news from Stanza Press

Today, Marly Youmans writes at her website,:

‘The Foliate Head  going into second printing.’

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‘Only this morning I realized that the limited edition of The Foliate Head had gone out of print. And only just now I found out from Pete and Nicky Crowther that it’s going into second printing. It is the first Stanza Press book to have a reprint.’

‘I’m very pleased, and remain grateful for the beautiful art by Clive Hicks-Jenkins and the immaculate design by Andrew Wakelin. I’m also grateful for the generosity of publisher Pete Crowther in trusting us and letting us play with the Stanza Press template and do our very own collaborative thing.’

Marly Youmans

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Well done Marly. I’m so pleased for you.

james artimus owen on ‘thaliad’

Over at Marly Youman’s Thaliad page on Facebook, there has been handsome praise for the book from author/illustrator James Artimus Owen.

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J A O: It (Thaliad) was one of the few books I’ve purchased in recent years that I think was executed flawlessly, in every way.

M Y: Oh James, thank you! That’s so, so lovely. I shall have to share that with Clive Hicks-Jenkins and Beth Adams. Collaboration with them is beautiful. I just hope it manages to keep moving out in the world.

J A O: It’s a high water-mark of what’s possible, Marly. It’s old-school book-crafter perfect.

M Y: Ah, that is so sweet to hear. Thank you. “Perfect” and “high-water-mark” are very satisfying words!

J A O: It’s all sincere. With that book you leapt from being one of my favourite writers to a game-changer. The literary sphere will have to catch up to what I and others have already seen – but there is no doubt it is a remarkable achievement.

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Thaliad is available as a paperback or hardback, and may be purchased from the following sites.

Order from the Phoenicia Publishing online store

Order from Amazon.com

Order from Amazon.UK

Order from Amazon Europe

arts alive fund-raising auction

Green Head/Red Branch. 2012

Clive Hicks-Jenkins RCA

Acrylic paint collage.

17 x 15 cms

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Arts Alive is a small though well-established charity working out of Crickhowell, that uses the medium of art within the community to examine and support issues of the environment, health and well-being. On the evening of Friday March 15th… the day before my weekend Masterclass at Arts Alive… there is to be a fund-raising for the organisation in the form of an auction of fine art at the Angel Hotel, Abergavenny. It is a ticketed event with wine and tapas.

The artwork that I’m donating to the Arts Alive fund-raising is the original collage I made as the cover-design of a collection of poems by Marly Youmans, The Foliate Head, published in 2012 by Stanza Poetry.  The collage is presented in a grey-painted frame made of a deep tulipwood moulding manufactured to my design.

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To be included with the framed collage is a copy of the book, illustrated throughout with black and white ‘foliate head’ images. The book has been signed by me, though not alas by Marly Youmans, who lives in Coopersville, New York.

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Below: the book

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Below: some of my illustrations for the book

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Any money raised by the sale of this artwork will be donated in full to the charity. Enquiries about tickets for the auction event should be made directly to Arts Alive on: 01873 811579

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Greg Langley’s review of The Foliate Head can be found in the January 12th online edition of the Baton Rouge Advocate, HERE.

a reminder

 

Artist Masterclass

Artist Masterlcass with Clive Hicks-Jenkins RCA

Arts Alive Wales
The Old School
Brecon Road
Crickhowell
Powys NP8 1DG

Supported by the Brecknock Museum Trust Fund

 

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Arts Alive Wales is delighted to welcome Clive Hicks-Jenkins RCA to host a unique Masterclass in March 2013. The Masterclass is open to professional, practicing artists, working in any medium and at any stage of their career.

“I’ve always been intrigued by the notion of the Green Man. Long ago, before I became a painter, I made foliate masks out of thin papier-mâché that I surfaced with metal leaf. Later I produced a series of works based on the medieval poem of Gawain and the Green Knight. In another series of paintings I explored the legend of Saint Kevin and the Blackbird, who was said to have held in his outstretched hand a hen bird in her nest while she incubated and hatched her eggs and then reared her young until fledged and flown. In the early paintings Kevin’s hand stretches out like the branch of a tree to hold the fragile cargo of life, and in the later ones, when the nest is empty, his skin becomes laced with the inky shadows of branches and leaves, as though stigmatised by foliage.

This year sees the publication of two poetry books with ‘foliate’ themes that I’ve illustrated, working through the medium of collage to make the images. Over the weekend of the Masterclass, participating artists will be encouraged to examine ‘green’ themes in literature and the visual arts, and then give expression to their ideas using various techniques, including collage, drawing, simple printmaking and paint.”

