Meet The Maker – Sue Bulmer

Sue Bulmer – Designer

Sue grew up on a farm in the North East of England and this is where she developed her interest in art from an early age. In 1990 she went to the University of Nottingham to study Pharmacy, and spent the next 15 years involved in the sciences but her passion for the arts never went away.

Sue’s stand at BCTF April 2012

Finally in 2005 Sue came back to her artistic roots when she enrolled on a Foundation course in Art and Design. This gave her the opportunity to enhance her artistic skills and techniques and develop her creative practice. Since then Sue has been mostly self-taught and has explored a variety of media, such as watercolour, textiles and stitch, print, drawing and mixed media. She is constantly learning and feels that as an artist you should never stand still for too long, life is too short and there are too many ideas to explore.

Folded tea towels

Sue loves nature, and is constantly stimulated and inspired by the landscape and the natural world, the changing colours and textures of the seasons. Being outdoors in the open spaces of the countryside or in her cottage garden motivates her with her art. In contrast she is also inspired by home life, and, living in a 200 year old cottage filled with plenty of vintage finds, she finds a wealth of material to spark her creativity within her four walls.

Home Tweet Home tea towel design

Sue loves the comfort and sentimentality of home and family, and being somewhere you feel settled and at peace and thinks this is reflected in her work. She loves nothing more than curling up on the sofa, in front of a roaring fire, with a piece of cake, cup of tea and a good book. She also loves her kitchen, and finds it an inspirational place to be, old pots and pans, coffee and tea pots, herbs and spices and a rack of old cook books, perfect for new ideas.

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough tea towel design

Friends Forever tea towel design

We currently have Sue’s fabulous tea towels in stock and Sue will be expanding her range with us in the Summer of 2013 as part of our Wedding Exhibition ‘I DO’.

Meet The Maker – Sarita Jepps

Sarita Jepps – Textile Artist

Sarita hand dyes and hand paints silk fabrics often inspired by nature. These fabrics form the basis for original repeat patterns that are digitally printed onto silk chiffon and satin. 

Silk eye mask

Silk eye mask

This collection is a glance back to fond memories of growing up in a small seaside town with candy colours, delicate floral petals and butterfly wings representing the emergence of Springtime…which is why she has called in the Reminiscence collection.

Silk scarf

Silk scarf

Her soft eye-masks are sheer luxury and her little pouches are filled with dried lavender. With the smell of the lavender in your home you can close your eyes and pretend you’re in the Provence for a little winter escape!

Silk lavender filled pouch

Silk lavender filled pouch

The gallery smells divine at the moment with all the lovely lavender floating round so it’s a big thank you to Sarita for her lovely work.

 

Hebden Spirit Creative Auction

I have apologies to make as I been a little bit quiet lately; both on this blog and on a social front with friends and family! The reason was the enormous amount of work that went into this event which took place last Friday at the Hebden Bridge Town Hall.

Hebden Spirit Creative Auction

However, the hard work of myself and the great team I worked with paid off on Friday night when £6491 was raised! This amount was above and beyond what we all expected, especially considering the initial idea came from one of my ceramicists on twitter … little did we know that Helen Russell’s seed would grow so big and so wide and attract the generosity of so many creatives and collectors. 

Helen Russell

The night of the floods Helen watched with horror as many of her favourite haunts in Hebden were damaged and friend’s lives affected. She doesn’t live in the town but both personally and professionally it is a home from home and it quickly became obvious that many others around the UK felt the same. In a moment of frustration at not being able to help she suggested on Twitter that a creative fundraising auction might send a message of support to those affected. An hour later saw a list of 20 artists wanting to donate and Hebden Spirit was born.

The Creative Auction catalogue painstakingly put together by Alison Bartram and Richard Aked and kindly printed for Hebden Spirit by Lamberts

As the owner of Heart Gallery, a business that was hit by the floods with the building damaged and stock ruined, I understood the impact of  what this devastating act of nature would do not only to my business I had worked hard to build for 6 years but to Hebden Bridge itself.

Alison in Heart Gallery

All businesses in Hebden Bridge would be affected by the floods, even if they hadn’t been affected physically by the flood waters. Negative reporting by the press meant that members of the public were given the impression that we were down and out, closed and boarded up! We needed to tell them we most certainly weren’t closed but OPEN FOR BUSINESS and ready for them to come back and visit our beautiful town. I got involved in the auction as I could see it was such a positive event for the town and it focused on supporting the community.

