Long Man of Wilmington and BABE Artists Book Fair at the Arnolfini Bristol

A good friend introduced me to Nathan James's site:

https://www.castleymusic.com/onwindoverhill

this week and I was immediately taken back to my Rituals and Relics days of the late 1980's, and even saw the name of my old archaeologist friend Martin Brown mentioned. Nathan is a composer and he is writing a piece about our local Wilmington Giant. He says his aims are, among others, to inspire creative and artistic interpretation of an archaeological phenomenon, evoke relationships with him through examining its place in our social history, and contribute to the genre of contemporary classical music promoting strong themes of time and place. He also thinks he might be a she and has been examining the evidence.
His site also has a sample of his music and you can hear a short radio program made about him recently - have a look and listen - he has written some interesting stuff too....

He was also asking for images of the Long Man for his project and so I dug out some old and rather wobbly slides which I have had digitised recently dating from 1989-90 - with also an very early one dating back to 1969 when I started coming down to Sussex very regularly and getting intoxicated by the green of the downs and the cow parsley in the spring...

This side-wise glance at the chalk figure gives equal attention to the old flint workings around the site and emphasises the chalk  in the foreground from which he is cut - and has of course to be regularly scoured to keep him visible. I think this picture was bought by East Sussex County Council who helped sponsor the Rituals and Relics project together with S E Arts so it must be on an office wall somewhere....

I was also interested in looking at him from the top down, first as a very large charcoal drawing and then as a lithograph with ambivalent textures that almost suggest sky where the sky would normally be expected in the picture but is now upside down.

The next two watercolours again show sidewise views - in the second he is barely distinguishable but you can recognise the chalk paths around him and large fossil sea urchin sits in the foreground ( I think it has all got a bit squashed in digital transit). In the first one a flint I found which looked like a hawk is a levitating presence. I used to walk a lot on the downs  on moonlit nights.

Meanwhile now, I am working for BABE     Artists Book Fair  at the Arnolfini,  Bristol - 30th and 31st March  - always a really enjoyable fair with book artists from far and wide and spread over several rooms with a program of talks and events.

I am turning some of my tarot cards into small decorated packs, see posts below , and also using similar techniques making cheap books to emulate street art ‘cartonera’s from Mexico which I saw recently at an evening event at the British Library - I feel I need to work fast and less preciously as well as record a little of our turbulent times... more printing over old newspapers and recycling old images in new ways....
watch this space 
or better still come to Bristol and see....

Update to The Antidote at St Anne's Gallery

See post below for the dates of the exhibition - opens tomorrow evening for 3 weekends


- new thoughts for The Antidote included a large new Punch and Judy woodcut (definitely domestic violence here) - and I got quite obsessed with Virtus Combusta when I saw it at the wonderful Mantegna Bellini at the NG exhibition before Christmas – Mantegna of course one of the first painter/printmakers so I have played with that in drypoint and monoprint and woodcut; it seems so much an image for our times….. the original is somewhat misogynistic – I have made the figures even more androgynous…

Humanity stumbles towards an abyss guided by Lust, Folly and Deceit; Ignorance watches from a throne on a globe beside burning laurels, served by Fate and Avarice. Hermes appears to try to intervene….

The exhibition also seemed a good point to get down to designing some playing cards – it will still be a partial set and in no way conventional but I can return to it at times of stress... I have always wanted to design cards – the shape and size is so appealing, nice and small to chip away at in comparison with my large woodcuts...

Cards have always been used in a variety of ways, gaming, patience, fortune telling and tarot cards, leading to a range of expressions and metaphors - playing your cards right etc

I like the idea of an ever-changing deck of images that can be endlessly rearranged, sparking off new ideas and narratives… I have been printing my woodcuts on old newspapers from the last month as I feel it answers the need for a patina of age, history and complexity which all the best old cards have - part of their magic for tarot reading; it can also can include topicality and satirical comment if you can decipher what is beneath my printing... and even if you can’t it is still there; and ambiguity mirrors the process of a ‘reading’ – why did I choose that image to print on? (apart from its colour) - read my thoughts and add your own….


Work in Progress!

