GroundWork

GroundWork Gallery, King's Lynn

I'm delighted that IMMINENT zine can now be found in the shop of the GroundWork Gallery in King's Lynn, Norfolk.

Customs House

I spent a very full day in King's Lynn yesterday as part of my work on a project for Art Reach. It was lovely to find the time to pop in to the gallery again, to visit it's evenly lit and beautifully curated space.

GroundWork is dedicated to art and environment, supporting artists and showing work that engages us with the climate crisis and the natural world. I first visited in May and loved the space. It's small, with two floors, but beautifully presented to show contemporary art of a variety of approaches, including a Richard Long wall piece, a sound installation, video of a performance on a beach, and more. I spent some time there exploring the art work and perusing the books and work in the shop.

I'm so happy the gallery recognise the synergy between their mission and my zine, and I'm excited that the work will reach more people. 

IMMINENT Issue 9, June 2024

 I've visited King's Lynn a few times now for work, and discover something new and wonderful every time. Yesterday I walked along the river in the sun to the Customs House, opposite the GroundWork Gallery. The Customs House is also being used for art exhibitions too currently by local artists, and is just one of the many heritage buildings that you discover in the town if you explore the streets that radiate from the central Tuesday Market Place. If you find yourself in King's Lynn, I encourage you to stop by the GroundWork and explore the ever changing variety of art there. The gallery describes itself as local and global - showing art of a world standard, and also showcasing local artists and supporting artist residencies, connecting art with environmental concerns.

 

Encircling

Postcards of drawings to describe the earth, planets, and measuring devices, from 17th and 18th century

As we pass the summer solstice, that time of year when the cycle starts again as the sun reaches its highest point, I think again about stone circles. This is apt, as the new issue of IMMINENT starts with ideas about circles and how people have expressed the natural world using circles for millennia. 

Stone circles that may have mapped the heavens, drawings of the movements of the planets and observations of the stars, circles that represent the seasonal cycles and spirals and circles that appear in natural forms, all these have influenced the forthcoming IMMINENT. A large circle connects the contributors too, who are all women that I have been meeting with over the last several months as part of an online eco-poetry group.

Members of the group are based in the United States, England, Canada and Panama. We share our work in progress in a circle of generosity and mutual support, and the exchanges are always exciting, enlightening and innovative. I love the work of all involved and so it seemed imperative for us to make an issue of IMMINENT together.

Issue 9 circles around ideas about nature and how we relate to it. Mary Newell notices the roundness of a wound in a tree. Anna Reckin notes how she encircles spaces where she is honing in on local flora. Chris Turnbull instinctively builds subtle stone circles, and Jennifer Spector considers the movement of the elements stone, wood, water and air in their own migrations. My drawings are reflections on the circular nature of planets and star systems, related on earth by stone circles and devices we make to map the sky. Linda Russo circles around names and naming, then zooms right in to the macro-level of moss.

Issue 9 - circles is at the printers and can be pre-ordered for the usual price of £3 + p&p from my shop page. Thank you for supporting the issue and all the artists and writers who create it. 

I encourage you to check out recent work by some of the members:

Chris Turnbull's latest book cipher was published earlier this year by Beautiful Outlaw.

Jennifer Spector is the author of Hithe (Corbel Stone Press, UK 2021) and a recent publication "sand susurran shadow stone cros(sings): a video reflection of places of dwelling" in Chant de la Sirène: Journal of Poetics & the Hybrid Arts.

Linda Russo's new book the verdant is published by Middle Creek.

Emerge

Following the success of our two performance evenings last year (Time & Tide), artist Saintly Amok and I are planning a new live poetry and performance event in Leicester soon. Based on her meditative practice Mudras, and inspired by poetry from the latest issue of Imminent, we are creating a performance within a space filled with art, responding to the current season as we find ourselves emerging from these darker months. If you would enjoy a calming, meditative and contemplative space for an evening, do join us!

Emerge - Friday 9th February 6:30-7:30pm - Leicester Print Workshop

 

Imminent 8 - energy

 

In the last year I have been grateful to have made contact with artists and poets who are new to me, and have now become part of the Imminent community. Imminent issue 8 is now available, and includes artist Sally Adkins for the first time, as well as Imminent regulars Saintly Amok, Peter Dent, Rupert M Loydell, Andrew Taylor and Chris Turnbull.

Sally Adkins is an artist printmaker based in walking distance of the River Derwent, on the edge of the Peak District in Derbyshire. Her current work explores, through print, the movement of river water, including two images that have been translated from her original etchings into riso prints for Imminent. Sally's work seems perfect for the zine, as she relates them through their titles to poetry, in this instance the work of Alice Oswald.

