The new year has started slowly, as I'm sure it has for everyone.

Last week I invited six fine art students to my studio in Byker to discuss the idea of making some artist books for my project; Book Apothecary; The Travelling Museum of Artist Books.  They had found out about this project from a talk I had given last semester.

They got the chance to see a lot of the work that we had already toured and we talked in depth about how the act of making books could relate to all of their individual and very diverse practices.  It seemed clear that books was a universal object that could cross the paths of painting, photography, sculpture and that in itself was a very exciting prospect.

This year is a further exploration for the project of working in different mediums and I've launched a new scheme that invites young artists to take the lead and make work that responds to travel, to suitcases, to the olympics of which we are funded, in a variety of art forms.  I have sent them away to think about what they would like to do and to submit an application for a project.  This project will join 6 other recently funded projects and go on tour later this year.  In additon to their projects they have the opportunity to bring in an artist mentor of their choice and receive additional training in book making and project management.  It's going to be an exciting year for all of us I think.

At the same time, I'm currently working on a commission for 750 sculptures for a US hotel and perhaps a commission in India for a library, that's pretty exciting.  I hope I get to go.  But more excitingly (is that a word?) I'm making work for two simultaneous exhibitions coming up in March.  One is at Globe Gallery - a group show with two other fantastic paper based artists and the next is at Dovetail; a wonderful space which has in the past been curated by Allenheads Contemporary Arts.  The two exhibitions managed and curated by Globe will link the two exhibitions and present new works on paper.  The Dovetail space is all to myself, so much to think about, quite daunting and a lot of work to make for it.  I've buried myself in the library at northumbria researching like crazy.  I forget how much fun reading is.  

Later today I've got the biggest drawing table in the world arriving - 2.4m x 1.2m.  I plan on using this to make very large pieces of paper work.  I'm used to working with small sculptures in multiples which end up large scale so even though the end result is of a similar scale, it's a new way of working.

I'll be making the work both in my studio in Byker and within the workshops at Northumbria.  I cannot wait to begin printing!