New Year and The Antidote exhibition

The Antidote A riposte to Valentine's Day

2 - 17 February 2019

Derya Erdem  Rachel Glittenberg  Solange Leon Iriarte Oska Lappin  Sarah Shaw  Carolyn Trant  Sophie Wake As part of The Antidote’s exploration of love, St Anne’s Galleries  is holding workshops with children at local schools to make  Friendship Cards, which will be delivered to older people  in the communityon Valentine’s Day. We are proud to support Equal Arts, a leading creative ageing charity  who provide creative opportunities for older people to help combat  loneliness and improve wellbeing. Please support them with us! Find out how at: www.stannesgalleries.com THE ANTIDOTE: A RIPOSTE TO VALENTINE'S DAY 2 - 17 FEBRUARY 2019 St Anne's Galleries, 111 High Street, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1XY Phone: +44 (0)7860 728 220 Email: michael@michaelbell.co.uk Open Saturdays & Sundays  10am - 5pm during exhibitions, or by appointment at other times The New Year carried on fairly seamlessly from the old with a few days merriment interrupting work on a series of tiny woodcuts for a set of Antidote tarot/playing cards - something I have long wanted to do - the shape and size of cards which fit in the hand is so appealing; it will still be a partial set by Feb 2nd and in no way conventional but I can return to the project at times of stress... a nice small size to chip away at in comparison with my large woodcuts.... I will add images to this post as they get finished next week - lots of cutting is done,  now the printing and colouring and time of reckoning.... Charlie had marketed her new exhibition at St Anne's as an antidote to the 'pink fluffy tide of commercialised emotion and obligatory romance that engulfs us in February...a refuge for the jaded and curious where the experience of the human heart could be explored in all its complex, ambiguous and frequently dark glory...' who could resist.. especially with some charitable link-ups working with the lonely and dispossessed... new thoughts for The Antidote included a large new Punch and Judy woodcut, and I got quite obsessed with Virtus Combusta when I saw it at the wonderful Mantegna Bellini exhibition at the National Gallery before Christmas, so I have made a few responses to that  engraving in various forms: a British Library label reads... The subject is an allegory on the hold of ignorance on humanity. At top right the fat naked woman seated on a globe representing ignorance reigns. She is served by the blindfolded figure of fate and emaciated Avarice. At left a sightless woman accompanied by a satyr symbolising Lust, and Error, a man with asses ears, stumbles towards a chasm. Below figures have fallen into the pit. One is being rescued by Hermes, the God of Knowledge, demonstrating that Humanity can be saved.... or as the NG label has it  - humanity stumbles towards an abyss guided by Lust, Folly and Deceit: ignorance watches from her throne beside burning laurels... seemed apposite...and mildly hopeful according to the BM which is what we need... Meanwhile this will be the year my book comes out with Thames and Hudson - Voyaging Out:British Women Artists from the Suffragettes to the Sixties; still a few months to go however but hopefully more time for artwork now. I will be at BABE in Bristol at the Arnolfini 30-31 March - a book fair I always enjoy, and hopefully will have some more playing cards done as well as other new stuff.... James Simpson and I enjoyed the Michael Marks Poetry Pamphlet Awards at the British Library in December and looking at, and listening to, the different exhibits; James is now publishing poems with the Hedgehog Press, including some poems he did for parvenu press in order to give them a wider audience. We are also looking forward to working with Incline Press in the near future. I am also still cutting new designs for paper toy theatres for the Pollocks Toy Theatre Museum project - someone told me there had been an article in the press about it but I haven't yet managed to track it down... The great excitement before Christmas was acquiring an old wooden toy theatre to play with and try out my designs on ( for sale in the street in L The Centre of the Cosmos) and also going to a performance at the Art Workers Guild by Joe Gladwyn and meeting enthusiasts who told me about the annual European festival in Kiel - preetzerpapiertheatertreffen - where an interesting variety of contemporary takes on performance take place with 21st century graphics...thank you Sarah Peasgood for all the information, it was great meeting you and I loved your Wilton Music Hall turns on paper....

Pollocks Toy Museum in Scala Street and Toy Theatres

Peter and I were lucky enough to be invited a wonderful afternoon discussing a future project with a small group of makers and illustrators at the beautiful and atmospheric museum in Scala Street ( just off Tottenham Court Road ). Now run again by members of the original family who bought up Pollocks stock and set up the toy museum and shop across two old houses a few generations ago, it is taking exciting steps forward with the introduction of new original artwork by Jack, one of the younger generation and an ex art student, a sculptor and printmaker keen to archive and promote the core of the museum collection - the original copper plates for the Toy Theatres. An exhibition is in the air, possibly for autumn next year. Jack is suggesting some contemporary takes on the Theatre format and possibly interventions in the museum, and also taking the exhibition further afield.

I love the advent calendars and small theatres Jack has been doing for the shop – rush along and buy some!

This place, and project is very close to my heart. I have been going there for fifty years – I discovered it when a student at the Slade nearby and then working briefly in the early 70’s making lithographs with Stanley Jones at the old Curwen Studios in Midford Place round the corner and the Curwen Studio Gallery in the mews nearby; another old and dear Lewes friend was also a member of the family it turned out and I feel she has guided me back there from above. 

I have been making Carnivalesque boxes, small card hand theatres and paper Punch and Judy shows, valentine card boxes on and off for some years now – scroll back through the years of my blog for images – and this new opportunity is heaven sent at a time when I had just decided to do some more small concentrated works on paper as a short rest from huge printed books.

I have also just been forced by the flood to tidy up my house-ful of informal installations and present some images here which show I feel some connections between Jack and Eddy’s museum and my normal working environment!

Well I have been trying to impose some sort of order, which can be a boring - but now I have something specific to work for and plenty of inspiration on hand and at the museum.

I have also been reading Grimaldi's Memoirs which fortunately Peter had to hand ( what a star) and he is all fired up by the idea of printing engraved plates and me to design paper theatres.

Watch this space.

Here's one of my v old handheld theatres to save you scrolling back, in the Tom Paine Printing Shop window.....and various old pop up events

SYLVA PostScript

Wonderful events come thick and fast – the tree afternoon was a delight with two really good speakers and plans for future Tree Events; and it was lovely to find that our informal collaboration with the Lewes Tree Group survey for the text of our book was appreciated and that we were all on the same wavelength – David had a list of categories for dividing up the images of the trees in his talk – to which we had added I think - Revolutionary Trees. We in turn noted some important trees we had perhaps overlooked – so plenty of scope for further research and image making – and a future collaboration too perhaps between all of us and possibly some annual event organised by John. Many thanks to all the people who attended and helped out, it was a splendid turn-out.

It was too busy to even think of taking photos! but here are some of the individual trees laid out when they were work in progress......enlarge and enjoy if you can
book now available from
Tom Paine Printing Press, 151 High Street Lewes
Emporium Antique Centre, Cliffe High Street Lewes
or Lewes Tourist Information Centre, 187 High Street Lewes

SYLVA Trees event at Linklater Pavilion Lewes Sunday 28th October

Towner Print and Illustration Fair

The Symposium at the House of Illustration was great - interesting questions from the floor and good discussion - a lovely day.
My next public appearance will be at the fair above - it was a great success last year and this year takes place over two days so all its joys can be appreciated more slowly and calmly; hope to see you there - it will be great fun.