Year of the Pig

Took down the Beachtime stories show today. It has been a really good experience and seeing all 100 drawings together was instructive – as fellow artist Joanna Jones commented, all the small drawings together added up to a monumental work. I’d have loved to have kept them together in a way but I just can’t afford not to sell work at the moment.

Doing a series has been interesting too. I haven’t had to think about “subject” and this has allowed me to think more about place and memory. It struck me that I hadn’t done regular visits to the beach between my early childhood and coming to live in Dover (and getting the dog). I have always been a bit ambivalent about place – never really feeling settled anywhere – so this series has allowed me to explore that. One piece of feedback said I’d captured a sense of being on the edge.

It was good also to be able to screen the trilogy of films made with Helen Lindon and Joanna Jones and shot on location in Dover, Folkestone and Samphire Hoe. These were commissioned for SALT, Folkestone’s festival of the sea and the environment and showing them in Margate took them to a new audience and worked well as an extension to the exhibition of drawings.-

Thanks to The Margate School and a special thanks to Jacob.