– Clive Hicks-Jenkins 2012

Saturday 16th & Sunday 17th March at Crickhowell.

10am – 4pm

£60 for the weekend, includes a materials allowance of up to £40.

Places are strictly limited to 8 artists only. TO APPLY:

Please contact Rebecca Spooner, Arts Development Manager, email: rebecca@artsalivewales.org.uk with the following –

• A brief statement (no longer than 250 words)  describing your artistic practice and why you would like to take part in the Masterclass.

• An up to date artistic CV (no longer than 2 sides of A4) including full contact details

• A link to your website or up to 3 relevant digital images in JPG  format (no bigger than 600kb each)

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: Friday 1st February. Selected artists will be informed by 8th Feb.

Clive Hicks-Jenkins has shown with the Martin Tinney Gallery since 1997. He was born in Newport in 1951 and currently lives in mid Wales. His work has been critically praised in The Independent, Modern Painters, Galleries and Art Review. Shelagh Hourahane, in Planet, has called him ‘an inspiring and masterly painter’, and Robert Macdonald described his Mari Lwyd sequence as ‘one of the most powerful series of paintings and drawings produced in Wales in recent times’. He is an Honorary Fellow of Aberystwyth School of Art and has been a guest tutor at the Royal College of Art. Hicks-Jenkins was winner of the Gulbenkian Welsh Art Prize in 1999 and a Creative Wales Award from the Arts Council of Wales in 2002. He has had exhibitions at Christ Church Picture Gallery in Oxford, The Museum of Modern Art Wales, Newport Museum & Art Gallery and Brecknock Museum. A member of The Welsh Group and 56 Group Wales, he was elected a Royal Cambrian Academician in 2008. His illustrated edition of Peter Shaffer’s award-winning play Equus was published by The Old Stile Press in 2009. His paintings, prints and artists’ books are in numerous public collections and a major retrospective of his work was mounted by the National Library of Wales in 2011. In March 2012 his images for Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat will form a visual display to accompany a concert performance of the piece conducted by David Montgomery in Washington DC.

For more information about Clive’s work visit: www.hicks-jenkins.com

Images.

Above: Clive Hicks-Jenkins. The Greening of Gawain – 2012. Mixed media: acrylic paint, crayon and collage. The Martin Tinney Gallery. Below: Clive Hicks-Jenkins. Cover image for Thaliad by Marly Youmans, published by Phoenicia Publishing, Montreal – 2012. Mixed media: acrylic paint, crayon and collage. Martin Tinney Gallery.

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lino worked with an etching needle

Conté drawing for a foliate head.

A conversation with Marja-Leena in yesterday’s comment boxes had me rootling in my archive for the blocks and prints I made nearly a decade ago in the lead-up to what was to have been an illustrated edition of Henry Vaughan poems. The prints shown were experiments, proofs that I’d intended to have another attempt at. They have their shortcomings, but nevertheless there are qualities in them that please.

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This ghostly first proof is a bare 8 cm square, which shows how delicate the scratching technique can be. I didn’t invent the technique of printing light over dark, but stole it from Picasso (always steal from the best) though he printed over black with a densely opaque white that made his images look like bold black prints on white paper. I wanted a silvery, twilight quality to the decorations for the Vaughan poems. I should have proofed this print again, but instead I cut another block.

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The second attempt at cutting a block for the image…

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… and the only print made from it.

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I have a large notebook crammed with drawings and experiments made for this project, and a box-file of the lino-blocks.

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One day I must take the things I learned at that time and turn them into something with a purpose. Perhaps not the Vaughan, and not even the iconography of birds and foliate heads I was planning as decorations for his poems. But those ghostly heads at the top of this post rather haunt me, and the chill, moonlit spider-web of scratching conjuring them is a technique that might well serve another book project. It has a pleasingly strange quality, as the only finished image for the book-that-never-was illustrates.

thaliad is coming

Midori Snyder has posted a wonderful review of Thaliad at her blog, In the Labyrinth. The book will be out from Phoenicia Publishing in time for Christmas, so do take a look at what Midori has to say about it, just in case you want to tell Santa that you ‘d like a copy. (The piece below is an abbreviated version, so do go to In the Labyrinth for the full review.)

