tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88266809812011244572024-03-13T14:03:38.156-07:00peter chasseaud artist & writerThis site is the noticeboard for my artworks, and for my artists books published by Altazimuth Press (which is my imprint). It will be used to give information about my:
Paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, films;
Artists Books (Altazimuth Press imprint);
Exhibitions;
Specific Projects.
Studio:
My studio is in Brighton, Sussex, UK.
Postal address: Peter Chasseaud, Studio 3S3, Phoenix Arts Association, 10-14 Waterloo Place, Brighton, BN2 9NB, UK.peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.comBlogger118125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-8736364837453554232020-05-07T05:03:00.000-07:002020-05-07T05:03:11.712-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Imm7ZQQxXRU/XrP4WY5ycNI/AAAAAAAABNc/xwl4qn2dLuwujoXA5eJGuCThcURDvxGgwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_2204%2Bcrop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1233" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Imm7ZQQxXRU/XrP4WY5ycNI/AAAAAAAABNc/xwl4qn2dLuwujoXA5eJGuCThcURDvxGgwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_2204%2Bcrop.jpg" width="246" /></a></div>
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I've just typeset and proofed (on my 1843 Albion Press) this Andrew Marvell poem, The Mower to the Glow-Worms, in 24pt Caslon Roman, and put it in the window of the Tom Paine Press & Gallery in Lewes High Street.peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-89389062537659666802020-05-07T04:58:00.000-07:002020-05-07T04:58:41.856-07:00Borough Market Book<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U5Vwyd0_DR8/XrFfreFpidI/AAAAAAAABNQ/TjQpEh0zFEcyGUeDdQW0s3NxC3eu_hKMQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Borough%2BMkt%2B1920s%2Bmodify.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1292" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U5Vwyd0_DR8/XrFfreFpidI/AAAAAAAABNQ/TjQpEh0zFEcyGUeDdQW0s3NxC3eu_hKMQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Borough%2BMkt%2B1920s%2Bmodify.jpg" width="258" /></a></div>
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By the Borough Market: these old buildings were </div>
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demolished for the new Thameslink viaduct</div>
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This is just a temporary post! I was going to be showing at the Oxford Fine Press Book Fair at the end of March 2020, but an unfortunate event intervened. I've also had a difficult time getting back into my Google account after a couple of years of not using it! Once you get out of practice on these things, and/or leave it too long, you find that things have changed out from under you.<br />
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My Tom Paine Press in Lewes is temporarily out of action, but I hope I'll soon be able to get back inside there to start some letterpress work at least on a limited basis.<br />
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I was working on a new Altazimuth Press artist's book / photo book for the Oxford Fair, but that got put on hold. It should be completed this year! I'm also hoping to produce at least one other book.<br />
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I can't access my painting studio, which is a double shame because of its proximity to the Lewes Arms, which alas, is out-of-bounds. I do hope it manages to reopen! One of our multiple tragedies is the closure of all pubs, cafes and restaurants.<br />
<br />peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-52372299073045858662018-03-17T11:04:00.004-07:002018-03-17T11:04:34.988-07:00My bronze dancer in the Tom Paine Press & Gallery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BPYLs8QXGc8/Wq1XknBpXPI/AAAAAAAABKw/wFknBblanYUGonMojKy3jq1yX4LSur12QCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0757.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BPYLs8QXGc8/Wq1XknBpXPI/AAAAAAAABKw/wFknBblanYUGonMojKy3jq1yX4LSur12QCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0757.JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
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I modelled this dancer in wax, and cast her in bronze using the lost-wax process. She's carrying a found object. The Tom Paine Press also acts as a studio when I'm not doing letterpress printing.</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LCxPfUWTHuU/Wq1YJf0Ec8I/AAAAAAAABK4/i8AFZKu7fk8bvXlT9O-zgZDaF9O-gY6-QCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0747.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LCxPfUWTHuU/Wq1YJf0Ec8I/AAAAAAAABK4/i8AFZKu7fk8bvXlT9O-zgZDaF9O-gY6-QCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0747.JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
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A long view of the same corner.</div>
peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-21443122193921499752018-03-12T15:59:00.001-07:002018-03-12T15:59:30.465-07:00some letterpress posters at Tom Paine PressExamples of letterpress posters I have designed, typeset and printed on the Common Press (18th-century-style wooden press):<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BRi_PtVvdoY/WqcGEeeWI0I/AAAAAAAABKY/6DsO0suruyELvjtk8LkG1m5wm3P7QYTUwCLcBGAs/s1600/Paine%2BPress%2B2016.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BRi_PtVvdoY/WqcGEeeWI0I/AAAAAAAABKY/6DsO0suruyELvjtk8LkG1m5wm3P7QYTUwCLcBGAs/s320/Paine%2BPress%2B2016.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-14049705666981558372018-03-12T11:30:00.001-07:002018-03-12T16:09:07.024-07:002018, Oxford Fine Press Fair & Ellis MartinWell, now it's 2018 and I've finally got back into my blog. I'm doing the Oxford Fine Press Book Fair towards the end of March. This is at the Kassam Stadium, on the southern outskirts of Oxford. I'm still running the Tom Paine Printing Press in Lewes. See the blog under that name. Plan for this year is to do more painting. The last few years I've been focussing on writing books about maps and on printing. Last year I did a very useful stone lithography course at the London Print Centre, which was a great refresher as the last time I did any stone litho (as opposed to zinc plate) was on my foundation course at Croydon in 1969.<br />
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Here's a fascinating bit of artwork by Ellis Martin which I acquired a few years ago - the design for a memorial window at the Ordnance Survey at Southampton.<br />
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<br />peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-22546082808916448002012-05-14T13:29:00.003-07:002012-05-14T13:29:42.029-07:00Peter Chasseaud at Phoenix Brighton, 19th & 20th May 2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gOv_kJ221J8/T7FqycnhWEI/AAAAAAAABGY/jaGjN_XiSgQ/s1600/Aghan+pics+002+low+res.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gOv_kJ221J8/T7FqycnhWEI/AAAAAAAABGY/jaGjN_XiSgQ/s1600/Aghan+pics+002+low+res.jpg" /></a></div>
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From <i>Afghanistan - A Journey</i> (2007)</div>
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It's Phoenix Brighton's open weekend coming up (Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th May), so like the other Phoenix artists I'm having an open studio (11-5 on both days). Also, on the Saturday after 5pm, I'm giving a talk about my work - in particular about my artist's books/poetic photobooks/letterpress work. The Phoenix is just at the south end of the Level, opposite St Peter's Church (east of the church).</div>
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10-14 Waterloo Place Brighton, East Sussex BN2 9NB<br /> <br />
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</tbody></table>peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-31927584368598443022012-05-14T13:18:00.002-07:002018-03-12T11:20:35.269-07:00Unidentified London Street<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kz21GEAqW-Y/T7FoQaQFNtI/AAAAAAAABGM/yK8qgob1izo/s1600/Mum+Rosie+Me+1951.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kz21GEAqW-Y/T7FoQaQFNtI/AAAAAAAABGM/yK8qgob1izo/s320/Mum+Rosie+Me+1951.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>
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Can anyone identify the location of this family photo? It was taken in the early 1950s, and I think it's in London. Ah! Thanks to John Minnis who says it's Oxford Street, the south side, looking towards Marble Arch.peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-42304728479733781622011-04-24T05:04:00.000-07:002011-04-24T05:12:11.765-07:00ALAN SILLITOE MEMORIAL EVENT, BRITISH LIBRARY<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapedefaults ext="edit" spidmax="2049"> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapelayout ext="edit"> <o:idmap ext="edit" data="1"> </o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;">ALAN SILLITOE, 1928-2010<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;">I wrote the text below as my contribution to 'Every Day of the Week', A Celebration of the Life and Work of Alan Sillitoe, held at the British Library Conference Centre, London, on Wednesday 20th April 2011.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;">The speakers were: Richard Bradford (chair), Peter Chasseaud, Tansy Davies, Margaret Drabble, Elaine Feinstein, Alan Jenkins, Miranda Seymour and D. J. Taylor.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span>HIS HEAD WAS A MAP</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;">Dr Peter Chasseaud</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Alan was my beloved and generous mentor in the world of maps, and wrote forewords for two of my books. It is an honour and a privilege to be asked to make a contribution to his Memorial Event at the British Library. Unlike the explorer who believes he has discovered some <i style="">terra</i> previously <i style="">incognita</i>, only to find that another has preceded him, I was always aware that Alan had discovered the route and blazed the trail, and was more than content to sit at the feet of the master. Like Alan, I have continually to try to answer the question, ‘Why Maps?’ Here I use Alan’s words, and my own.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In 1975, Alan wrote:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;">‘In the beginning was the map. . . We are all born into the world with a sense of place, simply because a certain part of our senses are rooted forever to the locality in which – as an old-fashioned novelist might put it - we first saw light. We don’t see it straight away, however – though we can smell it, hear it, and touch it. Little by little it emerges greyly, flattish, without the latitude and longitude of social guidelines; and then as the senses develop and the years grow in us, we see it in our profile, contour and full colour.’ (‘A Sense of Place’<i style="">, Geography</i>, August 1975, 685-9, p.685). </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;">A reluctant man-of-action (while he was accepted for pilot training in the Fleet Air Arm, his real love was aerial navigation), Alan, like Ulysses in <i style="">Troilus & Cressida</i>, was more interested in ‘the bed-work, mapp’ry, closet-war’ of staff work and the back-room, and in understanding and setting out the geographical and other coordinates of our human stage. He not only literally grounded himself and his characters in this way but, through his understanding of aerial navigation (derived from his teenage wartime years in the Air Training Corps and his national service as a RAF radio-operator), soared like Ariel above the surface of the earth he described so well in all its topographical complexities, and bounced his wireless waves off the heaviside layer. To his generation, well educated in school geography lessons in Mercator’s projection, map-reading and the technicalities of contours, hachures, spot-heights, conventional signs, magnetic, true and grid north, magnetic variation and even rhumb lines and loxodromes, such geographical language was not totally forbidding to publishers and public, and could be used and read without fear. Meridians and parallels became the warp and weft of his texts. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;">He related maps to people, and to human dramas, fixing the co-ordianates of his characters in the landscape. He listened to old men’s tales of the front, and found trench maps in cardboard boxes in second-hand bookshops. He heard stories about the Jewish Pale of Settlement in eastern Europe and sought out maps that showed the towns and villages that pogrom, war and worse had visited and destroyed.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Alan also loved the material culture of all this (quite apart from his pipe and leather waistcoat!) – the linen-backed maps, the compass and other surveying instruments such as the theodolite and the Abney level, his morse key and his bomber wireless set, both of which he was skilled at using. And of course he extended this love of the material to the typewriter and the book. (But there was a technological stop-line: metal keys on inked ribbon were OK, but the word processor and computer were a no-go area.) In his study, he not only pored over his amazing collection of topographical maps, many acquired as duplicates from the Royal Geographical Society, of which he was a Fellow, but naturally relished the materiality of his <i style="">Baedekers</i> and <i style="">Murray’s Guides</i>, books on topography and travel (including the wartime Naval Intelligence Division series), fortifications, military history and of course the city and environs of his dear Nottingham. Speaking of military history, he was a member of the Royal United Services Institute, and typically consulted the gunner Brigadier Shelford Bidwell when he wanted to get artillery matters right in <i style="">The Widower’s Son</i>.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;">He not only studied maps, but drew them. He was a cartographer in his own right, as readers of certain of his books will be aware, and he also drew them for pleasure – for example his ‘Map-Poem’ named <i style="">Astronautical Research Area</i>. His maps are accurate – they obey the logic of the terrain he created. They could be used on the ground. As Alan noted: </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;">‘Joseph Conrad drew charts of Costaguana for his novel <i style="">Nostromo</i>, and in <i style="">Victory </i>and <i style="">Lord Jim</i> one feels he was using them in these books also, a re-drawing perhaps of the Admiralty Charts with which he had been so familiar. It is safe to assume that James Joyce kept a street plan of Dublin close to his desk, on which to work out one or two permutations in <i style="">Ulysses</i>.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span>Either you have the maps inside your own brain or, to bring to life the imaginative bit of country you see only dimly at first, you draw it clearly on a sheet of paper so that you make no mistakes at least in the geography of your tale. I did this for my novels <i style="">The General</i> and <i style="">Travels in Nihilon</i>, though in these cases it is understandable because both took place in countries which do not exist, and had therefore to be given some form of rudimentary cartography.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span>For my Nottingham novels and stories, which account for the greater part of my writing, I have always had near me a street plan, as well as a one-inch map of the area to the west and north of the city. These last two items are not essential for my writings about this piece of territory, because I know every nook and cranny, every hole and corner of it, and always will, but still it is good to be correct.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""> </span>Another function of such maps is that, when searching for the surname of a character (and one has to be careful to get one that fits) I pore over the sheet of a one-inch map (not necessarily of the area where the character is supposed to have been born) and choose one from that of a hamlet or farmhouse, stream or hilltop, or some other such noticeable feature. This might appear to match the person to the region he or she lives in, but the place-names of England are so homogeneous that I tend to mate the names more for the onomatopoeic sound of the thing than to give any geographical clue to the person concerned. Above all, it is important to know what you are doing: to comprehend, to be accurate, clear and economical – as one would be in actually making a map.’ (Ibid, p.687).</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Alan continually speculated as to why he developed a passion for making topographical maps, and concluded: ‘It is a great honour to be born into the world with all the makings of an engineer or geographer, but a greater mystery immediately becomes apparent if I wonder why I turned into a writer.’ (Ibid, p.689).</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i style="">FINIS.</i></span></p>peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-34845587408008623652011-01-29T13:53:00.000-08:002011-01-29T14:07:23.444-08:00Off With Their Heads; Works on Paper Fair 2011 and others<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/TUSOUYr5ElI/AAAAAAAABA0/lHyZ55FNQBU/s1600/Press%2B29%2BJan%2B2011%2B007.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/TUSOUYr5ElI/AAAAAAAABA0/lHyZ55FNQBU/s400/Press%2B29%2BJan%2B2011%2B007.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567731520211849810" border="0" /></a>Carolyn and I had a very enjoyable evening this week showing our work to Brighton Illustrators Group. I focussed on the Tom Paine Printing Press and my letterpress work, and only briefly mentioned my poetic photobooks.<br /><br />Here's some quick info about where I'm showing my work (Altazimuth Press, poetic photobooks, and Tom Paine Printing Press, creative letterpress) this year (2011; accurate dates to follow):<br /><br />Works on Paper Fair, Science Museum, South Kensington, London, 2-7 Feb<br /><br />Here Gallery, Bristol, March<br /><br />Bristol Artists Book Event (BABE), April/May<br /><br />Antiquarian Book Fair, Olympia, June<br /><br />[Whitechapel Art Book Fair, September?]<br /><br />Oxford Fine Press Book Fair, Novemberpeter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-32201012493812781132010-12-12T13:33:00.000-08:002010-12-12T13:49:13.188-08:00Recent Important Events<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/TQVDC2BOetI/AAAAAAAABAQ/6sI-1UUs-ss/s1600/Phoenix1%2BPics%2B007%2Bcrop.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 311px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/TQVDC2BOetI/AAAAAAAABAQ/6sI-1UUs-ss/s400/Phoenix1%2BPics%2B007%2Bcrop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5549915831943461586" border="0" /></a>Chanctonbury Ring (after the Hurricane), oil on canvas<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/TQVBmkWcSwI/AAAAAAAABAI/In2Wjn5avXs/s1600/Press%2BDec%2B2010%2B019.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/TQVBmkWcSwI/AAAAAAAABAI/In2Wjn5avXs/s400/Press%2BDec%2B2010%2B019.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5549914246652644098" border="0" /></a>A Happy Dada Christmas / Winter Festival to Everyone.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Since the Whitechapel Art Book Fair in September 2010, I've been asked to exhibit my creative typography at the Here Gallery in Bristol, and my poetic photobooks <span style="font-style: italic;">Thames - The London River </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">The East London Line - An Elegaic Meta-landscape </span>have been bought by the National Art Library at the V&A and the University of the Creative Arts respectively. I've also had a lot of creative-typography commissions.<br /><br />My projects for 2011 include a poetic photobook about the Borough Market in Southwark, completing my Isaac Rosenberg artist's book which has been in preparation for a long time, and mounting an exhibition of my paintings in Lewes.</div>peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-88760895052674257822010-11-27T13:06:00.000-08:002010-11-27T13:40:39.376-08:00The East London Line; poetic-photobook text<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><name="progid" content="Word.Document"><name="generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><name="originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><rel="file-list" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CDELLPC%7E1%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:none; mso-layout-grid-align:none; punctuation-wrap:simple; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning:14.0pt;} p.MsoFooter, li.MsoFooter, div.MsoFooter {margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:none; tab-stops:center 207.65pt right 415.3pt; mso-layout-grid-align:none; punctuation-wrap:simple; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning:14.0pt;} @page Section1 {size:841.9pt 595.25pt; mso-page-orientation:landscape; margin:2.0cm 42.55pt 2.0cm 42.55pt; mso-header-margin:35.45pt; mso-footer-margin:35.45pt; mso-page-numbers:1; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center">[Here is the text of my new poetic photobook, The East London Line - An Elegaic Meta-landscape, which I launched at the Whtiechapel Art Book Fair at the Whitechapel Gallery at the end of September 2010. I've used the prefix 'meta' to mean change or transformation, as in 'metamorphosis'. And yes, I know that 'elegaic' is not normally spelled like that; it's just that I prefer the spelling I've used as being closer to the sound of the spoken word.]