Shipping Brow Gallery's Fairyport project is underway! With the support of Maryport Town Council, there will be sessions taking place in all the Maryport primary schools, involving around 480 children, designing maps and signage, as well as beautiful eco-friendly hand-made items to freshly decorate the path.

While we've been working with the schools, we've been hearing how the Fairy Path, which leads down from the Upper Prom to the Lower Prom, dates back at least a hundred years. It became beautifully decorated during Lockdown, and now, years later, its desperately in need of some TLC!

So far, myself and Shipping Brow Gallery's Artist-in-Residence, Jim Osborne, have been taking groups of children up the path, to sketch and look out for wildlife and of course, the odd fairy. They're quite hard to spot as they're rather shy. One little girl from Our Lady and St Patrick School recommended, it's best to be quiet on your way up the path!

We've been working with Dearham, Maryport, Our Lady & St Patricks and Netherton so far. Later on, we'll be seeing Flimby, Ellenborough, Grasslot and Ewanrigg Schools, and we'll be working with Maryport Beavers and a young wildlife group! Already, the ideas for the trail map are A-mazing! Have a look at what we've got so far...everything from fairies and brownies, to viking kings and princesses, to wild boar and magic foxes...and not forgetting one or two mischievous elves..

Over the next few months, hundreds of children will be visiting the Shipping Brow Gallery as part of their session. The first groups have already seen an exhibition of both Jim's and my work, together with the work of print-maker Jack Fawdry-Tatham. More recently, Dearham School caught the opening week of Sarah Reid, a local pastel artist. I hope they've found it inspiring. Take a look at their artwork, see what you think!

The making phase of the project will be coming up in May, and we've got bundles of ideas of what we can make, using materials that won't harm the environment..

A lovely start to the year, exhibiting with Jim Osborne and Jack Fawdry-Tatham. The wider theme of the exhibition points towards myth, narrative and imagination. Jim Osborne typically experiments across a wide range of colour palettes, from the glowing oranges and pinks of Maryport sunsets to the muted tones of interior still lives. However, for this show, his palette is far more focused. There is a hint of the otherworldly in each of his works, with unforgettable compositions depicted in jewel-like colours.

In Jack Fawdry-Tatham's etched prints, the otherworldliness is arguably more instantly visible, with his timeless arrangements of creatures and figures. What commands longer meditation are the hidden elements within each piece, an endless treasure trove of detail.

Unusual or not so unusual for me (you know what I'm like), I'm showing textile works, along the theme of 'journeys into the interior II'. This is a continuation of my interest in journeys underground, which I began during my MFA. During my physical investigations with the local mining society (CATMHS), I began to understand the community aspect to this industry and culture that had taken place below ground. The mining society members, many of whom have direct or family connections to mining, are totally at home in this environment, where they work together to carefully record and conserve these structures and stories of the past. I've since been endlessly inspired by this feeling of being in these solemn spaces, where you're left with your own imagination running wild at the same time as being grounded by the reassurance that you're with others.

Textiles, their origins, and the many ways that they can be sewn together, come with their own assortment of associations. Hopefully my pieces shine a different light on the subjectmatter. See what you think!
​
Read more here

The exhibition runs until the end of the month.

A very quick update...I'm now stocking some essential art supplies at my studio inside The Makers Mill . It'll be open Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 4pm. 

So, the MFA show is over, the dust has settled, the alcohol-free champs has all been drunk. 

I have started painting in earnest for the first time in my life, even though I have been learning and teaching it for decades. That is to say, I have begun to find a reason to paint.

A painting doesn't just carry the trace of a subject, of one type of matter. It is a trace of both the subject matter and the human maker, who leaves a trace of themselves in this mutable material*.  It is their gestures or lack of them, they leave visible in the work. In my painting practice, by focusing on certain sites, I am observing not only what the light makes of these sites, but what I, the maker, makes of them. 

My work and research has wound its way back to mining. But it’s sort of connected into a broader theme of contemporary artists’ and wider culture’s current obsession with archeology.

I recently replied to an old friend and work colleague, Patricia Cain, as part of a conversation regarding a paper she was preparing following her conference presentation and exhibition: Body of Knowledge: Art and Embodied Cognition Conference 2019. She is exploring first-person methodologies in research, particularly in connection with neurodiversity, and valuing and enabling difference in society, including within research structures.