Travelling around the World through Music

I've been missing travelling and experiencing new places, culture, food, people, customs, languages et al. So have recently come across Putumayo's World Music Radio Hour which showcases music from their many albums around the world into themes around events, such as the recent episode on Martin Luther King Day or a playlist around food for Thanksgiving or geographical regions. 

Here's a few of my favourite episodes I've listened to so far:-

Mountain Music

Acoustic Arabia

Celtic Music Around the World 

Reggae Around the World

All the music is featured on their many CD compilations such as Cuba! Cuba!, Arabic Groove, French Cafe, Celtic Women... I remember seeing them in shops before because of their distinctive, beautiful & memorable illustration covers by Nicola Heindl

I'm finding them to be really relaxing & great to cook to! Find the Putumayo Music Radio Hour here 

or different playlists on Spotify searching for 'Putumayo Presents'

Volcano Patches - Popocatépetl

I've always found volcanoes fascinating, ever since I visited Taal Volcano in the Philippines on a school trip 25 years ago. It's like you can see the origins of our planet & the new creation of earth at the same time. I followed Taal's eruption in January 2020 closely and it sparked my dormant interest.

So I've decided to do a design project of volcano patches. Here's the first, one of my favourites- 'Popocatepetl' in Mexico, located just south of Mexico City, Mexico at 5,426 m, its name means 'Smoking Mountain' in Aztec. It is one of the most active volcanoes in Mexico & is the second-highest in North America. In 1994 it became active again after nearly 50 years of being dormant, and is now regularly active with steam plumes and erratic eruptions.

'El Popo' has been very active lately & there's some great webcams to watch on Volcano Discovery, they also have a great Volcanoes & Earthquakes app which keeps you updated on recent quakes & the status of volcanoes around the world. 

I've put my Popocatépetl design in my Redbubble Shop so you can find it on stickers, t-shirts, bags etc... eventually I plan to make some felt, embroidered patches & pennant flags of them too. 

I'd love to know what are your favourite volcanoes? 

2019 Roundup: Art Exhibitions

When you're living life you don't quite realise all that you are doing or achieving as it's just rolling along as everyday life. So the end of the year is always a good time to reflect and look back on the last 12 months. Here's the first roundup of 2019, a look at all the exhibitions I saw in 2019:-

Harald Sohlberg: Painting Norway at Dulwich Picture Gallery

Pierre Bonnard: The Colour of Memory at Tate Modern

Diane Arbus: In the Beginning at Hayward Gallery

Van Gogh & Britain at Tate Britain 

Phyllida Barlow at Royal Academy

Sheffield is my nearest City so I always pop into the Graves Gallery & Millennium Gallery, here's what I saw there this year: 

Da Vinci: A Life in Drawing at Millennium Gallery

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: Sea, Rock, Earth and Ice at Graves Gallery

It Moves Forward: The Work of Richard Hamilton at Graves Gallery

This Life is So Everyday: The Home in British Art 1950-1980 at Graves Gallery

John Ruskin: Art & Wonder at Millennium Gallery

The Time is Now at Milllenium Gallery

The Dog: A Celebration at Chatsworth

I also go to Manchester quite a lot so here's what I saw at the Manchester Art Gallery this year (from top anticlockwise):

Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing

Nordic Craft & Design

Martin Parr: Return to Manchester

Halima Cassell: Eclectica Global Inspirations

Louise Giovanelli

Rembrandt's Light at Dulwich Picture Gallery 

I also managed a trip to London in November & managed to see the Rembrandt's Light exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery. Luckily I saw it just a few days before they had an attempted robbery and subsequent closure of the gallery for 2 weeks. I also always see one of my favourite Rembrandt portraits 'Jacob de Gheyn III' which they have in their permanent collection when I'm there, but I couldn't find it & found out it's currently on loan to Museum de Lakenhal in the Netherlands for their exhibition 'Young Rembrandt: Rising Star' (curiously this painting has been stolen 4 times making it one of the most stolen paintings in the world!)

I feel like I haven't seen as much as I'd like to this year, so hopefully next year I can make the effort and go to see more special exhibitions as well as some new places I've never been to. Thanks 2019, roll on 2020!

