This week I've been experimenting with paper clay for the first time. I'm taking inspiration from architectural surfaces and forms seen in Brutalist architecture on a recent trip to Vilnius, and am trying to emulate those forms in delicate and pristine porcelain paper clay. These models may end up as minature screens to project onto with 35mm slides that I've been working on using imagery of these buildings. The 35mm slides are printed using an inkject printer onto acetate, a process that gives a grainy and almost pointilist image when the slides are projected. 

I spent the last few weeks worrying about the fact I don't have a set 'project' to work on and seemed to be searching in vain for something to pull ideas together. This clearly doesn't work for me. I had a bit of a revelation that the main reason I am undertaking this residency is to use the workshop facilities and have access to print, papermaking, digital media and that is what my focus will now be. I am now focusing on learning techniques that I want to use, and that has started with learning how to photo-etch, creating a set of etchings for a print edition.

In other news I will be running a Critical Writing Workshop at Northumbria that will run in two parts, the first on 1st March and the second on 8th March. 

When I was visiting my grandmother in Dundee last week she told me the story of how one of the earliest printed bibles (a Barker Bible printed in 1605) came into the possession of my great grandfather in the 1960s. The story had come to light more recently due to the meeting of lots of relatives at a family funeral when it came up in conversation after years of never being talked about. The story set in my head ideas about the book as a sacred object, print technology, heirlooms, forgotten histories and family tales, and I'd like to use it as a needed starting point for my AA2A. Now I'm hoping to spend most of this week in the studios to really get started with it!

I feel as if I've somewhat neglected my AA2A Northumbria studio space this week as I have been busy installing a group show called Temporary Worlds that gathers eight North East artists in their responses to the natural world. The show opened in Durham this Friday to a great response at disused office unit 17 Claypath, Empty Shop's latest space acquisition. The show is open Tuesday-Saturday until 1st December, 10-4 so if you're in the area then please drop by! 

Featured Artists: Lianne Bell, Katy Cole, Claudia España, David Lowther, Rachel Magdeburg, Lesley-anne Rose, Rebecca Travis, Nicola Warwick