Local Christmas events

I'll be exhibiting at the above for two weekends,

as well as in Lewes Town Hall on Late Night Shopping night 5th December 6-9;

and Lewes Printmakers will have a stand at the Lewes Artists and Makers fair (in aid of Western Road School ) in the Town Hall on Saturday 30th November - 11-5 - selling prints and cards and our printmakers calendars and books about Lewes.

Images for Oxford Fine Press Fair - new books

here are some pics for Marbhna - Elegy - I have chosen the most picture-y ones I suppose but I was interested too in the way the indentations from the woodcuts and collagraphs showed through on the back and interacted with the following texts too in a lot of places - hard to show on the websit - come to the fair!

Here also some little Nelson books and "Horatia's Box" that we had in the Tom Paine Press shop window for Trafalgar Day.
I have always had a soft spot for Nelson since I was taken to see the Victory  on a primary school outing ( the powder monkeys sounded particularly fascinating, tho I'm not sure I visualised them with correct historical accuracy, being always of an imaginative turn of mind.....)

The Naval Museum at Greenwich have just opened a new display, but it sounds as though they are playing down his heroic status and concentrating rightly enough 

on his men too; his men thought he was a hero by all accounts; bit of a shame to be too politically correct, we can always do with a few heroes.....
I read a wonderful novel about Nelson's daughter Horatia and her troubled relationship with poor Emma - she never was acknowledged as her mother of course and Horatia refused to accept it too , although she eventually knew that Nelson, who was overjoyed by the birth of his daughte but died whilst she was still in infancy, was her real father. Both daughter and Emma were treated abominably by both government and society and bundled of to exile in France; but Horatia lived to a fine old age and had several children herself and a good marriage, so there is a happy ending of sorts.

These are some little books with shell covers and woodcuts of the playground skipping rhyme about Nelson from my youth and images of the wonderful popular pottery his life and legend inspired.

All this was inspired too by my trip to Norfolk for the Norwich Book Fair TTP last spring - 
as was the Man in the Moon book ( see below 2 posts back) ....

Also now newly bound 'Hunting the Wren' and 'Love Poems and Curses', collaboration with poems by James Simpson

sorry- taken on a wet dark day so rather lurid colour.....

Late Info - Oxford Fine Press Fair this weekend 2-3 November

at Oxford Brookes University, Gypsy Lane, Headington 

I WILL be there exhibiting: I have just been in a tunnel of finishing books and have 2 days left to get my endpapers pasted down...I will try and take some photos in the next day or so, of new books and bindings....including, finally after 6 years of dithering, the book I wrote and began imaging when on a residency in Donegal...
keep checking this space for photos
hope to see you there
Book fair details on fpba website

www.fpba.com

Late Summer - new events

Next up is Lewes ArtWave, starting weekend 24/25th of August.

I will be having an Open Studio throughout the two weeks ( excepting the second monday ) showing prints old and new , Artists Books and work in progress.

My printmaking group Lewes Printmakers will be exhibiting again at the Linklater Pavilion, Railway Lane, and showing our new book about the River Ouse; see the Artwave website for further details: www.artwavefestival.org

After that I will be exhibiting at the Whitechapel Art Book Fair from 13th - 15th September 

( PV thursday 12th ) see website whitechapelgallery.org; 

someone else will be minding my stand on the friday 13th as I will be giving a paper about 

PEGGY ANGUS

at Compton Verney     -    www. comptonverney.org.uk

ENID MARX AND HER CONTEMPORARIES

Women designers and the popularisation of ‘folk arts’ in Britain 1920-1960.

ONE DAY SYMPOSIUM, COMPTON VERNEY, WARWICKSHIRE on FRIDAY 13 SEPTEMBER 2013

River Festival and Peggy Angus Walk

Here are the poster and hand-painted banner for the River Festival on the Railway Land  and Linklater Pavilion where my printmaking group meet and work
www.lewesprintmakers.co.uk
We are showing prepublication stages of our new book about the River Ouse and images from it, that will be launched at the Linklater in Lewes ArtWave starting bank holiday weekend in August.

It should be a great event - lets hope for good weather, but plenty to see inside - including our exhibit!

