Devonshire Park Magazine SussexEveryDay Christine Nicholls
Christine Nicholls is a visual artist living in London. We asked Christine about her participation in Towner Art Gallery's Ink Paper + Print weekend, her work with designers and letterpress printmakers and how her love of nature has led to an artist residency in Highgate.
Christine, many people came to the recent Towner Art Gallery's Ink Paper + Print weekend. What was the weekend like for you as an exhibitor? We had a fantastic footfall of over 2,700 people visiting during the two days of the fair. The weekend was definitely successful for me, both in sales and also contacts that I made. I love talking to people who are browsing my stall. Many visitors are themselves creative people but sometimes lack confidence so I enjoy helping them to reconnect to something they love and encouraging them. I am also happy to talk about the process I go through when making books, (I was selling my artist’s books at this fair) so I hope my visitors leave inspired and have a go at making themselves. When I left Sussex I left a part of my heart there, so to connect to people who live in Sussex is an absolute joy for me. Mind you, we also had people who visited that were from much further afield. What were some the responses you had from the many people who enjoyed looking at your work? Was it difficult to decide what to bring along with you to the weekend and what to leave behind? The main response to my artist’s books is the enjoyment that people get from the illustrations, and the humour in my bookmarks. Many people love the fold out maps I make, in fact I sold just as many maps of Deptford, Tufnell Park and Norwich as I did of Ditchling, which surprised me. The maps seem to speak to people’s memories of an area they used to live in, or it makes them realise they haven’t looked in detail at the area they currently reside in. I was asked many times if I had an Eastbourne map which until now I don’t have… I’m hoping to be at the Ink, Paper + Print fair in 2019 and I’ll certainly have one then! The way I bind my books and the care I take over how they look was also remarked on. I find it hard to blow my own trumpet, so I’ll just finish this question by saying I had a very positive response over the weekend. I brought all the work I class as ‘Inkpot & Pen Press’, so that’s my artist’s books, bunting, and bookmarks with me rather than my other illustrative work, therefore it was fairly easy to select the work to bring. Where is it that you are based? Did you have any time to look around Eastbourne when you were here? I’m based in North London, but as I’ve said, part of my heart remains in Sussex. I moved to Brighton in 1984 for my degree in Fine Art at Brighton Polytechnic, as it was then. I stayed in Brighton after my course, with a space at Red Herring Studios. Eventually life took me back to London, but I’m in Sussex about twice a month, often stopping over with friends, or walking along the South Downs or visiting some of my favourite places; these include Ditchling Museum (I love the Max Gill exhibition there at the moment.) Hand Made Map and Traditional Map Folding with Inkpot & Pen at Ditchling Museum and visiting the lovely couple that run the great bookshop: Much Ado Books in Alfriston. My favourite place to think and sort my life out, was, is, and probably will always be Firle Beacon. I’m also plotting and planning some Sussex-based work so I’ll probably be down more often in 2019. I didn’t have time to look around Eastbourne during the fair weekend, but I have visited many times, and will certainly get to know it better when I start working on the Eastbourne map! Tell us about your own background, were you always aware of your skills in art or did this emerge later? Ha ha, hmm, well I had an unexpected route into my career. I had an aptitude to maths and was heading towards a Maths degree, it was a foregone conclusion, everyone thought. My sister was always the arty one (she’s now a cranial osteopath but makes beautiful pottery in her spare time). Then a school career advisor asked me what I’d like to do as a profession when I was in my final year of O levels (yes I’m that old!). Plucking something from the air I said “Interior Design”, to this day I have no idea where that came from! She asked if I was doing art, to which I replied: “Do I need to?” and that gives you a good idea of my interest in Interior Design! She sent me off to the art department and then my life changed, I fell head over heels in love with art. I passed my Art O level a few months later and have never stopped drawing. Like most people I had to broaden my horizons to earn enough money to live on in the early years, and have had a variety of jobs within the creative industry, many of them using my maths skills. Two years ago, I gave up my part-time job and I’m now a very happy full-time artist. What then drew you to printing? That’s a tough question because it was a long time ago. I didn’t have much of a portfolio when I left school having only studied it for a couple of years, and I felt I needed to sign up to a pre-foundation course before applying to art school, to build my