May: And now what?

This was a month that hurtled past with all the erratic acrobatics of house martins, and although every single day was spent either ensconced in the studio or sharing the thrill of lino-cut with my peers and members of the public (thank you, Lewes and Winchester print fairs), I’ve just not felt ready to say goodbye to the soaring and swooping optimism of meteorological spring. May, I’ll miss you.

Regular printmaking routines have been relegated to the sidelines, in favour of hundreds of shorn strips of paper. Machine-made paper, handmade paper, Japanese washi paper, heavyweight satin paper, basic printer paper, antique paper spanning a hundred year period - all swiped haphazardly with oil-based inks in blobs and globs, smears and stripes. Which papers work best to cradle the ink; which ones shun the usefulness of pre-soaking or frustratingly blur every fluid line?

My practice is shifting in a direction that I both never expected, and also hoped for. And with this curious unbalance must come the hours of test-printing; endless days of head-scratching and staring at the dreaded Blank Page. Even if the blank page is a one-inch hand-ripped swatch, there’s a much larger voice still asking ‘and now what?’.

I’ve not carved lino since March. But I have been making work, despite it being so far removed from what feels sheltered, and habitual, and saleable (strike the last adjective: my images have never really sold consistently). You know where I’m going with this, right? Back to the inevitable ennui that comes with cranking out the same old style in the same old way: something has to give before one feels like giving it all up. Haven’t I already been threatening this for the last few newsletters?

Well, I finally cracked.

My trusty Pfeil tools have been swapped out, temporarily, for brushes and sponges; likewise the battleship grey blocks are now glass plates or plastic tubs. The pigments span a whole spectrum - from my trusty Caligo, to ancient Akua stay-open inks; stranger still is the inclusion of watercolour and gouache, oil and wax: who knew I’d return full-circle to the painter I trained as over twenty years ago?

These tests and trials could be the start of nothing and the end of everything. But they could also pick me up by the scruff and shake off that ‘play it safe’ sensation that has settled into my hands and my head, and that I fear even pervades the very paper I print on.

And if this late May missive feels a little nebulous and lacklustre, well, I suppose it’s hard to know how much to share when one hardly feels like they understand what it is they’re even sharing! So let’s cut this short for now, and sign off until this soon-to-be summer, with a sigh and a strained smile. That’s another reason to miss May - we’re only three weeks until the solstice, and then to the slow ever-sinking of the sun and the sad, dark nights… oh! Enough! Enough pessimism! More printmaking! And more to share next time.

Adieu until the end of June,

Apologies

If you find typos, please know that, despite proofreading, I am only human and simply missed them prior to publication. With any luck, I will return here to rectify the rogue mistakes, though who knows how many months down the line that may be. If you’re reading this via e-mail, an extra apology for never being able to edit those initial errors out.