 Pendragon Castle
I’ve been collecting stories from the Yorkshire Dales for a while now in prepartion for an exhibition this summer. When I started asking for it didn’t take long to realise that some places attract legends like a hedgehog attracts fleas. Pendragon Castle is a case in point.
Pendragon Castle lies on the north western edge of the Dales in the shadow of Wild Boar Fell and the crumbling ruin sits on a mound in which a dragon lives. The castle’s name is well known from the legends of King Arthur. Uther Pendragon was Arthur’s father and was reputedly born here. That’s the first legend. Uther lost the castle when an enemy poisoned the castle well during a siege killing a hundred soldiers.
 Wild Boar Fell
The castle was also home to Sir Hugh de Morville, one of Thomas Becket’s murderers. Sir Hugh was haunted by the similarity between the silhouette of Wild Boar Fell and the shape of Becket’s face in death. From the right angle the hill looks like the profile of a fallen man.
As if all this wasn’t sufficient for one ruin there is also a buried treasure which is guarded by a spectral black hen. As fast as a treasure hunter digs a hole the hen fills it back in.
So, for my forthcoming exhibition, I’ve been wrestling with how to portray this mysterious place. In the first painting I played with idea of an aura, using a halo effect to enclose the castle and echo the shape of the tree. In the second I drew my inspiration from the colours of the hen: black feathers, red wattle. And in the third I tried to bring an other-wordly, unreal feeling to the castle’s silhouette.
 For Wild Boar Fell I wanted to capture to remote wildness of this high outpost of the Pennines and also something of the sadness that here was where the last wild boar in England was killed.
As an ensemble I hope they reflect the various legends of this little-visited corner of the Dales.
All the paintings will be on show at the eventual exhibition (see the poster - right).
| |  Tulips in WatercolourFor those interested in watercolour floral painting there are still a few places left on the course I’m teaching at Constable Burton. Run by Artison studios of Masham, the course includes a tour of the beautiful gardens and lovely Palladian house of Constable Burton as well as lunch. CLICK HERE for further details and to book a place.
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 I'm working away at a huge pile of stories which people have drawn my attention to about various places in the Yorkshire Dales for my exhibition at Wensley Church later this year. I'm gradually creating images for the tales as I go - this one's of Aysgarth Church where the screen from Jervaulx Abbey ended up. (if you want to know more about that have a look at this great blog on Pip's Patch. I'm trying to find out about another story at Aysgarth: the legend that Garibaldi - the liberator and unifier of modern Italy - had his soldiers famous red shirts made at Aysgarth. The story goes that the mill had a surplus of seven thousand worsted jerseys that it couldn't shift but managed to sell them to the Italian leader after dyeing them red. Does anyone out there know the truth of the story? Here's a little tale that I've been writing up recently about a body that turned up near Masham a few years ago. I'm indebted to the archives of the Northern Echo for the details.
 The Colsterdale Man of MysteryThe Dales are a strange combination of cosy villages, rambling roads that thread through the valleys and bleak empty moorland. Walking the moors is one of my greatest pleasures but the remoteness these open spaces, studded with old coal pits, lime kilns, grouse butts and prehistoric earthworks, is sometimes brought home with a story like this one: The gamekeeper had noticed traces of bone flecking the peat for about four years as he passed the ditch on Thorny Grange Moor, but he thought they were the remains of a long-dead sheep. When he finally had a closer look the grisly truth became apparent. The remains were of a man who would have been about sixty when he died, the time of death being around twenty-five years earlier, in 1977. The decased was dressed in a grey suit, a white shirt, a brown and orange tie and a pair of shoes by the George Ward Boot Company. In his pockets he carried a 1958 shilling, a 1971 penny, a mortice key in a tin, and a Cadaux 600 transistor radio. At some time in the distant past he had fractured his left collar bone, two ribs, both heels and suffered from mild arthritis. Despite all this information, a facial reconstruction and a lot of publicitythe Colsterdale Man was never identified. In one of the most pathetic press releases ever written a spokesman said: “A tooth has been retained for DNA comparisons.” Illustration: Colsterdale, Sunset
Paintings and Stories of the Yorkshire Dalesby Ian Scott MassieHoly Trinity Church, Wensley, N Yorks.With kind permission of the Churches Conservation Trust27 July – 11 August 2013 A major exhibition of new paintings based on stories from the Yorkshire Dales collected over the last two years. In addition to artwork the exhibition sees the launch of a book for children: The Penhill Giant, which is an illustrated retelling of events which took place on the hill overlooking the exhibition location. The exhibition will also see the launch of a book illustrated with new paintings created for the exhibition work which will also include a collection of Dales stories, many of which will be appearing in print for the first time.
