tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62020219635404448012023-11-15T18:48:11.346+00:00:: Laura Boswell - Printmaker ::Representing Britain as a printmaker in Japan: a two month artist's residencyLaura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.comBlogger55125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-2014574240440627192011-05-02T21:21:00.003+01:002011-05-02T21:30:27.574+01:00Moving OnAfter a lot of planning, discussion and sitting around at the kitchen table with cups of coffee, I have a new website. Along with that I have a new home for my blog. Except it’s now a studio diary as well. Please retune your rss feed and I can resume normal service.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZX8me_SFn0w/Tb8TopsnDoI/AAAAAAAAAFM/Usml0hwrZ10/s1600/homepage.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 216px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZX8me_SFn0w/Tb8TopsnDoI/AAAAAAAAAFM/Usml0hwrZ10/s320/homepage.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5602218050580844162" border="0" /></a>You can find my oh so lovely new website at <a href="http://www.lauraboswell.co.uk/">www.lauraboswell.co.uk</a> or go directly to the new blog at <a href="http://www.lauraboswell.co.uk/studiodiary">www.lauraboswell.co.uk/studiodiary</a>Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-59455591023743880332010-12-06T17:38:00.001+00:002010-12-06T17:40:16.288+00:00PerfumeIt’s a black and white world out there, I know because I’ve just spent the last hour worthily raking up leaves in my monochrome garden in lieu of a slippery run along icy roads. The sensible would have chosen to go out in daylight; I dithered around until half three and started in the gloaming, ending up in decidedly creepy twilight. Leaves are an issue in the back garden thanks to a beech hedge planted, I’m guessing, in 1903. I think it’s a pretty safe bet that two world wars were enough of a distraction for the beech to be allowed to run away with itself and we now have forty two large trees masquerading as the original hedge. <br /><br />It was beautiful: the garden iced white on black, a drift of mist and a filigree of photogenic cobwebs – perfect for one of those arty perfume ads. Since I mainly smell of butane from my studio heater in the run up to Christmas, I am never very happy with the parade of these inevitably black and white adverts containing women who are a) clean b) not dressed for the arctic and c) smell nice (or at least not of butane). <br /><br />Given the senseless nature of the average perfume advert, I have come to the conclusion that there is some sort of random generating machine, working on similar principles to the Enigma code machine, throwing up advert length batches of black and white shots picked by chance. It may be entirely arbitrary as to whether you get Jude Law frowning with a tie or Kira Knightly in a bowler hat or (one for Dali) a speedboat coupled with a backless dress. I like to think of some ad man pulling a small brass lever and then departing for a long lunch, returning in the late afternoon to a floor scattered with loops of film and scooping it any old how into that brilliantly innovative Givenchy Christmas Campaign.<br /><br />The thought that, well, a lot of thought goes into those ads is a bit depressing don’t you think? Though, and during my leaf raking I did give this more thought than it deserved, it’s all just the same as a real Enigma machine: ‘buy me’ goes in at one end and all these mad bits of film come out of the other end to bamboozle us. Not that I’m not bamboozled – let’s face it, a hot bath and a squirt of that stuff a Japanese woman floats across flower meadows for is a great antidote for butane and leaf mould.Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-36826780264172827682010-11-21T10:12:00.000+00:002010-11-21T10:13:35.448+00:00Sound of SilenceIt’s been a while and, while I realise this isn’t quite the same as when I missed my last essay on King Lear, I feel I ought to explain. My excuse has all the brilliant melodrama and exaggeration that I sadly failed to summon in the face of Dr Sullivan’s wrath over my lack of comment on the use of the rhyming couplet in sibling rivalry disputes. You can believe me or not, personally I still don’t believe it.<br /><br />Long story short, one morning a few months ago a man who used to be a family friend turned up at our house with a gun, some ‘devices’ and a scutch hammer and forced his way in. I learnt a few things that morning:<br /><br />• Jumping from a high window is really, and I do mean really, easy if there’s a bloke with a gun on the other side of your bedroom door and it’s just your double bed holding him back.<br />• Time really does stand still: for two days after, everyone else in the world moved at half speed and colours were extraordinarily bright and clear. Briefly, like Sherlock Holmes, I wanted to shout ‘How can you be so s-l-o-w?’ at everyone and then annoyingly my moment of genius was gone and I was returned to my normal state of well, normality.<br />• The police keep change in a tupperware box for nipping round the corner to buy chocolate digestives for the rescued.<br />• Ten snipers in your back garden won’t be good for your herbaceous borders, not if they’re there all day for a siege.<br />• It upsets the neighbours, especially the one who shares a Christian name with the attacker, when the police marksmen get shouty and demanding. <br />• Lastly, if you do break in and then say you have lots of bombs, they make you take off all your clothes when you surrender and then they laugh about it down at the station with the victims.<br /><br />It’s easy to be flip on here: the blog is flip and I like it that way. However, I’ve lost a few months of my life to this and it stopped me writing among other things. Last month it all went to trial and he was found guilty on several counts. We await sentencing. It’s not been much fun, but I’m getting there and I have written something down. Which is more than I can say for that last essay still due from 1982.Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-23231576207614273662010-06-18T10:23:00.002+01:002010-06-18T10:52:29.143+01:00buzz buzz buzzWe have a bee’s nest at the foot of one of our apple trees. Strictly speaking it is a wasp’s nest, but they left at the end of last summer and the bees have since set up home. They came under an entirely fruitless badger attack last week: the badgers left empty handed and we were left with large, deep and perfectly circular tunnel in the lawn. I ran over it with the lawn mower yesterday and froze in horror at the sound of deep buzzing. In my head I imagined the immediate appearance of a solid column of bees, angry as a mob of French peasants hunting down the aristocracy. What actually happened was that about half a dozen bees came out looking slightly cross and bewildered; more like a street’s worth of Highgate Guardian readers on finding they didn’t have advance warning of a mains closure. <br /><br />I was entirely glad not to be massively stung, but I did sort of expect to have more impact. I felt a bit non-consequential as a result and that brings me on to the main thrust of this blog. Someone asked me recently ‘Why do you write a blog? Does anyone read it? Doesn’t it tie you down?’ Heavy questions indeed. Well, I do have readers: my mum-in-law and assorted other enthusiastic family members, the people who come up on Google Analytics (Berkshire Fire and Rescue: I know who you are and thanks for your support), the lads from Wells enamel factory (if they know they are getting a mention) and the very occasional kind person who posts a comment, but that really misses the point.<br /><br />I write this because it’s a fun exercise to write something neat, amusing and short. Posting it means it has an end destination and no, it doesn’t tie me down. My friend saw blogging as a sort of monstrous chore: a necessary piece of public relations, relentless as the maintenance of a dark haired Hollywood starlet contracted to go platinum blonde. I see it as a sort of small indulgence to be enjoyed when I’m in the mood: more of ten minutes in the warm sun with a really good coffee. So it really doesn’t matter if, like the bees, people at large take no notice, I’m enjoying myself...Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-81017518931764434772010-05-30T18:17:00.006+01:002010-05-30T18:35:50.913+01:00NumbersSix seems like a good number to me when I’m printing an edition. Every time I make a lino print, it’s a bit of a gamble: I print using one block of lino and gradually destroy it, cutting it away in order to build the print out of layers of colour. Start with six and, if I’m clever, finish with six. There’s no going back and doing another few copies or idly hitting the button for a fresh batch of giclee printouts. It’s about as close as I get to living dangerously...<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_A5FAerwBgOE/TAKgFinr-TI/AAAAAAAAAD8/_2fOtgKr7Fo/s1600/Checking_alignment.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_A5FAerwBgOE/TAKgFinr-TI/AAAAAAAAAD8/_2fOtgKr7Fo/s320/Checking_alignment.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477116113888999730" border="0" /></a>However I have just finished a huge, really huge, edition. One hundred and twenty one lovely late summer sunsets thanks to my sort-of-relation Phil and his generosity in letting me into his printworks at Hand and Eye (<a href="http://www.handandeye.co.uk/">www.handandeye.co.uk</a>).<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_A5FAerwBgOE/TAKgF5SejKI/AAAAAAAAAEE/uls57NnLIjs/s1600/colour_mixing.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_A5FAerwBgOE/TAKgF5SejKI/AAAAAAAAAEE/uls57NnLIjs/s320/colour_mixing.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477116119974055074" border="0" /></a>To print on this scale I had to produce a set of blocks, piecing the image together like a lino jigsaw rather than using the one block. Precision isn’t my middle name and I suspect it’s actually Phil’s first name. It’s a good job neither he nor his team saw my dreadful inexperience at multi block work; the cold sweats and the idiotic mistakes (including a beautifully prepared upside down field) that went into preparing the seven cut blocks that make up the final picture.<br />The print is still an original linocut print and every print is unique – unique because I painted every one of the 121 sunsets by hand during printing.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_A5FAerwBgOE/TAKgGctRGsI/AAAAAAAAAEU/MzS4kWaLgJg/s1600/Painting_with_rollers.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_A5FAerwBgOE/TAKgGctRGsI/AAAAAAAAAEU/MzS4kWaLgJg/s320/Painting_with_rollers.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477116129481661122" border="0" /></a>But before this sounds too much of a personal success story, I should confess to having access to Rosa.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_A5FAerwBgOE/TAKgGjCNJoI/AAAAAAAAAEc/5xESMBMeBBw/s1600/Rosa_Printing.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_A5FAerwBgOE/TAKgGjCNJoI/AAAAAAAAAEc/5xESMBMeBBw/s320/Rosa_Printing.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477116131180095106" border="0" /></a>As secret weapons go, Rosa is pretty impressive, a former restorer of Italian frescos and a fine printer, she mixed my inks and matched colours brilliantly to my somewhat hopeless descriptions: ‘sort of a non-colour: greenish grey – you know, with a bit of red in it probably’ which is hardly a pantone recipe. She also operated the proofing press and helped me print, ha, actually I helped her print and learned a great deal in the process. The finished result costs £70 unframed and you can buy one from me via <a href="http://www.lauraboswell.co.uk/HandE.html">this link</a> or from Phil at Hand and Eye.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_A5FAerwBgOE/TAKgGAiNMxI/AAAAAAAAAEM/n5kHnBuHrKY/s1600/H_and_E_Print.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 226px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_A5FAerwBgOE/TAKgGAiNMxI/AAAAAAAAAEM/n5kHnBuHrKY/s320/H_and_E_Print.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477116121919075090" border="0" /></a>Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-16538458582137445402010-04-01T16:35:00.001+01:002010-04-01T16:40:21.995+01:00Stage FrightI’m not keen on climbing ladders, positively scared of rollercoasters and nothing on God’s earth would get me pot holing. <br /><br />That’s not a definitive list by the way, just a few examples to show that I’m not one of Nature’s bravest. What I will do however is to venture outside my comfort zone and to that end I have embarked on setting up some studio workshop days to allow people to come in and learn about printing lino.<br /><br />Being an artist is a tough thing to define, but I think part of it is to be uncomfortable. Uncomfortable mentally that is – I definitely need access to a comfortable bed, a bath, oh and Radio Four, the odd glass of wine and a hot dinner. Normally I teeter on the edge by signing up for enormous public art projects with woefully little idea of how to complete them, embarking halfway round the world to condense a seven year apprenticeship into eight weeks and by finding ways of making my everyday printing near technically impossible. This time I’ve been agitated about stuff like where people will park, what they’d like for lunch and how to give them access to the loo and not my jewellery box*.