blankpages Issue 45 by Blank Media Collective

Issue 45 June 2012

editor@blankmediacollective.org

p26 p34 p18

general enquiries info@blankmediacollective.org

p22

p40

Issue 45 June 2012

you are listening to

CONTENT Get in touch / Welcome

Spotlight - Chris Haugton

Fiction - Angela Readman

Blankverse - Charlotte Henson

Spotlight - Leanda Heler

This month’s mp3 - Kuedo

Feature - Helen Musselwhite

Ant City by Kuedo

cover art By Chris Haughton

Submit Every month we showcase writers, artists and musicians who deserve to share their work with the wider arts community and the public as a whole. blankpages is about supporting all artists, not just writers. If your work crosses genres, that’s fine with us. We’re looking for talented creatives with a unique style and ability to produce interesting pieces. New works are preferred, but previously published pieces will be considered. For further information on the submissions guidelines, CLICK HERE

Blankpicks - Alabaster dePlume

Blank Media recommends

Credits

welcome Things are starting to change here at Blank Media Collective. You may have heard the news about Mark Devereux stepping down as Director and Head of Exhibitions, and although he has been a pivotal member of the team since the inception of the organisation, we are continuing with our mission without him. Of course, we wish him the best for the future. Through June and July you will see and hear about some major changes and exciting projects and partnerships being announced that will give you an idea of the flavour of things to come with this magazine, the gallery and the website among many other things. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re all really fired up about the future and we hope you will be too. In the meantime, your trusty PDF blankpages has been delivered once again for your viewing and listening pleasure. Dig in and enjoy and keep your eyes peeled for those announcements!

John Leyland Editor

spotlight

Chris Haughton

Introduction by Michael Thorp

fledgling Owl is sat atop a tree with its mother. Suddenly with a suprised “Uh oh!” the infant bird tumbles to the forest floor. Thus starts Chris Haughton’s beautiful Children’s Book, ‘A Bit Lost’. The tale follows the baby owl and its excitable squirrel friend as it searches for its mother and a way back home. As I flick through the pages I find myself thinking of my own mother and of memories of wandering off in busy supermarkets before being re-united via a good samaritan. It’s these themes of exploration, family and friendship give the book its universal appeal. Chris’s style of art work shines through the book; bold colours and simple shapes disguise hidden depths within his illustrations. The images have a tribal quality, perhaps evoked through deep earth tones and natural patterns whilst his depiction of characters and animals is reminiscent of Eric Carle’s seminal ‘ABC’. The numerous accolades for Haughton’s work include the Gold Prize for Children’s Books at the Association of Illustrators ‘Best of British Illustration Awards’. He’s an illustrator we’ll be looking out for in the future, and you should too. ‘A Bit Lost’ and Chris’s follow up ‘Oh No. George!’ are in shops now.

Chris Haughton is an Irish illustrator and author living in London. He has illustrated for The Guardian, Wired, The New York Times and other publications. He was listed in Time magazine’s ‘DESIGN 100’ for the work he has been doing for fair trade clothing company People Tree. His debut book ‘A Bit Lost’ was published in September 2010. It has been translated into 10 languages and won 8 awards in 6 countries. Including the Gold prize for Childrens books at the Association of Illustrators ‘Best of British Illustration Awards’ ‘The Bisto Children’s book of the year’ and the ‘Dutch Picture Book of the Year’ In 2011, together with Akshay Sthapit he co-founded a fair trade company in Nepal called ‘Node’. It aims to connect the worlds best designers with fair trade organisations to produce high quality designed products, at the moment focusing on rugs while empowering co-operatives and the economically disadvantaged.

For further information about Chris Haughton and his work, follow the links below: chrishaughton.com vegetablefriedrice.com nodenepal.com

ficton

Angela Readman

Cartoon Boyfriend

he problem with Estelle was she could turn me

I wore, Calvin Klein or trainers that promised I could ‘just

into a cartoon. Maybe it was the problem with me.

do it’, all bets were off when Estelle eased herself into a

I kept seeing this guy on his own with a notebook,

room. I was a cartoon, feet spiralling, I whirled to the bar

a long faced guy in a red baseball cap that still couldn’t

to get drinks. My neck craned from its stem, my lips were

make him look fun. Everywhere I went, he was two steps

wolves crooning over moons.

behind scribbling, making notes. I got this feeling he was turning my life into a pitch. One day I’d turn a corner and

I spoke like a cartoon too, I’m sure. What I said made no

see my problem on a poster outside a cinema- a PG made

sense.

of my 18. And it was a problem, big time. No matter what

‘Yeah. Cool. Nice one.You’re so right. Champion.’

