South again

What, again?  Yes, again.  It was, in weather terms, a pretty dreary visit - well, it's January, they can't have wall-to-wall sunshine all the time, can they, and at least we weren't in flood territory.  When I were a lass, the River Avon down the hill in the town used to flood on a pretty regular basis, and I can remember on one occasion being very jealous of older kids at the grammar when they had to travel in an army amphibious vehicle to get across the bridge to school.  Then the river was resculpted at Bath and floods were fewer - though they still happen from time to time, causing local inconvenience at the very least.  This time the river was high but not over the banks (not yet, anyway) - I like to think those nearest to the river didn't already have flooded cellars or ground floors.    

Anyway, the weather deterred me from my usual trips to the chalk downs, but not from visiting Bath.  The Victoria Art Gallery had a Bath and GWR exhibition on - more fascinating for local history than artistically stimulating, but that's ok because it was fascinating - and I just made it to the Holburne Museum on my way home.  It was always my intention to go - I wanted to see Simon Brett's exhibition of wood engravings.  My ambivalence about wood engraving remains firmly in place and yet at the same time I always want to see what it is that I'm so unsure about.  I suppose it's so akin to other relief techniques and I am after all primarily a linocut printmaker, that I can't resist.  And mostly it's the images I often find uninspiring, many of the artists' frequently finicky approach.  The level of skill, on the other hand, I cannot deny.

It was  a lovely little exhibition.  Some of the images I liked (landscape, trees, obviously story illustration, my usual sort of thing), some not so much, and I can always appreciate a display of tools of the trade.           

I didn't want to spend too much time there, what with the drive home ahead of me, so I nearly didn't watch the accompanying video, but I'm glad I did - it managed to add context to the exhibition, give it extra body.  Most of the video was Simon Brett talking about his practice and, apart from making me jealous both of his garden and of his studio in said garden, it showed a beautiful book collaboration with Crispin Elsted of Barbarian Press and calligrapher Andrea Taylor.  

Taking photos off the video made for some reasonably iffy pics, but with a bit of help they've scrubbed up adequate.  I liked, too, a whole string of other wood engravings he showed, of which this is the only one I snapped - I'm sure I stopped and started the video and ran it backwards and forwards enough times to double the length of it anyway.

He also made an observation that struck a bell - he said that what wood engravers do is printmaking, they're printmakers, but that many wood engravers he knew were really only interested in the block and didn't have much or any interest at all in the printmaking process itself.  I've never tried wood engraving (I'm going to, some time this year, I've promised) and I can't agree myself, I think the excitement of the 'reveal' is one of the great joys of printmaking, but I recognize one or two people who definitely fall right into that category.

As for my brave new year, um, I've decided it starts in February instead.  I'm not surprised that January didn't work out, though I'm ashamed of just how much it didn't, but better late than never?  Then there's a facebook page encouraging people to do a drawing for every day of February, 28 Drawings Later, and while I wouldn't commit to something I'm so unlikely to complete, I think I'll give it a go privately since drawing regularly is another of my never-realised good intentions.  Who knows, I might even manage it - but I'd better get a move on or today will have turned into tomorrow before I pick up a piece of paper.