Thanks to everyone who came to the opening of And This Too at Platform, Belfast on 2 November. Over 300 at the opening and a great turn out for the panel discussion next day. If you missed either, there are artist's talks on Saturday 11th November. Massive thanks to Arts Council Northern Ireland Lottery for supporting my work for this exhibition.

Wrapping things up in the studio and getting ready to start installing for And This Too at Platform Arts Belfast. A lot going on so it should be a busy few days. Looking forward to seeing my work in a gallery space and seeing what all the other artists are showing. The exhibition is open Tuesdays - Saturdays and is free - so get in!

Working through an inherited archive of books, documents and photographs can be overwhelming. Where do you start and when does it end? What are you trying to say  - if anything? These are issues I am engaging with just now. To bring the past into the present needs ( I feel) an intervention which adds to the narrative. Memory is passive and remembrance active - hence my pressed clay counters, made from dried poppy seed heads. A work in progress!

A busy August as work gets underway for an upcoming exhibition at Platform Arts Belfast in November. These images give a flavour of working methods from sketchbook, to model making to the final concept. I'm enjoying testing out new ideas in the studio. I wish the ceiling was higher so I could get the roof on but one adapts! 

Charging round Berlin for a few days is a great way to recharge the creative batteries! This time, I did some research a little outside the city including Wannsee, Spandau, Frankfurt Oder and Glienicke Bridge (The Bridge of Spies). In the city, one trip to the Hambugerbahnof Museum gets you a lot of art! Old favourites such as Joseph Beuys and a chance to see a survey exhibition by Hanne Darboven made the visit more than worthwhile. I also stopped by Dock 11, in Kastanienalle - scene of my first exhibition in Berlin almost twenty years ago! Can't wait for the next trip!

I was delighted to take part in this one day trans - disciplinary workshop at Bristol University. The venues were located around campus at the Royal Fort House and the Wills Memorial Building and the day was filled with diverse and provocative presentations of which mine was just one! I learned a lot - from gender non conformity at internment camps to auto -ethnography at the Imperial War Museum! Great keynote presentation by Prof. Christine Sylvester at the end of the day. You can read historian DM Wither's detailed critical response to my work on the pdf with this post.

The first in a series of exhibitions curated by Colin Darke - Unafraid Red - featuring the work of QSS members over the coming year. An opportunity for me to show all of Century (100 traces of war) and a few pieces from the  Wounded Poppies series. Great turn out for the opening night on Thursday. The gallery is open Tues - Thurs each week . If you missed it you can read this review by Slavka Sverakova slavkasverakova.wordpress.com/2017/05/09/unafraid-red-april-6-may-4-2017-qss-belfast/

Took a day out of the studio to visit a photographer near Newcastle. On the way back, my scenic detour was a little longer and circuitous than planned (I got lost!). Still, it was an opportunity to drive around the Mourne Mountains and wonder at all the ruined cottages dotted about. Waited by a crossroads until a local eventually past and got me out of there!

Thanks to a grant from Arts Council Northern Ireland, I have been in hibernation and developing new work for exhibition later in 2017. The above image is a side bar but one for our times perhaps. From refugees to the imminent era of Trump, and the failed political system in Northern Ireland there seems to be increasing need to find a better way forward into the new year. I'll be giving it  my best shot!