I was Yab-a-dabba doo right through. I kept talking, talking

I tried to avoid Estelle after a while, I was too embarrassed

to her, nervous about what the fruit machines of my eyes

about what she did to me. Scared. I got home from

were doing, all lit up. Estelle looked at me and knew she’d

dropping her off and looked in the mirror. I looked like

hit the jackpot, saw two hearts dilate in my pupils, or

an ordinary guy, nothing special. Ten minutes ago I was

worse. If I didn’t watch it, one of her breasts popped up in

Estelle’s cartoon dog.

each eye like plums.

‘I can beat this,’ I said ‘I can be a real person, I just have to want it bad enough.’

But she was a sweet girl, really, even the smell of her:

This was progress. Usually, I got home and imagined what

lemon lip balm. I closed my eyes and smelt summer.At first,

it may be like to kiss her, then, BAM… I wasn’t me again.

everything was fine, I think. Then my cartoonishness got hard to ignore. Estelle started asking favours. Who could

Right then, I deleted her number. It’s that easy to remove

blame her? My tongue rolled out a red carpet welcome

someone from your life. She’d never come over.We existed

for anticipated kisses every time she asked if I’d give her

to each other as texts, a series of characters, smiley faces

a lift, or move stuff in her new flat. I never slept with her;

and exclamations. I stayed away from old haunts where

I just couldn’t. I was a cartoon; she wasn’t. No one gets

Estelle and my cartoon self lay in wait to ambush me.

this. Jessica Rabbit has a lot to answer for. Estelle touched my arm, and said I was ‘a star.’ She slammed the car door

Sometimes I walked past the bar and saw the baseball

and my dopey heart popped the buttons off my shirt. My

cap guy with his notepad, learning lessons, sifting movies

heart was a red balloon tugging from a string in a kid’s

from the life of someone else. Estelle is there with some

hand, it got away from me and bobbed against the window,

dark haired guy in a shirt. His fingers are spread, giant

smeared it, right there for everyone to see. The wrong

foam hands carry four drinks to the terrace for Estelle

look was a needle, could puncture it through.

and her friends. Hams appear in his eyes as he checks out

her thighs. I feel sorry for the guy. I fight the urge to run

to notice how she looks up at me, the bluebirds arranging

over and tell him she’ll never be into him as long as he’s a

spring flowers in her eyes.

cartoon. I walk on. I’m dating someone else now, Tina. She smells of baby lotion and doesn’t wear lip balm. When I close my eyes to kiss her I smell no citrus, seasons, or fruit of any kind. Our ratio is better, if relationships are score cards. More texts from her than texts from me. Emoticons of hearts sent in exchange for smiley face replies. It’s easy. Tina seems to have learnt how to have a boyfriend from a Tamagotchi cyber pet she had as a child. She checks in on the screen of my face to see if something needs feeding, watering, empathy or hugs. She doesn’t realize I won’t die without them. No skulls and cross bones hang over me if she doesn’t call or kiss me at the right time. I’m real, my cartoon days done. We meet and Tina’s voice reminds me of a fizzy drink when you open the lid. I walk past the bar with her, glance over at Estelle and her latest animation, then look away. This is better, I say, it is. Tina tugs my hand, relying on it to steer her clear of walking into lampposts. I put my hand on her behind, grab, determined. I try not

Angela Readman is the winner of the National Flash Fiction Day competition. She won Inkspill magazineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s short story competition in 2011 and was placed second in The Short Competition. Her short stories have recently appeared in Pank, Metazen, Burner and Pygmy Giant.

poetry

Charlotte Henson Something is Coming Beneath the biscuit-bitten moon of dawn Somethingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coming. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a hint of something unknown, unprecedented enough that even the howling wind has flaked to something spider-thin; to the bare wire frames of lyricism.

and know that you are drowned. Not just in the wetness of it, but in light from sky and man alike. Watch as trees twist to hieroglyphic shapes and pylons conspire in their own electric language.

