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.

New blog project and news

I hope I’m not going back to my old ways, leaving a whole month between posts – aarg, but rather that it’s just the result of having been ill over the past couple of weeks. Only time will tell!

A lot has been happening despite my lack of interaction with the world. Mostly I’ve been preparing for the forthcoming Collectors’ Day at The Magic Circle in London where I’ll be exhibiting pieces from my series A Sage of the Stage, not a Beast in a Cage. This has in part involved me trying to engage more with things like self promotion, which I find somewhat excruciating, but happily I have found that on the whole people are receptive and friendly and one nice bit of news last week was that I’m to be included in the next issue of the online art magazine Cut-Click.

I’ve also started a new blog, in addition to this one (yes I know, seems slightly ridiculous given my recent tardiness) which is going to focus entirely on artists that use magic or illusion as themes in their work. My aim with The Fine Art of Illusion is to showcase these artists and, over time, for it to become a resource for anyone looking for magic themed art.

Do pop back later this week, as I’m going to write another post about my trip to meet artist Roxana Halls and to see her exhibition at the National Theatre.