Amy Leader, Business Development Officer at The Town Hall where the auction took place on Friday night, has seen that the floods in Hebden Bridge have encouraged businesses and individuals in our town to collaborate more than ever with really exciting results. The fact that the auction raised so much money is positive for the town in so many ways; as a show of support, and also to fund projects that remind people why Hebden Bridge is so unique.

OPEN FOR BUSINESS

The auction attracted a total of 103 lots, donated from artists all over the UK, but with a strong emphasis on talent from Hebden Bridge itself. Many kind donations of jewellery and craft turned up at Heart Gallery from my makers; past, present and future and others were handed in at the Town Hall by local artists based in studios in Hebden Bridge or working from home. The Post Office also had to cope with numerous packages of various sizes turning up from around the UK and Ireland from creatives who had heard about the fundraising auction taking place. From tigers …

Amur Ambush – Stella Mays

… to textiles …

Textile necklace with detachable corsage - Lindsay Taylor

… ladies …

Woman in dress – Sarah McDade

… to lampshades ….

Lampshades – Karen Revill at revillrevill.com

… from birds …

Julia Ogden – Hebden Houses

… to bowls …

Jenny Tidman – felt bowls

… silver …

Jodie Hook – silver ribbon necklace

…to sexy …

Angela Smyth – A Grand Entrance

… there was something for everyone and boy did everyone turn up on the night and thoroughly enjoy themselves.

Viewing before the auction – photo blu planet photography

Viewing before the auction – photo blu planet photography

Bidding begins – photo bluplanet photography

Bidding starts to get serious – photo bluplanet photography

Our Auctioneer Jason Elliott does a stirling job – photo bluplanet photography

Jason Elliott doing his stuff – photo blu planet photography

I spoke to Jason afterwards and he declared that the Creative Auction had been so successful that it meant we could financially support lots of ideas that have been developed since the floods. We are only able to do that through the generosity of the artists that donated work, the people that turned up to bid on the night and the team of volunteers that put the whole thing together. We are all so proud that our hard work and determination to make this Creative Auction a success for Hebden Bridge was rewarded on the night with £6491 in the bank!

Hebden Bridge is planning a food festival, a poetry trail, and lots of exciting festive events which will be included on a Pop Up Hebden that will travel the north of England, telling people that the town is back open for business and money raised at the auction will help fund many of these projects.

The team that made it all happen. Helen Russell, Hannah Nunn, Amy Leader, Jason Elliott, Alison Bartram, Nina Wadcock and Richard Aked, Alison Bartram – photo blu planet photography. Sadly Sarah Mason missed the photo shoot at the end of the evening.

Thanks go to Helen Russell from Mercury Arts who set the ball in motion and the auction would not have possible without Richard Aked of Artome, Sarah Mason of Sarah Mason Photography, Jason Elliott Director at Hebden Bridge Blues Festival and Amy Leader from The Town Hall working in harmony alongside me in the weeks leading up to September 28th.

Helen Bradley from Metropolis Events, Hannah Nunn from Radiance and Nina Wadcock were also fundamental in getting this show on the road and we all made a cracking team.

Meet The Maker – Naomi Greaves

Naomi Greaves - fine art printmaker

Since graduating from University in 2005 Naomi has continued to develop her work and learn new skills from her studio in rural Staffordshire. It’s important to her that she can utilise the skills she’s been taught but like most artists finds it challenging to pursue that end goal of making a living from what they create, especially when work and life take over. 

BIRDCAGE

For the last couple of years Naomi wanted to take a step back from producing her own work to do something which she’d never done before; she decided to concentrate on running workshops within NHS trusts, which involved working with service users of all ages and abilities to create work for their units as well as exhibitions within their communities. These workshops taught her so much and helped her enormously to develop her own practice.

MEDIUM MOTH

Since completing the workshops Naomi has returned to her studio and is now developing the ideas she shelved a couple of years ago. Naomi has finally started to create a collection of work which encompasses both of her passions – printmaking and collecting. 

POINTING FINGER

The ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ is a new, early collection of prints and other items which are inspired by Anatomy, Botany, Entomology, and Ornithology. Each one is an exploration of imagery and technique.

LARGE BUTTERFLY

Each of the subjects are very much works in progress, and are developing all the time.

SCISSORS

Heart Gallery is proud to have been carefully selected by Naomi to showcase her first collection for two years.

