The Boundary

A few weeks ago I relaunched my Etsy shop, to showcase my new linocut prints of vintage cars. I decided after much deliberation to change the name of the shop from the rather prosaic Stewart's Shop to The Boundary.

Usually when naming things, I prefer something straightforward and descriptive, hence my earlier shop name. However, having decided that I wanted to brand my shop in a way that made it distinct from my fine art, clearly something different had to happen.

I settled on The Boundary because, to begin with, it is simply where I live: on the old boundary between Leith and Edinburgh. (For a long time these were separate towns, however as Edinburgh grew to a prosperous city after the Second World War, it swallowed up many surrounding communities.) Of course my physical location is not particularly relevant to an online shop, yet The Boundary handily also described something of what I do. Given that I create what some might call fine art as well as craft art, it does rather seem that standing with feet in both camps I am on a boundary.

With two reasons, then, and the fact that I like how the words The Boundary look, I settled on the name. Next, I'll need to try to generate some attention for my spanking new shop. That, however, is entirely another story…

Hot hot heat

Over the past few weeks, I have been working on a series of linocuts, that will form part or all of a planned relaunch of my Etsy shop in the not too distant future. This week, my work rate has dropped notably. It's the heat, you see. There's a lot of it. It's all rather unexpected. Edinburgh is experiencing an unprecedented heatwave and my studio, facing south into the brightest summer sunshine every to hit this city (that I can remember), is Very Hot Indeed.

Just now I fetched the thermometer from my film developing cupboard (by which I mean the place I store my developing kit and chemicals, not the place where I develop film, which as you may well know I do in the kitchen sink) and it is reading a little short of 30ºC in here. It has never been that hot in here before. I read that it is easier to make linocuts when the lino is hot, however I dare not try. While the lino may well be softer, my brain is slower and the tools are oh so sharp. I'll wait until the room cools before I do that.

I'll leave with a competition, this week. Over on my Facebook artist page, I am nearing 350 likes. Everyone who likes and shares my page between now and 350 will be entered into a draw to win the lovely '51 Plymouth linocut print pictured. This is a one-off piece of art that I hand-inked after hand-pressing the print. Good luck!

Against a dark background

A few weeks ago author Iain Banks passed away, taken before his time by cancer. His work has been a part of my world for almost all of my adult life. He wrote and released a novel a year throughout his career and I am very sad that I no longer have that yearly marker to look forward to.

Last night I watched an interview with him, purportedly his last one, and it reminded me of how well he bestrode two literary fields. While his mainstream novels were critical and commercial successes, every second year he wrote science fiction as Iain M Banks and although those works did not meet the same level of success, they nonetheless were a game changer in their genre and something Banks was hugely passionate about.

Four drying limited edition prints of '51 Plymouth.

Among all the other feelings I have about his life, his philosophy and his work, there is something that is personally very inspiring in the way in which Banks carved out his double success. He proves that a creative individual can have more than one identity.

It is a dark and rainy Friday afternoon, at the end of a week that has not been overly troubled by sunshine. Following last weekend's Art Market, this week I made eighteen new linocut prints from three designs, adding to the other new ones I made last week. Planning for the Art Market brought home to me the realisation that my abstract art and my illustration are not necessarily suitable for the same audience.

Like Iain Banks, I have more than one identity as a creator. Unlike Iain Banks I do not yet know how to manage my differing identities. This is something I want to give some thought over the coming weeks. If anyone has any ideas, I'd be very happy to hear them!