Artist Printmaker Catherine Cartwright

Dreadnought SW - Waymarker project for “Oxygen”, a...

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:53:15 -0400

fingerknitting in action

Nicci begins stitching on the first lengths of fingerknitting

our hands on the map around the embroidery hoop used for stitching on the finger knitting

circles of fingerknitted lengths - they looked like oxygen-rich blood cells

Dreadnought SW - Waymarker project for “Oxygen”, a new play by Natalie McGrath to celebrate the centenary of the The Great 1913 Suffrage Pilgrimage.

Our journey has begun. That is, the creation of the giant map showing the south west route taken by the women on the The Great 1913 Suffrage Pilgrimage from Lands End to Hyde Park. “Oxygen” will take a similar touring route 100 years to the day. The route is defined by the fingerknitted knots stitched onto the map. Each knot representing a step of the estimated 100,000 taken on the pilgrimage.

The map itself is scrim, and scrim is the traditional wiping fabric of the printmaker. As a printmaker I know that its open weave is for a consistent wiping of an intaglio plate. The scrim is important for this map because its open weave means that each venue or location is integral within the scenography, and its starchy stiffness ensures the map remains ‘map-like’.

More important than all of this symbolism are the women who are finger knitting the route. Artist Nicci Wonnacott and I are are leading waymarker projects with marginalised women affected by domestic abuse. We began in Exeter, with SAFE (Stop Abuse for Everyone) and we will be in Cornwall with WRASAC (Women’s Rape & Sexual Abuse Centre) and to Bath SEEDs (Survivors Empowering and Education Domestic Abuse Services). Integral to the story of “Oxygen” is raising questions about the Great Pilgrimage’s contemporary relevance. The Great Pilgrimage of 1913 was conceived as a mass mobilisation to urge Prime Minister Asquith to hear the Suffragists concerns, the reasons why women should have the vote and a voice. It worked and the rally in Hyde Park 26th July 1913 resulted in a deputation to Prime Minister Asquith.

The Waymarker projects are an opportunity to question whether women’s lives have changed for the better or worse since 1913, and to raise awareness of how powerful womens’ voices and action can be.

Exciting News this week is that Beau Beausoleil, founder of the...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 14:45:51 -0400

Exciting News this week is that Beau Beausoleil, founder of the Al Mutanabbi Street Coalition is coming to Exeter - more details to follow.

The Al Mutanabbi Street Book Arts exhibition has reached the San Francisco Center for the Book. Happy to see ‘The Pile of Bricks’ in its fallen format included.

This short film is by Josh Gaunt. I really like it. It...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 16:49:13 -0400

This short film is by Josh Gaunt. I really like it. It beautifully shows the benefits of Double Elephant’s Print on Prescription programme (for which last year Double Elephant won Arts & Health South West main award for good practice).

Happily we (Double Elephant) have just received funds from the Heritage Lottery Fund to do a project exploring the “People of Northernhay Gardens” a Victorian heritage project which will involve the participants of Print on Prescription. Funding for Print on Prescription is not stable and these projects enable us to maintain vital relationships with vulnerable people for whom printmaking offers a lifeline.

This wonderful project is a shining example of how artists and...

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:01:50 -0400

This wonderful project is a shining example of how artists and the youngest children and their families can work so well together. Devon’s lucky to have Kath Ford and her Carousel Project.

It was a real highlight of 2012 to work with 2,3 & 4 year olds on creative cross art form sessions and collaborating with other artists in visual art, dance and animation has been very inspiring for me as an artist.

Dreadnought South West http://dreadnoughtsouthwest.org.uk/ are...

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 08:01:19 -0400

Dreadnought South West http://dreadnoughtsouthwest.org.uk/ are touring the play OXYGEN written by the talented Natalie McGrath.

