THE WALLS HAVE EYES

Cabinet

2011-10-26T18:19:00.000+01:00

Furniture maker Nick James has designed and made this lovely cabinet. He invited me to design for the screenprinted Formica door panels, which was such a treat. Drawings of an early jet engine at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle inspired my design, which fits perfectly with Nick's mid-20th century inspired pieces.
And if you peek inside the drawers there are matching drawer liners.

Hanbury Hall

2011-10-26T18:02:00.000+01:00

These glass panels are in the sitooteries at Hanbury Hall in the West Midlands. The cast faceted clear glass is set in an iron fretwork. I've seen similar in Greece.

Serendipity

2011-09-16T18:42:00.000+01:00

I was photographing my new commission at Jurys Inn on Gateshead Quays and spotted this view.
View the whole commission on my website

The Capable Gardener

2011-07-31T09:26:00.000+01:00

Tucked away in a sheltered spot at Kirkharle Courtyard near Wallington in Northumberland is a lovely little nursery run by Philippa Hodkinson, a National Trust gardener who is responsible for Gertrude Jekyll's garden at Lindesfarne. She sells locally grown plants, and has a shed with a great range of proper gardening tools and accesories picked by a gardener for gardeners. Everything has been carefully sourced from the UK and the sturdy gardening aprons, in a range of fabrics, are designed and made exclusively for the Capable Cardener.
There are secondhand gardening books to browse and buy, planters inspired by sheep troughs and peat free conpost.

A pot of flowers show what your plant will grow into!

Garden Day Poem

2011-06-10T18:00:00.000+01:00

And this was Cynthia Fuller's poem

Moorbank

Take refuge here. The garden is

a cup of breathing green

rimmed by the city’s noise –

the swell and drone of cars,

the lost dogs barking to go home.

It is a living habitat

for urban birds – a nest of song.

Roots are pushing deep below

concrete and tarmac.

Time could slow here to the pace

of ancient trees, or quicken

to keep step with the sudden poppy

whose orange tissue flares

and crumples in a day.

Garden Day

2011-06-10T14:59:00.000+01:00

Linda France, poet and writer is currently Leverhulme Artist in Residence at Moorbank, Newcastle University’s Botanic Garden.
I spent an inspiring day there last week with several poets and visual artists invited to make work in response to the space.
It is always difficult to switch off and to find something to say on the spot, but after a few false starts, I found that each plant had its own calligraphy.

Healey Church glass

2011-04-13T15:08:00.000+01:00

This tiny church in rural Northumberland has some really interesting glass. 'Contrary Rhythm' by the artist James Hugonin has hundreds of tiny shards of antique glass floating in a grid.

Anne Vibecke Mou's delicate point engraved window.

And Leonard Evetts windows with beautiful details.

Journal Culture Awards

2011-03-31T10:00:00.001+01:00

I printed this year's Journal Culture Awards which were given to the 15 winners on Monday night at the Gala Theatre in Durham.
The screenprint was designed to be seen from the auditorium and has circular motifs drawn from the artforms represented, on a multicoloured ground.
The added bonus was that they co-ordinated beautifully with the coat of compere for the night, the comedian, writer and poet Kate Fox.

Misprints

2011-03-31T09:21:00.000+01:00

Making the offcuts after printing an edition is the best bit sometimes. These are like found objects with qualities I could never have designed.

"Throne Up"

2011-03-31T09:10:00.001+01:00

Northern Print are doing a roaring trade in limited edition royal wedding sick bags.
choose from royal blue, red gold or black.

2011-03-10T08:44:00.000Z

Well worth a read.
And a look http://anoptimiststourofthefuture.com/

Seed Grenades

2010-11-02T09:29:00.001Z

These landed on my desk the other day from Mandy Pattullo. The labels were given to Mandy and are Alec Finlay's contribution to Love Me Live With Me. Food for thought - and discussion.

Love Me Live With Me

2010-11-02T09:24:00.001Z

Visited the Love Me Live with Me - the Designed & Made wonder cart - a customised vintage handcart which has been travelling around London and the North East of England for Design Week. The miriad drawers and cupboards reveal a cornucopia of badges, glass, ceramics and a lot more including rats! The deal is if you receive a piece from the cart you have to live with it for a week and then pass it on.

My gift is a beautiful limited edition of 13 (mine is number 13) embroidery kit with a porecelain medal and a velvet cushion.

The postcards make good bookmarks - and possibly marraige invitation cards!

