I've spent a scant few hours at Fringe Arts Bath (FaB) this week, and even that amount has left me brimming with enthusiasm and excitement.  Not exactly filled with ideas, because they're a lot too undeveloped for that, but something like, something that might turn into ideas and then into work. 

The festival lasts for two weeks, bookended with weekends, and on the evidence of my two short stints I'm pretty sure I could turn up for most of every day and always see something new, engaging and quite likely challenging in one way or another.  There's just so much on.  Take the Time Machine, downstairs in the 44AD gallery.  I turned up when Pat Jamieson and Carol Laidler's Ten Thousand Years of Rain was on, but it was only there for that day!  A new event/exhibition/etc will be set up every single day, which I find mind boggling enough.  Ten Thousand Years of Rain was a beautiful set, all light and bright and greens, with the sound of dropping water and a film of ripples and watery movement - it felt vibrantly alive, cool, fresh, and to think that in less than a mayfly span it would be stripped out ready for the next thing was difficult to accept.  I might have missed it.  As it is, I'll miss all the other shows in that space.    

It was a green day, that first day.  I've never considered that the weather might influence what I choose to like on any given occasion, but I think it did.  It was humid (as Bath so often is in the warmer months) and I'm convinced that green works told me they were refreshing.  A theory to test, maybe?  Do I like warming shades on cold days?  Cheerful shades to combat the grey and dreary days?    Whatever, upstairs from the Time Machine was the Bath Open Art Prize, where nearly all my favourite pieces were variations on green (one of which was a giclee reproduction, which I struggled with, but I liked the image enough to stamp down on my natural disapproval).  Apologies for not noting down the fourth artist while I was there - hopefully people will go see the show for themselves.

The following day's session started on Walcot Street, which has a number of FaB venues. On the ground floor of FaB2 was Photomarathon's walls of photos.  At the time I never quite got to grips with it, but I've read about it since (see link just back there) and now it makes more sense.  In a room beyond that was Shadowlands, a wall-to-ceiling cut paper scene which, I gathered from the person who had put it together, was a total nightmare to hang (I spent time looking at the ceiling to see how he'd done it, and I believe him), and in the room next door a rather neat little idea - an exhibition of Hanging Instructions.  There were more ground floor exhibitions here too - FaB2 is positively stuffed with shows.

Downstairs and upstairs was Utopia:Dystopia.  The basement was dim and grimy, filled with items definitely at the dystopia end of the spectrum.  I suppose I engaged with the theme on a pretty shallow level, sort of getting the idea while not always going to the trouble of thinking any further, but as a rule I'm quite happy just to interact with a piece on the basis of whether it does something for me or not, and even at that sort of standard I was overwhelmed.  I might have been distracted by things that were (probably) not part of the show, like the tattered walls and a grimy power point, but in both those cases I decided they fitted well with the theme.  Which (a slight tangent here) is another thing that I have found with FaB, this year and two years ago - the themed exhibitions have expanded beyond their boundaries, sharpened or altered my observation, changed the world around me.  It could be a 'well duh' point to most people, but for me it's something of a revelation.  Not unprecedented in other patches of my life, but wild all the same.

Among other things I liked the yellow wallpaper prints (which I've definitely seen before somewhere), the heads, and particularly Ruaraidh Monies' Invisible People - not an original idea, I know, but I loved his book of photos and a particularly scrappy frame.  After the basement I went up to the first floor and took a nice deep breath of light.  The contrast in atmosphere was quite something, but although there was plenty to like on this floor, I wasn't quite convinced that the theme shone through.  Click for larger images, and hover for more artists and/or info.  Where lacking, more apologies to the artists, and to anyone else, go see the real thing.   

It turned out that there was more Utopia:Dystopia at Walcot Chapel, a venue I love for its setting in an oasis of graveyard tranquility.  Again, plenty to capture the attention and encourage the mind to work, sometimes fitting into the theme quite easily, sometimes being enjoyable for itself.  I was particularly taken by the layers of imagery on Emma Finch's ceramics, as well as Rebecca Bradley's views from train windows, April Virgoe's smoky constructions, and now I think about it lots of the other works too - really, the only way to appreciate these shows to the full is to go visit them.

