I realise that I’ve not posted anything here since just before Open Studios back in July. Everything seems to get a bit chaotic over the summer and my family had some good adventures over the holidays. For the first time, I was a little sad to get back into the studio routine. The twins are eight now, and my eldest is 12. They’re good company! I hope it lasts.

Anyway, while they were away for a few days with my lovely Mum in the summer, I took my camera off to Halifax to start planning a new exhibition for next year. Last week I sat and started properly drawing things out, and now I can’t wait to start painting. Halifax has some spectacular architecture. Very grand Victorian stuff built at the height of the industrial revoultion. But much older buildings too, like The Piece Hall and Shibden Hall.

I met someone last year that told me Halifax was known at one time as ‘Toffee Town’ because of the Mackintosh factory and I thought that this would be the perfect title for an exhibition to be held next year at The Yorkshire Gallery in The Piece Hall. Actually, I’d intially thought ‘Hell, Hull and Halifax…’, but Paul from the gallery thought this wouldn’t have the right appeal! I only meant it in that people are often so surprised, especially when they go to The Piece Hall, at how beautiful the town is.

Crossley Heath School – my daughter aspired to go there because it looked like Hogwarts, Halifax Town Hall – it’s just beautiful, and Shibden Hall – it’s always been beautiful but suddenly the wider world knows about Anne Lister and visitors are coming from all over the world to see it!

Akroydon – Halifax’s model village (so lovely, so many allotments!), The Piece Hall and the Borough Market building (from above so I can get Streets in the Sky in there for those that know…), and Dean Clough and North Bridge.

I love drawing buildings and planning these out has been great fun. I think I need about two more ideas, if anyone has any suggestions?

So we’re in the process of hanging things and clearing out. My wonderful Mum has come to stay and is busy wrapping up all the little prints:

Mum: She said a VERY rude word when I took her photo.

And yesterday, just in time, my 2020 Calendars arrived!

There are lots of prints. Including prints (and little proofs) of the new work currently hanging at Chantry House Gallery. There are also some small originals, including this trio of Northumberland waves paintings,

and the little folding book I’ve made using the images: I had a lovely time making these yesterday. It’s very satisfying putting the little gold leaf square on the front. Little things please little minds!

There are almost 100 artists taking part in the trail this year. See the Hebden Bridge Open Studios website for a map and a list of all the other artists

I am right in the centre of town, at venue 61. My studio, and most of the others, will be open Friday 5th – Sunday 7th July; 11am til 5pm.

My studio is on the main rd that runs through town. Pass the Co-op on your left (heading towards Todmorden), then The Turkish Barbers, Hat Therapy and Snug Gallery on your right. Look out for a little alley on your right hand side signed Stoney Lane. The back gate is up there on your left, before the Cuckoo Steps. It will be well signed!

 

 

We had a lovely opening day on Saturday. Thank you so much to everyone that came and to Emma and John of Chantry House Gallery.

The Fish Pier – Whitby

Framed Size: 147.5 x 87.5cm

SOLD

Autumn at Bolton Abbey

Framed Size: 147.5 x 87.5cm

£5600

Springflower (Flamborough Head Cove)

Framed Size:106 x 87cm

SOLD

Minster Gardens

Framed Size:87 x 106cm

SOLD

Birdwatching

Framed Size:87 x 106cm

£4200

Garden Square

Framed Size:85 x 85 cm

SOLD

Newby Hall

Framed Size: 147.5 x 82.5cm (aprox)

£5400

The Vine House

Framed size 57 x 67cm

£3200

Seedlings

Framed size 57 x 67cm

£3200

Peacock Moon

Framed size 57 x 67cm

SOLD

Low Tide

Framed size 57 x 67cm

SOLD

Ebb Tide

Framed size 57 x 67cm

SOLD

Dunstanburgh Castle

Framed size 57 x 67cm

£3200

Lindisfarne Castle

Framed size 57 x 67cm

£3200

Bamburgh Castle

Framed size 54 x 68cm

£3200

Dunes (Bamburgh Castle)

Framed size 67 x 86cm

SOLD

Sandsend to Whitby

Framed size 67 x 58cm

SOLD

Orchard – Print Tray

Framed size 88 x 48cm

SOLD

For any queries please contact Chantry House Gallery

info@chantryhousegallery.co.uk
01423 771 011

or me!

gallery@katelycett.co.uk

Everything is being delivered to Chantry House Gallery in Ripley tomorrow, ready for the exhibition opening at 10am on Saturday.

This is the last thing I finished: It was on my ‘would love to’ list, rather than my ‘must do’ list, so I saved it til last. I love doing these old printer’s trays. This one came from the US – it’s an American tray lay out. The spaces were large enough to think about a whole, small picture and the theme was trees. I do love to paint trees…

I start off with large sheets of stretched watercolour paper which I treat with lots of inks and paints. Lots of happy accidents. Then I cut choice pieces to fit the spaces. Most of the time something will emerge from the painted papers and I’ll work on what’s been suggested by a happy accident. In this way, they are much freer than other paintings. I don’t have a clear idea how anything will look when I’ve finished.