<br /></p></rel="file-list"></name="originator"></name="generator"></name="progid"></equiv="content-type"></div><br /><equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><name="progid" content="Word.Document"><name="generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><name="originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><rel="file-list" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CDELLPC%7E1%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"></rel="file-list"></name="originator"></name="generator"></name="progid"></equiv="content-type"></div><equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><name="progid" content="Word.Document"><name="generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><name="originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><rel="file-list" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CDELLPC%7E1%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><b><br /></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><b><br /></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><b>The <o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><b>East London Line<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><span style=""><span style="font-weight: bold;">An Elegaic Meta-landscape</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="page-break-after: avoid;"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><span style="">PETER CHASSEAUD<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><span style="">ALTAZIMUTH PRESS<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; page-break-after: avoid;" align="center"><span style="">2010<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="page-break-after: avoid;"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="page-break-after: avoid;"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <b><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /></span></b> <p class="MsoNormal" style="page-break-after: avoid;"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt; page-break-after: avoid;"><b>The East London Line - An Elegaic Meta-landscape<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Serving and gripped by the tidal river,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">rain-fed, moon-sucked, wind-rammed waters piling up from the estuary,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">flood and ebb, flood and ebb, flood and ebb . . .<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Rotherhithe and Wapping lock their mutual gaze.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">The Angel, The Grapes, The Red Cow, The Spread Eagle, The Devil’s Tavern, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">in the broad Lower Pool, where Limehouse Reach swings south </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">past Millwall, the Surrey Commercial Docks, the Isle of Dogs, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">the West India Docks, then north to Blackwall and the East Indias,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">waiting to be locked in, barges, tugs and lighters cluster </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">by the Shadwell Entrance and the Wapping Entrance, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">for Wapping Basin and the London Docks, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">and opposite The Prospect of Whitby </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">they gather by the Surrey Entrance.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Wharves and cranes call across the beached, bleached lighters, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">the draggled barge tiers, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">cables, blocks and sprits creak and groan, rocked by tides, breeze, and wash.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Sun-baked, salt-crusted mud, rain and ice bound; </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">gulls scream, wheel and swoop, cormorants skim and dive. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Green-willowed ditches and creeks, seething in spring, quivering quick, drain to the river,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">black hulls, inbound on the flood, down on the ebb, ride the tide;</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">sprits’l barges surge and heel, skippers spin the wheel, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">leeboards bite, fore, main, top and mizzen catch the airs. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">On the Mill Wall and the Black Wall,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">mill sails turn on the river’s earth walls, mist damps sea-coal’s smoke,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">pastures turn to brick and stone: streets, sewers, timber ponds, locks and docks.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">London spews its sewage, stews plague, cholera, typhoid; ordure fills the river.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">People and rats, dogs and cats, rats, pigeons and sparrows </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">scamper, rut, endure, die, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">under rain and drizzle, sleet, snow and ice, fog, soot and smoke, summer sun. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Weeds and flowers, London Pride, sprout in gardens, window-boxes, pots.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Marc, Isambard, navvies, came, saw and conquered, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">with will, skill, gold, sweat and blood.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">In the tunnel the hero navvies, fuelled with beef, beer, tobacco and tea,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">pick and kick their grafting tools through blue clay, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">jack and drive, close-bricking behind, their massive iron shield, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">force their years through sand and gravel, mud and water,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">the twin advancing arches. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Paddies battle with tars in Redriff, and along the Ratcliff Highway </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">by Wapping and Shadwell’s whores, gin and crimping joints.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Gas, sulphurous, fire-damp, hisses from the mud and burns, explodes into fire </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">as tide-pressed water jets in.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Men fight the irrupting river’s weight, feverish with pumps;</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">a stinking brown flood fills panic lungs, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">drowns the workings, the sleeping, the injured, the laggards . . .<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Plugged with clay above and brick below, the tunnel is made.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">After the banquets and bands, the tutu’d tightrope walker, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">the underground printing press, the royal visits,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">the railway occupies their tunnel, ties Rotherhithe to Wapping </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">with iron and steel, fire, water and steam:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">cuts across the urban grain, sections its gradient profile: down, under and up. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">In the shafts and cuttings cast-iron beams take the strain, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">a cosmic man resisting the close-compressing walls.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Rooters, terrier tank engines, plunge below, condense their exhausts,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">pound sulphurous smoke from flaring coke and coal, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">shoot sparks and cinders through the streaming tunnel,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">chase the ratty conduits with carriages and wagons, passengers and freight - </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">the Metropolitan and District, the Brighton, the South Eastern, the Great Eastern.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">A soft haze of dust motes sifts in the shafts’ slanting sun; </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">drizzle drifts down to clag the sooty moss, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">snow settles on the tracks.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">The District electric trains begin, but the freight’s still steam: </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Stratford engines, drivers and firemen, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">running into Liverpool Street and reversing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Johnston’s alphabet incises their <b style="">U</b>ndergroun<b style="">D</b> names in the inverted Y:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 252pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style="">SHOREDITCH<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 252pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 252pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>WHITECHAPEL<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 216pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style="">SHADWELL<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 252pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style="">WAPPING<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 252pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 252pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 216pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style="">[River]<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 252pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 252pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 180pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><span style=""> </span>ROTHERHITHE<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 180pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 180pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 252pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style="">SURREY DOCKS<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 252pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 252pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 216pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style="">[SURREY CANAL]<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 252pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 252pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style=""><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 144pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><b style="">NEW CROSS <span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>NEW CROSS GATE<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">North and south of the river, to each its hinterland, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 144pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">casting its arc east of London Bridge,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 288pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">over sweet green meads, cow-pastures and gardens.