'Heartland' at Kyffin Café Deli, Bangor
A selection from my Heartland exhibition will be upstairs at Jo Pott's Kyffin Café Deli from 4th February until 3rd March 2012. Located at 129 High Street, Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 1NT. Go through the café to the back, pass through the screen, turn right and up the stairs.
Moving Along
Despite the disappointment of not getting the articulated cast this week I have not had my feet up doing nothing. There is a new card design in the 'Natural' selection and I'm pleased to say that card sales at the Caban have been increasing. All 18 designs are available from the counter there - remember it is St Dwynwen's Day on 25th January, this Wednesday. It will be a shame to take the exhibition down on 3rd February, but it will going up at Jo Pott's Kyffin Cafi Deli for Saturday 4th February through to Saturday 3rd of March, which includes Valentine's Day.
Card Sales Online
Our new 'Cards' page is live and purchases can be made through PayPal's secure payment system. To begin with the cards on offer are mainly images from Jean's current Heartland exhibition (at the Caban, Brynrefail until February 2nd, then moving to Jo Pott's Kyffin Cafi Deli, Bangor for Sat 4th February) but we will gradually be adding new images including some of Mick's stunning photos.
Breaking News
During coppicing work in our small wood on Boxing Day, Jean got rather too closely involved with the 'chaotic energies of nature' she finds so fascinating, and had her left leg broken by a willow trunk. She has an undisplaced fracture of the tibia just below the knee and will be in plaster, from ankle to the top of her thigh, until the end of March. No putting weight on it, and no going upstairs, so she has a snug bed in a corner of our living kitchen. The ambulance men were wonderfully kind and brilliant, as were all the staff at Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor, especially Dr Tania Scotland - thank you. A big thank you also to our friends Alex and Sue, and to Nick and Bethan at the Caban in Brynrefail, who made it possible for Jean to hang her exhibition as planned. The framed prints look very good on the Caban walls and there is a selection of Jean's cards and window-mounted prints on sale by the cafe till. There may be a delay in getting the card sales area of this website up and functioning, but we are working on it and hope you will bear with us.
photo: © Mick Sharp
Jean Williamson, Photographs/Ffotograffau - Exhibition
I will be starting 2012 with a local exhibition - my first - which will happily coincide with St Dwynwen's day (Welsh patron saint of friendship and love, Jan 25th). The photos on show will be a departure from much of the work you can find in the Galleries section of our web site, but will be familiar to those who have received handmade greeting cards from us over past years. The initial catalyst for this series of pictures came from a valentine card I made many years ago, building on landscape and still-life work I did at college. I am endlessly fascinated by the dynamics of the heart shape in relation to the more chaotic energies of nature.
1 - 31 January 2012, at Caban Caffi/Café, Brynrefail, nr Caernarfon. 9am - 4pm, 7 days a week. www.caban-cyf.org
photo and poster: Ice Lightning © Jean Williamson
Cadw Calendar 2012
To celebrate twelve years of publishing its calendar, Cadw has produced the 2012 edition using all the images which featured on the cover but were not used for the months inside. Jean and I have done rather well out of this as, between us, we took eight of the photographs including the re-cropped view of Pentre Ifan Burial Chamber on this year's cover. Check out other Cadw products at cadwshop.co.uk
photo: Pentre Ifan burial chamber © Mick Sharp
cover: Crown Copyright 2011
Ancient Britain Historical Map
I'm delighted that the Ordnance Survey has chosen one of my (MS) photographs for the front cover of the latest edition of Ancient Britain. When I first set out visiting and photographing ancient monuments around Britain, one of my main references was the 1964 Second Edition split into North and South sheets.
photos: Stenness henge and stone circle © Mick Sharp.
covers: Crown copyright 2011.
Loop Images
We have sold all of our darkroom and most of our film camera equipment, bought a secondhand Flextight to produce publication quality scans up to A3 at 300 ppi, and started using a professional quality digital camera. For those who wish to be able to view, download and pay for our work online we are gradually placing some of our more ‘commercial’ photographs with Loop Images. Loop specialize in the best of British imagery: they are helpful, friendly, a pleasure to work with and we are delighted to be included in their excellent online library. Browse their special galleries, search via keywords or type in Mick Sharp, or Jean Williamson, to find us.
Prehistoric Britain (2nd Edition), Timothy Darvill
First published in 1987 by Batsford and reprinted nine times, this much loved and referred to book has been substantially revised and published in 2010 as a new edition in the Routledge World Archaeology series. ISNB 978-0-415-49027-6.
The cover of the 1st Edition featured one of my (MS) photos of the Hurlers stone circles on Bodmin Moor, the new edition has one of my shots of Maen y Bardd dolmen above the Conwy valley. Tim was awarded an OBE in June 2010 for his services to British archaeology.
ANGLESEY Past Landscapes of the Coast
"The dramatic and stunning Welsh coastal landscapes of the island of Anglesey are documented in this beautiful pictorial record of the history of Anglesey's coast, from prehistoric times to the present day. The fact that Anglesey is an island has been crucial to its history; its coast the scene of prehistoric fishing and oyster catching, Neolithic tombs and Bronze Age round barrows, Roman-influenced estates, Irish incursions, a Norman motte and, at Beaumaris, the last of the great Edwardian castles. The building of the two great bridges and the development of Holyhead into its main port in the nineteenth century is chronicled, with the growth of sustainable energy in the form of wind turbines in the twentieth. The photographs taken by Mick Sharp and Jean Williamson are supplemented by text from Frances Lynch who introduces each chapter and provides detailed captions describing and giving background information to the images." There are also aerial photographs by David Longley of the Gwynedd Archaeological Trust Ltd (GAT) and by Toby Driver of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW) plus a map and illustrations.
Photographers Mick Sharp and Jean Williamson have been based in northwest Wales, and involved in the archaeology and history of Anglesey and Gwynedd, for over thirty years. They run a photo library specialising in subjects connected with Britain's ancient monuments and the history and spirit of the land. As well as their own books they have contributed to well over a thousand publications including many Cadw guides to historic monuments.
"Frances Lynch retired from lecturing in archaeology at Bangor University some years ago but has continued to live and work in the area. Her parents had a long association with Anglesey and she has researched the prehistory of the island since the 1960s when she began a series of important excavations. In 1970 she wrote Prehistoric Anglesey for the Anglesey Antiquarian Society and has since written several academic books as well as the popular Guide to Ancient and Historic Gwynedd for Cadw in 1994. This is her first excursion into the more recent past."
Windgather Press, an imprint of Oxbow Books www.oxbowbooks.com
Hardback: English ISBN 978-1-905119-29-5, Welsh ISBN 978-1-905119-30-1. Publication 23 June 2009. Designed by Val Lamb.
Publication of the book has been supported by the Sustainable Development Fund, a Welsh Assembly Government Initiative in the Isle of Anglesey Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) www.anglesey.gov.uk/aonb