Sally inspired the conversation that I have aimed to create in the zine between writing and artworks, and led me to read Alice Oswald and write a piece informed by that and the other works in Imminent 8. Tying the works together is the idea of energy, an invisible force which runs through everything, through us and through the elements. Issue 8 explores ways of thinking about energy as a natural force and as an environmental concern.

I have received a few more subscriptions for Imminent in the last few months, and messages from people who have become collectors of the zine, receiving every issue from when I started it in 2020. You can subscribe from my shop page.

You can also browse and buy issues that are still in stock from my Etsy shop.

Thank you for all your support, which helps keep the zine going. It is my labour of love and has built this wonderful community of artists and writers who regularly contribute. I'm also asked more and more to present, talk or perform at events, which I am happy to do, so let me know if you have an event you would like to invite me to!

Time and Tide at SOCK

Artist Saintly Amok and I have been asked to repeat our performance of Time and Tide at SOCK gallery in Loughborough.

We'll be performing in the SOCK gallery space (which is in Loughborough Town Hall) on Friday 8th September, 7:30-8:30pm.

Time and Tide was devised by Saintly and me as a result of the publication of her woodblock print in Issue 6 of Imminent (the Red Hot issue). Jointly we wrote a piece inspired by the print, which then developed into a performance which we first performed at Leicester Print Workshop in January. In a subtly staged space, we invite an audience to sit between the to and fro of the tide of our words: we will read from the zine across the space, lead a meditation and respond to our audience's marks on paper. Each performance is unique in that it responds to the thoughts of those who attend. We have found the event to generate a calm and beautiful space for reflection.

If you are in the area and looking for an unusual experience, we hope you will join us. Issues of Imminent will be available for sale.

Imminent Special Offers

It's time to make some space in the store, so I am offering Issues 4, 5 and 6 of IMMINENT for a special price of £10 for all 3, while stocks last.

Issue 4 is the orange issue, held together by ideas of time and landscape: seasonal change, endurance walking, times of day, eons of land formation and climate change.

Issue 5 What the Tide Does is a collaborative issue in blue and yellow. The work is the result of a long distance conversation between me in England and Robert Hogg in Canada, which started in 2021 with swapping poems, books, stories and ideas between us.

Issue 6 is the red hot issue, remembering the heat of the summer months, wild fires and record temperatures, and welcoming the coolness amongst the autumnal colour.

You can order all three copies for £10 + p&p by clicking here.

 

I'm also offering a gift of my miniature origami to the first 30 orders of Issue 7 (purple). You can order Issue 7 and other individual issues from my new online shop, click here.

Thank you for you support.

Imminent 7 folded

 IMMINENT Issue 7 is folded and creased and being posted to readers.

The very first issue of IMMINENT reflected on the material, including the paper that the zine itself is printed on, as you hold it in your hand. It set the tone for how I have thought about every issue, and with number 7 I'm carrying on exploring thoughts about paper and the link between the conceptual and the tangible.

Thanks to poems by Phil Hall, Deborah Tyler-Bennett, Peter Dent and Mark Goodwin, paper and folding are referenced in different ways. Some of the poems link paper to the natural world and phenomena. I've been playing with folding and origami myself for some time, which I have linked to the gifts of nature and (through the hand-made) the idea of people hand-working with material, bringing one closer to the connection with the material world, which I feel becomes more and more important to sustain. As a result, the first 30 orders of Issue 7 will receive a miniature, hand-folded gift from me.

I've also included a poem by JC Niala that made me think about paper maps, and the relationship between enclosures on the land and colonial map-making. JC has travelled to over 45 countries and lived in 3 continents, gathering stories and performing poetry. Her work Fences is beautifully crafted to consider the cultural differences in thinking about land.

 

Phil Hall has contributed an extract from his book The Ash Bell, described as a long poem sequence: anthems, letters, journals and aubades; ruminations, cloisters and promises; ogres and custodians.

Mark Goodwin's latest chapbooks are: to 'B' nor as 'tree', published by intergraphia; Of Gone Fox, published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press, and you can read his short essay on poetics and place just published on Briefly Write.

Deborah Tyler-Bennett promotes poetry nights most months at The Needle and Pin in Loughborough, presenting readings by a wide range of poets in a relaxed small venue, which has included me reading from IMMINENT and I hope to do so again.

Peter Dent sends me his work on paper. They arrive in the post, typed and hand-signed, often accompanied by a hand-written letter. Correspondence by Royal Mail is a lovely process when putting together an issue that thinks about paper and the tangible.

As I read the issue page by page, links occur between poems and artworks, and I become aware of the page turning in my hand, and the central fold. I hope you will enjoy the experience too.

You can order IMMINENT Issue 7 from my shop page, and the first 30 orders will receive a hand-folded gift from me. Thank you for your support.