Since then, the sky has darkened. And static has started to skitter across asphalt and window-frames. Listen; Somewhere a god made its anguish heard and loosed a sadness upon those ears that knew it. See yourself reflected on pavement

Pull skin tight to your skeleton and laughis this it ? But as the storm subsides even sunlight hides fearing that something is coming.

White Noise Like white noise, our minds went blank And seeing red became too clichéd and an understatement for us. The room, a mess which only enraged us further, Like a state of mind with the curtains strewn Across the place, slashed, Pupils flashed morse code. Happiness crawled under the sofa where she lay, quivering, arms wrapped around herself and one of us would reach under and grab her hair, toss her about Screaming accusations. Afterwards, I would coax her out from under the sofa, Stroke her hair when she would sob. It’ll be okay, baby, We’ll be okay.

Coelacanth It was dead, what they shared, and he realized it as much as she. With love like a coelacanth, gone was the small butterfly that once nestled in their breast pocket, occasionally fluttering its wings in a dizzy dance. The fossil of their relationship was far more easily located than the living specimen nowadays. Now, loud nights spent tearing into each other’s ego as a lion does its prey and as the two stand on a pier, even now she is circling, waiting for his next mistake. But for a second, a dark glance on the seafloor. Beneath, the coelacanth made a steady process, huge, and rested directly beneath them.

Charlotte Henson is a student and writer from Bury, Greater Manchester who has swiftly made a name for herself leading and organising workshops, organising theatre shows, and has completing two anthologies along the way. She was short-listed for the Erbacce-Press Prize in 2011 and has been published in Writers’ Forum, Poetry Matters, and Best of Manchester Poets: Volume 2. She runs ‘Once More With Meaning’, an open mic show based in Bury.

Spotlight

Leanda Heler

his body of work is originated from architectural influence, also developing from industrial imagery and cityscapes. The work produced revolves around initial drawings, which are arrangements of fragmented cityscapes incorporated with geometric landscapes. Throughout all works I have used line as the fundamental linear component arranging them in a way to highlight the intrinsic elements of structure, representing the basis of our industrious and natural world. The arrangement and simplicity of these basic forms emphasise and echo the geometric elements that can be found in the visual domain, the work explores the attractiveness of a visual arrangement and demonstrates the fluidity of the line. The clinical and detached monochrome look about the work allows the viewer to respond to the form. I fabricate a variety of different materials and work processes producing sculpture, paintings and silkscreen prints alongside technical drawings, this has allowed me to explore and forward my concepts. As a result of my fascination with the theory of significant form and aesthetic emotion I was inspired to look into this further and elaborate on it, investigating the emotive response to line and colour. This body of work represents an impersonal and detached response to a recognisable visual. From these foundations, I take the core of the chosen vision and reduce it to linear and spatial implication. The root of these visuals are its basic linear formations, its nature is truly interpreted.

Leanda Heler a Fine Artist from Staffordshire, now living in Manchester. She studied Fine Art at Loughborough University, graduated in 2011. Leanda is currently working with a friend, doing freelance photography for musicians in the Manchester area, offering them a promotional base - Contributing to a small company called â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Vulture Studiosâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

For further information about Leanda Heler and her work, follow the links below: leandaheler.com twitter.com/leandaheler tumblr.com/blog/leandaheler

this monthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mp3

Kuedo

Kuedo Words by Anne Louise Kershaw

randing and band persona, merchandising and serious, serious PR! Speak to anyone starting out in the music industry about the advice they receive and they will soon be talking in buzzword-laden sound-bites about how you have to build and maintain a brand. And yet Jamie Teasdale, the creator of Kuedo, says that with his 2011 album ‘Severant’ he wanted to start entirely from scratch;

duo Vex’d,Teasdale has an interesting and explorative backcatalogue of creativity. Listen to anything he’s produced, from albums to remixes, and you soon sense someone who is most comfortable exploring the layers between genres; expanding those which are yet undefined and bringing together previously polar opposites.

“As if I’d never released any music before. To forget entirely about whatever narrative had been built up around previous work, or any existing audience I might have.”

“The component parts are pulled in from a lot of places like aggressive southern rap production, Tangerine Dream and Vangelis synth soundtracks, along with some more synth-pop stuff like Japan. On the surface these are quite disparate but really there’s a lot of connectedness between them all.”