I would like one wall for all my sea pictures! I’ve tried to catch that first, deep breath you take standing on a Northumbrian Beach. I want the wall to be a big breath of fresh air.

I tried to get the breath of sea air in this new, big piece of Whitby too…

and, one more… This is Flamborough Head Cove:

Please come along and say hello on Saturday if you can!

Chantry House Gallery will be open from 10am – 5pm. And I think there will be tea and cake…

The full list of paintings and prints is now on their website.

 

Opening on May 18th at 10am, my new exhibition at Chantry House Gallery in Ripley.

This collection of new paintings seem to track my family holidays and days out this last year! I painted these little greennhouses first, from The Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall. We were there in the summer holidays.

I had an idea that the title for the exhibition should be ‘Gardens’. But then I went to Northumberland in Autumn Half term and got distracted by castles and beaches, and that incredible Northumbrian light.

And then, while Daddy was away I took the children for a treat in York and traded time spent in Harry Potter shops for time allowed to sketch on the city walls. I was a student in York and used to have English lectures in Grays Court. I would look out on the tourists walking the city walls. I love York. When I began university I was recovering from a year of being poorly and York was the cure. Coming from a small Suffolk town York seemed vast, but utterly magical. And I loved the course so much I failed badly in any acts of student rebellion. Instead I was allowed to get a key cut for the textile studios so I could work late at night. I spent three happy years discovering inks and wax pots, and being allowed to paint beautiful things.

This one is based on a memory of going back to spend the day with a friend after graduation. We walked to St Paul’s Square, snuck into the private comunal garden and picked up autumn leaves.

The exhibition will open at 10am. Emma, the owner of the gallery, is someone I met studying art in York. We connected again a few years ago and I’ve been exhibiting at the gallery ever since. I know she shares my love of the city.

I don’t tend to do many commissions these days, and I tend to politely decline when people ask. It’s not that I don’t enjoy them, I’ve just too many ideas of my own for my little head to process most of the time. But this one was a bit special…

I’ve always love printer’s trays. When I was little, my Mum had an amazing shop in Eye (Suffolk) called ‘Talents’. It sold crafts and pictures, and one half was full of second hand treasures. She called it a junk shop at the time, but now it would be classed as Brocante, or Shabby Chic. Whatever it was, it was an Aladdin’s Cave of wonderful things. My sister and I were gifted a printers tray each from a job lot, in which we stowed a lifetimes collection of treasures: Flint arrow heads, fossils, shells, gem stones, skeleton leaves, broken china pieces… Many years on, I found an especially nice one with brass fixings in an antique shop (Mum sold them for £5. Prices have increased since then!). I thought it would be a lovely way to organise my busy head full of pictures, so I filled it with tiny studies of trees. By the time Jenny saw it at Heart Gallery it was sold, but she begged me to do one for her as her late husband had been a type setter. It’s only taken 5 years! But these are what I created:

Jenny gave me the trays. Particularly lovely little ones from Covent Garden Market. I started filling the spaces with treated papers, and one or two pieces of marbled book end paper. I decided that type and typographic ornament should be the theme, given who it was being made for. I love old letters…

There was lots of chopping and changing with letters that worked, and letters that didn’t. Every letter appears once. Some go in more than once because they’re especially nice to draw, or because they are significant to Jenny:

Almost finished. Just a couple of letters and a Ginko leaf to add…

A beautiful piece of framing from Abacus! Box framed; I think they look like Icons!

Jenny was keen to keep the lovely handle on one of the trays, so they have lots of room to breath:

And today I got some beautiful flowers, so I know that she is pleased.

Thank you Jenny for trusting me with this. I loved making them.

Not a very inspiring title? Here’s the thing…

Hebden Bridge is an awesome little town. But like all little towns it’s fighting its battles. There’s the traffic (flood prevention works continue to strangle us). There’s the parking. There’s the rail strikes. Like all small towns – actually even big cities – the high street is struggling to compete with the internet. Folks venture into the shops to try clothes or shoes on, or look at a book, and then walk away and order it cheaper online. It’s not just my local bookshop The Bookcase, but even in a big Waterstones; people are very blatant about it. People love to shop. The towns and the cities are full of shoppers. But you have to note the increasing number of empty shops; little ones in Hebden Bridge. HUGE ones in Manchester and Leeds. Can people not see that eventually there will only be Amazon? And then we won’t venture out, because there will be no where to venture out to. And we won’t see anyone anymore!

Perhaps I’m being over dramatic. Perhaps…

But then the beautiful, glowing, winter haven that is Radiance Hebden Bridge’s beautiful Lighting boutique is closing for good in January.

I try, as far as possible, to think local for my business. My framer, Vince at Abacus, is up the road in Mytholmroyd. My print maker, Rob at Knight Graphics, is in Sowerby Bridge. We cut the lanterns at The laser Hive, up the hill. I don’t source stuff cheap from overseas! They all do a brilliant job for me, and in return they value my custom. It’s a two way thing.

When we send stuff out from the studio we trolly it up the road to the Post Office. I think I’m a bit old fashioned like this, but I like my Post Office. They’re nice in there!