confidence, skills and folio. I went to Camden Arts Centre for a year and met a great printmaking tutor, John Roberts, who really inspired me. I think the process of creating a piece is important to me, I love designing and considering the block before I’ve even touched it and then the craft of engraving or cutting a lino, is very satisfying. Wood engraving is, without doubt, a slow technique and it appeals to me, the way I can sit quietly and concentrate getting lost in the process for hours. Are there specific printing techniques that you use? And is the process of printing your work richly satisfying? I print hand coloured linocuts and wood engravings. Neither of these need big printing presses, in fact wood engraving needs very little space and the back of a spoon works wonderfully when printing. The printing part of the process is as important to me as any other stage, I can’t imagine someone else ever taking over and printing my work. I often pull a print before the block is finished and then go back to work more detail in, for me that’s part of the journey. Your website: www.inkpotandpen.com/ has a wide range of examples of your artworks and printing. Please could you refer to a couple of contrasting works and talk us through their composition and how they were made. I do have quite a variety of work, it’s so hard to just pick a couple to talk about. However, I’ll start with the Holly Book. This book came about over a cup of tea with a writer friend, Sandra Lawrence, whilst sitting on her allotment. We threw around the idea of working on a project together and decided to create a book about Holly. Two years later, we finally had the finished piece. To start with Sandra gave me some vague topics she was going to write about, and I went off to research and draw holly, in all its many shapes and guises! And once I started, I was hooked on the subject. This book has become a bit of a portfolio piece for me as I included many of the styles of drawings and prints I do as well as hand lettering all of Sandra's text. We wanted the drawings and words to sit well together on the page which meant we cut down, added text, changed images a few times, not to mention the size and shape of the book, before we were happy with the result. When I had all the images and text, I lettered the pages, and then all the images and scanned hand lettered text into photoshop where I laid out the pages for printing. Once the pages were printed, I used a scalpel and cut each sheet (I don’t have a guillotine yet, it’s on my Christmas list but has been for years!) drilled the holes using my paper drill (that has saved me so much time, the first set of books were lovingly and painfully hand drilled), and finally the books were bound using a Japanese stab binding technique. A true labour of love. The second piece I’ve chosen to example is my lino print of Hampstead Heath. I live very close to Hampstead Heath and can often be found there walking or drawing. I have sketches galore of the heath and the trees on it, and decided to work on a print of one of the ponds. To start the process I have a sheet of lino that I carve into for the black lines, I print it using my bookbinding ‘nipping press’ that starts the transference of ink. Then the block is carefully removed and finished using a burnisher on areas that haven’t printed solidly in the press. Once the printing ink has dried I use water-based inks to hand colour each piece, so every print is slightly different from the others in the series. Both my linocuts and my wood engravings are printed in small runs, usually between five and twenty. Shortly after creating this piece, building work was undertaken on the pond to prevent flooding to the surrounding housing, the pond is now re-landscaped and has a nature reserve island in the centre. I am so happy that I managed to capture how it was before. The prints are going to be a series, another one I’ve done is Aberaeron in Wales, I’m working on the next one being Firle Beacon, so watch this space! You have done work for a number of designers, please tell us about that. I work on my own in my studio quite a lot, so to engage with designers is always fun and challenging, in a positive way, for me. Usually I’m given a brief from the designer and mock up some of my ideas as a starting point, we then refine the ideas together. Sometimes a designer knows exactly what they want and that’s a quick job of executing the idea, but other times we can nudge and alter the idea a few times before we finally end up with exactly what the designer is after. There’s nothing more exciting than to see an envelope arrive on the doormat with a beautiful sample inside. When I worked on the Save the Date card, both the lettering and the olive branch illustration, I had no idea it was going to be printed with a gold edge, that was a lovely surprise. BLACKBOARD image (credit Client: Violet and Frederick Florists) Looking at your designs would it be right to describe you as a "lady of letters"? Yes, and no! I just use lettering for some of my clients, but often lettering and drawings work hand in hand. I do a lot of blackboards and they are often combined with an