Meet The Maker – Jacqui Sharples

Jacqui Sharples - Graphic Designer

Jacqui works on small antique printing presses to create unique letterpress products. Her small design studio in Lancashire is dedicated to wood letters and tree hugging paper.

Lovers Lane wood type

Jacqui is a freelance graphic designer inspired by a passion for print, the smell of ink, vintage typography and her collection of wood type.

Framed Golden Rules

Using traditional methods of hand setting type and a range of vintage printing presses, including a Victorian treadle, she creates prints to frame for the home and stationery.

Jacqui's vintage presses

 

All her presses are manually operated so the only energy used is an eco friendly light bulb and some muscle power!

Framed Bake More Cake

All the paper and card is tree friendly stock and the ink is recycled from printers who have sadly closed down due to the impact of digital on traditional print methods.

Letters

Lovers Lane print

Jacqui’s work is now gracing the walls of Heart Gallery and we are really proud to be showcasing it in Hebden Bridge – this image below has to be our favourite print!

Framed Red Wine

Meet The Maker – Helen Lang

Helen Lang - Artist and Illustrator

Originally from Devon, Helen now lives and works from a rather lovely SW London studio (from which she can witness squirrel fights in the park) and spends her time developing her decorative lettering styles, combining beautiful colour and clean lines to create a quirky and vibrant style.

LOVE - framed limited edition screenprint - Helen Lang

Her passion for her work is illustrated in everything she designs, creatures and characters burst into life in her colourful and gently humorous designs.

Twit Twoo-er - unframed limited edition print - Helen Lang

Love Song - unframed limited edition print - Helen Lang

 Helen has worked on a number of projects for many high profile organisations and companies in the UK, Europe and beyond including John Lewis, Te Neues and the Tate.

Love - unframed limited edition print - Helen Lang

Her illustrations have also adorned an array of products over her career including t-shirts, porcelain mugs, greeting cards and stationery.

Tree Of Life - unframed limited edition print - Helen Lang

Helen’s beautiful limited edition prints are available from Heart Gallery for a limited period and are perfect gifts which can adorn your home or workplace.

All You Need Is Love - unframed limited edition print - Helen Lang

 

Meet The Maker – Corrina Rothwell

Right, let’s see…. this is a different approach to meet the maker because Corrina is a different kind of maker!!

Corrina Rothwell - Digital Artist and Illustrator

Let’s imagine a frog leaping from lily pad to lily pad.  Each lily pad represents an important stage on Corrina’s creative journey.  Plop, she is born (Rochdale, Lancs.)  (Being born is essential to creativity).  Plop, mum and dad plonk her naked on a roll of wallpaper with a paint brush and a pot of red paint.  She is very small.  Sadly she does not still have that first painting of hers!  Plop….you get the idea now…. she goes to school and draws a Mother’s Day card in felt-tips.  It’s a tree with millions of tiny pink flowers.  Corrina’s teacher sends her round school to show the other teachers and says she’s really gone to town on it.  Corrina draws and paints a lot but she’s not very good.  She does a special painting on a big board, lots of pattern and colour (see unnaturally-posed picture). 

Corrina and her rather large painting

Corrina is maybe 8 when she does this.  Her dad paints over it at some point, probably when he can’t afford any board for his own painting.  In later years he gives her some of his rejected paintings to paint over which makes it ok. At 13 Corrina’s best friend and her make bow-ties and sell them at school because sadly they are in fashion at the time. At 16 she starts A-level art along with French, German and English, but soon drops it thinking that she can do art on her own anytime and she doesn’t need to be taught.  An ardent vegetarian, she designs some MacDonalds Murder Burger t-shirts and sells them at Grass Roots in Manchester.  She also sells one to her history teacher which she’s extremely pleased about!

Mistakenly Corrina ends up doing European Studies with Dutch at Hull University.  She drops out because she hates it and she’s not an academic.  She goes on the Enterprise Allowance Scheme and paints fabric and makes it into cushions.  She also takes an evening class in screen-printing, which she loves, and produces her first greetings cards.