I'm involved in a number of exhibitions this year. I've listed them below. Hope to see you at one of them. To keep up to date why not "Like" me on Facebook - CLICK HERE - or "Follow" me on Twitter - CLICK HERE Screen Prints of Cambridge Cambridge Contemporary Art, Cambridge. April 2013 Eight new screen prints of Cambridge, including The Bridge of Sighs (above), The Round Church and Queen’s College.
 Paintings and Stories of the Yorkshire Dales Wensley Church, Wensley, N Yorks. 27 July – 11 August 2013 A major exhibition of new paintings based on stories from the Yorkshire Dales collected over the last two years. In addition to artwork the exhibition sees the launch of a book for children: The Penhill Giant, which is an illustrated retelling of events which took place on the hill overlooking the exhibition location. The exhibition will also see the launch of a book illustrated with new paintings created for the exhibition work which will also include a collection of Dales stories, many of which will be appearing in print for the first time. By kind permission of the Churches Conservation Trust
 Also coming up this year:Art in the PenSkipton Auction Mart, Skipton, N Yorks. 17 – 18 August 2013 For one weekend Skipton Auction Mart becomes a vast art gallery with artists from across the North of England displaying work where cattle and sheep are usually sold. Always a great event with a wonderful atmosphere. Masham Arts Festival ExhibitionSt Mary’s Church, Masham, N. Yorks. 25 October – 2 November 2013 The sixth Masham Arts Festival will include, as always, an eclectic mix of events, art and craft workshops and concerts, but, at its heart, is this exhibition. Featuring thirty carefully selected artists this is always one of the best exhibtions on the British festival scene. Simplicity Of ColourMasham Gallery, Masham, N Yorks. 21 September - 3rd November A stunning exploration into the power and beauty of using a single colour by myself and some wonderful printmakers: Anja Percival, Hester Cox, Margaret Morris and Janis Goodman. Aged to PerfectionMasham Gallery, Masham, N Yorks. 16th November - 31st December - A number of artists explore finding beauty in the worn, aged and imperfect. Includes work from myself and Josie Beszant, Suzanne McIvor and Victoria Sayers amongst others.
For further details, or to enquire about purchasing my work CLICK HERE
My lovely home town of Masham in Wensleydale is hosting a terrific event on 28th October. Masham's Edwardian Town Hall is going to be full of contemporary craft makers showing work, demonstrating techniques and encouraging visitors to try their hand at a range of craft skills. Pole lathe turning demonstrated by Chris Helliwell. Crafted by Hand is sponsored by The Masham Gallery - a leading art and craft gallery - and Artison - an innovative provider of great art and craft workshops. The event runs from 10 till 4 on 28th October. Entrance costs a paltry £1.50, there is ample free parking and excellent tea,coffee and cakes are available all day. For complete details go to Creative Masham's website - CLICK HERE
"I’m not an abstractionist. I’m not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else. I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on."
