- Journal
Journal
Walking poetry at Art Alive
Paston Church was open again to the public for the Art Alive weekend of May 23-25. InPrint artist Annette Rolston was there all weekend, demonstrating printmaking and showing the handmade book to interested visitors. Meanwhile InPrint poet Lisa D'Onofrio offered poetry walks to the discerning, using part of one of the walks from the newly published book, Exploring Paston Country, by Lucy Care and Jack Earl.
Lisa was also involved with the other InPrint poets in the superb Voicing Visions exhibition put on by the Norwich Twenty Group of artists at St Margaret's Church in St Benedict's, Norwich, from May 11 to 22. The private view was so full that people were queuing outside, and as well as the exhibition itself, the Twenty Group produced a catalogue and CD to professional standard. As well as Lisa, the exhibiton also featured Caroline Gilfillan, Tim Lenton and former InPrint poet Rupert Mallin. They also have poems in the catalogue, and their voices can be heard on the CD.
On the edge
InPrint poet Lisa D'Onofrio considers her options as she researches a poetry walk for Art Alive at Paston.
Out of the Grapevine
InPrint artist Annette Rolston and Martin Laurance took down the Paston Grapevine exhibition on 19 April, with some help from gallery owner Peter Low. InPrint poet Tim Lenton took some of the pictures over to Paston and seized the opportunity to research a couple of Paston walks, which will appear in the forthcoming guidebook being written by Lucy Care.
Next event in the Paston saga: Art Alive at Paston Church over the weekend of May 23-25.
Grapevine evening well attended
The special Wednesday evening Paston event at the Grapevine Gallery in Norwich attracted a very good attendance and received many comments that went way beyond appreciative – but sadly this excellent exhibition has received almost no media publicity. The Gallery is very well suited to the show, and the variety and quality of work on display are first class, as was emphasised by gallery owner Peter Low.
InPrint members were to the forefront again: poet Caroline Gilfillan organised the events and hosted proceedings. Artist Annette Rolston explained the process of putting the hand-made book together, and poets Lisa D'Onofrio and Tim Lenton gave readings, together with Caroline herself and Paston poets Dot Cobley, Kay Riggs and Rupert Mallin. Paston Heritage Society chairperson Lucy Care gave an amusing and enjoyable introduction to the Letters, and Jo Berry sang three songs – one from the 15th century, a more modern folk song about Bromholm and one of Caroline's poems that had been put to music by Tony Triggs. So music has become part of the collaboration between poetry and the visual arts!
The exhibition continues until April 18.
New photographs from Grapevine
A selection of photographs taken by poet Adrian Ward, who also has photographs on show at the Grapevine Gallery.
InPrint poets collaborate with city artists' group
In the midst of all the excitement of the Paston project, all the InPrint poets have also become involved with the Norwich 20 Group of artists, who are organising a collaborative exhibition called Voicing Visions in May.
Our experience in collaborating with InPrint artists has been invaluable – and continues, of course – but it has been a real pleasure to meet and work with people outside the group.
Lisa D'Onofrio is working with bronze sculptor Vanessa Pooley; Caroline Gilfillan with another sculptor, David Chedgey; and Tim Lenton with Sandra Rowney (who has produced paintings of Norwich from a unique perspective) and Ruthli Losh-Atkinson (whose semi-abstract work stems from a visit to the Scandinavian tundra). Former InPrint member Rupert Mallin is also involved, and he is partnered with Linda Chapman: they have collaborated on work centering on Norwich Railway Station.
Voicing Visions, which will involve 80 leading Norwich artists and poets, runs from May 11 to 23. Nearly 100 collaborations will be on display at St Margaret’s Church, St Benedict's Street.
Norwich 20 Group is also publishing a book, featuring photographs of the artists’ work set alongside the poems and a CD of the poems read by the poets. The recorded poetry is also going on MP3 players, to give visitors to the exhibition the option of listening to the poetry as they view the art.
We're all pretty excited about this: the exhibition breaks new ground in many ways and takes the process of collaboration a step further.
Grapevine exceeds expectations
The launch of the new, expanded Paston exhibition at the Grapevine Gallery on Unthank Road, Norwich, today exceeded expectations, with the gallery room well filled for over three hours and huge amounts of praise heaped on exhibitors by all and sundry. This was a reward for the organisers and everyone who took part, but especially for hardworking InPrint artist Annette Rolston, who demonstrated the hand-made book to visitors with assistance from InPrint poet Caroline Gilfillan and artist Martin Laurance. Such was the enthusiasm that for much of the time crowds were gathered round them and the book was invisible to the rest of the room!
