OLD POSTS before Sept 2015 For NEW posts click on the LINK below

– transfer to https://printanneproctor.wordpress.com. where there is up to date new information. You can also view my work at moonkwaykstudio etsy.com.

Hale Bopp memories

There’s going to be an eclipse of the moon soon – 28/9/2015. Cosmic events are so enigmatic – possible to observe certain movements and shadows but the enormity of the universe is just unfathomable. I remember taking my dog out for night time walks deliberately on routes where I could see the Hale Bopp comet before it left our horizon. There was something really enlivening and optimistic about the sight of that visitor. The sky does that – it is so inspiring. The light show we sometimes are priviledged to see, the colours phenomenal. When Hale Bopp finally disappeared I felt a sense of loss, quickly followed by – what else is there out there? to be seen and understood, like the up coming lunar event and hopefully a cloud free night sky.

See here for prints of our moon.

Moons printed today, more to be printed Saturday 5th Sept 2015

This gallery contains 7 photos.

Handmade Moonkwayk Studio ‘four week’ journals for sale

Prices £3.50 and £5.00 for a handmade journal, stitched with linen thread. Available at my stall in Tynemouth every sunday ( except Book Fair days).

That piece of music

Everyone has a piece, or pieces of music that they remember the very first time they heard it, them and know that life will never look and be and feel the same again. I know many many people will share my experience of hearing for the first time and knowing that they’ve been allowed by this conduit of magic to glimpse into a tiny, endless, huge expression of the meaning of life itself. It is THE piece of music for me. Four strings, a bow and wood can do that???? Needs a magician to write and a magician to play.

I listen for the 15 minutes and I feel ( my own personal view others will have an entirely different opinion ) – this is it – life – it’s raw, difficult, sometimes overwhelmingly, traumatically impossible, sadness beyond sadness – to be dealt with because if it is faced there is ……..what? not sure but facing it is paramount and failure is all part of the process. It tells me that EVERYTHING worth doing in life is about facing up, caring ( how? for whom – family? the possibilities are endless and so easy to fall short ) and WORK – working alone or with others – I’m so privileged to have my time now to make my art for most of my time – small part of my week going back to my other 20 year old passion for information sharing and understanding at the Citizens Advice Bureau. That music always has something to tell me about how to gather together and carry on full of joie de vivre.

Then find joy – a sale, to someone from Paris who tells me that her mother who is a poet will love ‘Swifts’, wow and all the other people I’ve spoken to about art and life – at my sunday stall wow.

I’ve heard JS Bach’s Partita No 2 in D minor, BWV 1004, Ciaccona, for solo violin  played by lots of violinists and I can hear how they each have their own take on it. The latest magician is Alina Ibragimova – really a supreme magician – still on iplayer BBC Proms. I used to watch climbers, free climbing crags when I had my brief, intense and hugely enjoyable encounter with climbing in Northumberland, very safely roped on and just used to think the free climbers, without any safety net, were from another planet, well Alina Ibragimova is a free climber.

Red kites and a new perspective on the Angel of the North

I went to an exhibition last week via Durham railway station to Leeds – of an artist’s work called ‘Palpable Sculpture’ the artist Paul Neagu – very interesting – currently on in Leeds at the Henry Moore Institute – free entrance. He taught Antony Gormley at the Royal College of Art – when I cycled past the ‘Angel’ later, the same week I suddenly saw the influence of Paul Neagu. There’s a lot online about his work. Refreshing, loved the drawings of the objects he made. He made a ‘Cake Man’ that people – yes – ate. Very palpable. I’ve ordered a plastic facsimile of our own palpable piece of sculpture that we all carry with us at all times – essential, functional and beautiful – a human life size skeleton. I’ve hummed and haa’d for months and decided if I am really serious about making the 40 etched images and lino block images that it will take to create my next big piece of work I should make the purchase. See Fainting in the air for my first drawings beginning the process, in the dissection room of Newcastle Medical School.

The red kite was a few days before on a bicycle journey to Dipton along the coast to coast – just off at the ‘Blue Heads’ electric tingle in the air and a magnificent close up view of the bird scattering a gang of rooks as it suddenly did a quick turn towards them. I looked up information about what they eat and was startled to learn that worms are a big part of their diet, mostly carrion but not it appears cyclists or rooks or any other corvids.

Oak tree at Station 15 – new prints

The plate inked up prior to wiping back before printing.

During the melancholic rain and more rain yesterday, Saturday 14/8/2015, I took 4 more prints ( 1 above ) from one of my etched aluminium plates – ‘Oak Tree at Station 15’ – an oak tree in Northumberland that is on a piece of land that takes you on a journey around all human emotions and history, from extreme violence to reconciliation.

The rain helped the process.

I’m going to make a lino block of the same tree with the night sky.

Souvenir of Tynemouth on the Simon Logan show BBC radio Newcastle

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02x3xnc

Elaine Cusack and I recorded an interview with Simon Logan recently that was broadcast on Friday 31st July on his 12noon – 4pm radio Newcastle show – you can listen for the next 19 days –

use the link above and scroll along to 2hrs 53mins

or go to the BBC Newcastle section of the BBC website and go onto his show – locate 31st July and then scroll along to 2hrs 53mins and you will hear us talking about ‘Souvenir of Tynemouth’- our most recent Moonkwayk Studio book. It was a fun interesting experience and made enjoyable by the staff we met at BBC Radio Newcastle especially our interviewer Simon Logan.

Musical broken springs

I’ve been cycling past bits of broken springs that find themselves catapulted into the gutter as they snap and ricochet off engine parts – thinking I like that shape or would that make a good note. Well they do – I collected 5 in different stages of coil last Monday, making more than 20 different sizes and shapes & slightly different pitch. I’ve been ringing notes from them with an old mallet and they sound good…..

My granma’s granma was Geordie Ridley’s cousin

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/XQQenTCeQrCys1xcFUNg5Q

George Geordie Ridley who wrote Blaydon Races – look I know there will be hundreds of people who can trace a connection to Geordie Ridley – well I’m one of them and mine. My Granma was not that impressed, nor was her Granma apparently – well I’m **bleeping impressed I can tell you – Swaggerino impressed. The family on that side – my Mother’s mother’s family were quite a contrast 2 sisters who looked remarkably similar in older age but who had very different lives. My Granma  – the eldest was steadfast and steely her sister was quite an adventurer and enjoyed being different, but in older years they were very close – I would have loved to have known what they talked about. Blaydon Races – iconic – I’ve danced out on the Newcastle City Hall pavement in the snow to it at a legendary Lindisfarne Christmas concert aged 17 with my friend Dot Painter, wow, sung it as I ran in the Great North Run with me Dad.

My brother who has recently confirmed the family connection with his research has found that George Geordie Ridley was still living with his parents in Gateshead at the time of his accidental death at a very young age – he didn’t appear to gain any wealth from the most famous Geordie anthem in history that he performed in the local Mechanics Institutes. My Granma loved the theatre especially musical theatre so although she wasn’t that impressed by her connection there was something in the blood.

I love the painting of the Blaydon Races – that’s in the Shipley Art Gallery – click on the link at the top of this page for the image and information about the artist.