News @ 500 feet

Often heard at football matches but now being shouted in the streets of Lynton because we have a new artist in the gallery - lino print maker extraordinare, Elizabeth Rashley. Elizabeth has her own Victorian printing press which allows her to print her wonderful large lino reduction prints. The prints are in small editions - normally around 8 or so - and can never be extended or repeated because the ‘reduction’ technique involves cutting away the same piece of lino to produce successive stages of the final print.

The prints are inspired by dreams and everyday life and are wonderfully organic and flowing, not at all the ‘blocky’ forms that you might associate with this technique.

‘Magnolia’ by Elizabeth Rashley , £235, 58cm x 58cm (frame), framed behind glass.

Alison Jones

Also new in the gallery this month, Oxfordshire ceramicist Alison Jones. Alison’s current work is based around the theme of the sea and encompasses boats, harbours, gulls and ‘bait balls’, amongst other things. All the work is completely handbuilt and handpainted and of the highest standard.

The large harbours are my particular favourite - I’ve never seen anything like this before - a kind of 3-D representation of the view you might see in a convex lens. Designed for hanging on a wall but looks equally stunning lying flat and there is something interesting to see from every angle.

Alison Jones, large harbour, 26cm d x 12cm h, £295

Trevor Lillistone

Yet another new artist in the gallery this month - we don’t just sit around doing nothing you know! Trevor is a potter who loves to create pieces in wood-fired kilns but when he doesn’t have access to such a kiln (or the time, as wood-firing is often a lengthy process) he likes to try to replicate wood-fired results in a standard electric kiln.

Trevor’s other love is the use of ‘volcanic glazes’ which make for unique pieces. The contrast of the foamy exterior to the smooth eggshell-blue interior of these pieces is a real pleasure.

Trevor Lillistone ‘Sea Foam’ bowl, 23.5cm d x 12cm h, £75.

Also new in this month…..

We have new pieces from Roger Cockram - seahorse bowls and vases, a large ‘fish at pool’ bowl and a fishy ginger jar with a fish-tail finial.

New work from Robert Hill, including a larger piece based on Combe Martin bay, shown below.

Roger Cockram, Seahorse vessel, 34cm h 13cm d, £150.

Tide Out, Combe Martin by Robert Hill, 80cm x 80cm, framed, £425.

Answer - when it’s a blog. How hilarious! We have had quite a few subscribers for our newsletter and we have been asked to start tweeting too. Therefore, to keep the work load down a bit, we’re gonna combine the blog and newsletter - the blog will now contain more detail about what’s new in the gallery and the newsletter will simply be an emailed copy of the blog. If you wish to subscribe to the blog using RSS, you’ll find the link at the bottom of the blog (and you get to that by clicking on the tab at the top of the website!)

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Robert Hill

We have a new artist in the gallery - actually been around for a few months now and proving to be a very popular. ROBERT HILL is an abstract landscape artist based in Ilfracombe. Rob is a very creative person - check out his page on the website and you’ll find a short video about his life and work. His paintings look a bit like this:

‘The Sea’ by Robert Hill - SOLD.

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Emma Haines

Emma is a young artist from Combe Martin in Devon who has just finished her degree in illustration at Plymouth Uni and is currently biting her nails whilst awaiting results. Her speciality is painting animals - mainly dogs, birds and horses; using inks, gouache and other media. As a young artist her style is constantly evolving and improving and her work is very popular indeed. We have just had some prints made of Emma’s work, all are A4ish in size, are a limited edition of 50 and cost £25 mounted.

  From top left, ‘Greyhound’, ,Scruff’ and ‘Betty’.

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Brian Andrew

Lynton potter Brian Andrew can often be seen being taken for a walk by his dogs around the town’s streets. The dogs were getting a bit miffed that their master seemed interested in creating sculptures of pretty much every creature around other than them so Brian has now moved to put that right and produced three fantastic dog sculptures. Brian - we lift our legs in salute of your genius!!