<br /><br />Finally I realised that I was dithering. It’s madness: I love teaching people about printing, I have the studio space (thanks mainly to my husband and brother-in-law, though I like to think my barrowing of the best part of three tonnes of concrete helped) and people are kind enough to be asking. So I’ll be sending out the booking forms soon and you’ll be able to come and haul on the Albions for yourselves if you wish...<br /><br />*actually not worth the bother for the serious burglar consisting as it does of what my mum would call ‘schmuck’ – stuff I like, but an insult to any professional fence.Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-57309618901042126692010-03-11T15:58:00.002+00:002010-03-11T16:00:21.358+00:00MissingIf the world is divided into those who keep and those who throw away, I am standing, bin bags in hand, at the fanatical end of the throwing away section. I’m not sure when it happened: as a teenager I clearly remember sleeping in a bed which rocked, balanced as it was on a slag heap of under-the-bed detritus, my mother in despair and my cupboards bulging in dangerous and delicate balance. Somewhere along the line there must have been an epiphany since now I’m never happier than after a good clear out – that rush of endorphins that accompanies the appearance of an empty space, however temporary, in this house of male hunter gatherers.<br /><br />Today it caught up with me big time: a deadly combination of technological ignorance and literal thinking. While I don’t have an iphone, I do have a mobile that will talk to my email (after a delay suggesting a collection of switchboard operators distracted by an unexpected box of chocolates). This morning I decided to clear my phone, getting rid of all the untidy messages in the inbox that I’d downloaded over the past few days while I was travelling, confident that they were now safe on my computer. You must all know where this is going: no, they weren’t safe and yes, they are all permanently gone. I’m left wondering how this could possibly be: imagine if I slung out all the redundant paperbacks in the spare room and came downstairs to find my cookery books gone too...<br /><br />My husband has been very kind; instead of a well justified victory song and dance avenging his many beloved items I’ve disappeared over the years, he did his best to recover the mails. No joy. If you are one of the victims then I apologise. I’d like to say I won’t do it again, but actually, that empty inbox does look much neater...Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-42026152479445136372010-02-23T10:26:00.001+00:002010-02-23T10:29:08.735+00:00Good HousekeepingThe problem, I feel, with the short bout of food poisoning I had recently was that, after a couple of hours lying on the bathroom floor wishing for death, I was forced to the disagreeable conclusion that not only were the gates of Paradise going to remain firmly closed, but that it was high time to sand down and repaint the room’s skirting boards. <br /><br />One thing we did manage last week was to replace the kitchen floor. It’s not often we get interior decoration wrong, but we’ve had nine years of a pale laminate floor which, since it showed every micro-particle of dirt in glaring detail, would have been a perfect worktop surface in a forensic laboratory (no more government enquiries into lost evidence, however small), but was a disaster for a working kitchen. Now we have cork – swirling chunks of the stuff in cross section a bit like marble, but marginally less expensive. It looks beautiful and is brilliant at concealing dirt; I know this because I only discovered the remains of a dead mouse this morning by treading on it with bare feet.<br /><br />While our kitchen floor was approved by an architect friend and his wife who came round for dinner, my studio heating was condemned. This may have been because I put the fire on and it made their lovely clothes reek. I am resigned to smelling like a construction worker’s site office, but I realise that ‘Bute’ for men is never going to be a stocking filler. I am however quite safe: my brother has insisted I install a carbon monoxide monitor. This shows a touching concern for his little sister’s safety which I’m pleased to say he never exhibited when I was small and he was my twelve years bigger, marvellous, dangerous and tyrannical babysitter.Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-43864953306869855732010-02-08T19:19:00.003+00:002010-02-08T19:38:09.745+00:00TrainspottingI’ve always liked the London Underground. I cut my teeth on the Metropolitan Line at seven, taking a couple of stops to school and back. By nine I was making the trip to see my dad who lived in Kensington High Street: a neat change at Baker Street and a loop of the Circle Line. By eleven the system was my oyster (though those were the days of singles, returns and seasons only) and I was loose to roam. These days, thanks to my enamels project, I count among my friends the people who cut, spray, print and fire all the London Underground enamel signage which adds a sort of warm and fuzzy feeling to my travels.*<br /><br />Today I needed all the warm and fuzzy I could get once I left the shelter of the tube: a bleak howling day of sleet and pinched faces. I visited my print supply shop which is a gem. When I started out I found the assistants horribly intimidating with their total lack of eye contact and empathy. Now I know what I am doing, I find their obsessive expertise enormously helpful. I spent a long time with a man who was possibly even more interested in the mulberry fibre content of Japanese paper than me and knew to the drop exactly how much cobalt drier to use for each ink colour.<br /> <br />Travelling back I had to balance two heavy bags, a large and awkward roll of lino and a fiendishly expensive, long and delicate roll of Japanese paper. Like every over-burdened woman extra in every British film ever made about trains, I decided that I needed tea. Unfortunately, on reaching Marylebone, I was unable to do the sensible thing and find a seat, stymie the romantic end of a love affair and exchange some banter with Stanley Holloway. Instead I juggled a boiling pint of earl grey along with everything else up the platform and onto the down train home.