Test prints
Two small lino blocks (10 x 10cm and 10 x 8cm). I found a battered piece of Japanese paper to test them on, maybe the creases will smooth out later.
Soppiness
Optimism
A small print (A6 postcard) that involved a lot of cutting. The background wasn’t planned but cutting lines into lino gets quite mesmerising.
Four and twenty…
…none baked in a pie. A birthday card, drawn with a 4-colour biro on A6 size yellow card. Well, A5 folded in half.
New Year
Midwinter
Linocut 10 x 8cm, linseed oil ink on paper. A fairy light behind the picture for a brighter fire.
Happy Midwinter!
Midwinter Star
While looking for card to print on, I found a long-lost piece of brown lino with a baby carved in a star. My favourite son is 21 so maybe this block has been in a box since we moved away from Birmingham in 1998.
The patterns around the star are made from the zigzagging movements when trying to hack into old lino. I’ll see how it prints later…
Knitting
One of my first knitting experiments, from 1983(?). I liked drawing stuff on graph paper so designing the lettering was enjoyable. Knitting with a few colours became a tangled mess quite quickly. People still advise me to use the yarn from the centre of the ball so it won’t tangle or roll away.
I’ll probably unravel this knitted poetry now, it never became a jumper. Recently I’ve done some more stranded colours. The pale green stripe is not as yellow as the photographs suggest.
Jamming
This morning I saw the Women’s Arts Association had shared a BBC article about an “art stunt” in Manchester.
Further reading took me to the Manchester Evening News. Their interview with the artists was more enlightening: “The cashier only allowed us 24 jars” (Two bodies covered in jam, a camper battery, a power inverter, toaster and toast. 11 am busy street) won’t be their last performance.
Artists Riikka Enne and Sophia Moffa took to the city centre to present their latest ‘happening’ to the people of Manchester.
The reactions of the workers, shoppers, commuters and police officers who encountered the duo have all formed part of their artwork. In fact, even this article is part of the happening.
I’m impressed that naked people can eat toast and jam in a city centre without being molested. More impressed when considering Manchester has a bee as its symbol.
Is it Art? Did the artists bake the bread for the toast? Did they grow the fruit to make the jam? Does jam-making cut out the need for the cashier mentioned in their event title?
So many questions. The audience presumably enjoyed the happening, maybe they all went on to spend the rest of the day in a performance…
As an art student I made body prints from similar events, not in the street though. Does an art event need proof that it happened?
Read their tale of studio hunting, remember art needs space:
http://tapemodern.org/2018/08/14/evictions/
berry daines 