Smeuse and mountain

DM_on_lino

My apologies for the lack of ‘updates’ on this recently. There was a holiday or something. It’s all a bit hazy. Anyway, I’ve been over at Richard Lawrence’s workshop, printing what will form the cover of the next journal from Paul Kingsnorth’s Dark Mountain project. Paul read from his novel The Wake at the Faber Social I curated back in November, and the Dark Mountain project is, weirdly perhaps, how I came to hear of him in the first place. It’s very interesting but I don’t think that I, hampered as I am by a flippant and casual attitude, can explain it very well, so you’re best of clicking the link just above. Anyway, I did a linocut for the cover over the hazy holiday, and this is what it looks like.

DM_on_rack

I’m intending to make a screen print from it, by the way, as a companion piece to the one I’m making of the linoleum smeuse I cut for the cover of Robert Macfarlane’s new book Landmarks, which is, incidentally, published on March 6th 2015. I’m sure I’ve explained what a ‘smeuse’ is elsewhere, but if I haven’t, it’s a hole made in the bottom of a hedge by the repeated passage of a small animal. Nice, hey? Anyway, here’s the smeuse:

SMEUSE_on_lino

I’ve already finished the artwork for the screen print of this, and I’ll be printing that very soon. And it will be on the new Slowly Downward Manufactory webshop, along with some other new things, if I get it together. Never mind; here it is on the drying rack…

SMEUSE_on_rack

This is an edition of ten, which will be available exclusively from Penguin at some time, probably around the publication of Landmarks. I will endeavour to keep you posted about that; if not here then on the twitter or the instagram. And hapy n yr and all that.

16th January 2015