Three Days to go!

Three days to go to the opening of You Lived Here Mrs Pool(e)! Here's a sneak preview from whilst we were hanging it the other day. Join us on Friday night for the preview.

Nearly there, Mrs Pool(e)!

I'm on the countdown: 17 days to the opening! 

Zigzag prints go far and near

This mono-print, based on the mysterious cup and ring marked stones on Baildon Moor has just gone off to Nashville, Tenessee; a long way from my Yorkshire home! 

I love the way the ink  seeped and feathered in this print. It really reminds me of the landscape of the moors. Sometimes those serendipitous bits are so good but impossible to repeat.

And one of these Canal Company Warehouse prints has recently been sold at Shipley Triangle, who have some of my work for sale locally. I'm guessing it's therefore going to be hanging on a wall nearer to home, but they go very easily through the post, so who knows?

More of my work can be seen on Artfinder and Etsy, links at the top right of this blog page. 

Who were you Mrs Pool(e)?

Mrs Pool(e) lived in our house in the 1920s. She rented the property and is mentioned obliquely in legal documents when the ownership changed. 

In 1922 the house was '...in the occupancy of Mrs Poole' and then in 1925 it was'...formerly in the occupancy of Mrs Poole but now unoccupied.'

But who was Mrs Pool(e)? How did she come to be living here, presumably alone? Could I find out anything about her from just a surname and one address? 

This was the starting point for my current work and first solo exhibition 'You Lived Here Mrs Pool(e)'. Working in mixed media, I am exploring ideas about the home and neighbourhood I have shared with Mrs Pool(e), and about the traces of her life that I have found.

A date for your diary! Friday 6 November 7-9pm will be the exhibition preview at South Square Gallery, Thornton, near Bradford, where more of Mrs Pool(e) and of my artwork will be revealed! 

Would love to see you there!

Life is fragile

And a moth arrived in the post

Found gifts

Another found object gift this week!

This great little egg shell, about 3cm across, was recovered by Alice. I was very excited by the fact that you can see where the bird has tapped its way out of the shell.

However, as I write this and look at the photos I realise that the shell is broken inwards rather than out and what I have is more likely an egg that has been attacked by another bird. Rather more sad, but that's life I guess.

Phew!

At last the Wide Angle photography exhibition I've been working on for the last few months is up and I can get back to doing some creative stuff.

Back at the beginning of the year when I was asked whether I'd like to get involved either by exhibiting or helping organise, I didn't realise quite how much I was inadvertently taking on!

The idea was to invite local people to submit photographs on a theme and put up an exhibition in the Kirkgate Centre, Shipley: take the art out of galleries and into people's everyday lives sort of approach. 

Easy!....? No quite so. 

As you can see, one of the challenges is that it's not a place designed to be, nor dedicated to being, a gallery, so we had to work around oddly shaped spaces, trunking, doors and other uses of the hall. 

However, what is really nice is that all manner of people use the centre for so many different purposes and this is the backdrop to whatever else they are doing, just as a picture on the wall at home would be. 

Organising this has been a very steep learning curve and a self-taught intensive training course in curating, management, advertising & use of social media.

Once I'd realised that the reason I wasn't involved was not that I wasn't part of the inner core, but that there was no inner core, I decided to just take hold of what had been started and make something of it.

Let's say it hasn't been perfectly organised, but we did it. And it was a very small we!

Fourteen photographers are exhibiting with wide-ranging styles & subject matter. My photos are from the Nazca lines in Peru (Earth from Air) and on the Salt Plains of Uyuni, Bolivia (Sun, Salt & Water), both amazingly surreal places. 

The Wide Angle exhibition is on until October at Kirkgate Centre, 39a Kirkgate, Shipley, W.Yorks, BD18 3EH. Tel 01274 580186 

It's generally open weekdays 09.30 - 15.30 but is also open at other times when the building is in use, so if you're making a special trip, it's best to phone beforehand. Alternatively, check out their website and combine the exhibition with one of the amazing mixture of things that go on there. 

www.kirkgatecentre.org.uk