It gets closer . . .

Just over four weeks to go before the book launch and exhibition. The book has been printed, the pages look wonderful, and the whole thing is now being handbound. Here are a few more sneak previews, this time as they appear in the book. First, Caroline Chappel’s linocut and wood engraving of Catlin’s tobacconists, and the inscribed snuff mill wheel at Bull House, a collagraph by Carolyn Trant

Below is Vivian Halas’s impressive dark woodcut of Lewes Castle.

Next come ‘At His Desk’ by June Flanagan, and ‘Common Sense’ by Sasha Howard.

Finally, the present-day Friends Meeting House, also by Sasha Howard, and the earlier one, now a cottage called Old Meeting, by Carolyn Trant.

Tom Paine In Lewes – the book

Paddock Printmakers’ new book will feature 32 original prints, by eighteen members of the group. Here’s a full list of the subjects covered:

Bull House
Lewes Castle
The Barbican
Friends Meeting House
The ‘Old Meeting’ house
Westgate Chapel
River Warehouses
Cliffe Bridge
Catlin’s
The Snuff Grinding Mill
St Michaels Church
The Bowling Green
Headstrong Club
The White Hart
Keere Street
The Old Sessions House
The Law Courts
The Market Tower
Paine Medals
Paine Bootstuds

Also included are Paine portraits, and a tribute to a well known celebratory ale!

Here’s another sneak preview – this is Carolyn Trant’s marvellous woodcut of the Westgate Chapel ante-room:

See more prints below.

Brought To Book . . .

The prints are all in from our small army, we have a running order and a draft text, and are working away at the final layout for the Printmakers’ Tom Paine book. Each print is the end product of hours of preparation and printing, and all together they’re looking absolutely wonderful!

Here’s a small taster. First is Charlotte Matthews’ collagraph of the Lewes Market Tower, where some of the many events in July’s Paine Festival will take place (see the Links page for all the details).

Next is a woodcut. This is of the long-gone Sessions House or Old Town Hall, by June Flanagan. This imposing building is believed to have stood in the middle of the High Street, between what is now the Abbey bank and Ask restaurant, and is probably the reason why the High Street is so much wider there than on the opposite side of the junction.

Below is a print by Brian White, of some very ethereal horsemen passing in front of Lewes Castle’s Barbican gatehouse. Brian has the story!

Finally an etching by Clare Dales. This is one of two Clare has made of Bull House, where Tom Paine lived during his time in Lewes.

The Prints Are Coming!

Paddock Printmakers are working hard on the prints for their forthcoming exhibition in the Lewes Tom Paine festival. The exhibition starts in late June (see below) but there’s another reason to hurry; with a lot of interest already in the limited edition prints book, we’re aiming to get layout and other pre-press work finished in the next few weeks.

To date, twenty-one fine prints are completed and another seven are in progress. Subjects include: Bull House, the Market Tower, the Barbican, the Bowling Green, Lewes Castle, Westgate Chapel, Friends Meeting Houses – old and new, and the old Sessions House.

Some work will soon be shown on this site – keep checking back!

The Tom Paine Book

For the bicentenary year of the death of Thomas Paine, Paddock Printmakers are producing a book of images of places in Lewes associated with his life. This will include prints of the Bull House, St Michael’s Church and Westgate Chapel, The White Hart, the Old Town Hall and Market and the present Market Tower, the Old Quaker Meeting House and the New, the Bowling Green; and other sites representing his work as an Excise Officer and participation in the Headstrong Club.

Paddock Printmakers are a group of artists, all-comers, who meet and work at the Paddock Studios in Lewes with Carolyn Trant, a Book Artist. They produce limited editions of hand-printed lino-cuts, woodcuts and engravings, drypoints and collagraphs, and every two years, make these into a small edition of digitally printed hand-bound books, previously to sell in the annual Artwave Festival – this year to exhibit and sell as part of the Tom Paine Festival in July.

Pelham House, Lewes, has kindly offered the foyer of the Hotel as exhibition space for this project throughout July and August. The original prints themselves will be on sale, as well as copies of the book. Previous books and prints have been very popular and sold fast. Previous books included ‘High Street’ and ‘Cliffe High Street’ – images of Lewes’s individual shops; and ‘Public House’ – which included all 21 pubs in the town, and text about those now gone. The Tom Paine Book will include a brief history of Tom’s life in Lewes. It will again be bound by local book-binder Rachel Ward-Sale at the Star Brewery, and will be an ideal souvenir of the Festival.

Exhibition dates: Sunday 5th July – Tuesday 25th August
Venue: Pelham House, St Andrew’s Lane, Lewes