XGen / spiked / EPC dispatched
I’m really pleased to be sending out my latest Print Club edition today. It seems overdue to me, maybe to you too. I’ve been thinking about why that may be, and I’ll continue to think about that. I think maybe in part it maps back to Covid and Brexit.
I think the art world is still deeply broken post Brexit and Covid, and as a result gallerists, the ones who are still working, have become reluctant to take as many financial risks as they used to, perhaps especially around hiring stands at art fairs. As a result, after much debate, I decided to reboot my Transistor project last autumn and took a stand at Battersea this Spring, in order to get my work out there. It was definitely well worth doing, but has led to a lot of production work, both in the lead up to the show, and in making new works as a result of the orders and commissions I’ve received. Both of these things are great of course, but with the slight caveat that it is consuming all my time, and therefore slowing progress on new works. In the perfect version of events, the artist would make new works, and a gallery would do the marketing and sales. But I don’t think we’re living in that world anymore, or at least not at the moment. I will continue to focus on how best to juggle sales and studio time for new drawings! Both are clearly essential to a thriving practice.
So, I completed printing EPC edition #27 last week, and left it drying under the boards at Spike for a further week, collecting it and trimming the edition yesterday. It’s now packed and ready to post. I hope you like it when you see it.
There’s an interesting quality to photopolymer etching, and it’s been really fascinating to work at Spike making the edition. There’s a deep rooted belief amongst practitioners that these older analogue techniques offer something real, something grounded, something material, that the digital perhaps can’t achieve, but I’m not entirely convinced. It’s maybe a little like those people who swear by vinyl LP records, or shooting on 35mm film. I always wonder if it’s more of a belief system than an observable reality.
That said there is something really beautiful about the bite of the plate into the damp paper, and as you ink up the plate and roll the press you definitely get a sense of something physical happening. I had an interesting debate with a fellow printmaker at Spike, and asked her if she felt the process was to some extent a craft rather than an art. She wasn’t having any of it of course, but I think there is a craft element in play, that sense of the handmade that we are naturally drawn to.
At the same moment as these etchings have been in production, I’ve also been making some really big pieces for Lycett’s new office next to the Gherkin in the City. It’s fair to say that these photopolymer pieces are a long way removed from my latest 8ft wide 10 colour digital pigment prints. The space between the two really has been something to see here, in these last few weeks, a gulf in many ways. So in that sense, I’m really delighted to be able to play in both sandpits, and see where there may be opportunities for overlap and transference. I hope we’ll see more of that in the future, I’m certainly hoping to blend a mixture of techniques when once I feel reasonably competent within each field. This first piece therefore is really a process experiment more than anything else.
I’m off to the Glastonbury festival tomorrow, for a long weekend of live music and performing arts. I’ve been going on and off since 1986, and almost always find that the immersion into a world where pretty much everyone is enjoying the arts is an incredible tonic to the more prosaic nature of our daily lives and politics, and our myopic political class who seem almost incapable of seeing the myriad benefits of a life lived with the visceral beauty of art, music and literature. In my imagination the festival has always stood as a beacon of hope each year, and a beautiful visual reminder of the value of it all.
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. I first read Robert M Pirsig’s Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance in 1990 as a second year undergraduate, I found it completely enthralling at that time, and so I thought I’d reread it this summer. The idea of revisiting texts is perhaps a little nostalgic, but in sequence with the Waking Up meditations, I thought it would be interesting to discover it if still held any power to change my worldview. I’m only a few chapters in, but it does indeed still seem to be an extraordinarily insightful examination of the structures and systems we live within. I’ll let you know if I’m still recommending it when I get to the end!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance
Next up. I have so many ideas for projects on the go, and as the summer lull almost inevitably comes in, the art world is always at it’s busiest in spring and autumn, I’m certainly hoping to make at least two more editions for the club this summer. I have a beautiful small photopolymer plate of Sennen, which I want to make with a chine collé layer, but I’ll need some more tuition to get that right. And I’m still planning to make the 3 phase entropy piece, as well as the Diasec mounted discs.
In other news, I’ve been shortlisted as a candidate to become an Academician at the RWA (Royal West of England Academy) so I’m mounting a small show of works there in August and am hopeful that I may be selected. Apparently there are eight candidates, and I guess they may select half of us. In my experience the candidates are often strong contenders, so it’s quite a challenge. It would be great to be selected though, a real endorsement I think. As ever, we’ll see. You can only walk through the doors that are open to you.
More soon, I hope you enjoy the latest work, and apologies that there haven’t been as many works as there should have been so far this year, I’m hoping I can fix that, but it’s probably unwise to promise, there’s a limit to what can be achieved in any one period of time… and a lot of learning to do to get there…
Chuck Elliott
If you’d like to receive three or four exclusive new editions in the post each year, alongside personal news and views from the studio, and invitations to shows and fairs, please do consider becoming a member of my Experimental Print Club. You can join or leave the club at any time, with absolutely no obligation to stay any longer than you want to.
New works are sent out somewhat sporadically throughout the year, often in line with the changing seasons. Each piece is unique, exclusive, and only available on the day it’s editioned, the size of the edition being determined by the number of members on the day.
I hope the club presents a more personal and intriguing way to connect with the studio, by creating a platform for collecting engaging new works for your home. The club is hosted online here, and I send out fairly regular blog posts and emails about the work too. I’d like to think that it’s an interesting proposition!
Membership is currently priced at £36 per month inc. UK delivery, or £42 for an international address.