Last saturday I led a Peggy Angus walk from Charleston to Furlongs and Glynde and back on a glorious day - very windy up on top of the downs over Firle Beacon , but beautiful views from up there, as well as more bucolic ones from the old Coach Road below and along old green lanes through lush June grass and greenery. We were kindly allowed right up to Furlongs by Glynde Estate ( there is no public access otherwise) and it was a nostalgic moment for me, tempered by the fact that it now all looks so different.
A stalwart and lovely group of people who accompanied me enjoyed hearing her life story and ideas as we walked some of the routes she took - she was an intrepid walker herself with rucksack on back and it was lovely event. It will probably be repeated next year so watch Charleston's website for further details.

This week I have enjoyed Black Eyes and Lemonade - the exhibit at the Whitechapel gallery ; Barbara Jones was another great champion of popular art and the exhibition, a look at at the previous show of 1951 during the Festival of Britain, is really fascinating, a lot is sensitively packed into a small space and well worth a see. A study day event there yesterday on the theme of folk and popular art was excellent.

I will be exhibiting again at the Whitechapel Art book fair in September;
www.whitechapelgallery.org
further details on their website and watch this space.

After Turn the Page

I have been shamed into remembering to write up my blog by receiving a great link from Annette, a book artist that I met at the Norwich Fair...
here is the link to her blog which has a picture of my stand ( its the first image )
www.disslin-an.net:

I have been so excited by Norwich and all that I saw there that I have been busy ever since ( apart from finishing things already started and ongoing - no pressure then....)
....highlights were finding the statue and sculptures about one of my great heroes Sir Thomas Browne just outside the fair,

  visiting birthplace of Nelson at Burnham Thorpe, thinking about the Man in the Moon who came down too soon,

 and of course stopping off to see Thomas Paine's death mask and statue in Thetford on the way...
also the amazing church ceiling at Wymondham and Norwich cathedral itself with its amazing cloister ceiling bosses and the peregrines nesting on the spire.

TTP the book fair was excellent, beautiful setting, well organised, and great people - both displaying and visiting - well worth a visit next year - I'm really keen to do it again.








All quiet on the exhibiting front now until LewesArtWave Open Studios at end of August, then the Whitechapel Art Book Fair end of September, and Oxford Fine Press Book Fair beginning of November - watch this space for details on those...
I will also be giving a Peggy Angus walk for Charleston 8th June - look on Charlston Farmhouse website for details; and will have my Al Mutannabbi St book on show at the Rylands Library in Manchester and also my Boccaccio book on show there from July 11th until November.
There is a conference about 20thc women and folk art at Compton Verney on 13th Sept which will unfortunately clash with the Whitechapel but I hope to send a paper about Peggy Angus.
Together with Lewes Printmakers I am just preparing to go to press with our new book about the River Ouse and we will be showing prparatory work at the River Festival at the Linklater Pavilion, railway land, Lewes on 23rd June and the book will be out in time for Lewes ArtWave.
see www.lewesprintmakers.co.uk for details of past events, and hopefully soon , future ones.

BABE at the Arnolfini, Bristol

BABE 2013: Bristol Artists Book Event

Saturday 20 April 2013 to Sunday 21 April 2013, 11:00 to 17:00

Free →

BABE is back and bigger than ever for 2013. Spread over 3 floors more than 80 artist bookmakers, dealers and small presses from Bristol and around the world will come together at Arnolfini to show and sell their work.

With: Karoline Rerrie , Mandy Brannan, Elizabeth Willow, Ensixteen Editions, p’s & q’s Press, Alex Pritchard, whnicPRESS, Essence Press, Pet Galerie Press, Daily Twit, Moon & Stars Press Andi McGarry/Sun, LemonMelon, Katriona Chapman (Tomatito Press), Karen Joyce, Caseroom Press, Robert Ridley-Shackleton, Charlotte Hall/Eccentric Horace, Café Royal Books, Mark Pawson, Index Press, Jill Carter, Battenburg Press , The Sidney Nolan Trust book artists, Cally Barker, Otto, M COLLECTIVE, Edition MailWorks@Bruxelles, Coffee Club Collective, Ambeck Design, Artistsbooksonline.com , Maddy Pethick, Ros Blackmore/covet & whistle, Revolve:R, reassemble, Benedict Phillips , Charlotte Vallance Illustration & Design, Liver & Lights: Another Manifesto, Impact Press, Carolyn Trant - Parvenu Press, Ciara Healy, MBAG, Drawing & Image Making UCLan, Redfoxpress & Antic Ham, Sarah Bryant, Atlantic Press, KALEID editions, Bristol ABC - Artists' Books Club at UWE, Jane Cradock-Watson, UWE Bristol Graphic Design Department, LOAf, AMBruno: Books in dialogue., Umbrella, HGmakes BABE provides a relaxed and friendly space to meet and chat to artists about their work and buy works of art. Prices start from just a few pounds. Across the weekend there will be a number of performances, interventions and informal talks. Open until 6pm on Saturday and 5pm on Sunday.
For pre-bookable Workshops and Book Surgeries, please call Arnolfini Box Office on 0117 917 2300.