No former knowledge required and no face to the name necessary. In fact, to a certain extent, no name is necessary. Kuedo, the debut solo project of Jamie Teasdale, was created as “just an arbitrary project name” simply “a project title I use to release music of a certain nature”. Previously one half of early noughties pioneering Dubstep

‘Severant’ is a perfect demonstration of this. Free from the window-busting basslines that those familiar with his Dubstep defining work might expect, ‘Severant’ is fantastically retro-futuristic. It perfectly balances the warmth and beauty of the most spectacular, analoguesynth sounds with the thin intricacy of modern machines

into 15 tracks of sheer understated dystopian electronica. It certainly seems to sit outside of certain musical norms – particularly regarding track structure, general album expectation and the lack of typical vocal lines – and yet it also feels extremely natural. “In terms of where it falls as one, I feel connected to the more recent experimental synth stuff coming out on labels like Hippos In Tanks, or Planet Mu.” Teasdale created Kuedo as an intentional creative vehicle; not a name which could define him, but something seemingly meaningless to serve as a blank canvas.

“I feel connected to the more recent experimental synth stuff coming out on labels like Hippos In Tanks, or Planet Mu.” “I didn’t even think much about how to pronounce it, I just kinda liked the typography, the freedom of meaning”. It is this freedom of meaning, paralleled with a freedom of creativity, that is the backbone to Teasdale’s work ethic. “If you use your own real name, you are putting your own history and self in the heart of the project and story line. I don’t want to press my own self upon people when they

listen to the music, it’s supposed to exist outside of that.” Quite simply, in changing the name, a new constructive space was produced, and with that the freedom of detachment; “using your real name also puts all your work along one continuum, I would rather separate the work into discreet projects.” ‘Severant’ certainly was a discreet project.With a new name and pretty much no PR, ‘Severant’ was an underground hit amongst the most searching producers and music-hungry bloggers. Kuedo doesn’t even have a website. He does however have numerous sci-fi laden, image based uploads on Youtube and also a Tumblr; “Something I used to focus my thinking about the aesthetics and visuals. I had similar images looping on a second monitor while I was writing the album and printed bits and pieces around my workspace”. This, alongside the deliciously geometrically assisted, Sarah Moon-esque cover artwork illustrated by Anna Higgie, all aides a heightened visual focus which projects through Keudo’s sound in ‘Severant’. Opening with Visioning Shared Tomorrows, the tone is set downbeat electronica that is effectively sharp and emotive. By the second track, Ant City, what begins to develop is nothing short of the worthy hybrid-love-child of the Blade Runner soundtrack, Vangelis at his best (when is he not?) and 1984.

When I ask what has been of cultural influence to the making of ‘Severent’ Kuedo says; “I find that question hard to approach with an answer because the term ‘culture’ is so expansive. A lot of it was written with the idea of The City in mind, as a cultural object I suppose. Ant City was about finding yourself reduced to insect status within the vastness of the city and its populous.” And yet his personal life also played a large part in influencing the direction of the sound; “The personal events I’m writing about all took place in the center of a big city, I tried to weave that uber metropolis vibe in and out of it all. The city as a cultural object takes up a lot of my thinking, and my thoughts about what I’m saying musically. Obviously there is also the concept of escapism as a larger cultural phenomenon.” Despite its delicacy, there is largeness to the expansive layering of sound within ‘Severant’ that does make you feel small within its audio space. At its brightest, as in Scissors, Kuedo layers a gossamer-esque, synth lead – extremely reminiscent of Carly Simon’s Why – over chopping, almost helicopter sounds, broken-up beats. In fantastic high contrast (I am thinking pictorially here), Ascension Phase falls like electronic rain on a dystopian street – full of suspicious Androids or Replicants and broken humans with ironic 1950’s hairdos. Watch the narrator-less