Mark Rothko
Yesterday a man sat gazing at a painting by Mark Rothko at Tate Modern. After a while he took out a bottle of paint and a brush and added an illegible scrawl to a corner of the painting. Only a single word – Vladimir – was recognisable. Under the gaze of a gallery full of people he left and, so far, has not been found by the police. The painting was one of a series created by Rothko in the 1960s to hang in the restaurant of New York’s Seagram building. Rothko had grown increasingly unhappy with the commission (probably realising that he was pouring his feelings into creating high class wallpaper) and, instead, generously gave the works to the Tate Gallery. For many years they hung in what is now Tate Britain at a time when his work was largely ignored (it was seen very much as an outmoded experiment in 1950s abstract expressionism) before commercial forces rehabilitated his work in the 1990s when it became, once more, “cool”. White Stripe, oil on canvas
Living twenty miles from London and loving the Tate Gallery, I would often find myself alone with Rothko’s wonderful pictures absorbing the deep colours and fractured boundaries between the floating veils of pale paint, finding a place of peace and an inner sense of self. For me these paintings did everything great art should be able to do.
I was fascinated by Rothko’s work and eventually produced a series of works in a tribute to his style, one of which, Four Meditations, became a successful print.
Four Meditations, gouache on paper
However, it appeared that Vladimir was not the only critic of Rothko’s style. After the print had been in circulation for a few years an American blog appeared – a sort of art list – which named Four Meditations as the worst painting of the year. The reviewer heaped scorn on the work and also bemoaned the fact that some sucker had paid “thousands of dollars” for the painting. Quite apart from the fact that it had never sold (I still have it in the studio) I was puzzled why anyone should want to criticise the work but began to get the smallest inkling of how Rothko's sensitivity blossomed into full scale paranoia when much of the American art establishment turned their fire on him.
A few years ago the printmaker Hester Cox gave me a beautiful book about Rothko’s last years. As depression and paranoia consumed him the colours and life bled out of the paintings. The luminous, ragged shapes give way to plain fields of greys and blacks divided by a single bleak line. Inevitably he painted himself psychologically into a corner from which suicide was the only way out. His death robbed us of an artist who could connect the medieval mystical art of cathedral shadows with trascendant abstract colour fields on the white walls of modern galleries, bringing meditation and introspection into the blinding rush of a contemporary metropolis.
And now his his work has been deliberately damaged by a stranger’s handiwork as Velazquez’s Rokeby Venus and Rembrandt’s Night Watch have been in the past. If only the passion to damage and debase art were channelled into the creation of new, enlightening, original work the world would be enriched. Might Vladimir consider this before taking out his bottle and brush again? Unfortunately I doubt it.
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Over the last few months I've been out walking, sketching and photographing in the Yorkshire Dales working on ideas for an exhibition based on stories from the Dales which will be happening in July 2013. Inevitably this has taken me through the area known as the Three Peaks - a triangle of high country ringed by the hills of Whernside, Ingleborough and Penyghent. Running though the centre of this fabulous landscape is the Ribblehead Viaduct - the mighiest structure on the Settle to Carlisle railway.
Whernside
Ingleborough
Penyghent
I first came to this place on the day I was introduced to the Dales. I was being taken down my first pot hole! The Three Peaks area is honeycombed with caves and I was being initiated into the art of speleology (that's caving) by a couple of enthusiasts. Driving from Durham we left the A1 at Scotch Corner and passed through Richmond. Then we made our way up Swaledale, crossed into Wensleydale and finally stopped at Horton in Ribblesdale. I was knocked out by the beauty of the countryside that day - the shape of the land, the meandering drystone walls, the tiny barns - and have stayed that way ever since. For the last twenty five years I have lucky enough to live in this wonderful landscape. Over the years I have painted the Three Peaks several times, usually mounting the three images in one frame, as I have done with the latest set, shown above. Every day people walk, cycle and run the Three Peaks, often clocking in and out at the time clock in the cafe at Horton. The three hills offer amazing views and have entirely different characters. Below is a smaller set which I painting while planning the larger version. CLICK HERE to enquire about buying The Three Peaks.