Myself and Nicci Wonnacott are the lead artists for a Waymarker project that’ll see us working across three south west counties with women in marginalised circumstances. We are creating together a giant map of the The 1913 Great Pilgrimage route to form an integral part of the scenography for this touring play. We are using fingerknitting to represent the steps of the journey.. we estimate about 900,000 steps were taken by the women who walked from Lands End to Hyde Park. We plan 900,000 fingerknitted stitches to form the map.

It is a very exciting project to be part of. Keep an eye on it!

International Womens Day 2013 (8th March) in Exeter was great to...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 16:01:56 -0400

International Womens Day 2013 (8th March) in Exeter was great to be a part of. Nicci Wonnacott and I ran an Activists Workshop at Exeter Phoenix and we were joined by women and men making badges, placards as well as joining in with the peaceful action of fingerknitting, to represent the many steps taken on the road of human rights and gender equality. The march in Exeter attracted a great turn out and the banners from our 2009 project Sewing for Peace accompanied the other banners from many other organisations including Fawcett Devon and Devon Rape Crisis. The event at Exeter Corn Exchange organised by Devon United Women was brilliant - really friendly, amazing international food, and beautiful music and singing.

I had the pleasure of running a Book Forms and Stamps workshop...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 10:00:54 -0400

I had the pleasure of running a Book Forms and Stamps workshop in March for the John Rylands Library, Manchester - linking to the Al Mutanabbi Street Starts Here exhibition of artist books. Here’s some of the books they made in the 2 hour workshop - the hidden book form and a simple accordian, filled with images created through making rubber and foam stamps, and text from a range of wooden letter type. It was a privilege to be able to talk about the Al Mutanabbi Street Starts Here project.

Making an animation in a day can be a challenge - back in...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 08:01:15 -0400

Making an animation in a day can be a challenge - back in February Josh Gaunt and I staged ‘Meet the Animators’ at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery in Honiton, and relished the opportunity to create an animation in a day. We created a diptych called ‘Playing with my Shadow’ seen here https://vimeo.com/60268744

These images are the negatives from some of the 50 or so monotype drawings that made the running boys sequence. Both screens were made up of both a drypoint plate to form the static environment which was partnered with a moving monoprint or monotype sequence. Josh is a great collaborator, see more of his work at https://vimeo.com/syndromepictures/videos

Al Mutanabbi Street Starts Here - an exhibition of artists books...

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 15:56:11 -0400

Al Mutanabbi Street Starts Here - an exhibition of artists books at The John Rylands Library, Manchester - made by artists around the world responding to the bombing of the booksellers quarter in Baghdad in March 2007. Its on until July. Its a project I’m proud to be a part of. It is touring to many venues including the The Center for Book Arts, New York City and The Cambridge Arts Council, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

I can highly recommend the Al Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Anthology, and today we received news that it has been selected for the Northern California Book Award’s NCBR Recoginiton Award. Available from http://www.pmpress.org/content/article.php/BeauBeausoleil

Bostons Tea Party, a cafe in Exeter, has a great hall-sized...

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 05:30:20 -0500

Catherine Cartwright: Ai Wei Wei Studio, Shanghai

Catherine Cartwright: Shabandar Cafe, Baghdad

Anna Sabin: Tiger's Misery, Crow's Remorse

Bostons Tea Party, a cafe in Exeter, has a great hall-sized space upstairs. Myself and Anna Sabin have an exhibition there for the next month, showing new work from us both.

Good excuse for a cuppa and a sit down I’d say.

deprintworkshop: Double Elephant welcomed the first artists...

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 05:16:13 -0500

deprintworkshop:

Double Elephant welcomed the first artists onto our Contemporary Artists Bursary programme. Lasting 6 weeks, the selected four artists have the opportunity to explore how printmaking can make a difference to their practise.

Our first session, led by tutors and artists Catherine Cartwright and Emma Molony, including warming up with collaborative monoprinting, and contrasting this with miniature drypoints. From next week the artists will begin to focus on their own projects.

The participating artists are Janet Sainsbury, Carol Harvey, Tamsin Pender and Nancy Clemance.

We’re excited to see how they challenge printmaking and how printmaking challenges them.