Rosetta Philae for C.A.N NeckTie

 


I designed this Rosetta-Philae Patch for the Space Horizons Creative Action Network project a few years ago & they've just picked it to be on this really cool Outer Space Necktie now available in their shop! Proceeds support Space Horizons, an innovative non profit that promotes interest in STEM education for minority and female students in underserved communities. 

Here's what i wrote about the my patch & the Rosetta-Philae mission:-
I've always been fascinated by the wonder of space, the universe holds so much wonder and mystery. When ESA's Rosetta-Philae Mission landed onto a comet, relaying the first images from a comets surface, after having left Earth 10 years earlier, it was such an awe inspiring moment. So much hard work, time and huge possibilities of failure, brought about never before seen images and data; although Philae bounced on landing and didn't quite land in the right spot so it couldn't recharge it's batteries and keep its link with Earth for longer, that's alright as sometimes (a lot of the time) things don't work out as you planned and that just makes you learn from it that bit more and be inspired to keep trying and pushing forever onward. This mission will forever be etched in my memory and keep on inspiring me and I hope my patch opens up this mission to others and inspires them. 

Literary Linocut Project

   

 

I've started a new weekly project for 2018 called #literarylinocut where each week I'll make a small, quick linocut detailing anything literary from current reads to author portraits, made up book covers, book stacks and quotes. Here's the first 5 weeks worth featuring my current read 'The Black Cloud' by Fred Hoyle, the great, late Ursula le Guin, recent read 'The Woman in White' by Wilkie Collins, a favourite author in Patricia Highsmith & a great read remembered in 'The River Ki' by Sawako Ariyoshi.

To keep up to date with the project, follow me over on my Instagram where I'll upload a new linocut every Wednesday!

Soviet Milk

I am an avid reader and my TBR list is ever-long and ever-growing so while a book buying ban is necessary, I can't tear myself away from collecting those published by Peirene Press who publish beautifully designed short books in English translation from Europe. Last year my favourite read of the entire year was 'The Orange Grove' by Larry Tremblay which they published and I reviewed here.

This year the series of 3 short books to be published is called 'Home in Exile' and I was really excited to be sent 'Soviet Milk' by Nora Ikstena to review, the first Latvian author I've ever read and it is translated into English by Margita Gailitis.

The book alternates between a mother and daughter's point of view from growing up and living in Riga and the Latvian countryside under Soviet rule. Everything is shown to have two sides and each needs the other to exist; Life and Death, Mothers and Daughters, God and Science, Freedom and Imprisonment. There is even another side to the life-giving milk a mother should give to her baby, as she feels it has been poisoned by her (and Soviet rule) she deprives her daughter of it.

Latvia's imprisonment and silencing under the Soviet Union is paralleled in the banishment of the Mother to the countryside. She begins to withdraw from reality seeking solace in cigarettes, books and pills and the daughter is then also imprisoned by always being tied to her mother, at first having to grow up with her in the countryside and then when she is older having to return to visit her and trying to pull her back into reality.

Soviet Milk makes us examine how we are all living in multiple cages, from the emotional ones we create for ourselves to those imposed upon us through family, work, society, the government or country ruling over us. While these cages and boundaries may appear to help us to exist and survive as a society, individual freedom is still always hoped for and appears in-between the cracks; through a rebellious teacher, a midnight swim or a friends help, even a hamster seeks it and finally there is no escaping death which will release us all into an infinite freedom.

Despite the dark themes and unanswerable existential questions Soviet Milk throws up, I felt there was always an underlying sense of hope, while darkness will always be inevitable in life so will hope and light. Freedom will always be present on the horizon, in milk or in the earth.

Thanks to Periene Press and make sure you check out all of their other books!

Burns Night 2018

I love Scotland, from the Highlands to the Cities, the Islands to the Irn Bru (okay maybe not so much) from Flora McDonald to Robert Burns. So I seem to have started a yearly tradition to complete a Robert Burns Illustration for every Burns Night! So here's this years; a linocut with a little portrait of the great man himself on a rose complete with the opening lines of 'O My Luve is Like a Red Red Rose' I wanted to do some green rose leaves & thorns as well, but I ran out of time so I will have to finish it another time. 