Whernside
Ingleborough
Penyghent
 Janet's Foss 3 colour screen print Edition of 8
Until I went to Neville's Cross College in Durham in 1973 I had no idea what a screen print was. But then I met a couple of art students who were turning out fabulous images using a process that was incredibly simple and brilliantly clever.
As with so many wonderful things, it was the Chinese who came up with screen printing. You take a piece of fabric (silk was the norm for a long time), stretch it over a frame and block out areas - with a stencil or by painting on a special blocking fluid - that you don't want to print. Then using a squeegee (a short length of wood holding a rubber blade) you squeeze ink through the screen onto the paper or fabric beneath.
On Janet's Foss (above) I began by blocking out the white areas of the waterfall and reflection and printed the pale green layer. Next, everything that is pale green was blocked out and the mid green layer was printed. Lastly everything but the dark green areas was blocked and the print was completed.
Used in this way screen printing is perfect for painters since (as long as you can think in terms of negative space) it allows you to use to same skill set that one normally uses directly on paper. Compared with etching, for example, it is a low tech, clean, safe process requiring no acid baths or sharp tools.
Brograve Mill 4 colour screen print Edition of 9
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Masham Church 3 colour screen print Edition of 7
| When I came back to screen printing after a gap of many years I found that the materials had changed (manmade fibre screens and easy to clean water-based inks) and also that I had changed. As a result of my years developing as a painter I had found a style and some of this carried over into screen print. For the prints of both Brograve Mill (a derelict windmill in North Norfolk) and Masham Church (which I see every time I look out of my window) I have used a very limited palette. I have also made strong use of shadows, reflections and texture techniques - all ideas which have developed from my painting. I also like the fact that a screen print is very much a handmade work and I only produce small editions of print (usually only 6 to 10 copies of each image). I now find that painting and screen printing allow me to develop artistic ideas in very different ways. All the new prints above, and several more, can be seen on the freshly-revised screen print page on my website. CLICK HERE to be taken there. To receive updates on my work as it develops follow me on Facebook ( by CLICKING HERE) or on Twitter ( by CLICKING HERE). A large selection of my work is always available at The Masham Gallery.
| | Under A Northern Sky was first published in 2009. It is a collection of poetry and paintings which I had written and painted over a number of years and which I felt complimented each other. It now appears in a completely revised second edition and is the first book to appear in the imprint of Masham Gallery Press. It is priced at £9.95 and is available from The Gallery, Masham ISBN 978-1-909260-00-9 CLICK HERE to order Under A Northern Sky | A few extracts from Under A Northern Sky : 
Curlews
Wind of cloudscape and seaspray
Scours, roars, glides and soars between the evening hills.
Kissing the fan of falling water,
Rattling the rusted shells of leaves on limestone,
Hissing in a tide of trees
And lifting the magic bird.
The stone coloured camouflaged curlew -
Curving beak and curving song -
Swings like a dark lantern on the unseen slopes of sky
And pours its liquid flight
Down to the nest of night.
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Waterfalls
Its is only when I am afar and alone
My three loves,
That I see you clearly.
Glittering,
Poured like wine over silver,
You are my roses and my rain.
Hard on the ice-bound edge of the year
Or drowsy in folds of a summer meadow,
I sleep with your dreams running sweet through my song
And know you,
In truth,
As the only gold.
I am always in awe of your matchless light,
But ever I aim where my strength will not follow,
So I am Icarus and you are the sun
And I die for your joy and am glad in my sorrow.
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A November Kind of Day
This is the hour when the weariness comes
And the pen is falling from my fingers,
When cobbles shine with rain and afternoon light,
And the smoky smells of autumn linger,
And I think about you and I miss you still.
I wish you could hear my song but you never will.
Its a November kind of day.
This is the hour when a telephone rings
But no-one’s ever there to answer.
This is the time when all the fog fills the sky
And hides the heaven’s silver dancers.
And I turn your memory over in my hand.