From there Corrina moves to Nottingham and buys herself an old Singer sewing machine. Plop. She trys a bit of freehand embroidery, feels right at home with it, and that’s what she does, mostly happily, for the next 14 years ….. although there was a ‘gosh that’s clever’ aspect to her textile work which made it appealing to people, it certainly lost its appeal to Corrina …plop…plop…plop

'she just couldn't behave herself with cheese' embroidery - Heart Gallery's best seller

Corrina gets really bored of sewing and frustrated with what it can’t do. She has in my mind a way that she wants her images to look and she can’t get them to look that way with the sewing machine. She realises that what is important to her is the image itself, not the way in which it’s created. Corrina thinks that maybe she’s a frustrated print-maker and contemplates going in that direction. However, a) she’s too impatient to learn b) the equipment is too expensive to buy and c) there’s nowhere in Nottingham where she can do it if she can’t do it at home. On a whim – plop – she buys herself a Bamboo Fun graphics tablet, plugs it into her laptop and she’s off! Corrina takes to it like a duck to water (we’re still in that pond) and finds it fun (does what it says on the tin) versatile and full of exciting potential.

Assumed Dead

So there you have it, Corrina is now working on new designs for her greetings cards which Heart Gallery sell and is sitting on her Nottingham lily pad which is going to flower beautifully this year with all the amazing opportunities coming her way.

Don't Mind Me

Corrina has a selection of prints in the clothing store Urban Outfitters in both Manchester and Kensington, which is very exciting – she loves the idea of artwork mingling with everydayness….and of course Urban Outfitters is a very cool shop!

Cross Dresser

As for new artwork, Corrina is in the throes of a pigeon obsession at the moment! 

Unexpected Item

Excited by how much fun it was importing photos of pigeons and giving them things to say, she went out with her camera, took lots of pigeon pics and a new batch of drawings was born.

Bit Of Ham

Corrina has used pigeons in her work before, but things came to a head when she designed the poster for the upcoming Secret Garden Craft Fair in Nottingham on Saturday 25^th June.

Sherwood Art Week

Corrina’s pigeon prints are on sale at the Phoenix Arts Centre in Leicester and will soon be available from her website and other outlets.

Still Don't Fancy U

Corrina is also looking forward to having an illustrated recipe printed in a new cookbook being published in the US in autumn, called They Draw and Cook

Butter

Corrina’s work always amuses Heart Gallery customers and her greetings card range is expanding so keep bobbing in to see more great designs. Her new range Dottie is published by Black Olive.

Apostrophe

Jugs

Fruit Bowl

Meet The Maker – Catherine Green

Catherine Green - Textile Artist

Catherine’s work incorporates print and stitch on beautifully tactile fabrics such as velvet and satin to create vibrant, tactile pieces.  She builds up layers of dye, both printed and painted, before using devoré techniques to remove the fabric surface to reveal the delicate silk beneath, creating an almost three dimensional effect. 

Catherine Green - Wilderness

 

 

 

 

 

Catherine works intuitively from her first point of reference and enjoys allowing the design to change and evolve as the piece progresses through each process.

Catherine Green - Carved Leaves III

Catherine takes her inspiration from the rural and urban areas around her studio in Yorkshire which appear to combine and contrast in perfect harmony; spiky grasses and seed heads set against a backdrop of a geometric cityscape alongside more rural landscapes inspired by the Yorkshire Dales and coastal pieces influenced by the dramatic East Coast. 

Catherine Green - Charcoal Carved Leaves

Each piece is created using strong colour ways which are intended to be striking and uplifting. 

Catherine Green Bright Pears

Catherine Green - Climbing

Catherine has recently had a series of pieces reproduced into greetings cards and giclée prints which are available at Heart Gallery along with framed originals.

Catherine Green - Violet Carved Leaves

Meet The Maker – Alison Read

Alison Read - Printmaker

Alison chose printmaking as her medium as soon as she was allowed in the print room during her time at Newcastle University where she studied for her first degree in Fine Art.  Although Alison chose printmaking as her medium when studying her final show was sculpture and photography. And when she was subsequently chosen to exhibit in the RCA and was commissioned by Lord Rothschild to make a life-size bronze sculpture of five gnashing, running dogs, it looked like her career might have gone down different route.

Hamish

But despite this success she abandoned sculpture and returned to printmaking, running the Printmaking Workshop at Lincoln University for the next 9 years.  At Lincoln, Alison completed her MA degree, learnt a lot about practical printmaking and began exhibiting her own work. This led to her going it alone as a commercial artist printmaker three years ago and this is how she now makes her living.

