Kate Lycett

I’m counting down the weeks now until my exhibition – ‘HOME’ opens at Heart Gallery in Hebden Bridge. Painting these has got me through the darker winter months which always seem hard in the valley. It’s been good seek beautiful things here; a bit of colour maybe in the more monochromatic months. A reason to head up hill in search of a bit of light!

It’s been a decade since I began exhibiting at Heart Gallery. Five years since the ‘Craggs and Fells’ exhibition. This time it’s been all about what makes the valley feel like home. Little things you only notice because you’re so familiar with a place and its changing light. This is the most recent one – called ‘New Years Day’, because there’s a point, around Christmas, where I lose the light in my house for a few weeks (I live right in the valley bottom). On Market Street, soon after the winter solstice, the old Zion chapel gets lit up like gold by the winter sun.

Then you know the days are getting longer again – it feels very optimistic. The light was spectacular this January and I’d often head out early with my camera and notebook (working fast with very cold hands!). On one such walk I stumbled across this view across the canal.

Fountain Street always feels like an iconic Hebden Bridge street and I’ve been trying to find a way to paint it for years.

There are two moorland landscapes almost finished as well. I’ve been away in Wiltshire for a week, visiting my family, and had to run to Stoodley Pike this morning to check on the curlews and skylarks. I love the sound of the birds up there! There were plenty of skylarks down near Mum and Dad, but never curlews. I sometimes have to send a little video to Dad, so he can hear them.

There will be 11 paintings in all, and (hopefully!) my Hebden Bridge A – Z of tiny wood engravings! I’ll post more about those once I’ve completed the three new ones I started this week: N – for Nelsons. T – for Trades. I – for Innovation Mill…

The exhibition opens properly on May 12th and will run until the end of July. There will be a private view on the evening of the 11th. If you’d like an invitation, then please drop me a line.