E17 Poetry Trail and Birds on the streets of Walthamstow

This year  was the first time I entered the E17 Poetry Trail info here , part of the E17 Art Trail info here.

   Penny Rutterford was comissioned by Artillary to curate the Poetry Trail  which included this year, the display of poems, some illustrated by local artists, in estate agents windows along Hoe Street, pavement poetry and events at Vestry House and the William Morris Gallery.

Poem by Jocelyn Cran and image by Carne Griffiths

Paekakariki Press  produced the prints for the display and the anthology of poems. They use the tradition of letterpress printing with an original Heidelberg press.

illustration of the Heidelberg press from Paekakariki Press website

The display of poems works well in the windows, I like the idea of people coming unexpectidly across them as they browse for property.


info about Paekakariki press here

Poem by Michael Shann and image by Anna Alcock

I had illustrated my poem with an acrylic painting, an abstract floral peice that was remarkably difficult to make work in the end. I haven't really tried to illustrate any writing in this way before.

 Usually the writing comes after I've made the art work, or I have a photograph that I've taken or found in mind. This time I had written the poem and had made a few sketches of the flowes on the shrub in question, but then worked on more of a painted feel for the poem.

Poems Mohammad Ali age 9 George Mitchell primary school, my poem and poem by Paul Mc Grane

Poem by Kyshore Kumar age 15 image by Hannah Khan age 11 George Mitchell secondary school

Poem by Janet Wright image by Matilda Bevan

Alban Low and Dean Reddick organised another brilliant Magnetic show as part of the Art Trail this year too.
100 magnets with the theme of "Birds" on the streets of Walthamstow were left around the Town Square by enthusiastic participants of the magnet shows, for people to spot and take home with them. info on the bird magnets and next art work planned here

I joined in by sending 2 images of birds for the magnets and helping the team put them out on Saturday 8th September after hanging some free art on the trees.

Cities Street Photography exhibition at The Mill

I've just put up some of my street photos at The Mill, for an exhibition called Cities. Christian Mantio and Helen Porter are also showing work.



I've shown some more slightly humorous photographs including ones from Tate Modern, the Guildhall Pancake Races, Parliamentary Pancake Race and Walthamstow Market.



Christian is showing 10 of his New York photographs including vibrant street art, cars and city views.Helen is showing photos including some from Wood Street market.



The exhibition is open from Tuesday 6th March till the end of the month. Link to the Mill for info on directions here

Moontree Gallery and Mill on the Street exhibitions.

The exhibition at Atlantis Bookshop has come down and is up at the Moontree Gallery in Bournemouth thanks to Courtney who has taken these pictures of the show going up. Courtney is giving a talk there this evening, Merlin to Infinity at 7.30pm. LInk to the Moontree Gallery here

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I have been working on the Street photography exhibition for The Mill "Mill on the Street" The Mill has formed as a community venue and organisation from an old library in Walthamstow.



It is great to see the place up and running, with all sorts of creative classes and events taking place. I know it took a lot of hard work on behalf of the volunteers and campaigners to get the old library and it will take a lot of work and money to kep it going. I had one of my photographs there as part of the E17 Art Trail in September and am pleased to be organising the show with Maureen, Mo, arts organiser for The Mill.



The "Mill on the Street" exhibition includes work by a number of local photographers including Rachel L'Anson, Nathaniel Legall, Imraan Ismail and Fabian Ho. It opens on Tuesday 8th November till Friday 2nd December. Tuesdays to Saturdays 10am -6pm.
There is also a Street Photography workshop on Saturday 19th November 10.30-2.30pm
Bookings at The Mill. link to The Mill site here

New paintings and E17 Art Trail.

I've still been busy working on some more paintings for the next couple of exhibitions and getting things ready for the E17 Art Trail.
My paintings, Stones Guard the Mysteries of Earth, above and Night of Mysteries below, both include standing stones. In the painting above, the colour of the harvest and corn came first in the work, evolving into swirling cornfields reflecting the patterns of the wind. As I was contemplating this new landscape it seemed to include the idea of a stone circle. Stones that definately bore symbols of the Goddess and ancient ritual and seemed to protect the land and the entrance to the underworld. The deer still resting at the start of a new day brought a sense of calm and balance with her and the whole painting came alive for me with a sense of beauty and completeness.