The vintage linen cover for the medal and cushion was printed with a bird so I have embroidered it with a strand of some of the threads inclided in the kit.

Teddy is wearing the medal to go with his Jacobite outfit made by Rachael Burns - the medal has the letters CS stamped into it - maybe for the Bonnie Prince.

The Wapping Project

2010-10-09T16:57:00.001+01:00

The Wapping Project was the perfect place to find, on a damp moody day on a walk along the Thames riverfront.

Why I fell in love with glass

2010-10-09T16:45:00.003+01:00

I fell in love with stained glass 25 years ago, and a visit to Canterbury Cathedral reminded me why

New Jug Prints

2010-09-26T11:20:00.001+01:00

I have long harboured a jug obsession - especially slip decorated earthenware.

Recently at the V&A I spotted a lovely pot with slip decoration of leaves and a dedication to Mrs Shoosmith of Caterbury. I designed two new screenprints - one based on the V&A jug and one on my favourite stripy jug.

'A Living Space' at Contemporary Applied Arts

2010-08-18T20:53:00.001+01:00

As part of the show there is an installation of plates. I will be showing a blue and white faience plate with ceramic decal decoration.

New Work

2010-06-26T11:58:00.000+01:00

I will be showing screenprinted glass, and ceramics with printed detail as part of
Designer Printer Maker
At Northern Print, Stepney Bank, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 2NP
from 2 July - 4 September 2010

Print on glass, ceramics, textiles, furniture & metal by Stephen Brown, Bridget Jones, Zoe Murphy, Anna Raymond, Alison Welsh & Stephen Dixon, Elizabeth Turrell

a blast of colour

2010-03-02T09:01:00.000Z

During a week in a very cold London, it was a relief to spend a morning in the glasshouses at Kew which had a positively psychedelic display of orchids.

'Cut Flowers' Graphic Prints

2010-01-20T13:52:00.001Z

Hand screenprinted graphic prints in a range of colours are available from Northern Print http://www.northernprint.co.uk/ . Signed & dated, they are £75.

Summer Colours

2010-01-13T16:51:00.001Z

When it is freezing and you are surrounded by a monochrome landscape - which is beautiful, you get wistful memories of the colours of summer. I made a colour chart of colours sampled on a walk up our lane on a day last summer, which in turn inspired a set of promotional cards I designed.

Clay & Thread

2009-11-21T14:15:00.007Z

'Clay And Thread' at the Knit and Stitch show at Harrogate combined 'Talking Matters' showing the work of ceramicist Alex McErlain with embroiderer Alice Kettle. Thrown slipware ceramics by Alex McErlain have been drawn and scratched into by Alice Kettle, while drawings of jugs are stitched.

'Place Settings' exhibits works by Helen Felcey, a ceramicist who works with unglazed bone china , and Alice Kettle, a textile artist familiar for her expressive machine stitched works. The collaboration is a table setting, porcelain spoons and vessels on a stitched cloth. The work brings together two distinct areas of practice and two distinct characters.

In 'New Grounds', the work of textile artist Dionne Swift explores the possibilities of printing onto felt - almost onto the print blanket 'on purpose' and working into the spare black and white images with stitich.

Louise Baldwin's work was also a joy in a very different way

Gloves

2009-11-06T11:55:00.002Z

I went to a tiny museum in Yeovil yesterday where they once had a glove industry. These are some of the beautiful gloves that they produced. The patterns are lovely things in their own right.

2009-11-01T12:49:00.002Z

Sewing

There is nothing more comforting on a horrible wet Sunday afternoon than getting down to some sewing. The business of opening a new pattern and cutting out the pieces, then working out how to place them on the fabric is something I never get tired of. Who needs crossword puzzles. This is the first pattern I bought when I was 17, and I made it from brown wool with black frogging on the jacket.

2009-11-01T12:37:00.003Z

Skia

Mary Christianson's beautiful etchings are a response to the qualities of light and shadow in northern Denmark. Colour is stripped down to grays, blacks and whites. They are showing at Northern Print Gallery until the 21 November. See http://www.northernprint.org.uk/

2009-11-01T12:23:00.002Z

Blues

As part of Ouseburn Open Studios on the 28the & 29th November - see http://www.ouseburnopenstudios.org/ for further details, Cobalt Studios are inviting artists to show work in every shade of blue. I will be showing a series of prints. Blue is my absolutely favorite colour so I am a bit prone to using it. It works particularly well in glass.