Here's my Robert Burns Illustrations from 2017, 2016 , 2015 and 2014

Happy Burns Night!

Chaiyya Chaiyya Linocut & Bollywood Love

I've recently got into watching some Bollywood films (due to finding a favourite 'Kal Ho Na Ho' I saw years ago on Netflix) so of course I've become a huge Shah Rukh Khan fan! Every new film throws up some amazing songs like the incredible 'Chaiyya Chaiyya' from the great film 'Dil Se'  which was all filmed on top of the Ooty train going through the jungles and tunnels its so incredible, watch it here! So I had to create a multi-colour linocut print of it.

Here's some of my favourite SRK films so far:- Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kal Ho Na Ho, Devdas, Kabhi Kushie Kabhie Gham, Dil Se, Veer Zaara and of course Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge! 

and then some other favourite Bollywood songs on repeat:- Indiawaale, Janam Janam, Tujhe Dekha To, Ina Mina Dika, O Jaan-E-Man

Review: The Orange Grove by Larry Tremblay

 

Ever since I first saw a few of these novellas by Periene Press in a bookshop I was drawn under their spell; their beautiful design from the minimalist connecting covers to the inside flaps, paper texture, and the publishers note on why they chose to publish it, everything is so well considered and that's before we get to the fiction contained inside. After loving the first two I read (The Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman & The Looking-Glass Sisters) I decided to collect them and now I've have been sent a copy of their newest 'The Orange Grove' to review. I love reading but have never attempted to write a review before, so here goes...

The story is set in an unknown country which could be nowhere and everywhere in a time that has experienced a war; it could even be all a dream, as you often hope reality is. But Aziz & Ahmed always come back to the Orange Grove; the gathering of fruit in the harvest, the flowers, the canopy's shade, the dirt and rocks the oranges grow out of. These sights and smells of the Orange Grove ground you to a simple domestic oasis of home, nature, the earth, where you came from, your country, your father and mother.

Aziz & Ahmed are twin brothers who live by the Orange Grove next to where their grandparents were recently killed by a bomb which came from the other side of the mountain. The local militants decide that revenge & honour must be sought by their father who has to choose one of his sons to sacrifice.

The bones of the story is given up in the blurb, when you know that one of the brothers has to be sacrificed by wearing a suicide belt and the implications this has on the brother that survives. As you await the inevitable fate of one of the brothers the story unfolds through a quiet, beautiful, poetic tale of truth, lies, duty, brainwashing, honour/dishonour and a mother's undying love for her sons. 

The Orange Grove forces you to view war from this small family perspective, they could easily be you, having to live your life, raise your children through bombs, suicide vests, militants and having to keep your family's honour intact so the future is still bearable. This family living through the horrors of war teaches you about tolerance, compassion, love and circumstances. 

The Orange Grove left me at a stalement, as life and war often does, with no peace in sight, only questions. How does the future recover from the scars of war, how is one person's life worth more than another, why are innocent children always involved? War has always been a part of history and sadly I feel it always will be, but those losses and lives buried under miles of earth sometimes can grow into oranges. 

A heartbreakingly beautiful read that will be with me a long time, teaching me more about tolerance, compassion and love, I highly recommend it.

Thanks to Periene Press and go check out all their books!

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Sundial & S-Town Podcast

I listened to the S-town podcast in the first couple of days after it was released & loved it, it's not really a crime story, it's really just an exploration of a fascinatingly unique man, John B McLemore.

In homage to him & the podcast I created a little linocut of a sundial with a sad motto, 'Omnes Vulnerant, Ultima Necat' or for all those non-latin speakers out there 'All Hours Wound; the last one kills' (That motto just kills me!)

Judy Garland Linocut Print

I've just recently been drawn into the world of musicals & who best to introduce me to them than Judy Garland, here classic Meet Me In St Louis, with the most amazing Trolley Song (shot on the first take), The Wizard of Oz & Easter Parade, I look forward to watching others too.