Al Mutanabbi Street project

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 16:24:00 -0500

Al Mutanabbi Street project:

proud to be a part of this project - see latest article at The Economist

Extreme Printmaking… I have been tutoring together with...

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 16:59:31 -0500

Extreme Printmaking… I have been tutoring together with Simon Ripley this weekend. The idea is for the participants to push their printmaking big and complex! With a ratio of 2:6 the participants can get a fair amount of attention.

We had screenprinting, large scale multi-plate monoprints and collagraphs… all going on.

Phew!

Last few hours to go! Help 260 artists from 24 countries exhibit...

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 17:08:10 -0500

Last few hours to go!

Help 260 artists from 24 countries exhibit their work as a response to the bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic literary nexus of Baghdad

http://www.indiegogo.com/almutanabbistreet/x/1849781

neoreplicants at phoenix gallery 16 nov - 19 jan 30 SW...

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 16:37:36 -0400

neoreplicants at phoenix gallery

16 nov - 19 jan

30 SW artists explore 3D printing

deprintworkshop: On Monday went to… EXMOOR NATIONAL...

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 16:35:11 -0400

deprintworkshop:

On Monday went to…

EXMOOR NATIONAL PARK

“You forget how big the world is until you come somewhere like this” - Print on Prescription participant

The Exmoor National Park Partnership Fund enabled us to take participants from our Print on Prescription programme out to Exmoor, to inspire new printmaking. The wind was icy but the views from Haddon Hill over Wimbleball Lake, out across to Dartmoor, to the Sidmouth gap, were breathtaking. We watched the weather coming across the patchwork fields, and wooded valleys; a panorama of spectacular cloud formations, shafts of light upon a rusty-coloured moorland.

Away from the wind, we prepared plates (perspex for drypoint, lino for relief), made inky drawings which back at Double Elephant will be worked on to create finished artwork.

“I’ve had a brilliant day, I’m so pleased that I came, I feel really lucky and I really appreciate it, thank you”

Printing Collagraphs onto Fabric Monday I was at a secondary...

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 07:19:51 -0400

Printing Collagraphs onto Fabric

Monday I was at a secondary school, Crispins, working with 15 textiles students printing onto fabric using collagraphs that they’d made. We had a fab day exploring how collagraphs print onto fabric. The students were great and Toni Watkins and the school made me and my printmaker colleague (Suzanne Ross) very welcome.

Collagraphs are printing plates made from a range of textures including card, wallpaper, sand, stuck down with pva glue or paint. Double Elephant have a great demo video on collagraphs by Lynn Bailey http://vimeo.com/50941703

“You can’t have a picnic in the rain” When...

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 13:22:40 -0400

“You can’t have a picnic in the rain”

When your life is in danger and you are living in fear from domestic violence ‘you can’t have a picnic in the rain’ - meaning - there’s no space for creativity, for enjoying the sweetness of life, for making art.

SAFE (Stop Abuse for Everyone) http://www.safe-services.org.uk/ and SEEDS (a group for women post-DV) have come together to organise a creative writing and arts group. With Double Elephant Outreach I had the privilege of working with a small group of women to make monoprints responding to poetry about the effects of domestic violence, and the participants’ own experiences.

It was an inspiring couple of hours, with tentative beginnings but once they were on their way, passionate and hugely creative outcomes. The monoprints are moving and inspiring. Take a closer look!

The Freefall youth arts group, based at Exeter Phoenix, are...

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:51:01 -0400

The Freefall youth arts group, based at Exeter Phoenix, are doing a project on the Myths and Legends of Exeter. Last Thursday they came to do some printing with me and Suzanne, another Double Elephant outreach tutor.

Two hours is a short time in printmaking, so we got stuck into making monoprints on long pieces of Snowdon cartridge, which will be curled around to make hanging cylindrical prints.

They are having an exhibition in an empty in Exeter, and alongside the printmaking there will be animation and paintings.

Always love the chance to do something a little bit different.

Video

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:04:02 -0400