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 24pt;" align="center"><b style="">South of the River</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">The Surrey Side and Kent </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Rotherhithe’s masts and yards, Turner’s broken <i style="">Temeraire</i>, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">the salt- and smoke-stained funnelled, Baltic traders, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">the Surrey Commercial Docks: whalers in Howland Great Dock, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Cunarders in Greenland Dock, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">square-riggers in Canada Dock, Russia Dock, Stave Dock, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">deal porters and stevedores, trams, buses and bikes, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">the pre-dawn cafés and pubs, the char and fags, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">the morning scramble for the call-on.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">The Surreys ablaze in the Blitz; incendiary and high explosive fire the timber, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">scare away the ducks and herons, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">make nonsense of Lavender Pond and Cicely Fox Smith.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Government, planners and developers systematically wiped out Rotherhithe, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; line-height: 24pt;">destroyed its peoples’ fabric with roads and blocks, in whose shadow the pubs die.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Southwark, Dock Head, trams along Lower Road, outside and above Surrey Docks Station.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Rotherhithe’s Bobby Abel cricketing in the park, Seven Islands, Plough Lane, The Blue Anchor.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">The Elephant’s screaming trams, the Pearlies, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Costers’ barrers, cock sparrers, knock ’em in the Old Kent Road </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">by The World Turned Upside Down.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Rotherhithe New Road (China Barn Lane), Redriff, Bermondsey, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Deptford’s Naval yards and Foreign Cattle Market, the Royal Victualling Yard, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">John Evelyn, Sayes Court and Tsar Peter.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">New Cross, Charleston, street and pub names map the Empire; </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Battle of the Nile Street, The Nelson, Alma, Sebastopol; </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">wooden walls, admirals, rope-walks, cables, hemp, tar and timber.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Woolwich with its gunners and sappers, its Royal Military Academy and Arsenal, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">its Free Ferry to North Woolwich and the Royals, Gallions Reach, Beckton. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Kent brings its bricks, lime and cement, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">its market gardens, honey’d orchards and hops to the Borough High Street, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">fruit and veg to the Borough Market’s crystal palace, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">costers’ barrows under the railway arches and girders, by St Saviour’s, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">hops from Kent’s kilns to the pungent Hop Exchange, to the river’s breweries, to the pubs – The Market Porter, the George, the Tabard, the Globe, the Rose, the Bear Gardens;</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Chaucer and Shakespeare, Marlowe, Henslowe, Alleyn.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">To Kent, London returns its manure.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">The railway cuts south, climbing from the river, deep past the Surrey Docks, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">to the market gardens, Lee Terrace footbridge and Deptford Road Junction </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">(where the East London Up joins, and the South London link) </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">under the Greenwich viaduct, the East Kent, the South Eastern,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">to the great, grubby green New Cross Tangle:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">lines, sidings, factories:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Mazawattee Tea, Rhubarb Siding, Klondike Siding, Ballarat Siding;</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">viaducts, bridges, cuttings, grass, allotments, nettles and slinking foxes,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Surrey Canal Junction;</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">crosses the Canal at Cold Blow Farm, where the Croydon Canal branched off </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">before the railway sunk it, turned its 18 locks </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">into the long, slogging gradient of the New Cross Bank.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">The view north: masts and cranes wither as Canary Wharf’s towers loom, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">dwarf the dead West India Dock, the Isle of Dogs; </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><span style=""> </span>‘here I am, the inevitable triumph of capital’, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 108pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">London’s arrogant twin towers pleading ‘fuck me’ to Bin Laden’s boys.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">The South London line on its brick arches, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">strides past Old Kent Road Junction,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">west to Peckham Rye, Denmark Hill, Clapham and Battersea </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">past slattern grey roofs, smoking chimney pots once red and yellow, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">houses and pubs, Watneys and Charringtons, streets and shops, <span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Woodbines and Players Navy Cut,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">past the tracks running down to the carriage sidings, loco works and shed, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">the smoke, steam and clanging buffers, granite setts and stables </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">of Bricklayers Arms and Willow Walk, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">past Millwall’s Den and the New Cross greyhounds, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">by the scrapyards, the gasworks, Hatcham Ironworks;</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Old Kent Road Junction where the Deptford Wharf Branch swings east;</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">across the Surrey Canal (lighters and timber yards all the way to Walworth and Camberwell) </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">to join the main lines: </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">New Cross for Dickensian Dover, the continong, Gay Paree, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; line-height: 24pt;">Over Cold Blow Lane for New Cross Gate, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; line-height: 24pt;">its railway works and loco sheds (one blew down in a storm!),</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">(change for the Crystal Palace, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">for royal and saucy, salty Brighton, the <i style="">Skylark</i>, fish and chips.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">HERE IS THE RIVER</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><b style="">North of the River<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">East of the City, the hamlets east of the Tower; </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">St Katherine’s, London Docks, Wapping and Shadwell Basins, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">wharves and warehouses, pubs and barge yards by Wapping Wall.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Shadwell, Whitechapel and Shoreditch, Stepney, Poplar, Bow and Stratford,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">and east across the Lea, Bow and Barking Creek, into Essex.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">East of Houndsditch, the Minories, Aldgate Pump, the East End began.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Life’s daily sorrows and joys; </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">the quick-spirit banter and bustle of the street markets – </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Petticoat Lane, Brick Lane, Cheshire Street and Sclater Street. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Truman’s Brewery, The Frying Pan, The Jolly Butchers, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">The Seven Stars, The Carpenters’ Arms, The Archers.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">But also a poor, vicious, grimy, sad and tearful terrain </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">of drunken bad temper, knuckle-dusters and bicycle chains, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">flick-knives, drugs, meths and hopeless crime, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Krays, Bethnal Green skinheads, Doc Martins, hoodies.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Now the money’s toad stink seeps east from Aldgate, north from Wapping, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">bulldozing centuries. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">The railway rises from Wapping, pounds level under London Docks, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">the Eastern Dock, by Shadwell Basin. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Coffer dams drain half the dock, hold back the water </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">while navvies cut-and-cover the twin brick tunnels; then the other half;</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">mining under the dock and warehouse walls, underpinning; </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">tons of iron, wood, and freighted water, the ships, the black freighters, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">ramming down the dock floor against the railway’s vaulted roofs. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Then rising north, under Cable Street, where Mosley’s Blackshirt thugs thrust,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">to Shadwell Station </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">and the brick-arched Blackwall Railway from the Minories, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">past Stepney Junction and Limehouse </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">to the West Indias to Poplar and the East India Docks, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">(the Tilbury arches – shelter from Blitz bombs; the DLR), </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">the Commercial Road, Whitechapel High Street, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">connects with the Metropolitan and District by the St Mary’s Curve and Aldgate, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">(the Ripper’s grim terrain; Houndsditch murders and Russian anarchists in Sidney Street)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">rises, under and past Spitalfields goods and coal depots, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">horse wagons and drays, granite setts, iron tyres and dung,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">past tall, close-packed slums, Booth’s poverty map,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><span style=""> </span>East End streets, the sour-sweating, unwashed:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">poverty knocks, families’ compressed flesh, ten to a room, a cellar, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">sharing the tap in the yard, the outside lavatory. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">The refugees: Spitalfields Huguenot weavers, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Russian ghetto, escapees from the fear,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Tsar’s savage pogroms in the Pale: </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Poland, Lithuania, the Ukraine . . . </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Rosenberg, Epstein, Gertler . . . </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">the Whitechapel Library, the Whitechapel Gallery; </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">the beacons of the Board Schools, the London Hospital, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">the human waves . . . the French, English, the Irish, the Russian Jews, the Asians . . . </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 108pt; line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">The Whitechapel Gallery is now, like the V&A, a nice restaurant and café, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">with a no-longer-relevant, not-for-the people, art gallery attached, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">preaching the cutting edge to the new arty types from Spitalfields, Hoxton and Hackney. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">It’s colonised the Whitechapel Library; </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">upstairs are the token ‘Whitechapel Boys’ - Isaac Rosenberg, Mark Gertler, Jacob Epstein. . . </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">They'd turn in their graves if they could see it now.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Bud Flanagan wouldn’t recognise the place; </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">he was Chaim Reuven Weintrop, born in Hanbury Street; his parents Polish Jews, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">he went to school in Petticoat Lane. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 108pt; text-indent: -108pt; line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">In Spitalfields and Brick Lane, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Tracy, art students and media types, tourists and restaurants; </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">the two nations - these and the others: </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Afghans, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">bringing the religion, clothes, the frontier, to Shadwell and Whitechapel, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">envy or despise the bankers and the others, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">wait to inherit.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -0.55pt; line-height: 24pt;">The Huguenot chapel became the synagogue, then the mosque; </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -0.55pt; line-height: 24pt;">up goes the minaret, hijab arches are mooted, burkas sweep past.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Locomotives’ sulphurous exhaust echoing, booming up past the synagogues, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Brady Street, the stacked skeletons (‘I am here, praise the Lord’) </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">of the Jewish Burial Ground, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">an interment a century to foil developers.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">The rails swing west in their deep cutting to Shoreditch Station,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">in its grimy, brick-arched cutting by Pedley Street and Code Street, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">below the high black gloom of Bishopsgate Goods Depot,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">(the Eastern Counties’ Shoreditch terminus, by the foul Old Nichol), </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 108pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">sooty brick, granite setts, iron bollards, steel girders, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 108pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">draught horses, motor lorries, wagon hoists,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Passing under Brick Lane, they join the Great Eastern </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">(hammering through Bishopsgate Low Level, up Bethnal Green bank, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">out of the City clay, rising on brick arch corrugations,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">dipped home and distant giving the road to Cambridge, Colchester, Norwich . . .)</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">run into Liverpool Street’s smoky echo, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">beneath the North London’s Broad Street cliff, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;">its iron and glass cathedral.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">I liked the old Shoreditch Station, with its human scale, texture and detail,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">but hate the new station - a giant, elevated, concrete box</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">made to be engulfed in steel and glass boxes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">They change the street names – it’s their way of saying ‘we don’t care’.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">It wasn’t only Hitler’s bombs that wrecked the East End;</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">government, councils, planners, architects </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">destroyed brick terraces, made wastelands, ghettos,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">thinned the population, shifted them out, killed the jobs and pubs, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">dumped the people in welfare towers.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Look what the bastards did to Rotherhithe, <span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">ripped out its heart. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">in Wapping, Shadwell, Limehouse, Rotherhithe, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">‘Planning’, ‘Development’, ‘Regeneration’</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">wrecked their life and fabric. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Thatcher’s DDC stole the docks; </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Canary Wharf, Wall Street’s outpost. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Toad’s greed, its blight and bile, digests us.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">I saw cranes and ships, docks working behind high, dark walls, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">sad, blasted, bomb sites, decaying terraces and shops,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Blooms restaurant and the last of the black-coated, broad-brimmed Jews. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -36pt; line-height: 24pt;">Along the Hackney Road, Bethnal Green Road, Commercial Road, Cable Street, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -36pt; line-height: 24pt;">every street, the pubs die. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">The Olympics wipe out the Lea Valley,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">and Crossrail creates vast bombsites to the west, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">Underground becomes Overground,</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">London crumbles away.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 150%;" align="center">This poetic photobook was designed, written and produced by Peter Chasseaud between 2008 and 2010</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 150%;" align="center">and digitally printed in 18 point Edward Johnston’s London Underground sans serif typeface</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 150%;" align="center">Technical assistance by Peter Flanagan</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 150%;" align="center"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 150%;" align="center">Aerial photographs ©English Heritage.NMR Aerofilms Collection</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 150%;" align="center">except bomber over docks by kind permission of the Imperial War Museum</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 150%;" align="center">Photograph of tram at Surrey Docks Station in 1951 by kind permission of Dewi Williams</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 150%;" align="center">Other photographs ©Peter Chasseaud 2010 or his collection</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 150%;" align="center"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 150%;" align="center">Text ©Peter Chasseaud 2010</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 150%;" align="center"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 150%;" align="center">Edition limited to 100 copies</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 150%;" align="center"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 150%;" align="center">This is number . . . . . . .