Less than 3 months to go. Work is developing. The Bristol based group is closer to nature.

This work shows water, and land. Liz is working a series of woodcuts showin a stretch of water from dusk to dawn.

Anna is screen printing with mud collected from the River Avon.

Martine is taking a bird’s eye view of a coast line.

The only landscape available to me is the man made views of London. The Littoral Zone becomes something physical, and the ebb of flow the abstract notions of the arrival of people in to the city. Where as the flotsam of the river Avon in Bristol is mostly bicycles and shopping carts haf submerged in the rich mud, the flotsam of London is the debris of human aspirations. Some victories, then losses and in between just the ordinary dreams and private tragedies sinking in to the mud of time. The river Thames hold the physical remains of past ordinary lives in its grey mud of the Littoral Zone- a pipe head made of clay, coins and leather shoes of Romans and Victorians. The sight of these stir my memories and senses, to come alive in London as an artist while I hold the crisp, cold smell of the Swedish West coast’s water within my being while I bicycle past council buildings. The flotsam of city life pile up among the baby clothes drying on the balconies, where people struggle and dream as the debris of a media society flow in through the satellite dishes.Nature is only an image on a screen.

The Create Center in Bristol focuses on enviromental issues, clean rivers, recycling and the increasing problems of plastic debris.

Our work in the galley will reflect the ethos which concerns a clean enviroment. I hope a visti to its gallery will be a place of both contemplation and flow.

The Littoral Zone is quite a hard concept to grasp. It is a space which is always in an in-between stage. Its only constancy is its fluxus. This is difficult to manage emotionally where we grasp for stability, for control which in reality becomes the stagnant pond of things. Why not allow the littoral zones of our lives to provide a rich mud of emerging and vanishing imprints, of meetings of living forms from opposite existences of land and sea.We work to build dams and to controll the currents of living, only letting go when it is part of controlled force.
These thoughts have begun to form the underpinning ideas for my images, as I myself struggle to go with the flow- to remain fluid, to find opportunites in what seems to be murky mud- to understand the Littoral Zone within and to recognize, it is a rich place to be.

Littoral is a show about flow- about the water which arrives and leaves, continuosly changing an inbetween space of land nor water nor sand.

Therefore, the show can not be a static display- but will run in conjunction with a series events and workshops at the Create Centre that might wash over visitors with new experiences…..as follows:
Friday 27th August

Saturday 28th August Exhibition opening ( sometime Between 4 &
7pm)

Saturday 4th September Peter Ford, Paper making workshop ( 11.30 - 1) and Paper folding workshop ( 2 - 3.30)

Saturday 11th September Phillip Gross poetry reading ( 12 - 1) signing after Relief print workshop ( 2 - 3.30)

Saturday 18th September Mud printing workshop ( 11.30 - 1) and Mud printing workshop ( 2 - 3.30)

Saturday 25th September Mono print workshop ( 11.30 - 1) and Mono print workshop ( 2 - 3.30)

Saturday 2nd October Collagraphs / Rubbings workshop (11.30 - 1) and Collagraphs / Rubbings workshop (11.30 - 1)

Thursday 7th October UWE MA Print visit ( 1- 3 ) Possible sustainability print paper w/ S. Hoskins

Saturday 9th October Closing party (2 - 4) and Prize draw

I took off to Ornskoldsvik which is a smallish town in North Sweden. 29000 inhabitants, snow drifts, a ski-jump which dominates the edge of the city and one, fine collective printsstudio named ‘The Culture Factory’. I became a true cultural worker assisting master printer Stefano Beccari with a monumental printmaking workshop. The week resulted in a sort of existential detox.My existence became printmaking, conversations and snowlined silence.

The Culture Factory is run by a dedicated voluntary team of people who for 30 years have built towards their vision resulting in a shared working space. It is harmonious and well -equipped.The space is grounded in creativity and community,and I long to return to work, staying in the guest-flat above. Existence is stripped of the big city frenzy,and here it is just about making the image, and it fine to be kind to strangers while letting the universe of imagination unfold and flow within as the town bumbles on next to the fjord. Rivers make this town possible.