‘Marly Youmans’ The Thaliad offers a healing balm to the swath of nihilistic post-apocalyptic fiction for young adults. Told in free verse reminiscent of heroic epics (Homer meets Gerald Manley Hopkins),  and packed with fairy tale and mythic references, The Thaliad recounts the aftermath of a fiery apocalypse, and the perilous journey of a band of children led by a girl whose prophetic visions guide them to a sanctuary on the edge of a lake. Here, they confront the challenges of re-creating the world – a world illuminated by hope and love.

Youmans has given young adults a wondrous text filled with richly layered and evocative poetry. Like a bardic tale, it demands to be read aloud. The images of nature are sensual, fertile, a source of healing. Violence is hammered into fierce staccato rhythms and Thalia’s ecstatic visions soar with heat and light as the human spirit is consoled by the divine. We are not spared the hardships of the journey, but through the storyteller’s voice we have confidence in our destination—it is this commitment to the angels of our better nature in Youmans’ sublime poetry that gives Thaliad its power to inspire hope out of fear and love out of hate.’

Midori Snyder

the 30th fox art prize at the jersey arts centre

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The Fox Open Art Competition is a well-established art event run annually and open to all Channel Islanders, whether professional or amateur artists. The prizes are awarded to artists who, in the opinion of the judge, have produced the most original works of art. A new judge is chosen each year, and moreover he or she must be an artist who resides and works outside the Channel Islands. In this the thirtieth year of the prize, I’ve been charged with the responsibility of selecting the winners.

Concurrent with my engagement as the 2012 judge, I’ll be having an exhibition of my own work at the home of the prize, the Jersey Arts Centre, and today Adrian from the Jersey-based company Carlton Carriers (sitting at right in the photograph below) arrived at Ty Isaf to load a lorry with new work that he’ll be delivering to the island.

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The title and theme of my exhibition is ‘The Greening’, and will include original works made for the two books I’ve decorated for Marly Youmans this year, The Foliate Head and Thaliad.

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The Ark. (Page decoration from Thaliad.) Acrylic on paper. 2012. The cover artwork for the book… see top of page… will also be on show at the exhibition.

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Leafy Head, Red Branch. (Cover image for The Foliate Head.) Acrylic and collage on paper. 2012

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The artwork as presented on the book cover designed by Andrew Wakelin.

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Foliate Head with Acorns. (Page decoration for The Foliate Head.) Acrylic on paper. 2012

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from the arts alive website

Masterclass with Clive Hicks-Jenkins RCA at Arts Alive

Supported by the Brecknock Museum Trust Fund

 

Arts Alive Wales is delighted to welcome Clive Hicks-Jenkins RCA to host a unique Masterclass in March 2013. The Masterclass is open to professional, practicing artists, working in any medium and at any stage of their career.

“I’ve always been intrigued by the notion of the Green Man. Long ago, before I became a painter, I made foliate masks out of thin papier-mâché that I surfaced with metal leaf. Later I produced a series of works based on the medieval poem of Gawain and the Green Knight. In another series of paintings I explored the legend of Saint Kevin and the Blackbird, who was said to have held in his outstretched hand a hen bird in her nest while she incubated and hatched her eggs and then reared her young until fledged and flown. In the early paintings Kevin’s hand stretches out like the branch of a tree to hold the fragile cargo of life, and in the later ones, when the nest is empty, his skin becomes laced with the inky shadows of branches and leaves, as though stigmatised by foliage.

This year sees the publication of two poetry books with ‘foliate’ themes that I’ve illustrated, working through the medium of collage to make the images. Over the weekend of the Masterclass, participating artists will be encouraged to examine ‘green’ themes in literature and the visual arts, and then give expression to their ideas using various techniques, including collage, drawing, simple printmaking and paint.”

– Clive Hicks-Jenkins 2012

Saturday 16th & Sunday 17th March.

10am – 4pm

£60 for the weekend, includes a materials allowance of up to £40.

With thanks to our sponsor: Gallery on the Usk, of Crickhowell.

Places are strictly limited to 8 artists only. TO APPLY:

Please contact Rebecca Spooner, Arts Development Manager, email: rebecca@artsalivewales.org.uk with the following –

• A brief statement (no longer than 250 words)  describing your artistic practice and why you would like to take part in the Masterclass.

• An up to date artistic CV (no longer than 2 sides of A4) including full contact details

• A link to your website or up to 3 relevant digital images in JPG  format (no bigger than 600kb each)

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: Friday 1st February. Selected artists will be informed by 8th Feb.