<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 150%;" align="center"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 150%;" align="center">[Author's note: I've been walking, and taking photos of, the streets, railways, docks and industrial areas of London since the late 1950s. I've always been interested in the vestiges of the past - the grass-grown sidings, the granite setts of the warehouse-streets and stable yards, the remains of tram lines set in the Kingsway tramway tunnel, old gas lamps and cast-iron signs, the overgrown ack-ack site on Mitcham Common, the derelict wharves and rusting cranes along the Thames. I caught the last years of Croydon Airport, of the steam days of the great railway termini with their attendant locomotive sheds (greasy-dark, dangerous, noisy and fascinating, with their back corners occupied by surpisingly old engines), and also the last couple of decades of the working London River. Then there was Fleet Street and 'the print', with its vast noisy spaces full of compositors and linotypes, machine minders and their web presses. Exploring London in those days was a wonderful experience. The Science Museum was full then of real things - our material culture. London was changing all the time, as bombsites and National Service disappeared to be replaced by Swinging London and Carnaby Street . . . ]<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 24pt;" align="center"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -36pt; line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p> </rel="file-list"></name="originator"></name="generator"></name="progid"></equiv="content-type">peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-31978911023239193372010-09-03T12:56:00.001-07:002010-09-13T13:52:49.794-07:00East London Line & The Whitechapel<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/TIFWGmZdYiI/AAAAAAAAA_o/GKguVGVJnJQ/s1600/Press+pics+23-8-10+019+crop+portrait.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 308px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/TIFWGmZdYiI/AAAAAAAAA_o/GKguVGVJnJQ/s400/Press+pics+23-8-10+019+crop+portrait.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512782090264732194" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/TIFTliCi7WI/AAAAAAAAA_g/ak0Kb2Xajls/s1600/Press+pics+23-8-10+019+crop.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 308px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/TIFTliCi7WI/AAAAAAAAA_g/ak0Kb2Xajls/s400/Press+pics+23-8-10+019+crop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512779323135946082" border="0" /></a>Here is a limited edition typographical print which I've been producing to launch my new poetic photobook <span style="font-style: italic;">The East London Line</span> at the Whitechapel Art Book Fair at the end of September (last weekend: Thursday 23rd to Sunday 26th). The large-format softback book, under my imprint Altazimuth Press, will be in a limited edition of 100.<br /><br />I've been producing the print on my wooden 'common press', a replica of an 18th century press (see my Tom Paine Printing Press blog and website), and as the press is a two-pull press and therefore has a small platen I have to pull and wind on two or three times to obtain one print.<br /><br />The print is composed in metal type and wood letter on the stone bed of the press. I will have some for sale at the Whitechapel, along with the book, and also a few copies of my limited edition typographical map, printed in black, red and blue, also entitled the East London Line. An image of this map is on my Tom Paine Printing Press blog.peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-23858759340901977572010-04-01T12:07:00.001-07:002010-04-01T12:11:50.269-07:00East London Line - Shoreditch<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S7TvldbDnoI/AAAAAAAAA9U/fZRSkZRYZ4A/s1600/Whitechapel+10-12-08+079.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S7TvldbDnoI/AAAAAAAAA9U/fZRSkZRYZ4A/s400/Whitechapel+10-12-08+079.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5455248475484823170" /></a><br /><br />From my East London Line poetic photobook: Spitalfields Goods Depot, Shoreditch, 10 December 2008.peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-54847286433159997202010-03-31T13:41:00.000-07:002010-03-31T13:44:53.999-07:00New letterpress and artist's book workI've been working hard at the Tom Paine Printing Press with some new wood and metal type which I've recently acquired, and I'll be posting images here within the next few days. Just sorting and cleaning the type takes ages, and of course the typeseeting, locking up the forme, and printing on the hand press is a slow business.peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-30761915169567429802010-03-31T13:23:00.000-07:002010-04-01T15:05:56.107-07:00New images of Lewes Railway Land, and a painting<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S7UOENdfcYI/AAAAAAAAA9c/s8mhFNSfrHM/s1600/Lewes+Stn+1961.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 275px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S7UOENdfcYI/AAAAAAAAA9c/s8mhFNSfrHM/s400/Lewes+Stn+1961.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5455281989124845954" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S7UW_ylwOmI/AAAAAAAAA9k/zmeXkmrcHZQ/s1600/Lewes+Rly+Land+photo+1985-6.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 276px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S7UW_ylwOmI/AAAAAAAAA9k/zmeXkmrcHZQ/s400/Lewes+Rly+Land+photo+1985-6.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5455291808796916322" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S7Ow7G0fLLI/AAAAAAAAA9M/x_2HtLN2YnM/s1600/Lewes+Railway+Land+c.1986+high+res+C+small.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 167px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S7Ow7G0fLLI/AAAAAAAAA9M/x_2HtLN2YnM/s400/Lewes+Railway+Land+c.1986+high+res+C+small.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5454898103165332658" border="0" /></a>A new version of an oil painting I did in 1986. It's interesting that many of the preoccupations of my recent poetic photobooks (<span style="font-style: italic;">Kings Cross</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Euston Arch</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Thames - The London River</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">The East London Line</span>, etc.) are demonstrated here - the landscape and skyscape, the mixture os urban and rural, the impact of the railway, the steam locomotive as image, my own memories, etc. This scene has long been submerged under new housing developments. I actually travelled on a steam train from Uckfield to Lewes (they used to run from London Victoria to Brighton using this route - a great alternative to the Brighton main line), through this landscape, in 1962.<br /><br />The photo at the top is one I took leaning out of the train window as it approaches Lewes Station, in 1962, having just crossed the River Ouse (by the Phoenix Iron Works, or East Sussex Engineering as I think it was known by then) and the western end of Cliffe High Street, and run down from the viaduct over the railway land.<br /><br />The middle image is one of a series of photos I took in the winter of 1985-6 to form a 90-degree panorama of the Railway Land.peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-91969040626817624112010-02-14T10:52:00.000-08:002010-02-14T11:16:16.402-08:00The East London Line: Artist's Book 2010<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S3hLRfZvpsI/AAAAAAAAA8s/3Db-Fzt6i9o/s1600-h/Spitalfields+etc+15-17+Oct+08+010.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S3hLRfZvpsI/AAAAAAAAA8s/3Db-Fzt6i9o/s400/Spitalfields+etc+15-17+Oct+08+010.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5438179313909212866" /></a><br />Above: Shoreditch Station and Brick Lane, October 2008. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S3hG8usnI1I/AAAAAAAAA8k/-seRGnbCx7Y/s1600-h/East+End+19+May+2009+094+crop.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 273px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S3hG8usnI1I/AAAAAAAAA8k/-seRGnbCx7Y/s400/East+End+19+May+2009+094+crop.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5438174559191114578" /></a><br /><br />Watch this space for the developing story of my new East London Line artist's book. This has been in gestation for a year or two, but it's getting there!peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-83049269807133432192010-02-11T10:29:00.001-08:002010-02-17T13:24:44.826-08:00Isaac Rosenberg & More Creative Typography<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S3xd86KkZfI/AAAAAAAAA80/ZlJoH9Yn2KQ/s1600-h/Woodcut+Rosenberg+002.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 274px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S3xd86KkZfI/AAAAAAAAA80/ZlJoH9Yn2KQ/s400/Woodcut+Rosenberg+002.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439325750943835634" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S3RM6N2iwGI/AAAAAAAAA8M/1SrgjOvZggw/s1600-h/Typographical+prints+11-2-10+005-320x240.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S3RM6N2iwGI/AAAAAAAAA8M/1SrgjOvZggw/s400/Typographical+prints+11-2-10+005-320x240.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5437055213177585762" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S3RMxp_VbGI/AAAAAAAAA8E/N2FsB28si-8/s1600-h/Typographical+prints+11-2-10+001-320x240.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S3RMxp_VbGI/AAAAAAAAA8E/N2FsB28si-8/s400/Typographical+prints+11-2-10+001-320x240.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5437055066111831138" /></a><br /><br />Here are more images of recent work I've been doing on my wooden hand press (Common Press). The second is Variations on a Capital 'E' (including one lower case 'e'), using my own hand-cut 17th Century character (4.5 inches high) taken from Moxon. Red was frequently used for titling in early printed books.<br /><br />The first and third are the wood block and first progress proof respectively of a woodcut I'm doing for my Rosenberg book (Isaac Rosenberg, the artist and poet). This block, which I cut and proofed today, is about 12 x 18 inches and is thin plywood so I will have to build it up to type-height if I print it with a page of text.peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-9565631537406010172010-02-09T11:26:00.000-08:002010-02-11T10:44:07.561-08:00New & Other; Creative Typography<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S3G3pP6fLoI/AAAAAAAAA7s/DIi1FRKzq54/s1600-h/Press+pics+9-2-10+017-320x240.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S3G3pP6fLoI/AAAAAAAAA7s/DIi1FRKzq54/s400/Press+pics+9-2-10+017-320x240.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5436328144487263874" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S3G3dw9-m3I/AAAAAAAAA7k/qR_j8peiy-w/s1600-h/Press+pics+9-2-10+002-320x240.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 228px; height: 226px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/S3G3dw9-m3I/AAAAAAAAA7k/qR_j8peiy-w/s400/Press+pics+9-2-10+002-320x240.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5436327947201846130" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Two photos of type-cutting, typesetting and printing work I've just done at my Tom Paine Printing Press in Lewes High Street. Printing was done on the wooden 'common press' which I use all the time. The Valentine is printed using wood type on Khadi hand-made paper from India, and is about a foot (i.e. 30cm) square. The large capital 'E' print is from a woodcut which I'm in process of working on. I traced a large 17th Century capital 'E' (mine is about 4.5 inches high; or approx. 