Centenary

This is one of my favourite photographs and I really want to post it here
this morning, February 22nd, 2011.

It is of my mother who was born in 1911,
one hundred years ago today.

Sadly she did not hang in for her telegram from the Queen
but the photograph helps me to remember/imagine her doing
what she most enjoyed doing in those early days before WW2,
sailing in the Solent with her new husband.

Actually, I might myself have been around, in one form or another,
when these photographs were taken . . . or very soon after!

We are ready for our close-up, Mr Grigor!

New readers may not know that Frances and I are both graduates of St Andrews University (in the distant past) and were friends then . . . although we only 'got together' at a later date! Another friend of both of us back then, and subsequently, was Murray Grigor who was making films as a student but who has honed an increasingly starry name for himself as a maker of seriously beautiful (and beautifully serious) documentary films as well as designing art exhibitions and running film festivals.




What you also need to know is that St Andrews University is coming up to its 600th anniversary. Yes, that is correct . . . it is older than any foundation in the UK with the exception of a college or so at Oxford and Cambridge. No doubt there will be any number of jamborees of all sorts to celebrate the event but, just for now, Murray Grigor has been commissioned to make a major documentary about the history of the place and the people who are alumni.






Living folk can be interviewed in various ways but dead ones cannot. The really good plan that Murray has come up with is that extant graduates should not only talk a bit about themselves but also about an earlier graduate no longer with us.






One of Frances' gifts to me in the early days lay in sharing with me the work of Gavin Douglas - whose translation of Vergil's Aeneid was completed in 1513 and first published in 1553. [The book had to be printed in London, incidentally, because the arts of printing had not quite reached Scotland.] His translation was hugely enhanced by the Prologues he wrote to each of the Books which often give delicious descriptions of Nature and country living of the day. This feeds so clearly into the subjects that we find valuable in our lives and in our work that Frances suggested to Murray that Douglas should be 'our chap'.

We had been told some time ago to expect a lightning visitation and it was on Monday evening that Murray (and the other part of this brilliant but lean team, his Director of Photography, Hamid Shams) arrived here having photographed wild boars that day (don't ask me why, it is a long story!) and Alex Salmond, Scotland's First Minister, the day before. They stayed a couple of nights and we had great fun. The 'spaghetti' enveloping Hamid's camera will tell its own story! They then rushed off to the next in a long line of St Andreans and will, very soon, be interviewing a pair of rather high profile graduates whom I am not at the moment allowed to mention!

. . . oh yes. I almost forgot to mention. There is to be a narrator throughout the show. A chap called Sean Connery . . .





The fact was remembered that I had spent most of my time at University acting and directing with The Mermaid Dramatic Society. I rashly mentioned that I still had an old scrapbook . . . and that led to Hamid scanning old photos. As some of these are now on my desktop, I had better give you a laugh with me as David King in A Sleep of Prisoners and a couple as Creon in Oedipus at Colonus. The former was performed in the University Chapel (that's me in the pulpit) and the other in the ruins of the Castle. (Note to audience, bring your own blankets!)

Up the Wye with a makeshift Claude glass

One day last summer, Frances and I went on a trip in a motor boat up the River Wye, from Chepstow to Tintern and back again. The event was designed of course to give some of the flavour of the Picturesque Trips taken by the oh-so-romantic followers of the Rev. Gilpin and painters such as Turner, Palmer, Cox and Varley.

It was great fun and interesting from many points of view. I did of course take my camera and had dreamed of stunning shots of cloud and lightning effects after John Martin and tangled masses of vegetation that I would immediately recognize as the precursors of the neo-romantic. Sadly it did not work quite like that. The weather was totally bland and I had even forgotten to bring the polarizing filter that I use so much. Restriction to the deck of a small boat forces on a photographer the role of the 'click at anything that passes' passive tourist. In search of a photograph, I will always seek to get under the subject . . . or behind it or see it through something else. This is not possible in the middle of a river. Frankly I had hoped, nay expected, to carry home a load of stunningly 'artistic' studies with which I could amaze the favoured followers of this site . . . but this was not to be.

I have revisited the file and find that the shots of the 'sights' please me no more than they did . . . but I give a number here, mostly as an introduction to what follows.

So, starting at the grandeur of Chepstow Castle (above), we progress . . .




















. . . we progress until we sight Tintern Abbey







Now we come to the real point of this post. I have always been fascinated by the concept of the Claude Glass, so beloved by the artists and the just arty among the travellers up the Wye. Hard to describe, so I call upon the good offices of Wikipedia . . .


