Dressing up as Edith Sitwell

Wed 18th Dec 2013

In the New Year I will parcel up and post off my eleventh, and final, year’s worth of scrapbook diaries to my website designer. I started keeping these diaries in 2002. Initially I used a small notebook made by a friend involved in paper recycling. Since then I have constructed my own scrapbooks made from folded DL envelopes. I purchased a dating rubber stamp covering the years 2002 to 2013. This rubber stamp is now rather dog-eared and the two lines of numbers are rather flappy. I am amazed that I have done this for eleven consecutive years but now that there are no more years left on the date stamp it is time to stop. This also means no more collecting a stash of envelopes to make into the next book or for the pot of PVA to be permanently on my desk to paste stuff into the books. I have an idea for a new monthly record of my life in paper ephemera but it is un-tested. I think January 2014 will be a rather slposhy time in my studio. Hopefully the result will be on my website in early 2015.

Alongside keeping a scrapbook dairy I am an avid list maker. This trait seems to be a family wide disease. I have a list of ideas and projects for the year, then a monthly list in an attempt to move things on, and then a daily list which I make every day I am in my studio. As the year draws to a close and the print workshop and pottery class close for the winter break I find myself reflecting on what I’ve achieved and not achieved, as well as the unexpected things that turned up over the last year.

2013 has been good. I invented the Boshabet. The animal books for O, T & V have been printed and S, H & I are underway. This was a year of films, starting with the Film & Print project, a collaboration between five printmakers from Leicester Print workshop and five film makers from the Seven/Five filmmakers group. Alexzandra Jackson and I made a little film called ‘What Strange Beasts Are We’. Then there are two films made around the ‘Ingredients & Cakes’ Storefront show in Copenhagen. I baked a map of Copenhagen. I finished and launched ‘Night School for Cats’ with its accompanying DVD, ‘Print School of Cats’. And I have continued to make objects from Hieronymus Bosch paintings in pottery and dress up as Edith Sewell.

However despite everything I find there is always a slight sense of melancholy at this time of year. I still think of the working year on the academic timetable so January brings the start of the middle term, the long slog to Easter. It is time for me to hunker down in the studio, light the stove and plough though some stuff I have been putting off. It’s a good time to do some writing, planning and get back to a few project that have ended up at the bottom of the pile.