So, right, each year I do this thing of making a small edition of prints using 23.5ct gold powder from L.Cornelisson & Son in London. It’s a bit scary, pouring one of the more expensive powders available into varnish, but the results are really nice; and a lot more appealing than the photo below, which I must confess I took with an iPad. But still, you get the idea.
This print is, as usual, in an edition of 24 (as I can’t do an edition of 23.5) and entails 11 layers, 6 of which are gold and 5 are black. The effect intended is one of a golden mist. This one is called ‘Golden Solstice Smeuse‘. The first couple of years I did a golden holloway, then last year it was a golden avenue; this year, a smeuse. You probably don’t know what a smeuse is; I didn’t, until this summer when I was sent the manuscript for Robert Macfarlane’s forthcoming book ‘Landmarks‘. In it, he has prepared a number of glossaries of words which you would struggle to find in a standard dictionary. They are words from dialect, slang and so on, and describe matters loosely pertaining to the land. For instance, an old Essex dialect term for a kestrel is ‘wind-fucker’. An old Sussex word for the gap at the bottom of a hedge made by the regular passage of a small animal is… smeuse.
I’ve done a linocut of another smeuse for the cover of the book – I don’t know when it’s coming out, but it’ll be soonish, I think. Recommended reading, innit. Anyway, me and Comrade Winstanley only just finished printing at about 6pm this evening, but the print is now ready for its launch into the world, which is taking place over at the Zmas Boutique. Along with a few other new things, as we have updated the old place; given it a refurb. Or a defurb. Or a makeunder. Anyway, there’s some new stuff there.
