Ok, so I’ve been ‘missing in action’ much longer than I (or everyone else for that matter) expected!  The post-op from the appendix removal ended up turning into a complete debacle as apparently my body really doesn’t like having surgery performed on it at all!!!  This all resulted in more trips to the hospital, and a very slow recovery period.  I’m still not 100% and unfortunately due to this have had to cancel most of my workshops for the rest of the year (it’s just too hard to book times in only to then have to change them due to continuing ill-health).  Thank you to everyone who has been so understanding with all of this – it really is appreciated!!  I’ve decided to just take it easy now and instead work on putting together a fantastic workshop lineup for next year – which is keeping me happy and will be coming out hopefully in November!

In the meantime, all my energy and what I can physically do has been going in to getting a really wonderful joint exhibition off the ground – ‘Cross Currents’.  It includes work by myself and Ashley Oostdyck (good friend, ace photographer and designer extraordinaire) based on trips we have undertaken separately and together to various aquariums over the last three years and it is now open to the public this next week at Myrtle Street Studio.  I’ve added a few pictures to this post and if you are interested, please come along and visit us as we are both manning the show!

Just before Skye, Scotland 2011

Well, you may be wondering why I’ve been missing in action for a couple of weeks now?  The day after my last post I went in to see my GP over a severe stitch in my side only to find out that I had acute appendicitis!  The upshot of all this being that I ended up in hospital that same evening and had surgery the next morning to remove it.  Since then I’ve been recuperating (which takes much longer and is far more painful than they tell you when you go in) and trying to make sure that I actually am taking it easy after last weekend when I ended up taking my first ambulance ride to the hospital again after trying to do too much, too soon and cutting back on painkillers too early (won’t be doing that again!!!).

On the upside, I did manage to play with my UV unit before I went in for surgery and it works like a dream!  Also, I’m an organised person so it hasn’t been too difficult to reorganise things for the month post-op (it’s going to be 4 to 6 weeks before I can lift or extend myself).  In the meantime, I’ve had to completely stop – everything.  And just take it easy.  This is the hardest thing to do for someone who is used to going a hundred mile an hour.  I can’t even do the most basic things for myself at the moment.

It has however, shown me just how lovely people can be – and how many good friends and family I have – really really wonderful people.  It’s truly appreciated and slowing down has allowed me to actually catch up with them more too – which I’m really enjoying.  Slowing down has forced me to see just how quickly I was going along in life, perhaps too quickly.  I think there are going to be some changes made when I’m back on my feet as a result.  I enjoy having my weekends back to give them up again!

Thanks to my wonderful partner who risked his fingers to assit me with the construction – this may not look like much but believe me, I’ll be able to get a lot more done now!  Not having to rely on the weather conditions to create photographic prints and plates is a wonderful thing – especially when for three solid months earlier this year I was unable to do much at all due to the torrential downpour we received (it was a proper monsoon season).  Expect some interesting things coming out of Myrtle Street Studio very soon!

I was going to post on the cyanotypes I’ve been working on today but due to a major problem with our server (it died!) there won’t be any images to show for now!  So, in the meantime I thought I’d post some more photos from the trip to Scotland (off my iPhone).  In some ways they deal with some of where my work travels too….

On our last day in Scotland we finally made it back to Edinburgh which we took a detour through on our way to the airport.  We had done this especially to see the National Museum of Scotland which we had missed while there at the start of our trip and had continuously been told to go see by many locals on our way around Scotland.  So, we did!  And it was well worth the trip.

Firstly, the display’s were amazingly well done (see above!). The museum is undergoing refurbishment at the moment but the historical section has been completed and if the rest of the museum alterations (which are due to be finished by mid-year) are anything like what we saw, it will be an amazing and very informative space to visit.

We came across what we thought were some Trilobites?

And a replica of a plesiosaurus (a possible relative of the loch ness monster?).

Then I stumbled across ‘Lizzie’ (above) in the pre-history section of the display.  She/he has caused a lot of debate in scientific circles as some believe that she is an example of the oldest reptile (the source of land walking animals like us!) and others that she is an amphibian – it is impossible to tell.  Either way she is a unique link back to the evolution of animal life on this planet – say hello to one of your ancestors!

