It was the Hepworth Christmas Market at the weekend.  I enjoyed the print fair, back in the spring, so I thought I'd see what the winter equivalent was like.  It was fine, although I found no christmas presents for folks - I find it more difficult every year (it's not me, it's them.  Isn't it?). It was a lovely crisp winter's day for the trip and I really enjoyed crossing the Pennines, lightly dusted with snow as they were and all dressed up in intense shades of golden plover (that's honestly what came into my mind at the time). 

I didn't know when I decided to go that there would be a Gertrude Hermes exhibition, because who plans that far ahead?  Not me obviously.  I was delighted when I realised, and eagerly made my way upstairs.  And then... I was disappointed.  I think it was a variation on that wood engraving thing again, even though I thought I liked her work.  I do!  Her pieces don't come into that category of terribly well executed yet terribly dull - they have movement, interest.  But all those fiddly little marks, I don't know, I just felt something in me turn away.  On this trip I came away with two favourites - a linocut (The Waterfall) and a brass doorknocker in the shape of a swallow.  However, I've decided that this lack of connection with the exhibition might be to do with thinking I should be getting back home, with having been to the christmas market first, with there being quite a lot of people there - in short, with being for some reason in the wrong frame of mind.  So I'm going to try again in December, take my time, engage, and then I'll report back.   

Just about emerged from the whole 20:20 sort for Hot Bed Press, and therefore in a position to get back to my own work (once I've decided what).  Every year my admiration grows for those people who work full time and spend time printmaking - my brain refuses point blank to contemplate both in the same frame.

I'm dipping my toe back in the water with something very simple - a couple of squares based on black to be sent off to David Smith for his participatory piece at Black Swan Arts, Frome, Black Squares, Black Lines and Black Magic (I think that's what it's called, or that might be the name of something larger, of which this is only part). I once commented to an acquaintance that I was no good at the idea of collaborative work, to which he suggested (smiling, I think) that maybe, in school report fashion, I didn't play well with other kids.  At the time I suspected slightly gloomily that he was probably spot on, but considering it again I've now decided it's not quite right.  I am perfectly happy to contribute to other people's work in whatever way they deem fit, and I have no need to be acknowledged - that isn't what it's about -  but (thus far at least) my work is mine.  It could be too much urge for control, I suppose, an inability to let things escape from me, take a new direction, grow into a different shape altogether.  Whatever, the idea of collaborating on work increasingly appeals to me, I find, but someone would have to ask me, I would never have the nerve to suggest it myself.  That would be too bumptious by far.  An invitation open to all, like this, is likely to be as near as I get for quite a while, and he gets to do what he likes with them, once he receives them, so they could end up as paper dolls! 

South yet again - and the roads were horrendous on the way down and twice as bad on the way up.  I know it was half term, but I've travelled the same route during half terms before.  So many journeys have been so poor in recent months that I'm starting to wonder if I should double the estimated time before I set out - at least that way I might be pleasantly surprised every now and then.

However, what can you do but live with it?  The array of autumnal colour when I got there was glorious - I felt as if I'd caught it at exactly the right moment - and I thoroughly enjoyed a couple of exhibitions too.  That'll do nicely.

The Kurt Jackson exhibition Place was - is - on at the Victoria Art Gallery.  I like his work.  I think.  I think?  I know, that sounds grudging, and I'm afraid I'm going to be very woolly about what I mean, because I haven't altogether pinned it down myself.  My feelings vary from work to work, fair enough, but it's to do with mood too, of course.  On one day I will find his work altogether too green-and-pleasant, with stuck-on bits (shells, pebbles) about which I have grave doubts.  On another I will be delighted by the sparkle of water; the jungle-like tangle of undergrowth and the heavy green light next to a river; the way he can capture flat silver water on a wide beach.  Today I might like the random lines and the scribbled words.  Tomorrow I might think they're a scruffy mess.  All of that doesn't really matter, I know, and on this occasion I was very taken with the whole idea of the exhibition.

Which was that he asked a number of people he knew to suggest a place to him, somewhere that meant something to them in some way, and write a page or so about it in any way they chose.  Then he would go there and make work about the place.  Place.  It's another angle on what fascinates me - the links between the landscape (urban and rural) and ourselves, what we do to it and what it does to us.  I was bound to be drawn in. 

The painting of Badbury Rings grabbed me instantly - a hill fort, very Wiltshire plains (even though it isn't) - and I especially loved the list of butterflies, birds, plants he found there and added into the image.  Because I do that collecting thing too.  See?  I'm so not consistent, but whatever, I'm allowed. I liked the rubbing of a sign added into a welsh location too.  The puffin skull might well have been my favourite 'thing' there, but just because it's so beautiful in itself - it was actually part of a little St Andrews collection that was far too golf orientated to appeal to me (though as the location in this piece was a golf course, I think, fair enough).  There were housing estates and stretches of road traffic and Glastonbury in the festival season, there was very large and very small, there was a sculptural piece of a signpost with a bird on top.  I'll be visiting again on my next trip, and no doubt a completely different set of work will appeal then.  Or not.

I've no idea what was on at the Quercus Gallery (which has become a regular stopping off point) because it was unexpectedly closed when it should have been open - who knows? traffic? a flooded kitchen? hopefully nothing worse - but Bath Contemporary Art's exhibition was Pure Pigment, which, as a name to conjure up promise, was always going to get me through the door.  Surely intense, matt colour; think Cornelisson's brightly hued jars of magic.  It turned out to be a collection of artists using pastels, which wouldn't have been half as effective as a lure, but I'd have missed out because it was everything the title suggested.

Out of the half dozen or so artists taking part - and not surprisingly they all had their own appeal - I particularly liked Moira Huntly's landscapes (they made me want to go straight out with a sketchbook, and not much does that to me), Sandra Bee's more bucolic images (I particularly liked her oak tree) and above all Jeanette Hayes' colourful and quite abstracted work, which gave me plenty to think about. 

Having checked the gallery website, I can see I caught this exhibition in the final week - very glad I did.

It was a busy few days, and at times chock-full of inspiration (though I should have made a list for later!).  Now I have at least a good solid fortnight of 20:20 sorting ahead, plus making sure I have work for the Leeds and Sheffield print fairs (which take place the next two saturdays).  After that, space in which to go out and make the most of what's left of autumn.  I'm looking forward to that.