This new piece says it all – I visited (and loved) Dungeness two years ago, but I’ve only just got round to doing this souvenir of that marvellous, strange, atmospheric place.

Dungeness was done for my recent exhibition at Pelham House in Lewes – as part of the town’s Open Studio scheme, Artwave – and our two-person show continued into October. It featured work made with reclaimed materials and/or on themes related to global warming and the environment.

Since we moved just over a year ago I have lurched from one deadline to the next without finding enough time to make new work or indeed to research new exhibition possibilities. So no formal Christmas Open House this year, just an attempt to catch up with myself: ‘reculer pour mieux sauter’, as the French say!

And this is why updates have been so few since our move. Not only masses to do on house and garden but…a headlong gallop into Artists’ Open Houses here in Brighton and Hove.

The admin began last October, the result: our House will be bursting with:
sculpture, photography, acrylic paintings on canvas, garden furniture and art, ceramics, illustration, silver and glass jewellery, metal sculpture, audiobooks and my own mixed media work. Wonderful wonderful things will be here during the month of May : come and check out that the Wolf will truly be at the Door!

This is the up-date on the Christmas card image, the first piece I have started and finished in Brighton/Hove. A familiar, even hackneyed image here, but the sharp outline of the roofs with the glittering sea behind – in early Spring – is mesmerising and I simply had to have a go. Even though I found it very hard after seeing all those other photographs and paintings of beach huts.

The dearth of posts is due entirely to the huge amount of work in getting ready for Artists’ Open Houses here in May. There are three layers of administration: the House, the local (Hove Arts) trail, and AOH central. More of our Open House shortly – it’s going to be a terrific line-up of nine artists so watch out for…The Wolf at the Door!

This hand-cast cotton paper piece, using pen and ink, acrylic washes and dry pigment, is part of my ‘Global Warning’ (sic) series. Most of these incorporate some text of a vaguely apocalyptic nature about the dodgy interaction of man and nature. This one is simply entitled: The Rain Falleth Down’.

And that is how I remember the Old Year.

But today in Brighton, on 1 January, the sun shone against all dire prognostications. So I’d better set to and prepare an optimistic sun-filled piece for the New Year!

Not the usual romantic imagining of a wintry scene, but pure fact! Last weekend saw thick snow lying everywhere hereabouts. Brighton and Hove artists and photographers must have been out in their hundreds to capture the moment.

This is a quick mixed media print dashed off as my annual Christmas card – I hope it makes up in its christmassy flavour for what it lacks in finesse. So warmest wishes to all family, friends and acquaintances, viewers, buyers, old Uncle Tom Cobley an’all…

After weeks of incessant rain, this cast paper piece has the right title even if the colours symbolise meltdown rather than washout. It’s based on an apocalyptic biblical text and I suppose represents my image of what’ll happen if global warming continues to its ultimate conclusion.

I’m now a member of Hove Arts and indeed find myself a representative to Artists’ Open Houses, the main Brighton and Hove festival-related artists’ body. There’s a lot to learn about local practices, but the next couple of weeks offer everyone the chance to visit artists and crafts-makers in their homes and studios. I intend to take full advantage of this and made an enjoyable start last weekend. Many offer mulled wine, mince pies and music as well as enticing Christmas presents. Details at:

www.aoh.org.uk

The last few months have seen total upheaval and little in the way of art work, plus no means to update this page. My last weeks in Lincolnshire included Open Studios, exhibiting work at Stamford Arts Centre and finishing this commission, Vitis Vinifera. This reminds me that here in Sussex, where life is still chaotic and strange, the local vineyards are close to harvesting their grapes after some blessed weeks of sunshine.

This commission for Ewan and Sarah, visitors to my Open Studio, incorporates text from Culpeper’s Herbal which roundly states that wine is ‘the greatest cordial among vegetables’ – i.e. good for the heart. What more to say?

…this is the title of the exhibition that has just opened at the Carre Gallery, Sleaford, with work from John Lincoln, Steve Leaning and me (on till 20 June). It could have been called ‘water under the bridge’ judging by the time elapsed since my last post.

In that time I’ve opened my studio for the last time here in Lincolnshire – two weekends in April – sold some pictures, started and completed a commission, prepared for the forthcoming exhibition – and (all being well) – sold and bought a house. There’s many a slip…. But if all goes well my next studio opening will be Open Houses in Brighton/Hove.

I’ll also have a last fling at a two-week Art on the Map show at Stamford Art Centre in July, during which time we are set to up sticks and move. It has been an impossibly busy time and it’ll seem a miracle if everything works out ok!

Last October, as I posted an image of my first version of the text of the late-night shipping forecast, I had a strong sense of timeliness. The storm was clearly gathering. I hope it doesn’t now seem like a tasteless joke, but that text continues to haunt me and it seems ever more appropriate to the spirit of the age. So here’s my second attempt.

My next exhibition, to be shared with two other artists, is called ‘Seeds of Change’. So I keep hopefully waiting for green shoots to start appearing in the pieces I am working on. As I reported a propos of my last year’s solo ‘Chance or Design’ show, those pieces have a mind of their own and often depart from their (or my) intended direction because of some unconscious prompting.

This is a farewell to my homage to Darwin, a piece I did last year without realising consciously that the 200th anniversary of his birth was about to be celebrated.

I’ve long found Darwin a most interesting and sympathetic figure, but having to translate a learned address into French for my anthropologist brother rekindled my curiosity and I started collecting ideas, images and thoughts. It’s that strange (often long) process which eventually leads to a finished art piece.

This piece has gone to a friend and fellow-artist, but I’m not finished with Darwin yet…so much more to explore.