  

 So to celebrate her in all her fabulousness I created a linocut print which features a beautiful quote of hers: 'Always be a first rate version of yourself, instead of a second rate version of somebody else' It's now for sale in my etsy shop 

Here's the print framed in gold on an old illustrated copy of 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' by Frank L. Baum.

& for all the Judy Lovers out there here's a little spotify playlist of all my favourite Judy at the moment:

 

Thanks Judy!

Happy Burns Night Linocut

 

Happy Burns Night! Hope you're having fun reciting the 'Tam O'Shanter' & piping in the Haggis! To celebrate I created a linocut print in honour of Robert Burns detailing some of his famous works. I love my little tartan book of his poems & songs which is just right to dip into when I want to conjure the wild, free Highlands of Scotland & a Scottish accent! The A4 print is available to buy in my shop.

The print details aspects of his well known works including; roses for 'My Love is like a Red Red Rose', A haggis, mouse & a louse for his Addresses' to each of them, the Scottish Highlands for his 'My Heart's in the Highland's' & 'Wild Mountainside' also put in the NYE classic 'Auld Lang Syne' & the beautiful 'Ae Fond Kiss'.

Here's the linocut block, I can now write in joined up writing backwards! 

It's also available on Redbubble on T-shirts, cards, homewares etc, I love the tote bag!

Also why not have a look at my Burns Night Illustrations from 2016, 2015 & 2014!

Year of Printmaking: Unfinished/Finished Monoprint

 

Some monoprints & moments are meant to be unfinished & incomplete. . . 

Year of Printmaking: Tennis

May-August is definitely the height of the tennis season with Roland Garros, Wimbledon, Davis Cup & this year the Olympics. So this month's print highlights my favourite tournament, Wimbledon! I can't go & queue up this year so I'll just have to watch loads on TV with Pimm's & strawberries on hand!

Year of Printmaking: Starfish & Coffee

I'm still only listening to Prince, with his huge back catalogue there's so much variety of greatness, he truly is a once in the whole lifetime of this planet, truly unique artist and creative force. My favourite tracks change on a daily basis, here's a few of my lesser known favourites in this moment: She Gave Her Angels, The Truth, Race, Mountains, Head, Dolphin, Crucial, The Ladder, God, Bambi, The Holy River, Black Sweat and the Cream -acoustic live on VH1 unplugged shows off his abundance of sweet playful charm perfectly.

For this weeks print I did a tiny Starfish & Coffee linocut, see his cutest performance of it on the Muppets Tonight:-

Year of Printmaking: Trees out the Window

Mini print this week, looking out the window at winter trees (which now have burst into full bloom).

Year of Printmaking: Maypole

I'm a bit late with this months calendar print but here's some funky Maypole dancing for May.

{Also see January, February, March and April}

Women Artists to See in the UK

There's always lots of art to see, but lately I've added lots of women artists to my wishlist to see! So I thought I'd highlight these women; some well known and thought about for years, others unknown and waiting to be discovered.

Georgina Houghton: Spirit Drawings at the Courtauld Gallery, London 

--Free, abstract, colourful, automatic, spirit watercolours by this Spiritualist Medium painting in the mid-late 19th Century.

 

Mona Hatoum at Tate Modern, London

--Contradictions, energy and emotion pulsate through simple conceptual juxapositions.

Georgia O'Keefe at Tate Modern, London

--Big Stunning Flowers Y-E-S, but also New Mexico landscapes and skulls.

Ella Kruglyanskaya at Tate Liverpool

---Portraits, conversations, relationships, everyday life...

Maria Lassnig at Tate Liverpool

--Gestural, evocative surreal figurative work

Rachel Whiteread at Tate Britain, London

---Plaster, rubber, resin sculpture casts of negative space of the everyday.

Winifred Nicholson in Cumberland at Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal

Winifred Knights at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

Woman & Child - Nora Neilson Gray

Modern Scottish Women at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Year of printmaking: Window/curtain

I've been working on some sketches & paintings of windows lately looking at the division between outside/inside, secure/insecure, private/exposed. . . So for this weeks print here is a linocut sketch of my window/curtain to the outside world in that moment. 

Year of Printmaking: Grey Monoprints

Quick series of grey monoprints, might become backgrounds to be developed into something else....