It was around this point that time began to be an issue, so my trip to FaB1's Cartesian Cut? was taken at a brisker pace.  Broadly, it dealt in a variety of ways with the body.  Full of fascinating and often disturbing pieces, here are three views of Red Pools (Absence/Presence) by Nikki Allford, a work that's uneasy and beautiful in equal measure, and Cartesian Cut? by curator Eloise Govier, a frozen piece that (to my eyes) creates ghost fossils as it melts. 

A final dash to see Pattern: Found, Exchanged, Unravelled in Milsom Place, but I really didn't have the time left to do it any kind of justice - it looked good and (I realise this isn't what it's all about) I did like the shop front/window, but no time, no time. 

And that was it for this year; when I get back it'll all be over except (fortuitously) the exhibition The Man who Bought Stonehenge and Other Stories with my artist book Guilty in.  That's on for an extra fortnight.  But really, I'd recommend anyone to dip into the enormous spread of exhibitions, performances, events that go to form FaB - I've barely scratched the surface even of the exhibitions I did see.  One week left, and far too long till the next one.  Don't miss it.

The opening for Hot from the Press was a quiet affair, which I felt was rather a shame for Emma Kelly, the curator of The Gallery at St George's House, after all the effort she put in.  However, lovely people we knew turned up, and I thought that was very generous of them, and Katy Hollinshead (another of the exhibitors) pulled exactly the same trick as she had done in our recent London exhibition, which was to sell on the opening day!  Good for her!

Anyway, thank you very much to Emma for all her hard work making us look so shiny.  It's a good do, our exhibition, even if I say so as shouldn't, and I hope lots of people take the opportunity to go and admire the work of five very different printmakers.  

I reached home to find a chunky little package from Bristol had arrived - my collection of bookmarks from the annual UWE exchange. They're always enormous fun, though when I got to my own representative one I realised that I had neither signed nor numbered them.  Oops - sorry Sarah.  Here are some, but nowhere near all, of them.

With Sunday came (the third and final day of) Potfest in the Park, a feast of ceramics at Hutton-in-the-Forest, north of Penrith.  Rain was promised for later, so I started reasonably early and was pleased to do the rounds before a persistent drizzle settled in.
As usual, amazing pottery wherever I looked.  One of the few things that maturity has delivered to me, though, is enough sense to realise that there really is nowhere at home for big or delicate pieces, and anything I get at the moment has either to serve a purpose or be able to be hung on the wall. So with that knowledge hanging around in the back of my mind, I ended up with a couple of delightful little beakers (Michelle Young-Hares) and a wall plaque (Andrew Adair), and plans for next year.  Well done me, since I was unlikely to come home with nothing.

I took pics of a representative group of favourites.  It's always a little tricky, because what the exhibitors really want, of course, is that I should buy something (which is exactly what I would want if I were them), but they're all very decent about it if I ask to take photos.

After that, I went off tree-searching (for prints) on a circuitous route home.  Not entirely successful, as a tree search - the rain was not a plus for that - but very beautiful, and at least in part because of the rain.  Hills were a subtle, misty background, and of course wild and lonely and all you might expect of Cumbrian hills on the edge of the Lake District; everything else seemed to be designed in muted sweeps of watercolour - a wash of pink here, for rosebay willowherb; a soft patch of pink-tinged creams there to represent hogweed; brushstrokes loaded with blues for the geraniums; something a little choppier in greys to suggest rocks.  A splatter of sunshine yellow and wine red and rich clotted cream for other flowers dotted about.  A startlingly lemon green amongst the gentler greens for recently-mown fields.  And plenty of villages built in the faintly reddish stone of the area, where all the buildings looking built to withstand the worst winter can throw at them ('we'll be fine holed up here till spring comes').  Very soothing and exhilarating all at once.  I'll collect trees another day. 