Directors Cut of Blade Runner and you’ll find that the bleak urban atmosphere has been perfectly transcribed through Kuedo into ‘Severant’. Sci-fi provides a fantasy façade through which to explore the human condition and this is no less effective when utilised sonically.The expansively charged and filmic sound of ‘Severant’ conductively encourages you to explore basic, organic themes within a space that is free of predetermined meaning. “In part, it’s about some really domestic family stuff that’s really underneath it all, but it’s caked with this thick layer of sci-fi. So on that level, it’s equally about science fiction and fantasy escapism itself.” Simplistically, “you could take it quite literally as Blade Runner-esque; a kind of noir sci-fi soundtrack and that’s most people’s relationship with it.” But this one-dimensional listening of ‘Severant’ would really under-explore the varying depth of content within it. Rather than simply creating a means of escapism, Kuedo is “more interested in how we use escapism to avoid, or cope with, everyday life; the domestic situations that we’re avoiding while we’re in this fantasy headspace, and how flawed a response that often is.” And yet ultimately “how inspiring escapism is.” ‘Severant’ provides both the means and the mirror within which escapism ultimately reflects back on itself;

“I couldn’t carry on without it. I used it to carry me through fucked-up situations, I’m sure almost everyone can relate to that. So I’m trying to hit both places. The sounds I’m using are directly referencing that sci-fi escapism but the emotive spot I was aiming for with the melodies are more rooted in the real life world.” Yet the sounds themselves provide more than recognisable musical information. A vast array of time-served analogue sounds has been woven through forward-looking, modern synths to produce an original sound that is both natural and finespun. This is far from accidental; “I believe sounds have innate properties, in terms of how they relate to our shared psychology. Some sounds or musical devices carry a sense of earthiness, others airiness, expansiveness or proximity. So if your intent is to convey a sense of, say, starry futurity, you’d probably want to choose a reverbed synthesizer arpeggio over a honky-tonk piano. And there are probably raw psychological reasons for that.

‘Severant’ provides both the means and the mirror within which escapism ultimately reflects back on itself’

So yeah all the sensed reactions to music are inextricably tied down to the raw sounds and musical devices used. But then pop culture gets involved in a self-referencing way, and it all becomes impossibly complicated. As do our own personal biases.” Kuedo has provided Teasdale with a space within which to creatively start from scratch. To fully indulge in what ‘Severant’ has to offer, listeners should mirror this by placing themselves into a blank space regarding their cultural and musical preconditioning, for each listen reveals another truth, and tucks you under another level of meaning. “I wanted a quite machine-like sound, so I chose to work with certain sequencer programs to convey that. It’s a synthetic album aesthetically, it wears its synthetic-ness on the outside, it is machine and computer driven. But if you can get over preconceptions of music of that nature, then you can clearly hear the human spirit and hands conducting through it all. Some of the synth playing and studio decisions are super rough and real-time, switching drum patterns by hand as it’s recording, playing notes a little out of time because my keyboard skills somewhat suck; there are lots of audibly human imperfections. It’s a human thing at heart. It’s not literally futurist or technoid; at its center it’s organic and impressionistic.” On the 25th June, Kuedo is releasing his first post ‘Severant’ single, Work, Live and Sleep in Collapsing Space. This delivers

a more aggressive, yet still wonderfully spacey sound, which seems to bridge the gap between his earlier work and that produced in ‘Severant’. This appears to sonically step backwards, yet in fact “Before Kuedo I’d never really experienced what it was like to make authentically motivated art. I’d become unintentionally tangled in projects and scenes that I

‘If your intent is to convey a sense of, say, starry futurit y, you’d probably want to choose a reverbed synthesizer arpeggio over a honky-tonk piano.’ didn’t feel a personal connection toward. Everyone I met through previous work had this totally inaccurate idea of what I was into, where I was coming from. That, in itself, isn’t a problem, but what was a problem was how it tallied with this uncomfortable sense of inauthenticity and nonconnection toward my own work. I think if you’re going to be presumptuous enough to call yourself an artist, then you should at least aim to be a genuinely good one”.

The creation of Kuedo has allowed Teasdale to be that artist – authentically. Rather than simply building on his success and continuing along an expected path, by artistically burning all bridges, he has actually enabled himself to bridge the gaps organically. “I’m not so interested in the lo-fi aesthetic for the moment, I’d like to aim for something more lush sonically on the next project. Musically I’m experimenting with a lot, sketching, trying out different configurations and approaches. I’m still formulating. I won’t be retreading the same ground. I’ve come to realise how people need lyrics to really get the themes across. Without words, people tend to view instrumental music as more of a substanceless decoration. I’m going to see about that. If it’s genuinely adding to the music I’ll use vocals. Songwriting would be a really interesting challenge. But I do love the abstraction of wordless music.” It is this abstract and surreal sonic space that Kuedo produces that is so thoroughly effective. Musically and emotionally he explores all shades of the monochromatic spectrum with a variety of beats and synths that, just as you think you are sitting comfortably, catch you by surprise again, revealing more small truths as it does so. “A lot has changed in my life since the last record, the view is so different now.The music I am going to make will reflect that for sure.”