I’ve been thinking about place and dislocation which is what ‘Coastliners’ essentially is a tale of – and Scotland helped to crystallise some of this for me.  My father asked me when I got back whether I felt any connection to the place my family on his side originate from….  and to be honest, it was a yes.  I’ve always loved the sea, not necessarily to swim in but to clamber about and explore.  The coastline all around the islands is my favourite kind – steep, rocky, windswept with a little sand and a lot of rock.  Clear views across the landscape too.

Islands, the sea, marine life, local custom and attitude (very much like that from the family), oral history, deep connection to place and the management of it, boating, fishing….  the list goes on – all a jumble with meaning making in it…..  my UV unit arrives from the USA today (much excitement!!) which means I will be able to continue Coastliners soon (for an exhibition in Montreal later this year) and I will be interested to see how all of this fits in.  But in the meantime, here are some Mitten Crabs – interlopers from Asia to the UK – I can sympathise with them

I’ve been rather busy since getting home, organising for the Artisan Studio Tour at Myrtle Street Studio (which was quite a success on the weekend!).  Along with this I’ve been back into teaching my usual classes as well as a short weekend workshop at the BIA for Introductory Fabric Printing (images from last weekend’s class above!).  I really do enjoy the short courses as they allow people to get a taste for the process and an inkling as to which direction they may wish to pursue with their personal work.  And, due to popular demand, I’ve decided to trial running some of these classes at Myrtle Street Studio!  So, if you are interested, I’m taking bookings now for a one-day Introductory Fabric Printing Course which will lead you through the basics of screenprinting and block printing on fabric.  This will be a pre-requisite for a further course which will involve a more in-depth screenprinting workshop.  The nice thing about these courses is that they are limited to four people, so I will have a better opportunity to work one-on-one with participants to ensure that they receive my undivided attention and assistance throughout the duration of the class!  If you are interested, please book quickly as places will sell fast!

Starting with a look back over the ‘New Town’ from Prince’s Street Gardens, half way up the hill to Edinburgh Castle!

The magnificent Stirling Castle (with the most amazing 360 degree views from the ramparts)…

The quaint St Andrews which is so much more than just a town for golfing buffs!

The amazing farming countryside around Forfar,

Glamis (the glamorous) Castle,

And the dwarfing Grampians.

The vege patch at Balmoral Castle…

And Dunnottar Castle (my favourite)!

Loch Ness (without the monster),

The seaside cottages of Caithness,

And mini-standing stones!

Sheep, sheep and more sheep – it was lambing season too.

The Standing Stones of Stenness (and the Ring of Brodgar – which sounds like it was lifted from a Tolkien book!).  These stone circles are just as old if not older than Stonehenge (and you can get right up to them too unlike Stonehenge which is fenced off these days).

Skara Brae - an almost perfectly preserved neolithic settlement and one of the top heritage sites in all of Northern Europe.  We visited Maeshowe too (sorry, not allowed to take photos!).

Local Seals on the Orkney Islands – stories of the Selkies originate from here.

Deerness, a possible link to my past?

Island Ponies,

Slightly fishy characters

And great garden installations (this was my pick).

The eerieness of abandoned crofting homes…

In the remote parts of Scotland’s north.

Where we were surrounded by Gorse

Some amazing beaches and…. more sheep!

Smoo Cave.

Ardvreck Castle – apparently still quite haunted,

And then across to the Isle of Skye…

With its lovely small crofting villages (like these at Waternish)

And sightings (finally) of the elusive puffin which I was beginning to think was a mythical animal ala the griffin!

A friendly pig called Enzo….

And trekking through the Trossachs.

Which found us finally back in Glasgow (which I also thoroughly enjoyed – especially getting to see so much Charles Rennie Mackintosh architecture).  And then home!

I definitely wish to go back to Scotland again, there is so much in the Orkney’s alone that I would still like to see (not to mention the Shetland Islands and this place!).  In the meantime I’ll just content myself with the great memories – hope you enjoyed the virtual field trip too!

Looking towards the Orkney Islands from Dunnet Head, the most northerly point on mainland Scotland.

Well, after all my hopes of blogging over the last four weeks while away, it has come to nothing!  My apologies if you’ve been waiting on more blog posts this last month, it just became a little impossible location and time wise.  But I’m back now and can fill you in on the adventure!