That makes me think that this year wil be all about ‘flow’ and water is its central theme. Preparing for the Littoral Show in Bristol and starting work on oversized prints with Stefano Beccari on ’sewage’. The existential detox continues through the medium of printmaking.

And here is the story:
Arriving at Arlanda airport’s train station platform. No chance for a hustle and bustle.

Taking the train from Stockholm Central Station. Last moment for relishing crowds before the emptiness of the north.

First look at ‘The Culture Factory’, perfect for an art-nomad: step of the the train and roll on with a 10 kg wheelie-bag in through the gallery:

Surroundings are suitably snowed in - although this time of the year is supposedly called late-winter-early-spring.

The fjord.

Center of town.

Master printer Stefano Beccari who joyfully battles with monumental prints up to 2.5 meters.At this moment resting.

The heart of the studio- the giant press!

A print drying by one of the eight artist-participants.

I discovered that The Culture Factory has a fully equipped letterpress set-up with an array of presses and an extensive font collections. So I met Maestro Number 2: Christer who helped me completing a five colour mini-print amidst the monumental workshop print activities using a letterpress for linocut relief print.

Maestro Christer at the press reminding me that in print- preparation , registration and perfection is the only way.

Preparing setting up the linocut, and the cradle for the block.In the end- it wasn’t perfect.

And then the end- a series of three prinst on show for one day in the gallery by one of the participants.

I am off to North Sweden for a monumental print workshop with master printmaker and artist Stefano Beccari. The town Ornskoldsvik is right on the Swedish East coast, and is still in the grips of snow, darkness and temperatures below freezing.

Let’s see how it influences the Littoral work.

We are now starting to define the sustainability aspect of the show, linking the meaning of our work to enviromental concerns.
The following woodcuts by Anna, Liz, Martine and I prompt future work.

LITTORAL - Marks from the margins

I and a group of artists, most of whom have recently graduated from the School of Creative Arts at the University of the West of England have now started to work towards this show at the Create Centre in Bristol. The Create Centre works with enviromental issues, and therefore this show feels both important, timely and challenging.Thanks to Anna Harley’s iniatative, Littoral has become a reality.

Many of our group now work locally from Spike Island Studios. We are united through our concern with an internal and external response to landscape. Our works reflect a broad range of print and other applied art processes, both traditional and contemporary in character.

The group aim is to explore the role of contemporary print and applied art within the Northern European Landscape Tradition, with a unifying theme of the littoral zone. The term, ‘littoral’ refers to the margin of land between the low and high tide mark that is characteristic of tidal areas, such as the local landscape of the Severn Estuary, with its dramatic tidal flows. Our individual and unique responses to this continually changing environment are expressed in diverse and innovative approaches to print and mark making.

Each artist taking part will produce a collection of work, in preparation for a group exhibition, in response to the theme of the Littoral.This group collection of work calls for an exhibition space that is itself located near the shoreline. The situation of the Create Centre, by one of the most dramatic tidal ranges in the world, makes this Gallery location particularly relevant to our theme.

In physical terms, the littoral zone is the area of land that extends from the high water mark at the edge of a body of water, to the shoreline areas that are often submerged. The adjacency of water gives a number of distinctive characteristics to littoral regions. Water’s erosive power results in particular types of landforms, such as sand dunes, and estuaries. The natural movement of the littoral along the coast is called the littoral drift.

Conceptually, the littoral zone can be taken to mean the areas of our psyche that are most often hidden from view - only surfacing at times of extremes. The transient nature of this marginal area and its continual state of flux, acts as a rich source of symbolism for our imagery. The twice daily tidal flow of water is a metaphor often used to explore the passing of time, that acts as a marker of our human frailty (time and tide wait for no man) and the endless repetitions in life (constant ebb and flow of life). As with water, the erosive power of time and our life experiences form us; our personalities, self- esteem, psychological profiles, physical strength and stamina and life choices.