illustration or two. I describe myself as a lettering artist, I am not a traditional calligrapher, for example I don’t do copper plate lettering, but tend to use italic and less ‘refined’ lettering, if that makes sense. As it happens I also write letters to people with a fountain pen, so in some respects this is spot on! I understand you're currently doing an artist residency in perhaps a surprising place. I love nature, although I’m not a very good gardener, I do try. I grew up with a green fingered mother and grandparents so have always had an appreciation of nature and always drawn plants, trees and flowers. So for me to become the artist-in-residence at Highgate allotments was the perfect fit, as many people pointed out. The allotments had a previous artist-in-residence five years ago, so I knew they were open to the idea. I wrote a proposal, saying what I’d like to do, how I would work with the allotment holders and how I would use the work; I’m planning an exhibition at the end of the two year residency, I have started making artist’s books relating to work there, I’m also planning to give talks about the residency and I write a monthly blog on my website: Plots & Plants. I absolutely love this residency. I have a key to the site so I can visit any time of the day and wander around, in fact I was there late at night during the harvest moon taking photographs. Some people are very happy for me to engage with them, to the point where I am invited for tea and home made fruit cake (how lucky am I?!), while others would prefer not to be involved. This is absolutely fine and I respect everyone’s wishes. I have come to know some of the allotmenteers well and I feel an incredible sense of calm and happiness when I’m working there. It reminds me of my maternal grandfather who had a beautiful allotment in Switzerland and where I was lucky enough to visit every summer, not to mention eat the rewards. How can people see your work? Can they request a commission? At the moment the best way of seeing my work is at the fairs I do throughout the year, although for the next couple of months these are over and applications opening soon after the new year. The early winter months of the new year are when I really concentrate on working in the studio and creating new projects. There is of course my website and soon I’ll have an Etsy site, selling online. There are various events pencilled in for 2019 so the best way to keep an eye on what’s happening is to visit the events page on my website, or better still sign up to the mailing list so you get to hear about things first. I’m more than happy to discuss commissions with people, it’s a way I often work, someone sees something they love and wants to have a piece that’s really personal to them or a loved one. I understand that you give workshops too. What are some of the subjects you teach and do you have some coming up over the next few months? I run a few different workshops. One of the things that’s really important to me is encouraging people who for whatever reason haven’t been connecting with their creative side for a while. I have been taught by some amazing people over the years and I feel now it is my turn to give back to others. I often hear the words, “I love your work, I used to draw…” So one of the workshops I run for small groups, is to go to a museum, where they often have stools for people to borrow, and encourage people in a non judgemental, positive way to reconnect with drawing, giving gentle guidance and support. I also work one to one with people on their drawing techniques, I can be quite demanding in these workshops because I give a lot too, but everyone always comes away feeling as though they’ve achieved more than they thought they could. Both of these are usually on an ad hoc basis, sometimes a group of people will approach me or a couple of people so I decide to put an event on. I am very open to people contacting me so that if I have enough enquiries I run a workshop. I am also currently running a series of workshops called ‘Mapping your World’, which has come from my fold out maps project. Participants are helped to create a map of an area through the visual detail, sounds and smells they encounter. I like exploring the detail of an area, the things we see every day but barely notice. I have one of these workshops running at Ditchling Museum in April, during their Max Gill’s Wonderground Map exhibition. I'm going to be working on some journal bookbinding workshops for 2019 as well, details on that will appear on the website hopefully in spring, and I have something else up my sleeve for the early part of 2019 but I can’t say what yet, until the details are made public. The best way to find out about workshops or classes is to contact me via my website, or to check on the events page. Again, the mailing list is where the information about workshops is released first and also where more details are given. A full brief of the Ditchling workshop will be sent out with the January newsletter. You can sign up to my mailing list here: www.inkpotandpen.com/contact-signup
Devonshire Park Magazine SussexEveryDay The Magazine of Devonshire Park Eastbourne |