Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney, until 29 May 2011

IT’S sort of nice to know that Orkney has had an Islands Councillor who spent whatever time he squeezed from the bloodless stone that is local government printmaking, indeed helping to found Soulisquoy Printmakers, producers of many beautiful tranquil things. What better, after a long hard day at Economic Development, than to get out the lino cutter and have a good gouge.

This new exhibition bears interesting fruit – a visit to Japan and an apprenticeship in stone letter cutting from the master, Frances Pelly. Interesting because the tension in engraving is generated by the dynamic between the material  and the subject.

Wilderness, 2010, Caithness Flagstone by Jeremy Baster

You may say this is true of all art – but engravers have it tough. The materials are obdurate. The tools – chisels, knives, blades, tungsten tips – can take the finger off you. More, they decline to make flourishes like a watercolour brush might. Engraving challenges the 3-D world. The bluntness of its blocks could flatten any image, but the key to its subtlety lies in clever layering, overprinting, and the deft use of colour.

Baster has been investigating extreme movement and its antithesis – the fixed frozen moment which catches the feeling of speed. We are lazy about this these days – we have wonderful photographers who freeze frames for us. Good to see another tack.

The theme of this exhibition is ‘spectator sports’, in particular cycling. It’s a great choice – the raked circle of the velodrome, the Mercury-like riders in their helmets, winging it along in skin hugging suits, the geometry of wheels and lanes and stands. The colours are a fine balance of warms – ochres, reds –  and a cooler blue edge.

Having just seen Diana Leslie’s extraordinarily acute sense of street geometry, in a previous show here, I was reminded that the important thing about the artist’s eye is that it brings our layman’s attention to something we never noticed, which, once revealed, becomes obvious. In Leslie’s case , I discovered beauty in what I thought was the ugliest Stromness corner. Here, I find myself thinking, I must keep an eye out for Chris Hoy, to see the dynamic burst of action Baster catches so well.

There’s a retro feel about the prints, in the nicest sort of way. I’m a fifties child, itchy granma-knit socks, liberty bodice, bottled orange juice. I get a whiff of Shell calendars, Three Nuns tobacco ads, Watneys Beer , Spangles; I see curtain prints, wallpapers, and linoleum patterns– a sort of simple, enthusiastic, New Look post war feel – bright, insistent energy and an innocence that’s very appealing.

Of course I’m pulled too by the Arts and Crafts movement’s honourable history, their elegant calligraphy (Edward Johnstone’s 1912 alphabet designed for the London Underground is still used today), their Fabian, communitarian ideals, their respect for philosophy, poetry and love of natural forms and cycles – plants, seasons, toil.

They were formidable book illustrators, the engravers. You only have to look at Joan Hassall’s fantastic engravings for Eric Linklater’s  book of short stories, Sealskin Trousers. She was trained by an associate of Eric Gill’s, Ralph John Beedham, a member of Gill’s Catholic co operative Ditchling Community.

It’s fascinating to look at the dynamic way technique developed. You end up wondering why woodcut, for example, lends itself so well to Aesop’s Fables, or Greek myth. You then think back to Blake and see that, of course, he could only present his visions in engravings. It’s about lack of sentimentality, I think. That lends credibility to the depiction of the heroic.

Baster’s best work  here is a series of illustrations for another project by the excellent Hansel Cooperative Press, a translation of Francoise Villon’s poetry done by Shetland poet Billy Tait. The Villon Suite is gutsy, full of dramatic action caught in the moment, and will be a fine complement to the poetry, while also observing the best traditions of cooperative endeavour in the arts – small presses, shared gain and local voices.

Of the new venture – stone etching, with haiku and homily – I’ve less to say. Here Baster is a willing and able student, but not an innovator. The streets of Scotland are becoming littered with lettering engraved on stone, as folk take Ian Hamilton Finlay and the renga tradition too much to heart, too literally. There are fine moments in this rush of stone poetry, which will endure. But a lot won’t, and will someday look as quaintly dated as 60s film.

Far and away the best, most heart-felt piece in Baster’s stone experiment, is, interestingly, one he wasn’t going to exhibit at all – it’s a sandstone block in which an eagle is folded. The inscription is from Tennyson’s great poem, which fifties children in Stromness learned by heart, as should all children everywhere – ‘ringed with the azure world he stands..’

There’s a real sense of presence about this carving, of flight about to burst out. Lao Tzu said, ‘study the uncarved block’ – so you could see the potential for movement in stillness, I suppose – and this eagle reminds me of that Zen dictum. Lovely.

Visit this exhibition – it has a tranquillity and simplicity that’s very engaging. And you may like the busyness of the Caithness slate sunburst, inscribed, ‘after the daffodil and the primrose comes the dandelion.’

© Morag MacInnes, 2011

Links

• Pier Arts Centre
• Hansel Press