Crossword

Muntanya is an independent trekking and outdoors shop offering clothing and equipment from major suppliers. 7 Cheap St, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 3PT 01935 389484 • 07875 465218 david@muntanya.co.uk

www.muntanya.co.uk

Suppliers of both new and pre-loved vinyl, official t-shirts, merchandise and memorabilia. Come visit and “Try before you buy”. The Beat & Track, The Old Shambles, South Street, Sherborne, DT9 3LN 07730 356719

thebeatandtrack@icloud.com www.thebeatandtrack.co.uk

OCTOBER SOLUTIONS

ACROSS 1. Eg Heathrow and Gatwick (8) 5. Bonus; positive (4) 9. Sense experience (5) 10. Flamboyant confidence of style (7) 11. Unhappy (12) 14. Help; assist (3) 15. Male relation (5) 16. Number of toes (3) 17. Improvement in a condition (12) 20. Country in South America (7) 22. Cluster (5) 23. Takes an exam (4) 24. Small pincers (8) DOWN 1. Creative disciplines (4) 2. Revoke (7) 3. Unnecessarily careful (12) 4. Helpful hint (3) 6. Lawful (5) 7. Paying out money to buy goods (8) 8. Not discernible (12) 12. More pleasant (5) 13. Old World monkeys (8) 16. Beat easily (7) 18. Show triumphant joy (5) 19. Therefore (4) 21. Deviate off course (3)

Richard Hopton, Sherborne Literary Society

Wild Light by Angela Harding (Sphere, £25)

Sherborne Times reader offer price of £23 from Winstone’s Books

Light is the elixir of art, ever different and ever-changing, sought by artists everywhere and in every age. Angela Harding’s new book is a celebration of light and of the natural world. As she writes, ‘Light can be enjoyed and appreciated in so many ways, in different seasons and different weathers…the thin light of winter and the shocking blast of the midday summer sun are two extremes.’

Angela Harding is a printmaker who specialises in depicting nature and animals, especially birds. Since training in the fine art of printmaking in the early 1980s, she has exploited the medium to portray the wonders of nature and conjure up the unique charm of the English countryside. Her prints are beautiful, intricately worked images, the product of her acutely observant eye and her close connection to the rhythms of the natural world. But it is light, in all its moods, which informs her work. As she writes:

‘Waking in our bedroom in Rutland on a bright summer’s morning is a very different experience to waking on our boat to a damp autumnal daybreak, which is different again to the gradual dawn of a winter’s first light at home, with its rosy hues that hold the promise of a day less grey than the one before.’

The book is structured around the course of the day to demonstrate how the ever-changing light affects the way we – and, in particular, the artist – see the world around us.

Wild Light contains ninety-seven of Angela’s prints, attractively reproduced. They were all made in her studio in Rutland but record scenes from various parts of England: her father’s cottage in Shropshire, the Norfolk and Suffolk coast, Cornwall, Scotland, and her home patch in Rutland. The prints portray a roe deer, foxes, whippets, cats, hares, chickens, adders, a mouse, a hedgehog, and a sheep but the stars are the birds. We are treated to Angela’s depictions of a multitude of British birds: garden birds – blackbirds, woodpeckers, thrush, finches, robins, wrens, and rooks; field birds – owls, pigeons, partridge, pheasant, quail, plover, curlews, and nightingales; raptors – ospreys, a golden eagle, falcons, kestrels, and a sparrowhawk; and seabirds – cormorants, shearwaters, and choughs.

Early in her career, Angela created her prints by etching, a process which involves cutting an image into a plate to create a black line in the resulting print. Nowadays, by contrast, she uses predominantly block printing in which the artist creates a white line in the printed image, the opposite effect in which the ink colours the block, not the line as in etching. Silkscreen printing adds colour to her images where required.

If anyone, even vestigially, still entertains the notion that somehow prints are not ‘proper’ art, original and unique, on account of the fact that they can be – and are – reproduced many times over, should read this stunning book and be converted, once and for all. The originality and sheer artistic talent of Angela’s work is here for all to see.

sherborneliterarysociety.com

Celebrating 10 Years as Sherborne’s Independent Bookseller 2012-2022 8 Cheap Street, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 3PX www.winstonebooks.co.uk Tel: 01935 816 128

Talk and Book Signing with Angela Harding

Tuesday 8th November 6.30pm for 7pm