I considered missing the Potfest in the Park this year - while I still quite enjoyed last year, I felt as if I might have seen it all before - but in the event I took me + three (two sons and one girlfriend, Emma).  It was pretty good, actually - some very attractive new pottery, a renewed appreciation of some of the stalwarts, a big tree which I had somehow failed to notice before (though goodness knows how).  We managed to turn up at a point where the band were stopping, possibly for the day, which was a source of disappointment for both sons - the band is a part of why we come.

Emma left with a number of goodies, so the trip must have been worthwhile.  I left with only one - not because I couldn't have filled a few empty shelves at home, but because empty shelves at home do not exist to fill.  The house is in a more chaotic state than ever at the moment (various causes) and I'm acutely aware of that - my purchase will hang on the wall (of which there is still some unfilled).

While the potfest was better than I expected, the annual competition to a theme (this year 'From the Sea'), did not seem to be as inspired as usual - good stuff, but not lots of good stuff.  There were however delightfully corny puns in the titles of some pieces, none of which I can remember (probably all for the best).  Here was my favourite piece from the competition (can't remember the artist, sorry):  

There was a fun little game (on the tv?) that the boys used to play an age ago, called Alien Fish Exchange.  For whatever reason, this rather wistful specimen reminded me of that.

Today I went to see the Bolton wing of the Python Open at the Gallery at St Georges House.  Well, I'd been already, but I wanted photos to show.  I should say straight away that those photos that are by me are not at all straight, so if any of the artists look and feel that things don't seem quite right, sorry, that'll be down to necessary cropping.  I don't seem to take many pics that couldn't have gained from judicious use of a spirit level.  Maybe I was built on the slant?   

It's a high standard of work and very varied.  I've shown a number of pictures here but there are plenty more works hanging, not to mention ceramics, sculpture and one of Kate Bufton's lovely paper sculptures.  Finishes today, technically, but curator Emma Kelly says it'll be up for a short while longer.  I won't be able to get to Warrington to see the other north-west show - my loss.

Continuing...

In the coffee area, around the corner from the Holden Gallery's exhibition in the main hall, was a delightful installation the subject of which, coincidentally or deliberately, tied in with the main theme of death - bees.  The artist, Jade Alana Ashton, says Imagine yourself in a museum of the future where specimens of flora, fauna, botany, are frozen in time... All bees have died... No flowers... No pollen... No bees...  Her installation (I never quite know what constitutes an installation, but this says it is, and that's good enough for me) is a collection of fantastically delicate items in jars - as, I suppose, in a museum - many of which are definitely porcelain and some of which might be bone?  There are words stamped and prints printed and drawings drawn on to ultra thin (presumably paper) porcelain and the whole show has such fragility.  There is a book of quotations and statements concerning bees, with backgrounds, fragments of text, pieces of fabric and lace, dried flowers all sewn in. 

And that was the Death part of Monday.  Life was a walk afterwards round the Middlewood Locks area of ground, across Oldfield Road from Hot Bed Press.  It has been Acquired, so it can only be a matter of time until it's built on - a different sort of death, I suppose, but meanwhile it's buzzing, literally.  The whole area made me think of a medieval tapestry covered with flowers - the grass, dried to straw after this long hot spell of weather, sewn through with purple vetches and thistles and buddlieas, yellow ragwort, the rust-reds of dock flowers, large (ox-eye?) daisies, something dainty and white that I didn't know, masses of glorious seedheads - and all on an almost-hidden base of broken tarmac and concrete.  Tortoiseshells, meadow browns, dainty moths, bumblebees, crickets, those tiny stripes of electric blue (damselflies?), birdsong (nothing I knew).  Alive alive alive.     

This was just a little bit of fun.  I wanted to make a bowl on tiptoes that was (reasonably) stable.  It was a bit rushed (I knew if I waited a week before adding a bowl to the feet, I'd have all sorts of issues) and hence the angle of the bowl is somewhat tippier than I'd like (though with a surprisingly fetching split in the rim), but it does tiptoe and it doesn't tip over, so I call that moderate success (I wouldn't say the same of the photos, but hey, I should have taken more care).  I might be getting some practice in with this design, anyway - a couple of people would like one, and you can bet that the next few won't work out.   

