Happy Beltane.
Here are a few photos I've shared on my personal account before, but maybe not here.
Various Beltane's in the past, Helston Flora Day and Shaftesbury Abbey.
The ones at Shaftesbury Abbey (last 2) were shot on 35mm film. I scanned the negs using my scanner (it has a transparency scanning unit) at a high resolution, so I've been slowly digitising my negs.
Can you spot the printed test strip resting on top of this amazing original painting by @astrigakseralian ?
My scanner is a high-resolution graphics scanner capable of capturing the widest colour gamut and tonal range possible to get prints looking as good as the original, so I don’t blame you if you struggle to spot it. 🌟🐱
Test strip is on Studio Rag 100% cotton. Original is acrylic on board (this crop shows only part of the full painting)
O P E N C A L L
Calling artists and writers!
This year's birthday project is "Eleven" a zine that showcases artists and writers based in Somerset or near Frome, and those with a connection to the area or to Jennifer/ Peradam (including clients and customers based anywhere in the world.)
The brief is very loose. Wherever “eleven” or “11” takes you. For me, it’s about resetting in order to push that bit further. Mount launched 11 years ago in a very different guise to where we are now. When Simon stopped framing in 2022 I thought about stopping too. But I decided to see where I could push to, if I tried. Out of that Peradam was born. Eleven is pushing beyond limits. K is the 11th letter in the alphabet (and the 1st letter in our surname). The album K by Kula Shaker was the soundtrack of our earliest days together (by our I mean Simon and I). A formative time that forged fundamental principles that we still live by today.
You get so far in life, and then it's worth re-setting and starting again, but with more knowledge than you had the first time. I’ve reached one of those moments in life to ask where am I going from here?
This is where my mind goes when I think of “eleven”.
But where does your mind go?
Link in bio for more info.
Deadline July 27th
The Giclee prints I’ve had produced of this original floral painting are of such incredibly high-quality, it’s hard to tell the difference from the original. The colour match is absolutely exact. You know when you’ve found the best service from a true expert @peradamprint #flowerpaintings #fineartprinting #originalart #gicleeprint
I'm easing myself back after a lovely break away, spending the first half of my break in Dartmoor to celebrate my birthday. We stayed in a cabin in the woods and did loads of walking. I re-read The Hound of the Baskervilles while I was there, which I highly recommend! 🐶
I've not explored Dartmoor much before, and it quickly became one of my favourites. I love all the prehistoric sites - literally tripping up on stone circles and ancient settlements scattered everywhere. 🗿
Pic 1 Kes Tor and its summit rock basin, created by the weathering of feldspar crystals over time (or if you're less scientific, created by Druids)🧙♂️
Pic 2 Clapper bridge at Postbridge (where we bought some Dartmoor whisky and then drank it on the moor - nothing better!)
Pic 3 Hound Tor
Pic 4 a stone avenue at Fernworthy
video in Fernworthy forest
Pic 5 wild Dartmoor pony and foal
Pic 6 me at Fernworthy forest
Pic 7 near Wistman's Wood
HOLIDAY!! 😎 I'm off on annual leave from 3pm on Thursday 26th March, back on April 7th. Last orders before I go: 10am Wednesday 25th. (Technically I'll be back in Frome on Weds 1st April, so if there's urgent jobs required before Easter there's a chance I can come in on the 1st and 2nd. But I'd rather potter around my garden to be honest, so urgent jobs only!) Details on my website.
I enjoyed curating/ organising the Artist Trading Print Project last year, so this year I'm doing a zine. It'll be themed on the concept of "eleven" whatever that means to people. It'll be an experimental zine, a process of discovery rather than everything mapped out in advance. For now I don’t know for sure what format the zine will take. This project has no funding, so it’s a for-the-love-of-it thing. We’ll only be able to print it if we raise the funds required, so we’ll be running a cover competition and other fundraisers. The amount we raise will determine the format it takes, whether it’s a glossy perfect bound journal, or DIY photocopied and stapled. The final aesthetic and design will reflect and accept the limitations of this approach. It might end up being a digital download with only a limited print run. I'm excited to find out what shape it might take.
I've been busy putting together a project page on my website with more info. For now the page is password locked. But if you're interested in taking a sneak-peek advance look, then comment or DM 11 and I will send you the password to gain pre-launch entry. You'll get the opportunity to get ahead and submit an entry early-doors (you can always submit a later entry too).
There's still a few Artist Trading Project artists who've not collected their card set or signed the full set print. Please get in touch if you're one of them. Kelly who won the competition is patiently waiting on receiving the signed print of the full set - so please come in and sign it!
Printing a set of postcards to give to my mum as a Mother's Day gift. I found these beautiful sampler patterns by a variety of art nouveau artists working in 1896. Each one is printed on fully archival 100% cotton paper, and hand-stamped with my logo.
We launched exactly 11 years ago today, at the first Independent Market of 2015. A lot has changed since then. Over the past week I’ve been questioning what I’m doing and how I’m going about it. I love helping other artists and writers, it’s super-rewarding to see people I’ve helped grow their career. But I need to keep my own practice alive too. The Trading Print Project I did last year to celebrate our 10th birthday was amazing. Bringing 50 artists together and showing their work in a new way was a great thing to be part of. I want to do more collaborative projects, so launching today I’ll be working on a year-long zine project called ELEVEN. I don’t know what exact form it will take, only that I will invite artists and writers to submit work that somehow relates to the word/ number/ subject/ idea of Eleven. I’ve been chatting to a few people over the past few weeks about it, and I love how each person’s brain goes somewhere different. I’ll create an invitation or call for entries thing about it very soon, and see where it goes.
Thanks to everyone who's supported us over the past 11 years, we couldn’t do it without you 🙏
Here's a couple of seasonally-themed 🩷 poems from a book I designed a few years ago for the author Dave Walsham. He's a brilliant frome-based poet with a background in music and drama. This collection was something we collaborated on together, I created photo collages to illustrate his poems, and did the typesetting and book design throughout as well as production management. Expertly printed by Wells Printing @wellsprinting
#valentines
