Remembrance of Prints Past: Making a website during lockdown
It felt that lockdown would be the perfect opportunity to finally sort out a website – and it is! – but delving through even recent work has been a poignant reminder of the ‘before time,’ especially as I pick my way through a folder of linocuts, many of which were exhibited in a buzzing gallery space less than a year ago.
Unzipping that folio case unleashes happy memories of blithely swinging into
Glasgow Print Studio, throwing on a recently vacated apron, and unthinkingly setting up for a happy session of printing on SHARED equipment. What innocents we were, as we carelessly rummaged through communal materials, offered biscuits to people from outwith our households, and nonchalantly compared notes at a distance of less than two metres away.
Going through my existing prints, I very much miss my ability to create new ones – I just don’t have the technical capability to work in the same way at home - but more than this, I miss the studio environment. I miss the luxury of leaving home to go to a different place which exists expressly for making art, and thinking about making art. I yearn for the camaraderie of other art makers, and the magical creative osmosis of being in the same room as hugely talented people.
I think about my fellow artists and hope they are all doing ok – physically, mentally, financially – and anticipate the day when we can, once again, share space, ideas – and biscuits.
