Back from holiday and a slightly abortive attempt at completing Inktober. I gave it a good go but my God life just gets in the way sometimes, next year I’m going to nail it i’m sure. Focusing on the positives though I thought I would share some amazing prints!
I had a really productive and interesting meeting last week with John Phillips & Pippa Smith of The London Print Studios, a beautiful workshop and exhibition space based on the Harrow Road. Tara Books are going to be holding an exhibition there from November 14th and have asked me to prepare a brief presentation for the private view based on my experiences working with them in India. It’s also serving as a kind of soft launch for the Speaking With an Elephant, it’s unique design forming a focal point for the show.
LPS was founded in 1974 as the Paddington Printshop and based in a squat just round the corner from it’s current location. I was fortunate enough to have John show me a small selection of the wealth of posters he had created from the 70’s till now, really beautiful oil-based silkscreens that serve as timeline of sorts for countercultural protests and political activism in London. This to me is what is so great about the printmaking process, the ability to generate immediate, visceral reactions to your social and political environment.
John is currently in discussion with 4 Corners Books with the intent of bringing out a publication featuring his collection, I really hope this goes ahead as I think what has been produced in this corner of West London needs more exposure and recognition as a very British version of the Atelier Populaire (of which 4 corners also published an amazing book on). Oh and also Joe Strummer’s band before The Clash, The 101’s were the house band in the original squat, which is amazing. More amazing than that I got to hold a print the man himself had made to promote one of their gigs! So cool.
The exhibition, Pushing the boundaries of the physical book in an age writing its obituary, will be on till February - more on this soon…