<br /><br />As a footnote, I have finished my experimental woodblock and lino mixed print that I mentioned in my last couple of blogs. You can see it and access the rest of my website <a href="http://www.lauraboswell.co.uk/landscape52.html"><span style="font-weight:bold;">here<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span></a> <br /><br />*Sadly I do sometimes find myself patting enamel signs in a slightly mad sort of way and saying things like ‘I bet that’s one of Ian’s’.Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-45012412166470715112010-01-12T12:49:00.002+00:002010-01-12T12:57:22.283+00:00ExposureSometimes I despair: I have been printing now for five years give or take. Five years of cleaning down my rollers, palette knives and the sheets of glass for mixing inks. Five years of sloshing white spirit from five litre cartons and mopping it up with paper. Yesterday it finally occurred to me to put some of the white spirit in a spray bottle and, taa daa, cleaning up became a miracle of economy, accuracy and efficiency. <br /><br />The print I mentioned last time has reached the stage where all the action is down at the bottom of the image. I’m on oil based lino now so using the press. It’s important to have a fair amount of pressure so I packed the press with additional paper and was heaving the handle across with my feet braced on its feet (imagine Mammy lacing Scarlett into her corset Gone With The Wind style). The print quality was still very patchy. In desperation I went to get my husband (now he works from home he is open to such abuses) to give it some more welly. Instead he considered the print for a moment, fished a small scrap of lino from the bin and positioned it at the top end of the block. Instant printing success: his small adjustment stopped the block from rocking away from the plate. His brains triumphing over my brawn.<br /><br />It could be that the cold has addled my brain. My dad, supplier of the dehumidifier, also supplied the genes for a total inability to generate my own warmth. I get up, think of a sensible number of clothes to wear, double it and still I cool through the day like a human storage heater, needing to be reheated in the bath by evening. It’s tiring and it’s not great for my image. Van Gogh had the romance of candles stuck to his hat while he painted the wheeling stars in the French night sky. Turner, I bet, looked heroic in a sou'wester while lashed to the mast and sketching his storms at sea. I, on the other hand, resemble the sensible pensioner in the Government information films about winter cold; the one who’s wearing those oh so practical layers, fleecy slippers and a warm knee blanket. I too have the warming mug of tea and the hot water bottle. I’m even wearing the cat...Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-59002360380727579532010-01-07T16:24:00.001+00:002010-01-07T16:26:17.006+00:00A little rusty...While the rest of Britain may be missing work days through snow, I have found that my studio is easily warmer than my home and my productivity is rocketing. It has insulation and double glazing; our house does not. Indeed our house, in the best turn of the century tradition, demands roaring fires in every room and the generous consumption of fossil fuels. Sadly its ambitions are all now bricked up bar one and the only echoes of Edwardian largess remaining are the five chilblains I’m currently nursing. <br /><br />In Japan I learnt to cut linden plywood. The masters cut wild cherry which is not only frighteningly expensive, but very hard and it lacks the neat guideline of reaching a new layer of wood to tell me that I’ve cut deeply enough. Here I raided my husband’s carpentry supplies and ended up with builder’s birch ply. In a fit of optimism I decided on a starter piece that a) was at least twice as big as anything I’d tried before, b) combined water based woodblock with oil based lino cut (another first for me) and c) used up paper I already had irrespective of its suitability. I think the cheapness of the birch ply had a lot to do with my insouciance. So far it’s going ok: the birch splinters like hell and the paper wasn’t perfect, but a Japanese landscape is emerging and I will keep you posted.<br /><br />The only glitch in the studio is humidity: the butane heater throws out moisture and my huge chilly iron press is the perfect condenser. Fortunately my dad bought me a dehumidifier for Christmas. I’d like to say this was an act of genius on his part, but actually the cheque came with a note to ‘treat yourself to something pretty’: I just added ‘fantastic to save your work and your press’ to the end of his message. I’m hoping that I can polish the superficial rust off the Albion before the Open Studios and embarrassing questions start.Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-67328756196559636042009-12-07T16:56:00.001+00:002009-12-07T16:58:23.377+00:00Pipes and QuietI’m not very big on shopping which is an unfortunate character flaw for anyone visiting Tokyo. Shopping there is a serious business: department stores have their own stations on the underground while Japan Railways own department stores in return; full size roller coasters twist through the high rise malls, illuminations flash, people throng and the noise is beyond imagining. Throw in a couple of replicants and you get the picture. Raised in central London, I suddenly found I was a village child in the big city for the first time.<br /><br />I blame the subsequent feelings of confusion and deep longing for some quiet for my hiding in the Tobacco and Salt museum in Shibuya district. I’m even less of a fan of cigarettes than I am of retail therapy having spent years in the dense fug of my stepfather’s sixty-a-day habit, but this is a surprisingly charming museum. Miraculously it has a fabulous collection of Edo period woodblock prints along with a worrying encyclopaedic collection of fag packets. <br /><br />The museum also revealed* that the washi paper I’ve been using and the same sort that I watched being made at the paper mill is largely responsible for Japan’s excellent record for preserving documents. Washi is phenomenally strong when wet: when fire threatened, documents were thrown into the nearest water to be rescued later. The damp paper printing technique (the cause of so much angst on my part) means the pigment dyes the paper rather than sitting on the surface and so remains legible after the dunking, the paperwork restored perfect nick when dried. Neat eh? And just as well with all those smokers around…<br /><br />* bizarrely this was the only information available in English so I was unhampered by any serious consideration of the history of Japan’s tobacco production (last visited while in Mrs Smith’s upper fifth geography class.)Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-45616122376412086032009-11-12T03:44:00.001+00:002009-11-12T03:47:03.721+00:00Coats of many coloursI’ve got into the habit of watching a soap opera while I eat my lunch. It is in unfathomable Japanese, but I have a strong suspicion that it is sponsored by a fashion house. Every episode features the same pretty heroine who stands outside in a wide variety of elegant winter coats having angst ridden conversations with other women in other coats. I invent dialogue from the Archers and it works just fine (one of my finest achievements while here has been to convert American Betsy into an avid Archers fan thanks to BBC iPlayer).<br /><br /> I have also come to the end of my first set of editions. The terms of my contract were to supply three copies of three prints to the institute. Producing the woodcuts was hard, but nothing prepared me for the horrible gamble of printing: the potential for mistakes is huge and the further down the line I got with each print so the investment of time and effort started to stack against the knowledge that one small slip would write off a print. My last print required twenty three separate passes (a pass being to ink and print the block) which, multiplied by the fifteen prints I started with, adds up to an awful lot of room for error. By the end of yesterday I was twenty passes in, had nine good prints and a rotten bad back and head. This morning I finished: eight good prints and a handful of painkillers. <br /><br />Now I am preparing to go again, this time editioning on hand made kozo and washi papers from the lovely paper mill we visited. It ups the anti considerably to know I’m now working with precious paper and I’m beginning to feel I left my comfort zone back in the UK by mistake.<br /><br />You can see my work in progress at www.lauraboswell.co.uk/Japan_thumbs1.htmlLaura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-59504590760034675782009-11-06T07:50:00.001+00:002009-11-06T08:26:18.809+00:00Size MattersI apologise for the gap in my blogs, but it’s not all been biscuits and sake here. We have now long finished with the teaching part of the residency and are working on our personal prints. This morning I started to prepare the final fancy paper for printing by sizing it with rabbit skin glue and alum which, especially before breakfast, smells just as nasty as its name suggests. I’m wondering if I can get glue like that in the UK or if I’ll have to put my butchering skills back into practise and skin a few of the rabbits the cat brings in? There has been so very much to learn and so many things that can go wrong, starting with the size and ending with a Prussian blue thumb print in the wrong place (today’s misery).<br /><br />The more I do and the more I learn, the further I see I have to go and most of it is a matter of experiment and experience. There is a phrase common to all the sensei who’ve taught us which is ‘It is your choice’ which is just about as helpful as Alec Guinness saying ‘Feel the force’. Both I think translate into ‘You’ll learn’ and I should shut up before they make me do it blindfold like poor Luke Skywalker…<br /><br />Yesterday we were taken to a small factory where natural papers are hand made, largely using local bark fibres. Better than the Bolshoi, we watched four experts make the largest sheet of handmade paper available in Japan. Standing at the corners of a frame 5m by 2.5m, they each hurled some dozen buckets of liquid paper fibre in a perfectly choreographed dance; the solution fanning across the frame in rippling washes which, when drained, formed a perfectly uniform sheet. Later this was polished smooth with immense dedication and a single camellia leaf.<br /><br />This evening I am going to be interviewed by my fellow artist Philpp. His blog is a shining example of what a residency blog should be and you can read it at www.nippontribeconnection.blogspot.comLaura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-44268385771769615062009-10-15T03:34:00.001+01:002009-10-15T03:35:22.762+01:00MunchiesI’ve just eaten a whole packet of biscuits in two days. This is not like me: I come from a family where biscuits are eaten in twos with tea (the tea is compulsory): to have just one is unacceptably austere, to have three too hedonistic. I’m certainly not given to lying on a bed stuffing two at a time until the packet is gone. Admittedly they were Japanese which meant they were a lot more like little gems (remember those?) than digestives, but it’s still not good. Perhaps, now I live in a world where everything is individually wrapped, then wrapped and wrapped again, it was just that they only had the one plastic bag? Maybe my brain now thinks that one wrapping = individual portion. If that’s the case I’m in big trouble when I do come home.<br /><br />I think the real problem is that I miss my cooking. That sounds horribly egocentric, but, since I am the cook at home, it makes sense. The food here is exquisite in every sense of the word: the fish twitching fresh, vegetables like jewellery, noodles in silken hanks, but the fact is that bread is not Japan’s strong point and it is mine. I want a big hunk of crusty, chewy bread, fresh and warm straight from the oven with a smear of salty fresh butter. I also want it to be richly wholemeal: malted, spelt or rye. <br /><br />This craving for bread attacks periodically, I’m making do with computer access to Radio Four instead. I realise it’s a lateral solution, but somehow its welcome familiarity is almost as soothing. It also has fewer calories and, if I’m going down the biscuit route, that may be something I should think about…Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-44882677919440009942009-10-14T00:29:00.001+01:002009-10-14T12:07:22.482+01:00Fine TuningThree weeks into this residency and I have finally learnt to play the shower. The water pressure is great, but the temperature unpredictable. Such is the size of the bathroom that the sink does for bath and shower with a sort of neat flip over switch for the shower and an extra long tap to hook over the bath. Provided I have a hand out of the shower and play the taps with the sensitivity of Evelyn Glennie on percussion, I can have a really good shower while the bathroom floods like a rice paddy. The first time this happened I was horrified, now I realise it’s fine: it’s why there’s a drain at the back of the unit.