Yes, our destination was Scotland.  We took four weeks off to explore the country from one end to the other.  We’ve both (my partner and I) been burned out a little from the last two years of hard work getting the renovations to the house done, the studio built and opened and getting everything up and running.  Two people running two businesses can get very tiring so we had this planned for quite some time now.

But why Scotland?  Well, I’ve been wanting to visit Scotland since I was quite young.  Our family name (on my Dad’s side) is very unique and as far as I know, anyone with my last name is somehow related.  Being a history nut, as a youngster I delved into the family tree (which dates back to the fourteenth century) and found that we have a long line of Scottish ancestors derived from one location – the Orkney Islands.  This lead to further questions – what was the origin of our family name (having looked into it when much younger there was not much information available at the time)?  And why did my great-grandfather and great-grandmother choose to make the journey all the way out here in the 1920′s?  My curiosity piqued, I never forgot about what I had learned and over the years promised myself that if I got the chance, I’d head over for myself and answer some of my questions…. and so I did!

In the end I was able to spend four nights on the islands – not long enough to answer all my questions but somewhere to begin.  I met relatives I’d never talked with before but who took me in and made me feel very welcome – truly lovely people whom I hope to visit again if I can make it back (which I’m hoping to do sooner than later).  This time also gave me the chance to get a feel for the landscape (which was amazing!!!  ) and I went away with some answers but even more questions… So this is what all my art preparation was in aid of (even though, in the end there was not much time for drawing – mostly only photography) and I’ve come back refreshed and clear-headed, with many happy memories and a lot of material which will go towards further print work later this year when I’ve had a chance to digest it a little.

Will post some snaps early next week of some of the favourite spots we visited while away as we covered a lot of ground on our travels.  In the meantime, you can check out the Myrtle Street Studio blog for some more information on the open access printmaking studio’s I visited while in Scotland.

Where has the time gone people?  We are almost two-thirds of the way through April and I haven’t blogged since March!  So much for staying on track with the blog   Although, plans are afoot for a gallery assistant as I’m starting to realise that this job really does require more than one person – but more on that after Easter.

I’ve been trying to figure out a way to explain what all of the life drawing and botanical sketching has been in aid of – essentially to keep my drawing skills up for some work I’ll be doing over the next month but also to keep me sane with the massive workload in the first part of the year!  When I draw – time seriously stands still (I’m sure this is the case for all artist’s in their chosen mediums) and it has been a much-needed thread these last months.

Now, as I begin a month-long information gathering project (which you’ll find out more about in the coming weeks), I’ll wish you all a Happy Easter and a small gift in the form of a really lovely short animated skit (care of a twitter post from Blue Roof Designs) which I think is great advice for all artists :) – hope it makes you smile too!

‘Botanical Illustrations Week 8′ 26x38cm Copyright 2011 Jay Dee Dearness

Still wondering what all of this botanical sketching is in aid of?  More to come…

'Nude Sketch' 29.7x42cm Copyright 2011 Jay Dee Dearness

Yes, this year I finally decided to join Facebook.  There was a LOT of trepidation in doing this though.  The biggest problem being that I have ethical issues with the whole idea of ‘friending’.  At least with blogging, people are signing up to your blog because they are interested in reading about what you are doing – it’s about the content and you ‘follow’ people.  The commodification of friendship on Facebook however, wrankles me!!  So I won’t be madly ‘friending’ people left, right and centre.

HOWEVER!  Facebook does have an upside – more people I know use facebook as a way of keeping up with each other.  This was driven home recently when a friend of mine posted pictures of her new baby to facebook and had to send out an e-mail to the rest of us non-facebookers instead entitled something like ‘To My Non-Facebook Friends!’ (the list was very small).  Not everyone has time for blogs or reading them and Facebook is a good way to tap into a whole new group of people who may be interested in what I do!  Alyson Stanfield gives some good advice in her blog on how to use Facebook for this purpose.

And, it will be a good way to separate my work as a teacher from my work as an artist – I’m trying to get this blog to the point where it is an online diary of where my work is at.  So far this year it has been a little overrun by my teaching information so from now on I’ll be posting that info to my Facebook Page instead.  Look forward to seeing you there too in future and would love any comments on the merits and pitfalls of using Facebook as an artist.