Mark Dixey

Mark Dixey

Contact: mark@hilly-fields.net

Hi. My name is Mark Dixey. I originally come from Leicester. The Leicester museum has a good collection of German Expressionist paintings and prints. Back then I found them fascinating. This is definitely the biggest influence on my style and choice of media.

The challenge of creating an image that moves in some way is what drives me to work the way I do. Disciplined and minimal. I have no formal training and tend to produce what I find pleasing, challenging, and hopefully saying something to the viewer.

Newsletter 2024

Newsletter 2024

Hello everyone, especially our new members John Rollin and Mark Dixey,I hope you are enjoying what is passing for Summer this year.

We started with the exhibition at Dronfield Hall Barn in March, where 12 members took part and £641.00 was taken. Dronfield has been a very good venue for us over several years as it is a busy place and the footfall is quite high. Also, the café is brilliant!


This was followed at Mayday Bank Holiday by the 3day event at the Walled Garden. Around 20 members of the Sheffield Printmakers took part, although not everyone had a stall for the whole weekend, and some people just did the exhibition. Nonetheless £4,200 was taken and the Friends of the Walled Garden raised £1,800 to help them with their work of maintaining and developing the garden. In the years since we started doing this event we have seen what used to be a disused Parks Department Greenhouse area turned into an attractive and peaceful garden.

The Art House at St Mathew’s, in Sheffield City Centre, invited Sheffield Print makers to exhibit there at no cost to us and they did all the hanging etc. Since closing during Lockdown they no longer have a café and now use the area as a gallery. When we’ve used the space before we had a gallery space on the ground floor but we also used the café area. This meant we had a very large area which we could use. Now we only had the gallery on the ground floor. This meant there were some limitations on the number of pieces they could take and on their size.

They had recently painted the wall a rather pleasant petrol blue, which many people thought showed the work to greater advantage than plain white.
The event took place from July 4th – July29th .Everyone was pleased with the appearance and those of us who attended the Opening Evening were happy with the free wine. Three members of the group sold work, which is always satisfying and Matt used the opportunity to exhibit examples of a new multi-plate lino process he has been working on, However, there some drawbacks to this venue. It is very easy to muddle the entrance up with that of St Mathew’s Church next door. The church owns the gallery and the two buildings are connected. They did the publicity, but apart from their website and a few leaflets in the premises there didn’t seem to be anything anywhere else. But, hey, it was free and any exposure is worth having.
Just a month later, August 5th -11th, we had the Pop-Up Shop in the Winter Gardens. This was the first time we have done this in the Summer, normally we have done this in the Spring, but as the hiring fee was much lower for this time of year we thought we would give it a go. We had 6 people taking part, Sally, who organised it, Cintia, Angela, Anthea, Louise, Jo and Zena, for whom it was the first time at this venue as she only joined us last year. Footfall was not great, particularly at the beginning of the week and possibly not helped by the rumours of trouble about to happen in the City Centre. Actually it was dead quiet. However, things picked up by the end of the week so that took around £716.00.This is actually the highest we have taken at the PopUp Shop so far. So in spite of the slow start, which, looking back over the records for former years , seems to have par for the course, we didn’t do too badly.

On a more individual note, apart from taking part in various of our own exhibition some people have also had work in other places
Maude had work at the Cooper Gallery, Barnsley as well as doing the Walled Garden.
Anthea, has had work accepted by the Ferens Art Gallery, Hull as well as being at Dronfield Barn, The Art House and the PopUp Shop.
Zena , who also took part in the Walled Garden and the PopUp Shop was also busy at The Big Arts Festival, Stockton in July, Darlington’s Creative Art Day ,and will be at The Devonshire Green Festival on August 24th. She has been busy as she says that she has been involved in other events “dotted around the country” throughout the year.
Uura has also been in Both the Dronfield and The Art House as well as Taking part in this year’s Open Up Winter Exhibition, The Woodseats Free Festival and Walkley Festival. She will be running a workshop at Anomaly Arts, Abbey Lane this coming Bank Holiday, August 24th.

The major up and coming event we have is the Printmakers on Water exhibition at the Sock Gallery, Loughborough which will run from September 5th to October 12th with a Meet the Artists session on September 14th . Members have been preparing for this for almost 2 years and the selection day took place on June 15th.The selectors were Sarah Burgess and Pete York, who managed to hobble round on his crutches, having had a knee replacement operation on the previous Monday. The third and independent member of the panel was Louise Jannetta a print maker and mixed media artist from Buxton. ( You can find out more about her work at https:/www.louisejanetta.co.uk.)
After the session she was kind enough to send some suggestions for obtaining frames and mount etc, with the suggestion that we could look at ordering stuff in bulk as a group, which might be helpful.
The contacts are :-
wholesale framing supplies http://www.tradepictureframes.co.uk
mount, back and bag supplies http://www.frithandcompany.co.uk
19 members of the group are taking part in this event. They are
Alex McArthur, Maude Tricker, Pat Hodson, Jennie Merriman, Louise Vickers, Sarah Burgess, Linda Green, Peter York, Kath Holland, Uura Niemi-Junkola, Tracy Litterick , Anthea Stephenson, Sally Brooks, Jo Pye, Eva Juusola, Frances Lewis, Jean Brookes, Sue Unwin, Val Vernon.
Most of the publicity for this being organised by the Sock Gallery, on line and in their own area, but we are also trying to publicise it here as well.