In Night of Mysteries, the landscape took on the tones of a night sky illuminated by a full moon that also arrived early in the painting. I was feeling a sense of mystery evolving with a strangely more alive sense and resonance to the standing stones. The stones are marked with symbols and have taken on some of the colours from the night sky. Stylized and symbolic trees stand on the horizon and a stag is running across the land looking back over his shoulder; as if also recognising the strong presence of the stones. I was left thinking do they really walk at night?

Dawn Fires page with exhibition details here

Two other small paintings are work in progress and I am pleased so far to be touching a weath of symbolic and mystical themes that are bringing together a lot of my strands of work.

On a completely different note I am continuing with the year long Street Photography Project, which will be continuing in some form after the year has end

ed. Project info here.

I have entered one of my photographs, Protest on the Streets, in at The Mill, info here, as part of the E17 Art Trail. E17 link here

I am also helping on the drawing event in the Vestry House Museum gardens on 3rd September 11-3pm.

Art Grows on Trees is also happening again this year and will have even more art works offered for free on each Saturday of the art trail. Sat 3rd and 10th of September on the lime trees next to Walthamstow bus station from 9.30 am. info here

E17 Art Trail part 3

I was in the Central library in Walthamstow for the artists books event with Laura yesterday. It was great to see Laura's collection of artists books, I added a few myself and we put out the collection on tables for people to browse through.

We also had a good selection of materials for people if they wanted to try making a simple book themselves. Although we didn't get a huge amount of people passing through, we did have some good conversations with people and some people tried their hands at making books. I found more ideas for books to make myself and really liked the artists book as sculpture, a ball of twisted newspaper twine with some tags of print left on that Julian Beere brought in. Julien's blog here

In the library itself were a number of small exhibitions, Dan Green's The Frozen Lake, was a series of winter landscapes taken in the cold winter earlier in the year. They were atmospheric images, the sun low in the sky and the sense of cold palpable. The lakes had a quality of stillness and other worldliness.

Ron Bowman has a show of his watercolours in the main entrance, he is a photographer more recently moving into watercolours. Neon Nature, Jakie Whalen's paintings in the main library held their own in the busy space. Her designs and bright colours were being enjoyed by the visitors.

There was a range of photographs from the Walthamstow & district Photographic Society in the corridors, and With my love of birds I was taken by the great photo of a Jay facing a squirrel on a bird table by Trevor Weatherley. Peter Tomlinson was also showing a series of portraits, Lochkamera Portraits, exploring the use of a lensless camera. The images were soft and had a subtle quality of colours and they invited you in for a closer look.

Waltham Forest Summer exhibition.

I took my pieces of work down to the Changing Room Gallery for the Waltham Forest Arts group Summer Exhibition. As usual my work is very different from last years. I have been working on some 'wanted' posters, using examples of behaviour that goes against the law in some way, but using birds instead of humans.

This is what I wrote about the work for the exhibition.
In this piece I have explored environmental concerns and social controls through subverting the symbolic "wanted" poster. Though humorous in intent, the work is also a comment on the nature of growing bureaucracy, the freedom of the birds is contrasted with the growing loss of freedom in our own lives. It is also a comment on the human demands for growth and profit that has lead to a decline in some of our most loved birds including the sparrow. We are thus also the "wanted" as declared on the posters.


I mounted the posters on pieces of plywood that have been distressed and look well used.

The exhibition is on from today 1st June till Sunday 7th June at The Changing Room Gallery with a reception/ event on Saturday 6th June.

Snow and Christmas lights

The weather has turned colder, I caught the snow on the way to the tube. Leyton looking pretty bleak in these images.
The Christmas lights are on in Walthamstow, not that there are many, this blue net of lights strung along the lime trees brings a bit of a show. Interestingly with the lights of the shopping centre behind we could imagine we were somewhere more continental.

New paintings walthamstow market and Columbia road market.

I have been busy painting some very small pictures, exploring my Buddhist and symbolic connections in this small scale. I enjoyed taking part of the image over the edges of the deeper box canvases. The images arrived as it were, when I was painting them, changing form a number of times in this process. This can be one of the frustrations in this intuitive way of working, but It also brings I find the element of surprise in the work which I enjoy very much.






I am trying to remember to take my camera out with me, and use it, when I am out and about more generally,like shopping. I do remember it more when I'm traveling around the city, as part of my documenting the public transport journeys I make, but when I pop out to the market etc I can forget. These are a few shots taken last week in Walthamstow market and Columbia road market.