So I made it to the second of the Cumbria potfests.  Normally, two over two weekends just seems too much like hard work, but this year, for the first time in quite a while, I got there.  It was good, and, unlike last week, I actually spent some money.  Even better (after a fashion), they were nearly all presents for other folks - a neat little trick which allows me to spend without adding (m)any more dust magnets to the clutter of home.  There were actually some delightful bits of clutter that I didn't allow myself to get, and that's good too.  Really, who needs some truly wicked cats (I should mention that nothing on the website is as good as the cats were on the stand), or indeed somehow delightful little dead ones?  Apparently the dead ones are remarkably popular - not just cats, but rabbits, dragons, dogs, and the dead sheep had long since run out (well I say run...) because they're so popular - and I can't show you this potter's enormous range of tiny animals (not all of them dead) because I wasn't clever enough to note his name and now I cannot track him down.  Sigh.

There were a number of potters making various uses of print methods.  Two in particular took my fancy in different ways - Kit Anderson uses gum bichromate printing on her pieces, and Andrew Adair makes deeply imprinted letterpress designs on his. 

Anyway, I'm glad I went.  The potfest was fun, and the cumbrian landscape was truly awesome - and that was just from the motorway.  Sunshine and showers led more than once to near-black distant hills, nearer hills and fields coloured in stunningly brilliant greens that you wouldn't dare paint  because obviously they can't have been like that  (so wet summers are good for green, if nothing else), studded with freshly washed, sparklingly white sheep, and in front of that, cars sending up clouds of spray seemingly lit from within.  Driving down the motorway with a camera in one hand (and actually, due to my old-fashioned ways, pressed to one eye) seemed a deeply foolish option, so I'll just live off the memories. 

And off yet again to the Potfest in the Park, held each year at this time, at Hutton-in-the-Forest in Cumbria.  The sun doesn't always shine, though it did this year, and the rain doesn't always hold off, though again it did this year, even if the ground was distinctly soggy.

It wasn't a vintage year, but it's asking a lot that every single year should provide me with something to obsess about.  Anything I might have liked to take home either cost a lot! full stop, or a lot for what it was, but that didn't detract from the enjoyment.  Son and I went around disagreeing on almost everything, which is half the fun.  I would like the boat-like ends to a pot, he would opine that the boat-like ends ruined it for him; I would claim that I could not understand why this exhibitor was here at all, he would like the colours of the glazes.  It was great.

There's always a competition, with a theme - this year's was 'Journeys and Pilgrimages' and, as usual, some potters appeared to think that calling their work by some name related to the theme was effort enough (or perhaps I was missing something), some helpfully explained why their piece fitted the brief, and others went all out to match the title.  The works do vary enormously - some make you think, others make you admire their skill and all of them help you to consider what you might produce.  I like the limitations of having to work to a theme - it concentrates the mind, stops me feeling that I'm floundering about in the infinities of time and space.  That might, however, say altogether too much about my lack of unprompted inspiration.

Anyway, a good day as ever.  The Potfest in the Park is on today and tomorrow, and next weekend, friday to sunday, is Potfest in the Pens, in Penrith - quite different, but also worth a visit.       

I managed to post off this year's edition for the Littlest Print Exchange.  It went better than last year (not a great feat), which was a great relief, and even got posted slightly earlier than the very last minute.  The theme, broadly, was propoganda, which proved more testing than I expected.  Having been impressed by how inventive everyone was last year, this year mine is two-sided, but I do consider one side to be much better than the other - I think that's down to laziness when it came to the preparatory stage.

What I should be doing now (right now!) is working on something or somethings new for the Glasgow International Artists' Bookfair in a titchy EIGHT DAYS' TIME.  I have a distressing tendency to wait until time is really too short, before settling to a final flurry and not quite achieving what I set out to achieve.  Things have been started, but there's a loooong way to go yet.

And here's my latest pot.  It's not big, it's not clever - in fact, it's rather silly.  But I can't help it, I find it riduculously fun, and feet will be cropping up again...