My Emily Sutton interview for Uppercase

UPPERCASE 48 from uppercasemag on Vimeo.

A little while ago I had the great pleasure of interviewing Emily Sutton about the series of Alphabet prints she has been making with Dan Bugg of Penfold Press over the past decade. I'm not sure how Emily manages to work as hard as she does while still retaining her sense of humour and joie de vivre, but every one of the prints - from A is for Accordian to T is for Tree - fizzes with life. 

Emily Sutton, A is for Alphabet (Penfold Press)

‘I’m someone that always needs to be doing,’ she told me, ‘and I feel my most peaceful when absorbed in the creative process. I hope this comes across in my work… '

The video above shows the whole of Uppercase 48. As ever it's a visual treat, but if you want a sneak preview of my article, it starts about 2.06. 

You can find out more about the magazine and where to buy it here. 

 

Random Spectacular #2

Cover of Random Spectacular #2 by Jonny Hannah

Amazingly, almost four years have passed since St Judes published Random Spectacular, a delightfully eclectic collection of words and pictures that reminded me of the old Saturday Books. The edition sold out so quickly that everyone was taken by surprise, not least editor Simon Lewin, and some St Judes devotees were unable to get hold of a copy.

This time around, Simon is taking the unusual step of basing the edition size on the apparent demand. Anyone interested in buying a copy should trot along to the St Judes website and enter their email address. NB this doesn't mean they're guaranteed a copy, but they will be sent payment information by email when Random Spectacular #2 is published in August 2014.

There are some treats in store for fans of Mark Hearld, Emily Sutton, Angie Lewin and numerous other artists, and the whole book is beautifully designed. I was delighted when Simon asked me to write something on Eric Ravilious's submarine lithographs: look out for some gorgeous full page reproductions.

FFI: St Judes

Ten Printmakers: St Jude's in Auld Reekie

The Night Sorter, by Jonny Hannah

An unexpected treat came yesterday in the form of a printed catalogue for the latest St Judes exhibition, which is being held at the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh. Fittingly the prints each have a Scottish theme, and a particularly nice touch is the inclusion of a brief comment by the artists on how they came up with their particular subject.

So we learn that Jonny Hannah was 'inspired by a little known song of the same name, by an obscure Edinburgh band' he played guitar with, while Michael Kirkman recalled a favourite Edinburgh pub, and that Christopher Brown drew inspiration from the wood engravings made in 1934 by Douglas Percy Bliss for the book 'Devil in Scotland'.

Bliss was a great friend of Bawden and Ravilious and the spirit of their time infuses much of the work of these ten very different printmakers; Bawden would have particularly enjoyed Angie Lewin's print, with its centrepiece of a Staffordshire Highland couple. Visitors to the exhibition will have the chance to see the work of the St Judes artists in relation to their illustrious forebears, as prints by Barbara Jones, John Piper, Edward Wadsworth, Bawden, Ravilious and others are also included. As if Edinburgh people weren't spoiled enough!

Christopher Brown, Weel Done, Cutty-sark!

Ed Kluz, The Dunmore Pineapple

Chloe Cheese, Passing Through Parliament Square, Edinburgh

Mark Hearld, Spey Salmon

Emily Sutton, The Fishing Lodge

Angie Lewin, A Highland Gathering

Michael Kirkman, The Canny Man's

Linda Green, Jencks - Landform, Edinburgh

Peter Green, Gehry - Maggie's Centre, Dundee

Ten Printmakers is at the Scottish Gallery until July 23.

If you'd like to know more about the design work of Eric Ravilious, I'm giving a talk at the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol this Saturday, 6 July, at 11am.

St Jude's Random Spectacular

St Jude's Random Spectacular, Issue 1

 The brand new journal from St Jude's is spectacular but far from random. Yes, it is eclectic, but with illustration by Mark Hearld, Emily Sutton, Angie Lewin, Jonny Hannah and other artists from the St Jude's stable it is a rather wonderful exposition of the Lewin house style. Open at random and you're transported to the world of energetic natural forms, retro typefaces and exquisite patterns that have made St Jude's so successful.

The cover could have been conjured up by Bawden or Ravilious for a 1930s book jacket. Seeing it made me wonder why it's taken so long for this rediscovery of all things mid-20th century to happen. It's a necessary and long overdue riposte to self-congratulatory conceptual art, computer-generated illustration and the kind of mind-numbing mass production that makes a Habitat mug look like a work of art.

Elisabeth Frink, Wolf & Crane 1968

You can see the influence of lots of artists at work. Last summer I walked into a room of lithographs by Elizabeth Frink and my immediate thought was 'how contemporary!'. In fact these characterful studies of birds and mammals were made in the 1960s, but the style - that sense of nature living and in motion - has echoes in the work of artists like Mark Hearld.

When I look at Emily Sutton's paintings of shop fronts I can't help but be reminded of 'High Street': the cafe shown in 'Random Spectacular' has the strange luminosity, stripped-down colours and exquisite lines of a Ravilious shop, but in the picture of a hat emporium on the opposite page Sutton has come up with a composition that is both tightly controlled and loose enough to let in some human warmth.

Angie Lewin, The 1953 Coronation Mug

Ravilious haunts Angie Lewin's work too - as she admits freely in her lovely book, 'Plants and Places'. By chance I was looking through it yesterday, and there's something fascinating about the way she works Rav's coronation mugs into some of her compositions. Her interpretation of his designs, with the lettering spilling off the mug into the 'world' of her print, suggests how influence works: you start with images made by another artist you love, build on them, and take off on your own...

The journal itself suggests old publications like 'The Saturday Book' - there are some nice examples here - with articles and photos relating to nature and the countryside. I love the way these cycles go: Ravilious and his generation adored Edward Thomas, Richard Jefferies and - above all - Gilbert White, whose 'Natural History of Selborne' was reissued numerous times during the 1930s. Ravilious was cock-a-hoop to be asked to illustrate one of these editions; perhaps the artists gathered together so thoughtfully by St Jude's could collaborate on a new edition. Now that would be a spectacle.

Gilbert White of Selborne, Nonesuch ed (from Bow Windows Bookshop)

By the way, there are only 750 copies of 'Random Spectacular', issue one. It isn't very expensive, and proceeds go to charity. Get yours here.