The next single, Work, Live and Sleep in Collapsing Space, certainly seems to reveal different emotional truths, but it is still jam packed with the humanity that beats beneath ‘Severant’. “It’s all very encoded, you can’t extract domestic details from synths and drums, but the raw emotional data is always there.”

Kuedo is the name of the first solo project by Jamie Teasdale, formerly one half of the genre-defining dubstep duo Vex’d. Following the successful release of his 2011 album ‘Severant’, Kuedo is releasing a brand new single ‘Work, Live and Sleep in Collpasing Spaces’ on 25th June 2012 with Planet Mu records. For further information about Kuedo and his work, follow the links below: http://kuedo.tumblr.com http://www.planet.mu/artists/kuedo

feature

Helen Musselwhite The paper trail Words by Sarah Handyside

aper is ubiquitous. A contradictory statement to begin a digital article with, perhaps, but from to-do lists to receipts, birthday cards to newspapers, this is a material that still impacts on everyone, everyday. It can carry notes of crass consumerism or meandering academia, measured organisation or personal sentiment. Those who have been married for a single year celebrate it, school children slave over it. Many people’s first forays into visual arts begin on it, stuck to fridges with magnets or draped from curtain rails in flimsy chains. And of course there are books, thousands upon thousands of books, storytelling their way across our lives. Paper remains, perhaps, the ultimate blank media. No surprise, then, that paper beyond a canvas, paper as a thoughtful, purposeful medium in itself, has found its way

into the collective’s shows. Joe Doldon won last year’s Title Art Prize with a partially paper piece. Contortion No. 2, his elegantly carved book, lent at once quiet calm and a sense of strange and dizzying movement to a corner of BLANKSPACE. One of the smaller sculptures in the exhibition, it was somehow bigger on its inside, where miles of words compressed, seemed to rotate. Later this year BLANKSPACE will host his solo show. In exploring paper art further, blankpages stumbled across Helen Musselwhite, who, working out of her home just south of Manchester, has collaborated with organisations from the British Museum to Cadburys. She straddles and swaps between fine art and something more craft-like, creating objects of beauty that are equally at home on a gallery wall or a mantelpiece, complete with messages of sweet sentimentality.

For there is a marriage of domesticity and childlike simplicity with something more complex and ambiguous that is present in much paper art, and Helen understands it well. Her glass domes collection, for example, initially appears to consist simply of childlike ornaments, pretty and ornate, with templated trees and flowers creating uncomplicated snowglobe-style worlds. Yet these multilayered landscapes are more shadowy than they first appear, leaf after leaf of white-grey-greyer paper lending an unsettling depth and darkness to bell-jar universes, trees made out of trees. Whimsy here is married to intensity, as in the fairy tales that have given clear inspiration to her craft. Her wider website is a treasure trove of flora and fauna, private commissions and commercial pieces – those with sharp eyes and sharper memories may find familiarity here, from previous works commissioned by Stylist magazine and the Telegraph. Happily, Helen was keen to share some of her processes and inspirations with us too, her enthusiasm both charming and infectious. “My work with paper started by chance, when a friend needed a window display for her jewellery shop,” she explains. “Using some big sheets of tracing paper, I made an angel, placed it in the window… and the response was amazing. It opened my eyes to the infinite possibilities offered by working with paper. After that, I started experimenting, layering paper into three-dimensional scenes, building them up or downwards and later creating

entire 360° models to display in bell jars.” Helen originally worked exclusively in white, rather like Peter Calleson, who uses the contrast between white and shadow, cutout template and the space left behind to explore transformation, negative space and complexity. A skull appears, half-hidden, on a single sheet. The branches and roots of fragile trees simultaneously reflect and refute one another. He remains one of the paper artists whose work Helen most admires. She then began adding colours and scanning textile patterns onto paper, creating different effects. “Watercolour paper is a favourite because of its many textures and weights and I’ve recently started to paint it in solid colour and with a dry brush to add texture and variety. These days, I can’t pass an art shop without going in to see if there’s some paper I haven’t got.” Her work is heavily preoccupied with nature: “I love the complexity of a new leaf, the intensity of colour when flowers bud – in short, everything that the rural landscape has to offer,” she explains happily. Where artificial cottages and caravans do appear they are framed by tendrils of undergrowth, rooted organically in their surroundings. More common are the “bank of characters which crop up fairly often in my self-initiated work”, creatures ranging from endearingly stylised owls to deer that wander in and out of her paper trees. So how does a piece actually take shape?

