to see some the sets that she built for her series of paintings Tingle Tangle which are basically works of art in their own right). Seeing other people’s studios is such a rare treat, and this one is really quite special. As if that wasn’t enough, another treat that day was to meet Roxana’s friend, the extremely talented Frances Borden. As luck would have it she had some of her work there with her and I had a chance to have a look (I had already seen photos of her work but not first hand) and I thought it was beautiful and genuine; she has such a wonderfully intimate style.

Talking of talented friends, today is a momentous day as the lovely Nova Ren Suma’s book Dani Noir officially comes out in America (available on Amazon and in book shops) and I’m so proud of her as this is her first published novel – although she has ghost written loads of them. I’ve known her for many years and I’m just extremely excited for her, as well as being excited to read it myself when it comes out here.

Cover from Dani Noir by Nova Ren Suma, published by Aladdin / Simon & Schuster

My own work has been released into the wild recently as all fifteen prints from my series A Sage of the Stage, not a Beast in a Cage are currently very far from home, up in Thurso on the northern tip of mainland Scotland as part of a magic themed touring exhibition organised by Highland Council. I wish I could go up there and see the exhibition as I’d love to visit that part of the country but unfortunately I can’t. I will however, go and see it when it makes its way to Inverness in November where the show will be at Inverness Museum and Art Gallery.

As a result of my solo exhibition in Glasgow over the summer, I’m happy to say I now have gallery representation in that lovely city at the Mansfield Park Gallery. It’s a great little gallery representing some excellent artists so I’m very pleased.

As one exhibition is about to end…

The past few weeks have been so busy it’s actually difficult to remember what’s been happening. After the opening of the exhibition in Glasgow I had one day off (where I basically felt ill all day) and then went headlong into more deadlines and festival activities. The talk that I did at the West Port Book Festival went really well and thankfully drew in a large audience. I really enjoyed it, and it was great to have to put so much thought into what I’ve spent the past 2 and a half years working on and actually talk about it. I even managed to include a taster of what an actual learned pig act might have been like with the aid of a toy pig, some number cards and a very silly magic trick. Not sure the audience were entirely convinced of the sagacity of the stuffed pig but they seemed to like it nonetheless.

On the exhibitions front the show in Glasgow is now in its final week and will finish on the 5th September, after which it will all go up to Inverness for the touring show Now You See It with Highland Council until February 2010. And I’m pleased to announce that I now have a space in London to exhibit the series in May 2010 at artsdepot, which looks like a great venue and I’m really looking forward to that.

In the meantime, three pieces from the series will go on show in Newcastle at a group show on a vintage theme called Past in Present at The Art Works Galleries during September and October. My friends Annabel De Vetten and Chantal Powell are also going to be in this exhibition. The opening for that is this Thursday but unfortunately I won’t be able to make it down.

Next week I’ll be in London where I’ll be meeting up with Roxana Halls once again to see her studio, which I’m very excited about. I’ll also be going to see The Bay, a play that my friend Rachel Stevenson is in, which was running at Te Pooka’s Big Red Door during the festival and has now transferred to Theatre 503 in London and runs until 11 September.

Incidently, it’s a bit late now, but I really meant to write a blog post earlier in the festival and mention some friend’s exhibitions and events such as Carmen Moran’s mini exhibition Kunst Im Klo (Art in the Loo) at the Glasite Meeting House, Madeleine Shepherd’s exhibition and collaboration with Writers Bloc Alba Ad Astra at Transreal Fiction and Gav Inglis series of spoken word nights Underword at Fingers Piano Bar. Oh well, better late than never? Hmmm.

Exhibition and private view

My exhibition is now up and running at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow until 5th September (open daily 10am – late). The private view took place on Monday night and was a really great night – thanks to everyone who made it along. Loads of people came through from Edinburgh which was nice!

A catalogue is available for the exhibition, with a 15 page introduction explaining what the project is all about. It’s available from www.blurb.com as a lovely full colour high quality perfect-bound book at £12.95 or as an e-book (no cover with the e-book) for £5 from www.lulu.com – in both cases just type in Sharon Whyte to find it (or use the link on the left for the blurb one).

Here are some images from after setting up and from the private view. You can see all of the images on my flickr photostream.

All images © Sharon Whyte 2009

West Port Book Festival and other news

So happily I can now reveal a couple of things that I’ve been keeping under my hat recently, one is that A Sage of the Stage, not a Beast in a Cage (I’m suddenly starting to regret choosing such a long title for this series since I’ve now had to type it so many times!) will go on tour from September as part of an exhibition organised by the Touring Exhibitions Unit of Highland Council called Now You See It! which will start off on 19th September at the Swanson Gallery in Thurso, moving on to Inverness Museum and Art Gallery on 14th November and then finally onto the St. Fergus Gallery in Wick on 16th January 2010. I’m really delighted to have been asked to take part in this magic themed exhibition – I think it’s going to be fantastic! I’ll be putting up more information about it as and when I get it.

The other thing is that I’m going to be doing a talk (eek) at the West Port Book Festival in Edinburgh on 14th August, along with my good friend, magician, musician and book collector, Gordon Bruce. I’m thrilled to be appearing at all but to get to do this talk along with Gordon is really quite amazing for me. Gordon is a legend in the magic world! So no pressure then *gulp*. I’ll be talking about the learned animals series and what went into creating it, as well as telling a little bit about the subject matter and the books that I used and that inspired me to do it in the first place. Some of the pieces will also be on show throughout the three days of the festival at various venues as part of the Magic Trail. Also appearing as part of the trail will be fabulous magicians in the form of Eireann Leverett, Neil Stirton and Paul Besly.