Clive Hicks-Jenkins has shown with the Martin Tinney Gallery since 1997. He was born in Newport in 1951 and currently lives in mid Wales. His work has been critically praised in The Independent, Modern Painters, Galleries and Art Review. Shelagh Hourahane, in Planet, has called him ‘an inspiring and masterly painter’, and Robert Macdonald described his Mari Lwyd sequence as ‘one of the most powerful series of paintings and drawings produced in Wales in recent times’. He is an Honorary Fellow of Aberystwyth School of Art and has been a guest tutor at the Royal College of Art. Hicks-Jenkins was winner of the Gulbenkian Welsh Art Prize in 1999 and a Creative Wales Award from the Arts Council of Wales in 2002. He has had exhibitions at Christ Church Picture Gallery in Oxford, The Museum of Modern Art Wales, Newport Museum & Art Gallery and Brecknock Museum. A member of The Welsh Group and 56 Group Wales, he was elected a Royal Cambrian Academician in 2008. His illustrated edition of Peter Shaffer’s award-winning play Equus was published by The Old Stile Press in 2009. His paintings, prints and artists’ books are in numerous public collections and a major retrospective of his work was mounted by the National Library of Wales in 2011. In March 2012 his images for Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat were projected to accompany a concert performance of the piece conducted by David Montgomery in Washington DC.

For more information about Clive’s work visit: www.hicks-jenkins.com

Image: Clive Hicks-Jenkins. The Greening of Gawain – 2012. Mixed media: acrylic paint, crayon and collage.

the foliate head arrives

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Copies of Marly Youmans’ The Foliate Head arrived from Stanza Poetry yesterday. Top marks to Andrew Wakelin for the design of the book, which looks beautiful.

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The hardback cover is robust and reassuringly chunky in the hand, as though to protect the airy fragility of the pages within. (As Marly pointed out in an e-mail to me, there will be no danger of it curling if left off the bookshelf, the way paperbacks do these days.)

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Above: original cover artwork, just back from the framers. I made six paintings from which to choose a cover for The Foliate Head, and we held a readers’ vote at the Artlog to choose the favourite. Another image favoured by the voters went onto the back cover. It was all most democratic, but I must say I think it was the right choice.

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The page paper is rather thin, and although this means that ghostly images appear on the reverse sides of the illustrations, I quite like the oddly hallucinatory quality this imparts to the book, like foliate spirits are about to manifest through the lines of text.

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The image of my father (see above) illustrating Marly’s beautiful poem Green Wednesday … in which I make a foliate mask in his likeness… has a faint presence on the reverse of his page (see below) elbowing his way into the following poem, Mirror tree, Tree Mirror.  In matters of bookmaking ‘craft’ this wouldn’t have happened had the publisher specified heavier paper, and yet I find the effects throughout the volume to be oddly compelling and attractive. It’s like seeing blue veins beneath perfect, pale skin.

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When I flip the pages with my thumb, the text and the images shimmer as light hits and passes through them, a flickering display of the corporeal and shadowy. It’s a beautiful effect, though I fear Marly’s librarian mother would not approve the ‘flipping’.

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I love the detail of the green head from the front cover just nudging onto the spine, together with a little flash of leaf from the back. It enlivens the spine when seen on a bookshelf, and it was Andrew’s idea. The artwork was made using collage technique for the branches.

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Below: Marly’s dedication at the front of the book. I’m touched beyond words.

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new framing

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Just back from the framers, a stash of paintings in the bespoke moulding I’ve designed and had milled to my specifications. Produced in tulipwood, it’s densely grained and deeply cut, making it much heavier than any of the commercial mouldings I’ve used. It looks good with and without glass, and because it’s been manufactured for me, it’s unique to my work. I’m greatly encouraged by the way this has turned out, and look forward to trying maquettes and prints in the moulding, as well as the drawings and paintings illustrated here. The paint finish is a neutral grey in starved-brushwork over red-oxide, my preferred colouring for frames.

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There’s no getting away from the fact that framing is an important aspect of presenting paintings, and although a magnificent frame cannot rescue a bad painting, a beautiful artwork can be undermined by the wrong type of frame. This particular design should mean that I don’t have to re-scale it for larger and smaller works, as the one size will do for all. This also means that in the matter of exhibitions, a body of work will be unified on the gallery walls by the one frame design. All the small painting shown here are for my exhibition on the island of Jersey next month, and were made as images for Marly Youman’s volume of poetry The Foliate Head, now available from Stanza.

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