The way I feel today I know you’d understand.
Its a November kind of day.
This is the time when night comes hungry and cold
Devouring dreams with deadly fingers.
This is the time just like the time you left my life.
I thank God the memory still lingers.
On days like this I feel so sad I cannot say.
I miss the years we lost because you passed away.
Its a November kind of day today.
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The Wishing Seat
Whenever I’m here I’m never alone,
There’s always you and me.
Whenever I’m here I feel at home
On the old tree’s bones
Where the sunshine’s warm
And the wind sighs and sings and moans
Like a ship on the southern seas.
Whenever I’m here its a lovely day
Under winter or summer skies
And in times to come when you’re far away
I’ll be leaning back on the bark of grey
And feeling inside the warm sun’s rays
And looking out of your eyes.
Whenever I’m here and the touch of gold
Is frosting the winter breeze
I will always find your hands to hold
For wherever we are we are touching souls
Forever
For in my wishes are folded
Your words by the wishing tree.
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Ardnamurchan Lighthouse (Watercolour)
New Exhibition at The Gallery, Masham : The Edge of the World
21st July to 31st August
Saltburn Pier (Watercolour)The Gallery in Masham is mounting an exhibition entitled The Edge of the World which opens with a preview on July 20th. The exhibition's title is taken from a remarkable film set on a remote Scottish island: The Edge of the World. (More about the film below). Looking From The Yorkshire Border (Mixed Media)
Middlesmoor (Watercolour)The exhibition will feature by some terrific artists: Catherine Sutcliffe-Fuller, Heather Gatt, Pamela Knight, Winifred Hodge, Gareth Buxton, Lesley Birch and myself. The concept of "the edge" can mean so many things. The more I thought about it the more I realised that I would have to make some careful choices in exploring the subject. In the end I painted a serious of works which relate to the theme in different ways. Two pictures: Looking From the Yorkshire Border and Saltburn Pier take Yorkshire as my world and show the views looking from the pass which leads from Cumbria into Swaledale and, far to the East, the end of Yorkshire where Saltburn pier dips its toes in the water. Lindisfarne (Watercolour)
Lindisfarne (Screen Print)
The images of Lindisfarne and Bamburgh refer both to life on the edge of England but also to where the worlds of the Celtic saints and the Vikings first met. Middlesmoor Church is on a hill, high at the head of Nidderdale, standing in an ancient sacred place where, in the Dark Ages, the edge of earth met the edge of heaven.
Skye from Sanna (Screen Print)
Skye from Sanna and The Lightouse, Ardnamurchan are both paintings from Ardnamurchan in Argyllshire, the most westerly part of the British mainland. Here a long finger of land reaches out, over the isle of Mull, towards the Hebrides. It’s the edge of Scotland and it feels like the edge of another world.
Bamburgh (Watercolour) The Edge of the World is at: The Gallery, 24, Market Place, Masham, North Yorkshire. HG4 4EB www.mashamgallery.co.uk There is a preview on July 20th at 7.30 pm. Come and join us for a glass of wine if you can. The exhibition runs from 21st July to 31st August The Gallery opening hours are: Tuesday - Saturday 10am - 5pm Sunday 1pm - 5pm Monday - Closed
In July 2013 I'm staging my next major exhibition. Its going to comprise paintings, prints, poetry and stories based on legends and anecdotes about places in the Yorkshire Dales. I've already found quite a number of great tales like the story of Sir Hugh de Morville, one of the knights who murdered Thomas a Becket, and who haunts the ruins of Pendragon Castle or the spectral hound - the Barguest - which attacks travellers though Trollers Gill. However, I'm sure there are some great stories out there waiting to be discovered. For example, one place I'd love to know more about is the tiny stone circle at Yockenthwaite in Langstrothdale - pictured right. Its only about ten feet across but in a staggeringly beautiful location. If you have any contributions please CLICK HERE to email me. Thanks, in anticipation. | |
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