I initially began by working with a piece that I had already made and shown at the Manchester Book Fair 2013 that I felt had scope for development.  The piece ‘Crowd’ was made by drawing people on trains, at festivals, in parks and around Sheffield city centre, using these to cut silhouettes from a concertina, creating a book that when displayed recreates a crowd of people.  To develop this piece I began my drawings again in Manchester, on my journeys there every week and experimented with embossing and debossing techniques, to give the piece more texture and greater depth layering the people in the crowd.  The final outcome has been created from three collagraph plates carved into and printed on to cartridge paper, using wooden letterpress to make the cover. 

My second idea for a piece came to me as I walked back and forth from Hot Bed Press; looking down at the ground I noticed the chewing gum that covers the streets, the permanent marks left on our pavements from the crowds of people passing by every day.  After this I began noticing the different shapes and textures in the chewing gum and the ground surrounding it so I took a lot of photographs and made sketches that I could work from.  I started the piece thinking I wanted to continue working with the embossing technique, as I loved the subtleties it provided; however, through trial and error I soon realised intaglio printing from my collagraph plates were more interesting.

When considering my third piece I always knew I wanted to work with letterpress as I am obsessed with fonts and text and was fascinated to learn this technique.  I wanted to round off my body of work again looking at the crowd for inspiration.  Sitting on trains I overheard so many conversations each day, only catching snippets, so I began to write them down.  When I looked back over my notes I realised they were intriguing, confusing and sometimes funny, so I thought this would be a good way to explore and develop my skills in letterpress. 

Working at Hot Bed Press this year has been a fantastic experience, being in an environment where everyone is so friendly, welcoming and helpful I have felt inspired and enthused to work.  As I come to the end of my residency I am eager to continue to develop my practice and skills within printmaking as it has already influenced both my own work and my lecturing in fine art at Chesterfield College.  I have only just begun to explore the possibilities of what I can achieve in printmaking, particularly letterpress, and this is an area where I want to continue to push my ideas.  It's been a busy year for me planning my wedding but Hot Bed has been my oasis of calm away from all the madness.

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Next year's Hot Bed Press book artist in residence will be chosen from those exhibitors at this year's fair who have expressed an interest.  It comprises six months' free use of the printmaking studio and a free table at next year's fair.  Here's more about previous residencies from 2011, 2012 and 2013.  

We're delighted that applications for tables at this year's fair are already coming in steadily - and a mix of old names and new, just as we like it.  As soon as we have all the information from the exhibitors, they go on to the 2014 exhibitors page to whet everyone's appetite for the event.  The first half dozen are on there now - go have a look.