A Claude glass (or Black Mirror) is a small mirror, slightly convex in shape, with its surface tinted a dark colour. Bound up like a pocket-book or in a carrying case, black mirrors were used by artists, travellers and connoisseurs of landscape and landscape painting. Black Mirrors have the effect of abstracting the subject reflected in it from its surroundings, reducing and simplifying the colour and tonal range of scenes and scenery to give them a painterly quality.


Just before we were leaving home for this adventure I suddenly had the perhaps crazy idea of experimenting with a photographic equivalent. I grabbed my trusty small diminishing glass (invaluable in the business of designing book pages) and hoped I could back it with the black scarf I was already wearing.

I have read that the Claude glass users were ridiculed for turning their backs on the subjects the purported to admire so much as they stared into their glasses and I feared that I must look very strange holding my camera in one hand and taking a photograph OF the other!

Anyway, here are some of the results which, after the passage of time, I find more interesting as the 'straight' photographs seem more pedestrian. I leave them to have whatever effect on you they do.

Last minute entry. An exhibition for your diary

After so many weeks struggling with snow and ice and the general process of keeping life going in the wilds of the Wye Valley, our thoughts now turn to events where our books can be seen and handled. As we have often said, books really need to make physical contact and their pages need to be turned before their full impact can be felt .

There will be a number of major opportunities during this year when we shall be showing Old Stile Press books. Each occasion attracts very different people and this we find stimulating. It is good to see the books in the midst of painting, printmaking and fine art generally; also as a modern expression of the world of fine books throughout history;and not least when we are with other people working at present in a manner similar to ours.

The first is almost upon us. We were offered a table at the Watercolour/Works on Paper Fair somewhat at the last minute. We have shown at this fair before but they moved to the Science Museum where it seemed there was no suitable space for Artists’ Books or Private Presses. However, this year they have altered the layout so that we can be included (appropriately, next to a Columbian Press) - apparently we were missed!

SO, if you are in London or can make the trip, it is usually a very good and lively show. Details are below and an invitation which allows free entry can be sent to you on request







Later in the year we expect to be Downstairs at the Olympia Exhibition Centre for the London International Antiquarian Book Fair from Thursday 9 - Saturday 11 June.

Back Room Heroine

All too seldom does Frances (without whom . . . ) get a mention for all the quiet and endless labours she has performed so that the OSP could operate through all these decades.

Packing of parcels is a good example. I would myself admit to tearing open the packing on parcels sent to me with scant regard for whoever did the packing let alone an empathetic understanding of the labour involved.

Just at the moment we have the (happy) task of sending almost all of the Special Copies of the recently published The Old Stile Press . . . the next ten years to their destinations and Frances has been labouring long hours at the parcel-face! The little pile in the photo below looks all very neat and efficient but I hate to think how many hours it took to create.

Some of our Artists having Exhibitions during 2011

It is always exciting to see more of the work produced by artists with whom we have created books and 2011 seems to promise several.



Opening on 11 January at Pallant House, Chichester, Garrick Palmer is having a retrospective. The gallery is well-known to those who share our love of neo-romantic painting, having a considerable permanent collection of modern British works. These are housed in a new, award-winning building for which Garrick created a photographic archive of each stage of its construction. This exhibition, however, celebrates his lifetime of wood engraving and books. Included among his many engraved books on show will be LAND and The Ballad of Reading Gaol – the books he has produced with us.

Garrick Palmer: A Life in Wood Engraving 11th January 2011 – 13th March 2011 The De'Longhi Print Room (Free Entry)

A retrospective exhibition of prints and book illustrations from across Palmer’s career, demonstrating the artist’s mastery of wood engraving and distinctive view of the English landscape.

Pallant House, http://www.pallant.org.uk
www.garrickpalmer.co.uk




January 4 - 30 2011
Harry Brockway is among the group of Six Contemporary British Wood Engravers showing at the Washington Printmakers’ Gallery at Pyramid Atlantic in Silver Springs.

http://washingtonprintmakers.com/exhibitions/2011
www.pyramidatlanticartcenter.org







Opening on 22 January between 12 and 2 at MOMA Wales, Susan Adams is showing works with the title There are receivers in the Woods. The exhibition runs 24 January - 19 March 2011.
Quoting from the catalogue for the show – ‘Now more than ever the air could be said to hold intelligence that could be life-transforming. While masts call out from the hilltops, satellite dishes reach to the sky like boney believers hungry for a crumb of celestial knowledge.’
Susan’s book with us - Duke Bluebeard’s Castle - has magnificent and disturbing images combining traditional woodcuts printed over computer generated images derived from photographs. These complement the text which is the powerful and many-layered libretto of Bartok’s opera.

