Yorkshire Makers inspired by Yorkshire Writers – Emily Bronte : Wuthering Heights

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Emily Bronte published Wuthering Heights in 1847 initially under the name Ellis Bell, and died in the same year age 30.

Currently at number 13 in the Penguin list of 100 best books, Wuthering Heights, discordant, fragmented, tortuous, obsessive and romantic is firmly situated in the rain swept moors of upland Britain.

Yesterday afternoon set in misty and cold

Opening lines, Chapter 2, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Charcoal and chalk on Fabriano paper

1500cm x 2500cm

Just by Chance

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A Pennine Sheep visited by a Bird

Bronze 19cm x 10cm x 8cm

I made this when I was a student, but couldn’t complete the casting because my dad died and I had to rush off to arrange his funeral. The wax model sat on a shelf for ages accumulating dust, wax is sticky stuff. In the end in order to prevent it getting inadvertently melted or squashed I had it cast in bronze. I played around with the patina a bit when it came back, filing off some here and there then returned to a slightly more prominent shelf. Where it sat for years until the opportunity arose to exhibit in a show called Northern Fringe: the Mystery of Yorkshire in (nearly) 100 Objects. This is my Yorkshire reply to Object number 73, a small gold Inca llama from the BBC series a History of the World in 100 Objects.

And this is where the idea came from

Northern Fringe:The Mystery of Yorkshire in (nearly) 100 Objects is on at the Upstairs gallery, Dean Clough, Halifax, 

HX3 5AX from today September 8th to September 24th.

In Praise of Libraries

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This work began in the company of books. I like the qualities of used things, in this case the thumbed pages and coffee stains of their history, the fluctuating choices of typeface and illustration which make them of their time. That time was actually my parents’ time so I am transported back to the 1940s and 50s via the design of a book cover. Then there was the pleasure of meeting some of the interviewees, taking photographs of their photographs, having a little glimpse into their first encounters with books and over and over again in their recorded conversations arose, with great affection, the role that libraries played.

A palace of words,

A place of peace and quiet

A store of knowledge

 A step into a new future

In the early years of the twentieth century in the library of the past before mobile phones, computers and the internet will we find the seeds of the library of the future?