Whippet lurcher, Exmoor lurcher and Bedlington terrier, all priced £175 (Exmoor unavailable for the moment)

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Russ Mills AKA Byroglyphics

Russ is a very well respected and collected urban artist who just happens to be based in a cottage in the countryside! Russ’s modus operandi is to have a couple of shows a year showing original work (normally one is at London’s up and coming ‘Signal Gallery’) and to release a few batches of prints during the year which are low cost and get snapped up before you even know they’re on sale.

Russ’s work, in addition to being a lovely thing to hang on your wall, is also something that is appreciating in value. If you have a quick trawl of the internet you’ll see his prints selling for anything from £240 (unionart.co.uk) to around the £100 mark (ebay). Most of these prints cost between £25 and £50 on release.

Russ has very kindly given us access to his private store of artist’s proofs and we are offering all these prints at the extremely reasonable price of £65 (which includes mounting, if required). Some of these proofs were never actually released as official editions and could prove desirable in the future. 

‘Campaign Monitor’ by Russ Mills - £65.

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Jane Winton

Finally, we have some new work by Cornwall-based artist Jane Winton in this month - one medium painting and two small works. Please see website for details.

‘Walking the rabbit’ by Jane Winton, £365.

Yes, it’s North Devon Art Trek this month when the creative types across the area throw open their studios to the public so that they can see how things are made, talk to artists about their inspirations and methods…and buy stuff!

There were no Art Trek venues in Lynton last year so we were delighted when a local jewellery maker who exhibits in the gallery approached us with the idea of having a temporary studio in the gallery for the three weekends of the festival.

Sandy Mitchell is demonstrating how her pieces are made, creating bespoke items for customers and letting people ‘have a go’ at producing a few simple bits  themselves. Her work is made from enamel or silver plated copper wire and is based on the principles of basket weaving - a lot more to it than meets the eye  - we were astounded to find out that 8 metres of wire are used to produce a small spherical pendant like this :

That’s enough to provide the wiring for a small semi-detached house. Almost.

Sandy will be in the gallery this weekend, Friday through to Sunday, 24th to 26th June so come down and take a look. Her jewellery is available in the gallery all year round.

Just been on a trip to sunny Totnes in South Devon where we visited the glass blowing studio of Nick Orsler to select some great pieces that we think you will love.

If you are ever down in that area you should pop in and take a look - you can often see Nick and co. at work and you can marvel at his ‘display cabinet’ which is about 8ft tall and 30ft long and full of his work which is all individually illuminated and looks pretty stunning.

Above left: ‘Flat’ Sea Scape vase, £75

Above right: Mauve, blue and purple bowl, £58

We also had the pleasure of meeting up with Jo Beer and her lovely family. Jo is a talented painter who is currently concentrating on subjects of a floral nature. She has produced a range of smaller works for these straightened times and they are really worth every penny - take a look on the website for some more examples.

Above: Parrot tulip, Oil on unframed box canvas, 30cm x 30cm, £125.

Phew - what a break! Due to ‘circumstances beyond our control’ the blog has not been updated for a while, however the gallery certainly has been and we have lots of new work from our existing artists and some exciting new artists.

Existing artists - check out new paintings by Sara Dudman, Kate Noble and Duncan Hopkins and some new ceramics from Brian Andrew, including the epic ‘Hareobics’!

New artists - we are pleased to have on board the highly talented Robert Hill from Ilfracombe. We are predicting great things for Rob who has some very influential artistic friends and we think he might just follow in their footsteps. Just one piece on the website at the moment as the rest sold before we could even photograph it but more due soon!

We have been hounding poor Eleanor Bartleman pretty much since we opened to get some of her wonderful porcelain figures and finally she succumbed and has given us a group of work which we love - a union of imagination and craftsmanship.