324 point, or 27-line pica) from Moxon's book, transferred this tracing to the wooden block, and cut out the character using a Stanley knife and wood-carving tools (gouges and chisels). It's very soft and grainy plywood, and clearly I'd get a much better result from a typographic point of view by using fruit wood. The three smaller 'E's (two caps and one l/c) above it are from different founts; the caps show very distinct differences from Moxon's, particularly in the serifs.peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-51052513090810780252009-11-01T10:25:00.000-08:002009-11-01T10:31:06.516-08:00Altazimuth Press at the Oxford Fine Press Book FairMy Altazimuth Press and Tom Paine Printing Press will be showing their products at the Oxford Fine Press Book Fair next weekend (7th/8th November) at Oxford Brooks University. Altazimuth Press products include <span style="font-style:italic;">Kings Cross</span>, <span style="font-style:italic;">Thames - The London River</span>, <span style="font-style:italic;">Afghanistan - A Journey</span>, <span style="font-style:italic;">The Euston Arch</span>, and <span style="font-style:italic;">Ypres Willows</span>. I'll also be showing some semi-abstract typographical posters which I've printed on the wooden 'common press' (see below).<br /><br />What a hectic summer it's been! The Tom Paine Festival in July, printing Paine's 'Case of the Officers of Excise' (limted edition of 30 copies) in August, Lewes's Artwave Festival in September and more printing in October (including Paine and Lewes Bonfire broadsides).<br /><br />The opportunity has come up to move the Tom Paine Printing Press to a shop in Lewes High Street - No.151, opposite the Bull House where Paine used to live and work, and the Westgate Chapel (Unitarian) where he was married. I'm therefore moving the Press from the Market Tower (with grateful thanks to Lewes District Council for providing the space there since the end of June). It will take me several weeks to complete the move, as I have to dismantle the wooden 'common press' very carefully, and re-erect it in the new premises.<br /><br />The High Street shop will be called 'PRESS', and will also act as a retail outlet for the Press's products, and also for prints and artists' books by local and other artists and printmakers.<br /><br />I was very fortunate to be given a printer's 'random' or cabinet for typecases, by Graham Moss of the Incline Press, along with some type and other equipment. I also obtained some more type - metal and wooden - from the now-closed Printing House museum in Cockermouth (north end of the Lake District). I'm still very short of the 18th Century 'Caslon Old Face' type, so if anyone out there has any to dispose of . . . ? Or indeed any metal or wooden type.peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-13088077258087315682009-08-26T12:06:00.000-07:002009-08-26T13:39:25.049-07:00Artwave, artist's books nearing completion - Rosenberg & East London Line<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SpWc5zlvWrI/AAAAAAAAA7M/7xy61uQJ66I/s1600-h/Ros+Feb+08+015.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SpWc5zlvWrI/AAAAAAAAA7M/7xy61uQJ66I/s400/Ros+Feb+08+015.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374374247251532466" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SpWcSjfPrnI/AAAAAAAAA7E/fIOsXbMkQwU/s1600-h/Ros+Feb+08+014.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 284px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SpWcSjfPrnI/AAAAAAAAA7E/fIOsXbMkQwU/s400/Ros+Feb+08+014.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374373572914425458" /></a><br />Isaac Rosenberg - see Rosenberg artist's book below<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SpWaz_MtZiI/AAAAAAAAA68/Y_AFVbbZwiE/s1600-h/Brick+Lane+etc+26+Oct+08+003.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 340px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SpWaz_MtZiI/AAAAAAAAA68/Y_AFVbbZwiE/s400/Brick+Lane+etc+26+Oct+08+003.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374371948265301538" /></a><br />Whitechapel UndergrounD Station - see East London Line artist's book below<br /><br /><br />I'm demonstrating the printing press (the wooden common press) in the Market Tower, Lewes, during Lewes's Artwave Festival every afternoon from Friday 28 August to Friday 4 September inclusive.<br /><br />As well as the Tom Paine material, I'm also using the press to print the text and blocks of some of my own artist's poem & image books, including Rosenberg (the Whitechapel poet and artist, who was killed in the First World War), and The East London Line (inspired by the current redevelopment of the old East London Railway from Shoreditch through (or rather under) Whitechapel, Shadwell, Wapping, Rotherhithe and Surrey Docks to New Cross and New Cross Gate).peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-18076324529560078752009-05-02T10:41:00.000-07:002009-05-15T08:52:55.602-07:00A S Byatt, The Children's Book, Trench Names and Rats AlleyAntonia (A.S.) Byatt has not only read my <span style="font-style: italic;">Rats Alley</span> book about trench names, but has used it (and acknowledged it) in her research for her new novel <span style="font-style: italic;">The Children's Book</span>, published by Chatto & Windus. She also has one of her characters write a poem about these names - this poem was also published recently in the New Yorker. Her book will be launched in London in mid-May, and she will be speaking at the Charleston Festival on Sunday 17th May at 2.30pm. See below for some of my poems, from my <span style="font-style: italic;">Willow/Wilg/Weide/Saule (Ypres Willows)</span> book. I'll post a poem I wrote in 2005-6 (while I was writing <span style="font-style: italic;">Rats Alley</span>)about trench names when I've found it!<br /><br />I'm still working on my poetic photobook on <span style="font-style: italic;">The East London Line</span>. Apropos this, I was at the reopened and refurbished (rebuilt? extended?) Whitechapel Galley last Thursday, and was shocked to see that just inside the entrance to what used to be the Whitechapel Library (now part of the Gallery) are two posh restaurants. Upstairs is a small exhibition dedicated to the life and work of 'The Whitechapel Boys' - Isaac Rosenberg, mark Gertler, Jacob Epstein, etc. They'd be turning in their graves if they could see the place now!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Willows Poems</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Shock of Recognition, Pilckem Ridge</span><br /><br />Blood-dark, stark against the sky<br />are war’s images we carry from photograph’s still grain,<br />the film’s foolery of the eye, a painting’s pigment,<br />the landscape sweep of panoramas . . .<br />Their shapes jolt vision, shake sense, dislocate;<br />these fields were, are.<br /><br />Tree-fans of high explosive smoke erupt from fields<br />where willow rods now claim the sky.<br />Spring’s lanyard jerks at the breech,<br />a green fuze triggers spurting sap’s gaine;<br />willow fingers start their splaying trajectory.<br /><br />We are in the killing zone, once quick with death’s dawn timetable,<br />its tide marks of cartographic plots:<br />the field guns’ creeping and standing barrages,<br />the machine gun barrage,<br />the bombardment by trench mortars,<br />by medium and heavy artillery.<br /><br />Here men flounder over fractured earth,<br />through nets of wire,<br />through air roaringly reticulated;<br />flayed by a burning sleet of lead,<br />scouring shrapnel balls’ fiery hail,<br />a steel scourge of splinters.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Napoleon’s Fifth Element, Passchendaele</span><br /><br />Earth, rooted;<br />Air, breathing and dancing;<br />Fire, all around;<br />Water, the life blood;<br />Mud.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Line of March, Messines</span><br /><br />Static sentinels,<br />or stalking figures, up the track, along the hedge;<br />then in open order,<br />shaking out into line<br />or artillery formation.<br /><br />Unharvested,<br />their rods<br />explode into the sky.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ancient Pollards, Ploegsteert</span><br />(‘Old willow boles, rarely sound and falling about untidily,<br />continue to shoot vigorously’)<br /><br />Spiky, hoary polls -<br />shock-headed,<br />gnarl-faced,<br />whorled,<br />limbless;<br />the old sweats, who once fired<br />fifteen rounds rapid.<br /><br />Rotting, raddled corpses,<br />And survivors, old wounds healed<br />around shell splinters, steel rods, concrete,<br />screw pickets, wire barbs.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">White Willows, Cross Roads Farm</span><br /><br />Some white willows are weeping,<br />their lashes stroking the moat’s breast,<br />dropping tears.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bat and Ball; drawing a blank</span><br /><br />The backs of the leaves flicker white in the wind<br />as a ghost, or an angel, passes;<br />the felled tree’s flesh glimmers with the pallor of a shroud.<br />Sawn straight from it, the undressed white willow slab, square cut,<br />like the round which will not kill<br />is called a blank (not ball).<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Reading the Runes, St Yvon</span><br /><br />How to read the brown hare,<br />lored with wicca and moon,<br />breaking in February’s sunshine over the plough,<br />along no man’s land, from the trees around the flooded mine crater,<br />from the wired brushwood by the concrete pillbox sherds?<br /><br />Trees as text<br />or as signs, symbols;<br />conventional signs on the map –<br />the dots penning the flowing beke,<br />shoring the still dyke or pool?<br /><br />Read their linearity, their punctuation,<br />their studding, their scatter in the landscape.<br />What information do they yield, these willow patterns?<br />Some deep, ancient pattern of cultivation, of mulch and tilth,<br />of gabion, wattle and revetment against the rushing water,<br />the drilling rain, crumbling bank.<br /><br />That here Flemish farmers fought the rheumy clay<br />to work their root crops and pastures,<br />seed their land,<br />plant their rods, harvest the osier crop<br />along the ditch, around the teeming pool and moat.<br /><br />They line the cultivation, mark the gutter,<br />form field boundaries, divide lush pasture from clay plough.<br /><br />Or that here was a battle<br />leaving a hecatomb of corpses?<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Quick and the Dead</span><br />(with acknowledgements to Robert Graves)<br /><br />A tree of enchantment,<br />the moon’s willow is the fifth tree,<br />one of the seven wise pillars, with their planets, days and letters,<br />one of the seven noble, sacred, trees of the grove.<br />Its branches waving at the fifth month<br />start May Day’s orgiastic revels, spring magic dew,<br />urge the season of the renewed sun.<br /><br />Helicë, the willow sacred to poets,<br />names Helicon, home of the Nine Muses,<br />wanton priestesses of the Moon-goddess.<br />Mount Helicon’s willow fairy, Heliconian the Muse (the White Goddess),<br />waves her willow-wand,<br />starts the wind whispering inspiration in the willows,<br />puts poets’ minds under a strange and potent influence.<br />Mystically eloquent, Orpheus received his gift<br />by touching willows in Persephone’s grove;<br />outside the Dictean Cave the Orphic willow grew.<br /><br />Water-loving willow, goddess of wells and springs;<br />witches went to sea in willow basket-sieves, sailed in riddles,<br />the liknos, used for winnowing corn, telling the future.