This is Satnam, the postmaster. He also does daft things like skydiving, and running through mud to raise money for good causes. (photo by Jason Elliot, from the 500 faces of Hebden Bridge)

Lorraine and Christine are also lovely, but more camera shy, so i can’t put them up here.

When I went in the other day it was suspiciously quiet, which worried me. Apparently people, and local businesses, are using them less, opting instead for Royal Mail contracts (which is not the same thing!), or a courier like My Hermes or Yodel. Amazon do label-less returns now, from the Royal Mail sorting office, not the Post Office. But the Post Office is so much more important in my community. Like many small towns we’ve lost our high street banks (Lloyds, the last to go, will close early next year), so we rely on the Post Office to do our banking. For them it’s a lot of administration, for very little return, but they’re mopping up the town’s needs as the big corporations disappear. Lots of towns – even quite big places like Halifax, have lost their Post Offices to operate as a side line in WH Smiths. WH Smiths aren’t doing so well lately, so if they go too – what then?

So I just want to say USE YOUR POST OFFICE. Use it, or lose it – and then, as a community, we’re a bit stuffed….

So, when you order a print or a lantern from me, I’m just passing on the actual postage costs. I don’t have a contract with a courier, and I’m not going to get one. If something is cheap – too cheap – someone somewhere is paying for it, even if it isn’t you. I’m supporting my post office.

My passion for beautiful books come from my Dad. He read to me every night until I was about 14 I think – though I’m sure I kept quiet about it at school! Even when I’d finished being read to, I’d listen to my little sister’s stories. Her tastes were different; one of her favourites was ‘Minow on the Say’ – Phillipa Pearce. And the Little House books. I was more for Tolkein and Alan Garner. We both loved Moonfleet and Sherlock Holemes.

I love reading to my children, and Becky loves to read to hers. Hattie and I read all the Little House books. I cried when I read her Moonfleet, and completely lost my cool when I read ‘Goodnight Mr Tom’! The twins have begun their Harry Potter phase. Hattie has never grown out of hers….

What I started my Lost Houses project my Dad was in the middle of writing this wonderful book: Mr Blackwood’s Fabularium. He took time away from writing that to help me put together my Lost Houses Book. We had a wonderful time researching it together.

Now Dad’s book is out!

 

 

The structure is based on the Caterbury Tales, but instead it’s a group of travellers heading to the Great Exhibition in 1851, and sharing their tales to while away the time on their train journey.

Ever the little girl wanting a story, Dad recorded the tales for me and I’ve been listening to them in the studio. This is one of my favourites:

The Baliff’s Tale of the Jackdaws’ Wedding

It’s tale of a a jackdaw named Mr Cornelius, trying to keep up with the demands of the Lady Cornelia.

“In the meantime the latter had plenty of demands of her own. She must have a set of apostle spoons and a silver sugar caster; she simply had to have a Japanses fan; she insisted on a pair of brass nutcrackers, a soup ladle, a pearl-handled paper knife. As time went by, her demands became not only shinier, but heavier. Why she needed a paperweight – or a bust of Prince Albert or a Doulton Creamer – he never discovered, but it was clear that she would not take no for an answer.”

The book is illustrated by Talya Baldwin

Mr Blackwoods Fabularium is £8.99. Available from his website

It is also available to buy and download via Amazon

I’m preparing for Art in the Pen next weekend! I just finished this large painting of Bolton Abbey, and It’s coming with me…

“Downstream”

Inks, acrylic, gouache, pastel, coloured pencil, gold leaf and gold thread.

Image size: 116 x 55cm (painted image size)

£5495

For sale at Art in the Pen. Please email me for details.

And there’s also this little one of Staithes Beach:

“No Dogs on the Beach”

Inks, acrylic, gouache, coloured pencil, gold leaf and gold thread.

Image size: 36 x 26cm (painted image size)

£2950

“Peacock Moon”

Collage, inks, gouache, acrylics, gold leaf and gold thread.

Image size: 36 x 26cm (aprox painted image size)

£1900

For sale at Art in the Pen. Please email me for details.

I’m tidying up! Ready to open the doors on my little studio on Friday July 6th. Please come along and say hello. I have many new things to show you!

Lanterns, cards, note books and NEW Calendars! So new I don’t have them yet. But I have seen a proof, and I’ve been promised they’ll be here by opening time of Friday (they do look nice. I’m very pleased).

There will be framed  and unframed prints (this one above is ‘Friday Morning’, from my recent Craggs & Fells’ exhibition at Heart Gallery.  There will also be some new original pieces, like my birds eggs:

and this wreath of birds:

 

and this one of the boats at Staithes:

 

 

There will also be my annual plan-chest clear out! It’s a rich haul this year. Not only a great many printers proofs, but also drawings and little paintings. Some interesting things that will only be available from Open Studios.

 

 

So please pop by! All the detail you need to find me are here, on the Hebden Bridge Open Studios website. I am right in the centre of town, at venue 65. There are many, many talented artists taking part this year. Make a day, or even a weekend of it (and my studio is in a nice shady courtyard, for anyone trying to escape the heat). My studio, and most of the others, will be open Friday 6th – Sunday 8th July; 11am til 5pm.