The Professor

Alison Read is from Lincolnshire and specialises in hand made original prints in a variety of methods including screenprints, etchings, woodcuts, linocuts and aquatinting. The subject matter is quirky, fun and mainly animal humour, but always different. Although Alison loves all forms of printmaking, her current favourite is the woodcut, and she attacks her plates quite brutally at times. She is always surprised at how simple they are; just a few lines to denote the essentials. Alison likes the hands-on nature of producing a plate and its immediacy, she doesn’t keep highly detailed sketchbooks etc as she uses the plate rather than paper to work out ideas.

Scratching Hare

Alison’s upbringing on a farm explains her preoccupation with animals in her work as she had literally spent most of her waking hours outside surrounded by them – cows, cats, dogs and chickens were her constant companions. Alison was the youngest in the family, with an older brother and sister, so the animals were her substitute friends of sorts. It was the best life she could have wished for, but a little unusual, and of course, having this experience led her to know their characters rather well and she has hundreds of stories in her head about them as individuals. For this reason Alison has obviously ‘humanised’ the animal.

The House Inspector

The Stray

Alison always regarded animals as having our traits and she is just taking it one step further. She likes the idea that they are free to think and do as we do, and she likes to make up some sort of visual story.

Lady Hare

Alison loves nothing better than printing by hand then looking at the results of her labour. For her it is so satisfying to see hundreds of prints drying in her studio; it feels very productive. This suits Alison’s work ethic so I guess that’s why she likes it.  When she is not making new plates she is busy editioning the plates already done.

The Hypnotists

Heart Gallery sells Alison’s limited editions as well as her signed cards …. wide-eyed cats with jagged whiskers; playful hares; startled ostriches; busy little dogs with gnashing teeth; patient collies; a Jack Russell in a tutu holding a flower in its mouth ….. just some of the quirky animals in Alison’s current collection.

The Lawnmower

Alison is now a full-time printmaker, exhibiting with the local co-operative gallery in Lincoln and in a number of other venues scattered across the country. She feels that she is just at the beginning of a career path that is full of interest and promise. Many of her fans will agree with her and Heart Gallery is looking forward to Alison’s new work later in 2011 as she has plans to introduce papercuts.

Meet The Maker – Tony Wright

Tony Wright

So, where do I start with this one? Many of you will know Tony Wright not as an artist/maker I now showcase in Heart Gallery quite regularly but as singer in the Bradford band Terrorvision, creativity of a different kind!

Tony on stage

Terrorvision poster

Creatively speaking though Tony has just diversified his talents, and he is still singing too both in Terrorvision, who are back in the studio and touring at the moment, and in LaikaDog. LaikaDog was formed on a high Yorkshire moor top. Tony, Paddy and Sim were building dry stone walls and thought it would be a good idea and a warmer past time to form a band and play the tunes they had been inspired to write.

Heart Gallery sells Tony’s little miniature dry stone walls, just like these ones! After a long day building walls on the moors Tony brings home a little bit of Yorkshire stone and chips away at it to make a mini version of the ‘real thing’!

Miniature dry stone wall, Tony Wright

Tony's little wall, on a wall!

Tony also has a love for photography and Heart Gallery showcased Tony’s collaboration with Stuart Humphrey entitled ‘While You Were Sleeping’ during the summer of 2010. These prints sold well and are still available to order through Heart Gallery.

24hr Garage Tony Wright and Stuart Humphrey

Underworld Tony Wright and Stuart Humphrey

Top Lad Tony Wright and Stuart Humphrey

Tony’s latest love is letterpress and woodcutting! Tony and Stuart are in a mill with no electric but the radio and lamp which they listen to and see by to create various letterpress and woodcut prints. They bought some fab equipment to work with:

Ink, block and press in the mill

The carving gets started on

Starting on the woodcut for the orange carp

Starting on the carving for the Blue Panther

then the blocks are inked ready for the paper which is a repeat process for each colour – Tony has to be really careful to get each colour sitting in the right place but the whole process means that each one is unique.

The blocks are inked ready for each layer of colour to be individually printed

The finished posters are now in Heart Gallery and are a limited edition of 150 of each design, with every one being different to the last one that was printed by hand. These are his tattoo inspired posters now on sale at Heart Gallery:

STRENGTH

COURAGE

FREEDOM

Call in to see Tony’s dry stone walls and posters soon and watch this space too as I am sure there will be something new from Tony soon if he can squeeze it in with all the touring he’ll be doing! Check out the Terrorision dates for 2011 here - might see you in Leeds!