I will be exhibiting here as usual at the weekend ; I'm late posting due to a nasty two week virus...

...which also stopped me making another Boccaccio book for the fair, but I have put some pictures up anyway - the first one will be exhibited at the Rylands Library in Manchester in July as part of the exhibitions and conferences to celebrate the 700th anniversary of Boccaccio's birth this year.

  
Caccia di Diana - Diana's Hunt, was Boccaccio's first book written around 1333-4 when he was about 20 years old.
It is quite playful and related to stories by Ovid; I was attracted by the mysterious figure of the stag, who, unlike Actaeon, survives, and his 'lady', not named but probably 'Fiametta', little flame.
The plot is thus - the narrator sees the goddess Diana bathing and sends her nymphs out to the four quarters of the world to hunt roebuck, boar, lion and unicorn. Then a posse of Neapolitan noblewomen rush in to hunt, crashing through the woods chasing and killing all manner of beasts including a family of snakes. On the advice of a mysterious 'fair lady' they pile their trophies on a sacrificial fire dedicated to Venus, from which they spring transformed into beautiful young men, who running through a river emerge mantled in vermillion.
As a final twist the narrator, who we now learn was actually a stag all along, is similarly transformed and offered to the 'fairest lady'.

I shall have lots of other little books...hope to see you there........see more on www.arnolfini.org.uk

Two weeks later I will be at Turn the Page in Norwich - see details under NEWS on my website
www.carolyntrant.co.uk

Celebrating the Imagination - The Gist

The Latest News is that I will be speaking with James Simpson about our creative collaborations, as part of this 2 day event in Frome, Somerset,  - an unexpected addition to our series of talks about The Untenanted Room.
This sounds a lovely event with wonderful contributors and I am much looking forward to it.

find out more about it here
www.rooklanearts.org.uk

our talk - The Untenanted Room - shared imagination
will be at 11.15am
Saturday 16th March

I am also really looking forward to a talk by Jackie Morris on the previous thursday night 13th March - she is a wonderful illustrator.

Don't forget my website is now live on
www.carolyntrant.co.uk

More about the Somerset event when I return.

After CODEX

I feel a little at this angle after the long flight, but amazing to look down on the less inhabited places of the world, and particularly exciting to fly back through the Northern Lights - wow.
Thank you to Dmitry for this picture and the next couple - it was great to meet more of the Russian contingent.

The fair was dauntingly huge - 180 stands this year and far too little time for the exhibitors to get round and see everything, especially as our customers arrived on the bus with us too, but it was a really beautiful building and in a stunning position too - an old Ford factory on the edge of the Bay at Craneway, Richmond.
Amazing light and magic to see ships suddenly sailing majestically past the windows; and the sun shone in a blue sky every day of our trip - just a slight seafog rising up for a time on one day.

There was a huge number of visitors every day despite the off the track location, both locals and collectors and librarians from all over the States - they even managed to fly out from the blizzarded East Coast by a variety of circuitous means ( the fair is timed as a February treat for the East Coasters, who are also en route to the San Francisco Antiquarian Book Fair ).....
quite a challenge attracting attention among so many!

But even the dogs seemed to be ardent booklovers...

We also enjoyed meeting some of the USA contributors to the Al Mutannabbi street project, and the inspirational Beau Soleil who started it, at an inaugural exhibition of some of the books  from it at the new premises for the San Francisco Centre for the Book - many thanks for the hospitality and meal to Sas Coleby and all the staff there.
read about the project on the link here
http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/mutanmain12.htm
and you can see my books for the project on my website
www.carolyntrant.co.uk