The cat and the whale by Eleanor Bartleman

£160

Finally, we have many new prints and cards in the gallery, including prints by Barbara Karn which we have not yet listed but you can see on her website - www.barbarakarn.co.uk - and you can buy from us at a more competitive price ;-)

Busy Busy by Barbara Karn

Mounted, £43

We are pleased to announce that another new artist has joined the gallery.

Jane Winton hails from Cornwall, she has had a long and successful career in children’s book illustration and is now transferring her talents to canvas.

One of Jane’s inspirations is early US folk art - the images are naive and stylised but very much accomplished. They recall the memories and stories of childhood. In addition to painting in acrylics, Jane uses pieces of vintage fabric - sometimes adding a border to the work and sometimes using the fabrics to ‘clothe’ her figures. A final coat of varnish over the pieces adds to the vintage feel.

We really like these and hope you will too.

‘Reaching Out’ by Jane Winton, Print, 60cm x 50cm, £70 (above)

‘Rose Garden’ by Jane Winton, original in acrylics and vintage fabrics on box canvas, 60cm x 60cm, £595 (above).

Some original US folk art - ‘Three Sisters of the Copeland Family’ by William Prior, 1854.

No posts for a while - we decided to go into deep hibernation rather than pay the exorbitant cost of heating oil. However, the temperature has picked up of late and we are now in the process of refurbishing the gallery and getting some new artists on board (more on which to follow shortly) for our reopening in mid February.

We have also been busily taking photos of some of our current stock that is not on the website, so that it can be listed. You are therefore now able to see some fantastic ceramics by one of our few non-Westcountry-based producers, George Ormerod, who hails from the sun-kissed shores of Newcastle upon Tyne.

George’s current ceramics have a slight retro feel but at the same time are original and contemporary looking. They have fantastic use of colour and glazes and when we saw them we had to have them.

We particularly like this large lidded jar/urn - who wouldn’t want their ashes stored in this beauty?!

We have just had the pleasure of taking some work from Leo Davey based on Lynton and Lynmouth’s famous water-powered ‘Cliff Railway’ (whad’ya mean, you’ve never heard of it?)

The Cliff Railway has been running continuously since 1888 and is famous in these parts as being Devon’s No1 Visitor Attraction, in terms of footfall. If that’s wrong, please don’t write in.

We have a fantastic watercolor and ink original and some prints that are designed in the style of the travel posters of yesteryear. The first batch of prints sold out on the first day! This is unprecedented for any time of year, let alone a snowy December.

The prints are on German etching paper using fade-resistant inks and cost £26.50 exc. postage.

Above: Original ‘Cliff Railway’ painting in watercolours and inks.

Image size 39cm x 25cm, mounted in white in a glazed white wooden frame.

Price: £450

Above: Cliff Railway print in ‘travel poster’ style.

Image size approx 16 x 12 inches, surrounded by 1 inch white border. On German etching paper.

Price: £26.50

Roger Cockram is an extremely talented potter of international repute, which is why we are so pleased to have some of his new work in the gallery. When we recently visited his Chittlehampton studio, we were struck by a fantastic collection of teapots that he’d recently made and we had to have one. Normally, fancy teapots are the preserve of the glossy pages in the Mail on Sunday colour supplement (nice), but these are about as far from that as you can get and really are stunning one-offs. We chose the sea horse model below.

Seahorse teapot by Roger Cockram

27cm x 23cm x 16cm (normal teapot size)

£280

Normally I’m a bit of a bah-humbug when it comes to Christmas. However, these latest paintings of red deer by Sara Dudman are truly beautiful and make me think that Rudolph et al may not be that bad after all. Sara has managed to capture the fragility and flightiness of the animals on a frosty morning with perfection. An interesting use of colour and some of the dribbles and splashes of the oils seen on Sara’s previous work all add to the interest.

Congratulations are due to Sara on having her work selected (at the first time of trying) for the highly prestigious Royal West of England Academy Autumn show which is open until December 12th.

‘All Ears’ 102cm x 40.5cm, £525