While I am busy doing the front of house stuff when the Alex is open, Steve Davies (my husband) is usually working on his printing press in the back room, explaining to visitors how he does his lino and woodcuts and showing how his art is made by making his art. Nothing can beat this!
Its not uncommon for him to start drawing something in the morning and then be making prints from this by the end of the day having been through several proofing stages. These last two weekends before we close for August* he is exhibiting the stuff he made (or at least some of it) on the walls of the Alex in a show called 'Made at the Alex' (21-30th July 2023). He writes about his experiences in making prints in his blog here .
Those that have seen his work will know he ranges from fish heads to nudes. But his in-progress printing at the moment is around plates for the Kurt Schwitters poem Anna Blume. He has done a translation from the German of this now out-of-copyright work and plans to illustrate each element of the poem (18 plates) and publish a book of these by the end of the year. As this is a Dada-ist work its not exactly an easy to understand read, his visual interpretation is quite something.
(WARNING: Steve writes about all the things that he makes and his blog is therefore quite a rabbit hole - though I definitely recommend it if you want to know how his artist's eye sees things).
The image used here is one that he did a while ago (pre-Alex) which shows the mirror image effect of printing. I've used this one to also flag up the lino cut workshops that Eric Gaskell and Steve plan to teach here in the Autumn (they are offering two 2-day workshop called Draw, Proof and Print; 14 & 21 Sept and 12 & 19 Oct). If interested in taking part in these or other workshops at the Alex email to find out more (artatthealex@gmail.com).
*In August we will close the doors for a renovation and recuperation break - but we are already making plans for Sept-Dec and there are many exciting things happening.