MOMA Wales www.momawales.org.uk
www.susan-j-adams.co.uk







Looking a little further, into May, there will be a retrospective of Clive Hicks-Jenkins work to celebrate his 60th birthday. This opens at the National Library of Wales (the Gregynog Gallery) on 7 May and runs to the 20th August. This also coincides with the expected publication, by Lund Humphries (http://www.ashgate.com), of a book of essays on his work. Clive’s Artlog has many fascinating details of paintings from his archive which he has been describing and photographing and give an enticing lead-in to what promises to be a magnificent event that will include readings of poetry inspired by his pictures and some which have inspired him to paint. There will be full evidence (in a small gallery leading into the main space) of his collaborations with us in The Affectionate Shepheard, The Mare’s Tale, Richard Barnfield’s Sonnets and, most recently, Sir Peter Shaffer’s Equus.
His covers for the two volumes of our Bibliography are wonderfully neo-romantic to suit our own predelictions, if not the entire range of books described within the book!

http://www.hicks-jenkins.com



This talk of our new Bibliography leads, as a postscript to this post, to mention of the fact that the book caught on in a big way during the few weeks since publication and has brought forth many generous comments.

Have you got your copy yet? . . . !

Click here for further information.

The mighty River Wye . . .

. . . is frozen,

or at least it was on Boxing Day, before the thaw set in.

I had promised myself that there would be no more snow photos but this one seems like rather an exception. Unless Global Warming(!) dictates that Polar weather comes to South Wales each year from now on, this may be a photo that our grandchildren will show their children as something rather amazing.

Exciting Christmas Visitor

After a delicious (but not exactly early!) breakfast, we were drawn outside by bright sun and clear air. Our Christmas walk was a complete delight and the camera was kept very busy.


I will no doubt post some shots before long but, for the moment, just this one will suffice. As I was pointing my lens in another direction, Frances let a strangulated shout of "Look, over there". There was no doubt at all about it. There, on the other side of the almost frozen river, was a creature that we know to live in these watery areas (and know to be increasingly numerous) but which is still massively shy – the otter.

I did not have a telephoto lens with me and the width of the river put a limit on how close I could try to get. I took about ten shots with the zoom at the max and got a succession of photographs of not entirely convincing black blobs. It was the very first shot that proved to be the convincing one.





Here is the above shot enlarged to a point that makes for quite a nice shot and . . .





again . . . to about as far as I could go before the image began to break up.

Another sunny but cold Christmas Day years ago, when we were also enjoying our own pleasures before family arrivals on subsequent days, I saw a kingfisher for the first time here. That was a memorable moment to say the least and today will surely fix in the memory in the same way. Wonderful!

Snow . . . what snow?

A very happy Christmas to all our friends!

Postscript to the previous post!

After all that rather arty-farty stuff I posted yesterday, our 'tree' has now been significantly 'improved' by the visit of one part of the family . . . complete with imaginative young persons!

It may not look like a proper christmas tree, but I think it looks just fine!

In common with a good number of folk throughout these lands I am sure, we are preparing to enjoy Christmas in the warmth (I hope!) of our own home with no one from outside who is further than trudging distance.

We are going to observe most of what one ought to observe . . . but on a somewhat smaller scale, perhaps. In this context, and spirit, we have just put up our 'tree'. Far from wanting to purchase an adolescent tree cut down in its prime, we have sought to use branches from a beautiful twisting evergreen that needed to be trimmed in order to give us a clearer run at our drive.





We have done this before, actually, and the secret for success involves having to hand a bronze sculpture by Michael Ayrton entitled The Equilibrist. This has, I think, been seen before on these pages in various guises but not before in the role of a Christmas tree stand. This time I had prepared for myself some lengths of soft wire but these were not needed, for the branch twined round the sculpture's uprights as if grown perfectly for the purpose.





There was even a sort of inevitability about this symbiotic relationship that I feel Ayrton, the great Mazemaker, might have appreciated.

Rather pleasant working conditions!

Ralph Kiggell (whose lovely book, Leading the Cranes Home, is now down to its last few copies) flew in recently from his home in Bangkok to see his family in the UK. He came to stay with us last night so that we could have a concentrated face to face editorial session on his long-planned sequel - working title Water.








With a good log fire and a bottle or two, it was a far from arduous evening . . . and the results were good. I now have to do some detailed paste-up work while Frances must chase permissions. When Ralph returns to Thailand he will obtain his stocks of Japanese cherry wood blocks so that he can start cutting his watery designs.






If this delicious proof is anything to go by, we are all in for another real treat!

Is this the day for a sneak invasion of England?

No sign of a thaw this morning . . . indeed a river even fuller of ice than yesterday. Not quite enough to stage the Battle on the Ice maybe but it really does look as though we could floe-hop to England!