The Moby Dick Marathon at New Bedford Whaling Museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts is a (near) continuous read of the novel over 24 hours Saturday to Sunday of the first weekend of the year by a range of Melville enthusiasts, and is in it’s 22nd year. For the last couple of years I have followed the event via social media …
There are many places nearer to my home in Norfolk than Shetland that have material about Britain’s Arctic Whaling Heritage so why spend a month Shetland researching it? Well, I got to be artist in residence at Bressay Lighthouse for the whole month of July with a huge studio space to start to develop work in response to my research …
My practice, built around British Whaling and Moby Dick is rather niche. Generally I have to explain the whys and wherefore of the British whaling trade to people when I discuss my work. It’s been very different during my month in Shetland. The most common response to my describing my work to the locals has been ‘oh yes, my grandfather …
It’s always a worry when you’ve been planning something for over a year that it’s not going to live up to that much anticipation. I’m pleased to be able to say that is not going to be the case for my stay at Bressay Lighthouse in Shetland. Just over a week in to my month’s stay and it has exceeded …
At the end of June the Eleventh International Melville Conference took place at King’s College in London. I was fortunate enough to be invited to talk about my work at the British Library as part of this event. A range of artists including writer Philip Hoare, film maker David Shaerf, curator Michael Hall and actor/director Shelley Piasecka talked about and …
Cetology – A series of handmade books based on Melville’s classification of whales in Moby Dick I’m unaware of any artist who has tried to tackle Melville’s bookish classification system for whales in this way. Having finally managed to complete them I’m pretty sure why! As a printmaker and maker of artists’ books I was drawn to Chapter 32 Cetology …
Scale Lane Bridge is a pedestrian bridge across the river Hull on the east side of the city. It can rotate on a single pivot a bit like a pinball flipper to enable boats to navigate up and down the river. It is unique because pedestrians can remain on it when it moves. It is a striking curved shape with …
After visiting Burton Constable near Hull in spring 2015 I put a project together with the curator to fund a residency for me. Following a successful application for Grants for the Arts funding I spent over 30 days, spread over eight months working in and around the barn with the whale skeleton. I used my drawing of the skeleton and …
In recent years I have been fortunate to see and photograph some of the old Arctic whaler log books held in Hull History Centre and Hull Maritime Museum. I have then used my photos to transcribe the entries. I’ve been fascinated as the individual voyages unfold, reading of the frustrations of the captain not catching whales when other ships had, the tragedies of losses …
In the autumn of 2014 I booked a last minute fortnight trip from Bristol Avonmouth up the coast of Norway and back. It was a great trip, I saw the northern lights (awesome), the Alta petroglyphs (stunning), the first snow of the season in Honningsvag (magical), the military museum in Narvik (sobering), the receding Svartisen Glavier (sadly receding), stave churches, …