When things shift




friendships forge and they fracture.
I worship their value, but I can still neglect.
everyday I hope to be better at keeping them pocket close and fluently reciprocal.
but I need to be allowed a glass of selfish during an eclipse.

forensic ornithology





a scattering of romanced truths last week fed the imaginations of a school full of budding scientists and evidence gatherers. I know more about eggs now than I'd have liked to discover.

Old peg, new hole



The shapes I make convince me I'm ill fitting,
once adaptable
the boots shoes socks are now still
and I have become a wolf in sheep's clothing
or rather a sheep in wolf's clothing.
I condition myself to take a leap of all leaps
a high jump long jump towards a promise
and I'm scared but I can't keep my swan legs up anymore
so here I go. Forward.

Hockney and me




Hockney's 'Bigger Tress near Warter' is at the York City Art Gallery. It took my breath. 50 canvases painted plein air with incredible fluidity and energy. Seeing his masterpiece reminds me of my dad, that he too sees colour and line and that we are connected through Hockney's tree branch pink brush strokes and big eyes for landscape. We had tea at 'Betty's' tea room and held hands and it was the perfect Sunday.

Too Darn Hot



My Tap dancing inspiration for the week, Ann Miller in Kiss me Kate 1953.
Appearing at a dancehouse near you very soon, a new routine for 4.
Practice for an hour each night from now until then.
Tele-tones, projector, nerve.

A fair place to live *new edition







A fair place to live
A 1.8 meter long silk screen printed concertina book conceived in the Summer of 2010 whilst artist-in-residence in a small Yorkshire town. Inspired by the landscape and interactions with the local people, the artwork was created exclusively on an Olympia typewriter whilst based on a defunct double-decker route master bus parked outside a pub. 180 x 19cm, 15 pages, 2 colour screen print hand pulled by Mandy Tolley on Canaletto 220gsm and GF Smith Colourplan paper. Hand bound by the artist in an addition of 50, £37.

Contact me for availability.

Feeling a concave in a convex



an inward lens where natural light can't reach.
I suppose it's a comfort of sorts.
I should have stayed in that cavern until nightfall,
when I could have quietly crept back dodging reflections
and exposure to the harsh March day.
Instead though, I looked hard into the looking glass
and was saddened at what faced me.

It's been a while




I've not been drinking tea or gazing out of the studio window this past month but on the workshop treadmill from Glasgow to Bolton. It's time to stop and take stock, refill the glue jars, clean the brushes, count the needles and replenish the thread. I've shown 146 people the benefits of creating their own books in the last month which I think gives me legitimate reason to be quiet for a while.

Clinging to Shores



It's incredible how easily and fluent I have become at clinging to shores. Perhaps I'm mostly out at sea and when I see signs of momentary port I sail towards them like the wind, with desperation to belong. You are a port I always cling to. So was he, until recently, until I realised he wasn't a port at all, but a floating buoy. A larger than life, land-like, convincing buoyant buoy, but a buoy-non-the-less. I made a book, wrote a poem about that cling-to port, and it cleverly foresaw all the drifting that inevitably came. Drifting. I recognise it all too easily. We all mostly drift, to and from one decision-denied to the next, in and out of commitment to anything, to anyone; we silently hope the seas will carry us somewhere familiar, or to somewhere new. But carry us they do. It's so very hard to swim against that tide.

I've tap danced to mr. bojangles on a pint of guiness and it finally makes more sense.