“Whether I’m working on a private commission or a commercial piece, my starting point, once I have a picture in mind, is always the same – a thumbnail sketch of the scene. I enlarge that as I find the first sketch captures some spontaneity which is hard to replicate again. I use tracing paper to work out the layers and to transfer the line drawing onto the reverse of the paper, before starting on the tracing, cutting, scoring and sticking that creates my work. “I usually know how I want the piece to look in my head before I start so the process is quite controlled, although a piece will sometimes change and evolve as I work on it. I get very carried away when I’m working and often lose track of time...but the smallest size of framed artwork takes around an hour if it’s a repeat design, while a larger piece could take 40 hours or more.” Yet what ignites those initial thumbnail sketches as much, if not more than observation, are words: “This may sound strange coming from someone who likes to describe herself as an artist but, for me, words are intrinsic to my work,” says Helen. “Notebooks are as much a part of what I do as sketchbooks – I’ll jot down thoughts about a piece, or words that I associate with a brief, before I come up with the artwork.” This seems particularly appropriate for artistry based on paper. Helen may not sculpt books as artists from Brian

Dettmer to Su Blackwell do, storing reams of syntax, characters and conversations explicitly within their forms, but she packs words into her work nevertheless. From the echoes of fairytales that flicker through her woodland scenes to the page-like layering of her paper foliage, there is a constant awareness of paper as a storytelling medium, paper as a record-keeper and imagination-firer. There is a sweet simplicity to many of Helen’s designs, yes, but it is precisely that simplicity that bears the uncanny weight of paper so well. Paper is an unexpectedly complex and coded medium, never as light or blank as it initially seems, with language and narrative inextricably a part of its beauty. And of course, as we sign off and leave you with some images of Helen’s work, we cannot help but remain acutely aware of this – love from blankpages!

For further information about Helen and her work, follow the links below: www.etsy.com/people/sanfran67 www.flowgallery.co.uk www.cambridgecrafts.co.uk www.raidiancelighting.co.uk www.boxbird.co.uk

blankpicks

Alabaster dePlume Tonight From I ron Mountain I have a friend who likes to cause mischief. He shreds paper and he blocks the toilet. If he can get into trouble for doing something, he’ll do it. If on the other hand, everything’s fine, calm, safe and respectable, then he’ll get up and go home. He’s bored. So, when my friend needs to do something, it must be made to seem somehow notorious. It’s often this way, I find, with people. A message or plain purpose will serve better, wrapped in a distracting or colourful foil. It’s an invitation to embrace something, as opposed to a challenge to accept or reject it. So if I want people to know about my work, or of the work of my colleagues, or indeed some other, loftier, idea or message, I may do best to write on another subject altogether. Perhaps, for instance, the magnificent characters, and thoroughly obscure situations, that I’ve come to know, through touring, performing and creating music.

Alabaster de Plume recommends:

There’s Lead in my Pencil theresleadinmypencil.blogspot.co.uk It might be two lines of overheard conversation, perhaps a set of still-life photographs, a gripe, a cheap quip, or an in-depth case description of real-life and anonymous personal crises. Perhaps an alphabetical poem, or an obscure piece of theatre. Who can say. But it will certainly know dark humour, sardonic wit and sobriety, from a rare perspective, in clear sincerity and personal candour. I read few ‘blogs’, but I read this one. The human beings I find around me are unfathomable in their depth and beauty. I love them. And, they serve well, as a vehicle, an excuse, to promote awareness, to others, and indeed one-another, of their - our - work; music, poetry, creativity, art. alabasterdeplume.com/iron-mountain/viva