<br /><br />It’s good that I’m showing some signs of dexterity in the face of my slow progress with the hangi-to knife. Our current Sensei (one of the last few master carvers able to raise fluid lines the width of a human hair in cherry wood) has been teaching us all week with amused patience. I can see what he wants me to do with the knife, I can see what he can do with his knife, but so far I’m the five year old with a fat wax crayon scrunched in a hot fist (and yes, my tongue does stick out as I work). He gamely lent me his knives and let me cut one of his practice blocks. He’s also showered us with gifts. Such kindness in the face of our inexperience: he tells us his apprentices serve for seven years; we have less than seven weeks…Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-53021489039282790282009-10-11T14:36:00.000+01:002009-10-11T14:38:28.612+01:00DeportmentMy feet and back are currently shot. My feet because I have failed to bring shoes suitable for walking up and down the steep mountain hillside. I carefully bought shoes suitable for taking on and off efficiently at Japanese doorways and they seemed comfortable enough. Sadly I now have a penny (100 yen) sized blister on the back of my heel and a crop of mini blisters between my toes which make me look like I am sickening for something sinister.<br /><br />My back is the result of kneeling at a dinner to welcome me and the other five artists to Nagasawa. It was a great party; we were guests of the local people, mostly farmers, who host this unique and generous residency every year. Housed in a very traditional room with tatami mats and paper walls, it confirmed my every fear about low tables. While perfectly designed for the small and supple Japanese, they are a nightmare when you’re nearly six foot, have a dodgy back and toes that dislocate at every opportunity. Let’s just say that I deserve the Queen’s medal for unobtrusively relocating two errant toes and maintaining an unflinching smile in the face of cramp. Copious quantities of sake and lots of good home cooking helped of course.<br /><br />I spent the best part of today cutting out twenty two tiny circles to represent persimmon fruits for my second ever wood block. It wasn’t a bad way to spend a Sunday and I’m a whole lot better at cutting circles with the hangi-to or cutting knife now than I was this morning. A razor sharp knife, the hangi-to is the primary tool for Japanese woodblock and is held in the fist, thumb on top, and pulled alarmingly towards the stomach. Ok so far, I try not to think about slipping…Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-60973719135634905332009-10-08T12:40:00.000+01:002009-10-08T12:42:18.835+01:00Vital StatisticsSome observations about size (in homage to Sei Shonagon) <br /><br />Large: the insects. Our notes about the course included a warning about ‘virulent’ insects. I thought this meant a lot of mosquitoes (which there are); I didn’t think it meant hand sized house spiders and giant orange hornets (which it did). We are learning to live with Ashidaka gumo, the huntsman spiders living in the house which come out at night to catch cockroaches. I admire anything with a taste for roaches, but at 11cm across they are too big for comfort. Fortunately they are very shy: I shared the kitchen with one in the dark of early yesterday morning and we circled each other with mutual horror. There are also large orb spiders, Betsy (fellow artist from Seattle) and I went out for a walk and saw one, marvelled at its hugeness and then slowly realised, in true horror flick fashion, that every tree, power line and gutter were infested.<br /><br />Also large: Philipp and Ross. To their great credit they were considered too big to learn to print traditional style on their knees so we are all seated at desks for which I will be eternally grateful. <br /><br />Small: almost everything else. I notice it in the supermarket where there are no shopping trolleys, just baskets or, for the large family, two baskets in a frame with wheels. Our kitchen work surfaces are 79cm high which, even when the spiders are absent, makes cooking a challenge and me feel like a troll. Food comes in tiny packages - just as well as mostly shopping is a total mystery and sometimes it’s best not to have too much to eat before changing item. <br /><br />Small (but deep): my bath. It’s lovely, like reclining in a large packing case. I need it at the end of the day. To say this is a steep learning curve would be to understate: gone are the days when I would mess about in my studio and get away with saying ‘but it’s art’ to every process error. It’s achingly clear when water based woodblock goes wrong and I am making every mistake in the book and probably a lot that aren’t.<br /><br />Large: gap between me and a decent print…Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-49543865341141042832009-10-03T03:20:00.001+01:002009-10-03T10:40:28.797+01:00Airplane!The last time I travelled long haul I was thirteen and it was back in the days when the in-flight film was a communal event with a wobbly screen at the front of the plane, no choice and someone’s head inevitably between me and the action. So I was amazed by the individual seat back screens and spent many happy minutes tapping around, doubtless irritating the hell out of my neighbours with excited squeals when I found I could see the outside of the plane with a choice of external cameras. I was less pleased to discover that my headphones were on an anarchy setting, rattling through all channels at five second intervals. Much screen tapping later and just before I complained I found that I had plugged into next door’s socket instead of my own and had to quietly move my headset, settle down and behave myself. <br /><br />I did get to see us landing at Dubai at midnight through the pilot’s eye view camera and that was very exciting. I used to have a phobia of flying: 25mg of valium would just about keep me breathing and sitting still, but I had to give that up as its sedative qualities would kick in as I left the plane and relaxed, leaving my husband to support a sleeping wife, the baggage and our son. That and I would unpack under the influence and once successfully tidied our passports God knows where, causing a last night panic in southern Italy which had to be experienced to be believed. So I toughed it out and now enjoy flying – I would like to think there is a message of hope in there, but I think it’s just that I have a short attention span.<br /><br />Osaka airport was a bit scary. Jet-lagged and sleepy, I was first finger printed and then photographed. I made it as far as customs where the white gloved and face masked official asked me if I was ‘sure, really sure’ I had nothing to declare. I immediately felt horribly guilty and it must have shown as he made me open everything up. Try explaining that the pillow you’ve brought to cuddle at night and have vacpacked into a white brick is not in fact cocaine – I had visions of immediate imprisonment. Fortunately he realised what I was miming, thought it was hilarious and released me.Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-74360317989792422702009-09-25T16:44:00.000+01:002009-09-25T16:45:00.842+01:00Lost in TranslationWith my departure day a couple of dozen hours away I am now revisiting every serious exam situation I have ever experienced: severe inertia combined with nagging confusion as to why I’ve failed to revise/prepare well in advance… <br /><br />Part of the problem is trying to absorb enough Japanese etiquette in time to prevent my kind hosts from discovering that the freckled giant they’ve agreed to teach is not only hopeless at kneeling, but also a savage. I do know that I mustn’t blow my nose in public or leave chopsticks upright in rice, that my business card must be presented with both hands and that (this from an American site) I must never say ‘your mom is pretty’ which is a bit counter to the English reserve anyway. <br /><br />I do know I have to give gifts and that they must be nicely wrapped. In my lengthy career as a Brownie (I lingered long enough for Brown Owl to tell me I’d outstayed my welcome) I only ever had two badges: fire starting (you can bet health and safety have outlawed that one) and present wrapping. So you’d think that a few tins of tea, a split of whisky and five pots of Gentleman’s Relish would present few problems to the former Sixer of the Sprites, but I’m not that happy. Especially now I’ve read that ‘pastel is the “safest” choice for presents’ – is my retro fifties colour scheme unsafe and if so, in what way? All this and I haven’t even started to pack yet.<br /><br />I was distracted briefly by an amusing list of dos and don’ts for visiting Britain, again written by Americans. I learn that ‘the British generally avoid eye contact with each other’ and that when eating peas ‘you must first crush them under your fork’. Dead right we avoid eye contact with each other: how else will we keep straight faces while our extraordinary foreign visitor is carefully making their own transatlantic version of mushy peas?Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-77957682321251347052009-08-29T17:22:00.001+01:002009-08-29T17:22:33.267+01:00Feet and InchesLast week I had a mail from the Japanese Art Institute at Nagasawa asking me to fill in a questionnaire prior my residency. Mostly it was fairly standard stuff about flights, insurance and medical documents to ensure I was fit to complete the course (I’m guessing that on the medical front they want to make sure that my hands will scab over fast and that I can endure kneeling for hours at a time – not good for someone who had a note for school from their mum to be allowed off kneeling, fortunately not copied across to my medical records). The interesting question was ‘Are you of extra height?’ Am I of extra height and by whose standards? Is that extra height amongst the Japanese, in which case the answer is oh yes? Or is it extra height among our local teenage school children? In which case the answer that I am not only average, but totally invisible.<br /><br />In the end I gave my height in centimetres and said I didn’t know if that was ‘extra’. One thing I am sure about is that I have extra big feet compared to the Japanese. I have been out to buy the sort of trainers that have no laces in anticipation of having to leave them outside every building and also in anticipation that there will be no shoe buying once I arrive. My son pointed out that I could just leave the laces tied and force the shoes on and off like he does, but I belong to the start right generation who were smacked on the legs for that kind of thing.<br /><br />These are the second pair of shoes I have bought recently, the others being their sartorial opposite: an impossible, beautiful, impractical pair of silver and grey stilettos by Ted Baker with four and a half inch heels. Known in the family as ‘TRT’ shoes (taxi, restaurant, taxi) they are a perfect fit: Ted may as well be cradling my feet in his very hands. The physics of balancing my height onto such high spindles had two unexpected results. The first was that they put me eye to eye with Jools Holland when I wore them to a charity event (he was standing on stage). The second was that they sent my calves into spasm, leaving me with Barbie’s strange tip toe stance. I won’t be taking them to Nagasawa: it takes time to lace myself into them and the last thing I want there is to be extra extra plus height…Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-59533791806082155242009-07-13T11:40:00.001+01:002009-07-13T12:07:41.614+01:00Writer's BlockNormally I consider myself to be pretty good at multitasking. Stuff like cooking dinner while yelling considered responses to politicians on Radio Four and sorting the laundry comes naturally to me, but I have fallen down badly when it comes to writing a book and a blog at the same time. I’m finding it near impossible to balance the two. Safe to say that, if this was life in the wild, David Attenborough would be commenting sadly on the inevitable neglect of the blog in favour of the dominance of the bigger work.<br /><br />I have the amazing opportunity to work on a book which will document the time I spent down at AJ Wells and Sons creating my first public art work. I’m working with Phil who is an extraordinarily talented letter press printer (<a href="http://www.handandeye.co.uk">www.handandeye.co.uk</a>) and his publisher Brian. The book will be a beauty, with hand set type and linocut illustrations. Phil is a sort of relative, though not actually by blood. He tells me that I qualify as step niece-in-law which, though a tenuous connection, is nice: I don’t have any uncles left and it is always good to think there’s one on hand for trips to the zoo and ice cream. To be serious, I am hoping that working with Phil will be a bit like printer’s boot camp: a chance for me to get my act together and clean up my technique.<br /><br />For the purposes of illustration, I went back to Wells for a flying visit to gather images. This caused huge amusement on the shop floor, though everyone was very cooperative. It was good to see my mates again and to be accepted back without question. The only stipulation from Wells so far has been that I don’t reveal any enamelling trade secrets. Best if I do that here then. As far as I can see, you put it on wet, you dry it out and then you bake it in a high oven until it’s done.Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-17705024590798182652009-06-07T12:22:00.001+01:002009-06-07T12:26:01.698+01:00To Have and Have NotWhile I have a new studio, as yet I have not moved the contents down the garden to fill it. It’ll be an exhibition gallery for the visiting public over the next three weeks, though I will be doing printing demonstrations in there as well. I have however started to clear out the old studio ready for departure.<br /><br />I stripped out the contents of my plan chest yesterday. I was lucky enough to inherit this from Ben’s grandfather via Ben’s parents who, in defiance of every in-law cliché going, support and help me with amazing kindness and generosity. The plan chest was full, now it is almost empty and I am filled with righteous pleasure. I think there are two sorts of people: the keepers and the keep-nots. Like my dad, I love getting shot of things. Out went my college work (though we have a definitive copy of every print. At the risk of showing off, so does the National Library of Wales Print Collection who acquired a set of my final project work) and lots of grubby paper, acetate and card in what I can only describe as groovy colours. This came with the chest and dated back to Ben’s parent’s art careers in the sixties and seventies. Casualties included dead beetles and a lot of fluff, probably from the thirties; beneficiaries included the men at the dump who were cheered considerably by my huge life drawings of naked ladies.<br /><br />I have kept a few things including a Pirelli Calendar by Terence Donovan which is filled with African women, curvy and unimplanted, from the days when it was OK for models to be naturally beautiful. I also kept my pen and ink drawings from the streets of Soho. I spent a lot of time sitting, dressed in practical army surplus, on the pavement there in the early eighties and the drawings are a splotchy record of the days when Soho was a cheerfully smutty and run down law unto itself, far removed from the smart streets of today.Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-80412955404336592452009-05-29T10:52:00.003+01:002009-05-29T17:44:48.784+01:00What's in a Name?The three weekends when I open my studio to the public are fast approaching (do come if you can, just go to the <a href="http://www.lauraboswell.co.uk/open_studio.html">Open Studios link</a> on my website for times and a map, though I excuse my faithful internet visitor from Guatemala who appears so gratifyingly on Google analytics) and this means a frenzy of framing, sign painting, packing of greetings cards and last minute printing. In among all this frantic activity I have to think of titles for my pictures to be printed onto little bits of card along with prices for the exhibition.<br /><br />Most of my landscapes are an unravelling of reality, patched together and sewn back into a satisfying shape by me, usually in a mess of pencils and old fanfold computer paper. I would love to say that my considered drawings are complied in a series of dated and numbered sketch books, but we’re mostly talking about a couple of wonky lines on the back of a till receipt (the tax office will have an archive of my early work if they ever audit me). The upshot of the way I work is that it’s usually impossible just to title a print by location; not unless I wanted to combine a variety of place names and arrive at a new one in the manner popular with house names in the seventies and still so with beach huts (you should see the ones at Sandown). The upshot is that my work mostly appears under titles like ‘Winter hedge’ and ‘Fen Sunset’ – not very exciting, but honest.<br /><br />The honourable exceptions and almost my favourite prints to make are those attributed to friends and family. You’ll see ‘Andy’s beach’ along with ‘Vicky, Kev and Ben’s landscapes’ on my site. These are a result of my pinching landscapes from other people’s descriptions of places they love. I never ask for these: that would kill the images stone dead in a welter of self consciousness. To take ‘Andy’s Beach’ as an example (<a href="http://www.lauraboswell.co.uk/landscape41.html">www.lauraboswell.co.uk/landscape41.html</a>), it is a very simple print and a direct reflection of Andy’s pleasure in walking with his family along the beaches on the Isle of Wight on weekends. I was aiming at catching his very British ability to relish a bit of sunshine, the possibility of brewing some tea in a beach hut and maybe pushing the boat out later with an ice cream…Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6202021963540444801.post-42262867572198877172009-05-21T13:54:00.003+01:002009-05-21T18:55:07.596+01:00First ImpressionsThe new press arrived yesterday in the care of Jeremy and Giles. Jeremy owns a company called Antique Machinery Removal and together with old school friend Giles, he travels the country ferrying all sorts of printing presses to and fro with no fuss and a lot of love and care. We were agitated, to say the least, about the logistics of getting more than a tonne of press out of an upper story art room in Barnet and across a long garden in Buckinghamshire. We shouldn’t have worried. I’ve seen more bother caused unloading a week’s worth of shopping than AMR made delivering my Albion. <br /><br />Getting the bulk of the press into the studio was really only the start. The men then sat in the garden and carefully cleaned and oiled (not greased, we know now that grease is a big mistake) every component part before reassembling everything. Then we started on an extensive round of test prints to check the press was correctly adjusted. The testing was, well, testing to say the least: both Jeremy and Giles being expert printers. I began to feel like a mum caught by social services raising a child on turkey twizzlers and the odd nip of gin, my inks and rollers being bad enough to distress both men considerably. They were far too kind to be cross about it, but Jeremy urged me to ‘treat yourself to a couple of good rollers and replace that ink’ in a way that suggested ‘for the love of God woman, get a grip!’ would have been more in line with his feelings.<br /><br />Having sorted out my new press, they cheerfully set about my old one ‘as we’re here’ and rebalanced and repacked it beautifully, managing to teach me more about printing in a couple of hours than I learnt in four years at art school. They cost a third less than our original quote and I would urge anyone who wants to buy or move a press to use them (there’s a link on my web site). Apart from anything else, I can’t imagine there are many people like Giles; a man prepared to buff a whole press to gleaming with baby oil, just to do it justice.Laura Boswellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17354362369652856382noreply@blogger.com0