The programme is out now and should be available at all shops in the Grassmarket and the West Port and probably anywhere in Edinburgh where flyers and leaflets abound. You can also view all of the events on the website.

West Port Book Festival programme – front cover

In print

Last week I had one of those ‘you wait and wait for a bus and then three come along at once’ moments but instead of buses it was in terms of having my work acknowledged in print. First of all I got a mention in the Magic Circular (the magazine of The Magic Circle) in a review of the recent Collectors Day event where I showed the series A Sage of the Stage, not a Beast in a Cage for the first time. The review was favourable thankfully, calling the exhibition “imaginitive and rewarding” which was nice. The next one is a slightly more tenuous link because I don’t actually know if it’s in *print* anywhere yet, but the press release for the Cut-Click exhibition has a paragraph about me in it, and the reason I’m including it is that for once I didn’t write it! It does say I’m London-based which of course I’m not, but it’s not a big deal, and as a friend of mine pointed out, I do occasionally don headwear that makes me look like I’m from London. The final bus, or instance of me in print this week if you prefer, was in Printmaking Today. Yay. Where I am delighted to have had an image of one of the prints from the series reproduced in the ‘forthcoming exhibitions’ section. It’s the yellow one second from the right…

Image from Printmaking Today, Summer 2009

Finally for today, here are some more pics from the Cut-Click exhibition. Here’s my print of The Learned Cats on the right, next to work by Julian Kimmings…

Image from Cut-Click exhibition at Abbey Walk Gallery © Caroline Twidle 2009

And here’s one of people on the opening night with my print in the background.

Image from Cut-Click exhibition at Abbey Walk Gallery © Caroline Twidle 2009

Cut-Click Exhibition

Tonight is the opening of the Cut-Click 1st anniversary group exhibition at the Abbey Walk Gallery. Sadly I can’t be there but they are posting up photos on Twitpic as the evening goes on. Here’s one that shows my print The Learned Cats from the series A Sage of the Stage, not  a Beast in a Cage displayed in the middle.

Image from Cut-Click exhibition at Abbey Walk Gallery © Caroline Twidle 2009

Facebook is good for something after all…

So, a very nice thing happened on facebook recently. A friend of mine posted up a link to a piece of artwork that I had seen before and loved, I commented on it, and then it turned out that the artist was also a friend of my friend and so thanked me for my comment -  since then we’ve become facebook friends too and mutual admirers of our art. I love it when things like that happen.

The artist in question is Chantal Powell. She makes beautiful and exquisite pieces using objects and ephemera to create what she calls ‘visual poetry’ – memories are preserved and narratives are evoked as the viewer pieces the elements together. Chantal is interested in the ‘emotional response to beauty and melancholy’ and romanticism. I find the materials she works with so alluring and I’m drawn in by every one of the works that I’ve seen.  I’m very much looking forward to the chance to go and see her work in person some time and I’m hoping to make it along to one of the exhibitions she has coming up this year. Chantal also has a fantastic blog, where she talks about her art, her inspiration, other artists and much more besides. It’s insightful and wonderful so check it out.

Fragile © Chantal Powell 2009

The Lacemakers Guild © Chantal Powell 2009

Exhausted

I’m feeling completely worn out this week. Last weekend was the first public outing for the new series of screenprints at The Magic Circle as part of the Collectors’ Day event – which was brilliant but also very tiring in terms of the amount of effort required to transport everything to London, set it all up and then get it all back to Edinburgh. It was great to be there though and to get some very very positive feedback on the project and meet lots of interesting people, as well as get to listen to some great talks on magic history.

Munito, Life and Talents; screenprint, image © Sharon Whyte 2009

Since I’ve been back I’ve been struggling to do anything useful at all. The sun is out and I hate being stuck indoors doing the kinds of things I really need to be doing such as continuing to look for venues to exhibit in, putting together a catalogue for the show in August, sending out more funding applications etc etc. I’m also desperate to get back into the print workshop and do some actual proper work for a change – this year has been far too much about the administrative side of being an artist for my liking so far and I can’t wait to get stuck into the next project.

Some more good news has been forthcoming recently, however, firstly that I’ve been chosen to take part in the Cut-Click exhibition at the Abbey Walk Gallery…

And that on the horizon there is the possibility of a touring exhibition of the Highlands – more news on that as I get it. It sounds very exciting though and would mean that the series would be permanently on show from August this year until February 2010 as it would follow on almost immediately from the show at the Tron Theatre.  There is also another little piece of exciting news for something happening August but again I don’t know if I’m officially allowed to talk about it yet – so much secrecy!

I think one of my main aims for the next week is to make it down to the Ingleby Gallery to see the Francesca Woodman exhibition before I miss it completely. Woodman is absolutely without a doubt one of my all time favourite photographers, her work was introduced to me by my lovely friend and talented author Nova Ren Suma, and I’ve been trying to get to this exhibition since it arrived in Edinburgh in April. I stupidly missed the talk at the Gallery of Modern Art about her work in May (part of the Artist’s Rooms series) so I absolutely cannot let anything get in the way again.

Forthcoming exhibition