A Medical Print

In June 2017, I made a print for St. Luke's Hospital as part of a Blackstack Studio exhibition at the hospital.  We had an open brief but at the end of it, after the prints were submitted, they were adjudicated by a panel from the hospital to ensure that they were suitable for the location.

After the exhibition, the prints were kept by the hospital and dispersed to various locations and mine ended up over the main reception desk.  I must go in and have a look and get a photograph in situ but for now, here's the print and the process.  I called it This Is That II and took the opportunity to produce a large scale (70 cm x 50 cm) rice monoprint with wood block additions.

 

  

Twenty Five Years Later

Twenty five years ago I worked in a textile factory laboratory and office.  In the spare time at the office, I often used to doodle.  I made one particular doodle that I particularly liked and copied it.  It remains, an A4 sheet of paper with a small doddle copied many times on it.  It is dog eared now but I'm glad I still have it. 

Recently I decided to immortalise it in print and while I was printing it I thought back to working in the office and how stifled and trapped I felt.  I would never have imagined, when drawing this doodle, that one day I would be in a print studio in Kilkenny, twenty five years later printing it.

Rothe House Recce

My next exhibition is another group show, again with Blackstack Studio at Rothe House in Kilkenny.  Rothe House is a medieval merchant's town house, right across the road from Blackstack and our exhibition will be a response to the building, history, gardens and artefacts there.

I took my camera and had a slow wander around.  It is a fantastic place but what inspired me the most were the some of the artefacts there and the recreated medieval garden, which even in early Spring, bare and without much growth was like an oasis in the middle of the city.  Inside the walls there wasn't another soul to be seen but you could hear traffic, someone playing music, the voices and footsteps of people walking past.  I collected lots of dead leaves and plant material as potential collagraphs and I will possibly layer these with drypoints of some of the artefacts, all topped off with a bit of monoprinting for good measure!