<br />Poseidon, to whom a Helicean Grove was sacred,<br />led the Muses, guarded the Delphic Oracle, before Apollo.<br /><br />Belili, Sumerian White Goddess, was a willow-goddess of wells and springs.<br />Beli, her divinatory son, a Sea-god, tutelary deity of Britain - his ‘honey-isle’.<br />A god must commands its waters –<br />the grey Narrow Seas, green Western Approaches, blue High Seas –<br />before he can rule an island.<br /><br />Weep, willow, for your lost lover;<br />wear green willows in your hat as a sign;<br />and as a charm against the jealousy<br />of the Moon-goddess.<br /><br />White Moon-wood, dove, barn owl;<br />Willow’s landscape is the terrain of death, of the White Goddess,<br />whose prime orgiastic bird – the wryneck, snake-bird, cuckoo’s mate,<br />spring migrant hissing like a snake,<br />nests in willows.<br /><br />Europë on coins from Cretan Gortyna,<br />sits in a willow tree, osier basket in hand, made love to by an eagle;<br />is Eur-ope, of the broad face, the Full Moon,<br />and Eu-rope, of the flourishing withies, Helice, sister of Amalthea.<br /><br />The ancient word for willow<br />yields witch, wicked, wicca, wicker;<br />at Fricourt, by no strange transposition,<br />Wicket Corner became Wicked Corner.<br /><br />Druids offer human sacrifice<br />in wicker baskets<br />at the full moon.<br />Rods sprout from willows’ polls, make baskets ensnaring the moon.<br />Flints knapped to willow-leaves,<br />inscribed with crescent moons,<br />are funery.<br /><br />Willow is sacred to Hecate, Circe, Hera and Persephone,<br />the Triple Moon-goddess’s witch-worshipped death faces; <br />so you haven’t got a chance, boys, in the willow landscape.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Willow service</span><br /><br />Trussed with rust-barbed wire,<br />they stand<br />as fence posts,<br />supports for notice boards,<br />field boundaries;<br />revet the stream banks,<br />yield rods, poles, firewood,<br />nests for birds,<br />lashed cross-branches skied crows’ nests,<br />cross-trees for storks, kites;<br />hiding places for children in their crowns,<br />for owls in their hollow skulls,<br />a little shelter against rain’s lashing,<br />shade for picnics and lovers.peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-63580589110942706622009-04-01T13:29:00.000-07:002009-04-01T14:03:32.555-07:00Peter Chasseaud at Arnolfini, Euston Arch, Erotic Cabinet, etc<div><br /><div><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SdPR6b5fsuI/AAAAAAAAA6E/MiTCU30Q33Y/s1600-h/Camden+25+Feb+08+032.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5319826386706215650" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 264px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SdPR6b5fsuI/AAAAAAAAA6E/MiTCU30Q33Y/s400/Camden+25+Feb+08+032.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SdPQFw8ElaI/AAAAAAAAA50/MNcv0-Y0hGU/s1600-h/Camden+21+Feb+08+047.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5319824382309471650" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SdPQFw8ElaI/AAAAAAAAA50/MNcv0-Y0hGU/s400/Camden+21+Feb+08+047.jpg" border="0" /></a> I'm showing my poetic photobooks at the Arnolfini in Bristol this weekend - Sat 4th and Sun 5th April 2009. This is part of BABE09 (Bristol Artists Book Event), organised by Sarah Bodman at the University of the West of England. The images above I took while doing fieldwork at Camden for my <em>Euston Arch</em> book. Also the one below:<br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5319825701485441570" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SdPRSjQIciI/AAAAAAAAA58/cZzInhlovoU/s400/Camden+25+Feb+08+017.jpg" border="0" /> </div><br /><div>I produced this book in 2008, after which I started The East London Line, based around the Shoreditch - Whitechapel - Shadwell - Wapping - Rotherhithe - New Cross area. This is still in the pipeline (!). I'm still working on other projects, including the Erotic Cabinet:</div><div> </div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5319831038945115026" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SdPWJO1ru5I/AAAAAAAAA6U/kJODtjOZi7A/s400/Phoenix+1-4-09+001.JPG" border="0" /><br /><div></div><div>I've been very busy so far this year getting my Tom Paine Printing Press up and running, and also recently (March 2009) doing landscape work in Belgium with archaeologists on the site at St Yvon, near Ploegsteert:</div><div> </div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5319829174334449538" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SdPUcsn254I/AAAAAAAAA6M/ErpPLAeYRjg/s400/Plugstreet+Dig+March+2009+046.jpg" border="0" />This shows a huge lump of concrete and steel reinforcing rods, the remains of a pill-box probably dating from 1917-18 in the old British front line at St Yvon. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div><br /><br /><div><br /><br /></div><br /><br /><div></div></div></div>peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-83095125164609274852009-03-13T08:22:00.000-07:002009-03-13T09:06:32.021-07:00The Art of Lost Words at the German Gymnasium, Kings Cross<div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/Sbp6d-JMquI/AAAAAAAAA5c/tUeSiUHmS5E/s1600-h/German+Gym+PV.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312693365753293538" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/Sbp6d-JMquI/AAAAAAAAA5c/tUeSiUHmS5E/s400/German+Gym+PV.jpg" border="0" /></a> Talking to Rebecca Pohancenik, the curator of the inspiring 'The Art of Lost Words' exhibition, at the PV at the German Gymnasium, Kings Cross, on 6th March. 'An exhibition of new design and illustration inspired by language's forgotten words.' Rebecca asked each of 46 artists to produce a visual response to a lost word. See the Text/Gallery website: <a href="http://www.textgallery.info/">http://www.textgallery.info/</a>.<br /><br />I was in London showing my Kings Cross poetic photobook to galleries, and took this opportunity to revisit the railway land redevelopment area. The landscape has changed since my last visit - as always. But this time the big shock was the absence of Culross Buildings (see photos below), which have been completely demploished. Culross was such a feature of that railway landscape that, apart from one of the StanleyBuildings and the German Gym, there is nothing left in that once-fsacinating space between Kings Cross and St Pancras. Argent, the developers, have a huge model of the railway land on the ground floor of the German Gym, and this shows which of the old railway buildings on the Kings Cross goods depot site will be preserved - luckily quite a lot.</div><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312702104562828770" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 276px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SbqCaovwBeI/AAAAAAAAA5k/YygcJU5Dj50/s400/Kings+Cross+Suburban+1967.jpg" border="0" />A photo I took in 1967, looking from Kings Cross across the suburban and Metropolitan platforms towards St Pancras, with the German Gymnasium and Stanley Buildings in the middle distance, and Culross on the far right of the photo.</p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312703529132279106" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 276px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SbqDtjrkxUI/AAAAAAAAA5s/6gVPO6puW8E/s400/Culross+Buildings+2004.jpg" border="0" />This is a photo I took in 2004, from York Way (old York Road, and before that Maiden Lane), looking across the Kings Cross station area to Culross Buildings. I made a film of Culross Buildings, and the streets around Kings Cross, shortly afterwards.<br /><p></p><br /><p><br /></p><br /><div></div>peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-22679274706976670402009-01-30T07:44:00.001-08:002009-01-30T08:10:45.532-08:00Tom Paine's Birthday, Use and Take Care<div align="center">29th January was Tom Paine's birthday (he was born in 1737), so I arranged for Andy Gammon, the artist and designer, to ring Gabriel, the town bell, to commemorate the event, and also mark the bicentenary of Paine's death in 1809. Thanks to John Crawford, Chief Executive of Lewes District Council, for making this event possible.</div><br /><div align="center"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SYMiZqmvjpI/AAAAAAAAA5U/7PPz1XJ9aZ0/s1600-h/Paine"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297115411046698642" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SYMiZqmvjpI/AAAAAAAAA5U/7PPz1XJ9aZ0/s400/Paine%27s+b%27day+Town+Bell+29-1-09+004+small.jpg" border="0" /></a> The Market Tower in Lewes, during the bell-ringing<br /><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297113820623413154" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SYMg9F0SH6I/AAAAAAAAA4s/eyAwuqySepY/s400/Paine%27s+b%27day+Town+Bell+29-1-09+003+small.jpg" border="0" /> Andy Gammon preparing the medieval bell, Gabriel, for the bell-ringing<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SYMhZS41_nI/AAAAAAAAA5E/C87YZMai4KI/s1600-h/Use+and+Take+Care+30-1-09+012+small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297114305168539250" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SYMhZS41_nI/AAAAAAAAA5E/C87YZMai4KI/s400/Use+and+Take+Care+30-1-09+012+small.jpg" border="0" /></a>Inside 'Use and Take Care', a wonderful shop run by artists and designers in the Needlemakers, Lewes, on the corner of Market Street and Market Lane<br /><a href="http://www.useandtakecare.com/">http://www.useandtakecare.com/</a><br /><br /><div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SYMhJXmUjQI/AAAAAAAAA40/EqA5MsyKPWk/s1600-h/Use+and+Take+Care+30-1-09+006+small.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297114031555120386" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SYMhJXmUjQI/AAAAAAAAA40/EqA5MsyKPWk/s400/Use+and+Take+Care+30-1-09+006+small.jpg" border="0" /></a>Chiara Bianchi in her 'Shop of the Artists', 'Use and Take Care'</div><div> </div><div></div><div></div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297114425859754882" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I_1dG2HF_sc/SYMhgUf3y4I/AAAAAAAAA5M/VTYd0rhqlIY/s400/Use+and+Take+Care+30-1-09+017+small.jpg" border="0" /> </div><div>Some of Chiara Bianchi's beautiful products<br /><br /><div><div></div></div></div><br /></div>peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8826680981201124457.post-79947597115271391852009-01-26T09:44:00.000-08:002009-01-26T09:53:53.876-08:00Peter Chasseaud's poetic photobooks at the Works on Paper Fair, Covent GardenI'll be showing my poetic photobooks in the 'Covered' (artists' books) section of the Watercolours and Drawings and Modern Works on Paper Fair in the Old Flower Cellars (formerly the Theatre Museum) at Covent Garden from 4th to 8th February 2009. Opening times are:<br /><br />Wed 4th 3-9<br />Thurs 5th 11-9<br />Fri 6th 11-8<br />Sat 7th 11-8<br />Sun 8th 11-5.30<br /><br />Books on show: <em>Kings Cross, The Euston Arch, Thames - The London River, Afghanistan - A Journey, Willow/Wilg/Weide/Saule (Ypres Willows)</em>peter chasseaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05076289127662441267noreply@blogger.com0