Paston Heritage Society chairperson Lucy Care, without whom the whole project would never have happened, was happily well enough to attend with her family and gave a brief introduction to the Paston Letters, just before the poetry reading. All the InPrint poets read: Caroline, who had acted as lead poet for the project, followed by Lisa and former InPrint poet Rupert Mallin, opened proceedings. Then Dot Cobley, Kay Riggs and Adrian Ward, followed by InPrint poet Tim and ending with Rob Knee. All poets were very warmly received by what must have been a crowd of about 50 people.
The exhibition itself featured a large amount of impressive new work, and although the handmade book itself drew most interest and comment, there was also a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for the scope and quality of the work on display. Paston Heritage Society members in medieval garb also drew interest for their calligraphy and paper-making demonstrations. All-in-all, a day to remember.
On the brink at the Grapevine
With the big Grapevine Gallery Paston Exhibition on the verge of opening in Norwich, most of the work fell on the shoulders of InPrint artist Annette Rolston and her neighbour at The Art Factory, artist Martin Laurance, who has been heavily involved in the Paston project from the outset. Poet Adrian Ward also gave valuable assistance. The exhibition features a great deal of new work, both art and poetry.
Watch this space for news and pictures of the private view, and word of a new project involving InPrint poets.
More books sold
Publicity on local radio following the EDP article already mentioned has resulted in the sale of an amazing four more Paston books. Meanwhile Tim has collected the book that was on display in the Millennium Library, and work is in progress for the Grapevine exhibition. Prints and poems not seen before will be on show there.
Firm dates for Grapevine exhibition
More details of the Grapevine Paston exhibition were revealed by Annette at a joint meeting of 15 Paston poets and artists at the Cringleford home of poet / photographer Adrian Ward. We also heard about plans for a big exhibition in summer 2010 at Oxburgh Hall, a National Trust property south-west of Swaffham with strong connections to the Paston family.
The dates of the Grapevine exhibition have now been fixed. It will open with a private view on Sunday, March 29, from noon to 4pm, with poetry readings at 2pm. The exhibition will then run daily until April 18, with an additional evening of special events, including poetry reading, on Tuesday, April 7, from 7pm.
New poems and images from InPrint members and others will be on display at the Grapevine, which is in Unthank Road, Norwich, and is currently housing Coast to Coast, a stunning one-man exhibition by Paston artist Martin Laurance. Well worth a visit!
We heard that four of the hand-made Paston books had been sold out of a limited edition of 15. Valuable publicity was being provided by members of the Paston Heritage Society around North Norfolk, and one of them – Jo Berry – was pictured in the EDP on January 26, with a long piece on the progress of the project.
Lucy Care, chairperson of the Paston Heritage Society, said there were plans for an exhibition in the Griffin Gallery in North Walsham in May, and the possibility of other venues was being explored. She reminded us of places with connections to the Paston family that might inspire more work or give an opportunity for further exhibitions. They include two houses in Norwich – in Elm Hill and King Street – Caister Castle, Baconsthorpe Castle, Felbrigg Hall, and Framlingham Castle in Suffolk.
A brief meeting of Inprint members later the same day agreed that our main thrust for this year was still the Paston project, and we would be looking at ways we could expand this, through workshops aimed at the creation of further poetry and the propagation of the eco-friendly non-toxic intaglio printing process.
On this site
Biographies
- Lisa D'Onofrio
- Bronwen Edwards
- Mike Fenton
- Caroline Gilfillan
- Tim Lenton
- Rupert Mallin
- Joan Murray
- Annette Rolston
Calendar
Tag cloud
- paston (26)
- book (9)
- bally (8)
- paper (8)
- PVM (8)
- broken (7)
- acrylic (7)
- grapevine (7)
- Poetry (6)
- studio (6)
- monoprint (5)
- art (4)
- church (4)
- collaboration (4)
- confidence (4)
- Factory Studios (4)
- Norfolk Open Studios (4)
- rupert (4)
- sea (4)
- Workshop (4)
- canvas (3)
- caroline (3)
- basket (3)
- Collaborative Work With Rupert Mallin (3)
- fire (3)
- lisa (3)
- open studios (3)
- unfolding (3)
- water (3)
- Workshops (3)