Forthcoming

Events

THE OLAUGHICS Comedy Store, Mancester 23 June 1.30 - 3.30pm £7 / £5 concessions On the day the Olympic Torch reaches central Manchester Local Leaders will be holding the UK’s first ever National Laughter Championships. They’re calling it The Olaughics laughing competitions inspired by the Olympic Games. London 2012 Local Leader Robin Graham says, “Laugh for peace, happiness, health and community spirit! Laughter is amazing – it does all these good things without us even trying!” thecomedystore.co.uk PARAPHRASE Contemporary Six, Manchester runs until June 2 Contemporary Six – The Gallery is pleased to announce Paraphrase (from 24 May to 2 June 2012), a versatile show, featuring new and recent works by three unique artists; Simon Hadley Attard, Mike Chavez-Dawson, and Richard Shields, who use history as a medium and materials as a language. All three artists playfully navigate modes of the traditional, whilst introducing an awareness of the creative discourse between the digital and the analogy, the industrial and the readymade, they all paraphrase, pay homage and expound through their chosen vernaculars. contemporarysix.com

GIN AND CHRONIC ARTHRITIS 3MT, Afflecks Palace, Manchester Previews 13 June, Performances run 14-16 June, 7:30pm £8 Based in Greater Manchester, MaD Theatre Company works to provide a platform for disadvantaged young people and adults to develop and showcase their performance skills. Gin and Chronic Arthritis, a comedy, is the latest offering from this exciting theatre group, featuring a number of emerging performance artists. madtheatrecompany.co.uk MAGIC WORDS Bramsche, Todmorden 12 June, 7:30pm £3 Join Emma Decent and guests for an exhilarating evening of new poetry and spoken word performances. Open mic slots are available but will fill up fast – make sure you get there early to book your place. Guests for June include Clare Shaw, Char March and Steve O’Connor. bramsche.co.uk EMBRYO 72 King’s Arms, Salford 15 June, 7:30pm £5 Cabaret evening Embryo 72 provides what it calls a ‘test bed’ for local artists and performers to try out their new material in front of a live audience. The art forms are varied and wide-ranging, and include performance poetry, short films and script reading. kingsarmssalford.com

A RANDOM COLLECTION OF ILLUSTRATIONS BY STANLEY CHOW 2022NQ, Manchester Runs until 18 June Stan Chow presents ‘A Random Collection of Illustrations’ exhibition at 2022nq. 2022nq.co.uk FLARE WEEKENDER Zion Arts Centre, Manchester 8-9 June The Flare Weekender is bringing together some of the best new performance companies and artists from across Europe, in Manchester. After the Flare International Festival of New Theatre in 2011, the Flare Weekender is doing it all again, but this time in one place and in just two days. 10 performances selected from the local, national and international stars of the future of theatre, plus live music, workshops, discussions, a cabaret and one big party. One great weekend in the heart of Manchester. flarefestival.com INVISO Cube Gallery, Manchester 7 – 19 July Final year students from Staffordshire University are teaming up with the Cube Gallery to present INVISO, an exciting exhibition of new photography. The exhibition will showcase work from a total of 27 graduates, and will span a number of genres, including portraiture, fashion, documentary and landscape art. invisoexhibition.com

THE FUTURE IS WORDS – WRITERS’ WORKSHOP Sale Waterside Arts Centre 13 June, 10am-4pm £10 / £8 concession NAWE Young Writers Co-ordinator Wes Brown presents a day workshop which comprises of two halves: the first will look at ‘writers’ craft’, assisting those looking to develop their writing and self-editing abilities; while the second will focus on the current state of the publishing industry and provide tips on using modern digital formats. watersideartscentre.co.uk MMU DEGREE SHOW 2012 All Saints Campus / Quay House Spinningfields 16-20 June, 10am-4pm (except 18 June, 10am-6pm) Always a hotbed of new and emerging artists, Manchester Metropolitan University showcases the work of its graduating art students. Art, Media and Architecture projects will be shown at the All Saints Campus, while Quay House will host the Design show. artdes.mmu.ac.uk

SOMETHING TO SHOUT ABOUT? To include your event or recommend someone else’s in a future issue just email us with your event title, location, date, time and a short description. Editor@blankmediacollective.org (max 100 words)

blankpages Team: Editor: John Leyland Head of Design: Michael Thorp Head of Marketing: Abby Ledger-Lomas Fiction Editor: Dan Carpenter Features Editor: Sarah Handyside Visual Editor: Simon Meredith Music Editor: Anne Louise Kershaw Events Editor: Adam Gilmour Comms Intern: Hannah Hiett