RESIDENCIES

Since taking over the running of MABF, each year Hot Bed Press has chosen a book artist or book arts group, from those exhibitors at the fair who are interested, to take up a six month book arts residency.  They have free access to the printmaking studio during that time, and assistance with those printmaking processes in which they are interested.  Either a presentation or an exhibition of work is expected at the end of the residency, and the artist/s are offered a free table at the next fair.  The year given below refers to the fair at which the residency was chosen - the residency itself takes place during the following year.

2015 - Mike Ainsworth and Martin Wilson

As in 2014, Hot Bed Press awarded two residencies at the 2015 fair.

Mike and Martin are planning both solo and collaborative work - both of them start from a similar point, editing, photographing and publishing photographic topographies of social factors that catch their interest.  They might set each other a topography or subject to follow - for instance, Mike is contemplating a series of photos of phones in people's pockets, a sort of constant across all people in all walks of life in today's society, or working with shopping market queues and the length customers go to not to buy a plastic bag.

In addition they want to develop their printmaking skills, investigating the combination of their photographic ventures with traditional print. 

www.henrypress.co.uk
www.mdainsworth.blogspot.com



Photos below - left: Monday... - Screenprint - 2016      right: Commuters - Detail from photo series - 2014/15 (both Mike Ainsworth)

2014 - Old Bear Press and Joanna Wilkinson

Hot Bed Press indulged itself with two residencies from the 2014 fair. 

OLD BEAR PRESS

Old Bear Press is formed by a group of three artists, Kathryn Poole, Deborah Neely and Heather Chou, based in the North West of England, who share a common passion for fine art printmaking and  bookbinding.  With diverse styles and fields of interest ranging from acutely observed natural history observation, through digitally manipulated still life, to contemporary oriental subjects, the artists' work collectively tends towards a quiet aesthetic, each favouring a monochrome or muted palette.  The group remains faithful to the hand crafted and traditional, producing unique prints and artists books in small editions.

http://oldbearpress.com/
Picture
Heather
Picture
Deborah
Picture
Kathryn

JOANNA WILKINSON (Joanna's plans)

I will be using my book residency as an exciting chance to experiment with screenprinting, embossing and I might even squeeze in some risographing too. My book is still in its embryonic phase which means I have lots of sketches, lots of words and will most likely be going to spend lots of my 6 glorious months in Salford arranging them into the outline of a story with a beginning, middling bits and an ending which could be happy. (?) I have been advised that I perhaps should approach this opportunity as a Flâneur so I shall try to stroll and saunter my way through this brilliant experience allowing serendipity to play it's full part in the gentle development of a new idea. If you should maybe want to see any drawings or prints I make over the coming months please look out for my page on Facebook and my website.

2013 - Kim Bevan

During her residency, Kim juggled her own work, the residency and planning her wedding with - so far as anyone could tell - inexhaustible good spirits.  Her work during the residency was centred on groups of people.  Kim has continued her contact with Hot Bed Press and visits when work allows - see more about her work here.  The following text is an edited version of Kim's own description of her residency.   

The residency at Hot Bed Press was an exciting opportunity to develop my work using different printmaking techniques.  As I walked into Hot Bed on the first day, I was a little nervous, but I left with a head full of ideas.  

I initially began by working with a piece that I had already made and shown at the Manchester Book Fair 2013, ‘Crowd’.  I experimented with embossing and debossing techniques, to give the piece more texture and greater depth layering the people in the crowd.  The final outcome was created from three collagraph plates carved into and printed on to cartridge paper, using wooden letterpress to make the cover.  A second idea [concerned] the chewing gum that covers the streets, the permanent marks left on our pavements from the crowds of people passing by every day.  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 knew I wanted to work with letterpress and again look to the crowd for inspiration.  Sitting on trains I overheard so many conversations each day, only catching snippets - they were intriguing, confusing and sometimes funny, and a good way to explore and develop my skills in letterpress. 

Working at Hot Bed Press was a fantastic experience, being in an environment where everyone is so friendly, welcoming and helpful.  I am eager to continue to develop my practice and skills within printmaking and 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. 


2012 - Rebecca Jones

Leeds-based artist Rebecca Jones explored notation, scores and the presentation of happenings through book works and print. Rebecca's practice revolves around the deconstruction of meaning and moments before reconstruction by recombining their parts.

Words, graphic notation and language are all central to my work.  How an event or happening can be understood and interpreted through these various modes of communication fascinates me.  I often move through genres and forms; the loss and gain through the translation of one medium to another creates valuable subject matter for me.


2011 - Elizabeth Willow

Elizabeth Willow is a fine artist based in Liverpool, who makes sculpture, installations, performance and artist’s books.  Her work explores our relationship with objects and with place, and is often inspired by found objects, lost things and overlooked details.  Since her Book Artist Residency she has exhibited her books more widely, and has work in various private and public collections, including The Centre for Fine Print Research and Tate Britain.  She has retained her connection with Hot Bed Press and now tutors many of the book arts and letterpress courses there.  In her own words, towards the end of her residency:

After the long journey, on buses and train, then walking past old pubs and dandelion-starred patches of grass, I get there.  Open the front door, up the worn stairs.  Open the next door, into the smell of stone and metal and ink, into the sunlight slanting through the windows, and there is here; here I am, among the kind and beautiful presses, rescued and resplendent; among the other printmakers, turning handles and smoothing paper; here we are in our aprons and smudges of ink.

I have loved becoming intimate with this place, with its corners and cupboards and drawers and depths.  I relish the camaraderie, tea and laughter and frowning concentration; the hip-handed and shaking-headed sharing of work, ideas, mistakes and triumphs.  The opportunity and freedom to be both brilliant and not very good at all, to get better and to learn.

I have loved becoming intimate with this process, with the painstaking, delightful discipline that is letterpress printing; learning the lay of the case, finding myself out of sorts, minding my p’s and my q’s.  Spending hour upon hour setting metal type, any and every story at my fingertips, the meeting of lead and ink and paper.  Thought made real, words weighty in my hands.

I took up residence here, and it has become one of the places that feel like home.  I come and go, past the old pubs and dandelion-starred patches of grass.  I can’t now imagine not having been here before; I can’t now imagine not always coming back.

 


2010 - Parlour Press

During the six months of 2011 that Parlour Press were able to make use of the HBP facilities, they produced an exhibition of their work for the studio and set up a beautifully constructed reading corner as part of the 2011 Wayzgoose fair at the Casket Works.  Here is their description of themselves in the 2010 book fair catalogue:

Parlour Press is a book collective founded on the love of handcrafted books. No ISBNs allowed, we are self publishers. The five are Mandi Goodier, Caitlin Howard, Sophie Lee, Libby Scarlett and Lucy Vann.

We still have the naivety to say that literature, that beautiful places, that observation, that human frailty, that excessive collections, that new experience, that shared experience, that self expression, that fragile talent, that subversive pages, that sharing, that showing, that embracing everyone and everything will somehow make the world a better place to live in. That love and experience needs to be shared, can be spread over everybody like soft butter.  Because we are young enough to dream, because we are old enough to know that time will not wait, we believe that this moment is all we have - we are going to make the most of it.