Val and Uura are also taking part in this year’s 20:20 event, along with Annetta, S.J and Sarah Calcutt. This is an annual print exchange, which takes place in the autumn, run by Hot Bed Press in Salford and which usually results in an exhibition somewhere. Just before lockdown, we were exploring the possibility of holding it here, but Covid got in the way. Perhaps w should consider the idea further.

Sally has written a piece for The Edge, the magazine published by the Nether Edge Neighbourhood Group. This piece celebrates the 10th Anniversary of Sheffield Printmakers by explaining how we came in to being; three of our founding members, Jan, Jo and Sally herself all live in Nether Edge. She also highlights the Sock exhibition.

Finally, dates for your diary.
We have Dronfield Hall Barn booked for December 1st-8th. Christine is organising this and will be sending out for expressions of interest soon.
Jean has booked Sharrow Community Forum (the old Sharrow Junior School) for October 30th and February 18th, both for group meetings.
Also.
West Yorkshire Zine & Print Fair October 19th The Piazza, Huddersfield. Deadline 25.9.2024( For those who don’t know, like me, Zine is short for “magazine” and, in this case, refers small hand produced versions — I think!)
Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield. Small works exhibition. 23.10.2024 -2.11.2024 Theme Darkness. Deadline 18.9.2024
The Cooper Prize, Barnsley calls for submission November/December.
Further details for all of these can be found on Curator Space or can (presumably) be obtained from the organisers.

John Rollin

John Rollin

Contact: j.rollin@talk21.com

John is a new member of Sheffield Printmakers.

Matthew Ford

Matthew Ford

Having not done anything artistic since High School, during the first Covid lockdown we started a ‘friends and family’ art contest. I found myself drawn to the graphic qualities of printed images, and began Linocut printing in 2021. It’s still very much a hobby, but I’ve enjoyed making prints for friends and family as gifts for friends and family.

Jennie Merriman

Jennie Merriman

I started printmaking in 2014 and really enjoyed the challenge and process of lino and collagraph printing. There are so many ways to make a plate or add a ground, it is always exciting. I enjoy taking a mixed media approach, particularly with collagraph printing. I have had quite a long break from the work but now have my old press back and am ready to get going again with a lot of help from friends.I enjoy the camaraderie and the ‘making together’ of printmakers and have recently renovated an old engineering workshop in my garden. It is now set up as a printmaking workshop both for myself and as a community resource for workshops and as a drop in centre. The space can also be used as a gallery for exhibiting work.

It is early days yet but since September we have had some very lively sessions both with new and experienced printmakers. I have also recently rejoined Sheffield Printmakers and am looking forward to exhibitingwork with them again.

Jennie Merriman. 09. 11. 2023

Zena Farel

Zena Farel

Email: zena@zenafarelgallery.co.uk

Website: www.farel.co.uk

Non-commission website: Free for international women artists www.voltagallery.co.uk

Instagram: @northwind365

Facebook: Volta Art by Women

I create monotypes and monoprints using acrylic on paper and work quickly, always with a firm idea of what I want to produce, but I prefer not to plan an image in advance. I like the exhilaration of producing work in such a necessarily imprecise way and always welcome the resulting surprises and discoveries. I’m exploring, and expressing remembered feelings and experiences, rather than the immediate world around me.

I lived very close to the North Devon coast for four years and in Valencia for two years before that, and both the sea and the flamboyant, energetic colours of Valencia appear in my work. At the moment, I live in the North East and have also produced newer, more muted forms connected to woodland walks and the huge skies of County Durham.

Christine Jones

Christine Jones

Email: christinejones.printnewt@gmail.com

Website: https://christinejonesprintmaker.co.uk

Folksy shop: https://folksy.com/shops/christinejonesprintmaker

Instagram: @christinejonesprintmaker

I am a Derbyshire based printmaker, living in a small village that has always been my home. I have a small print room at the bottom of my garden which houses an hand built etching press lovingly made by my husband.

I fell in love with the printmaking process whilst studying Art @Design over 20 years ago, and continued to build up my knowledge through self learning, books and specialised courses. Whenever time and commitments allowed I would make prints.

Since giving up work to pursue my passion for printmaking I have exhibited and sold my work at fairs, art trails group exhibitions and galleries. I love what I do and being part of a creative community.

I am inspired by the everyday, textures, patterns, the way the light falls and the drama and shadows it creates. The stories and memories objects can evoke and my love of the printmaking process also inspire me. I don’t feel compelled to follow a strict path and can veer off if a subject interests or speaks to me.

Tracy Litterick

Tracy Litterick

Email: tracylitterick@gmail.com

Although I have a Fine Art degree I then worked primarily with photography and film, discovering printmaking some years after graduating and retraining to become a Homeopath and subsequently studying Therapeutic Shamanism.

My prints, therefore, explore my inner landscape and Shamanic realms behind this ordinary reality. Inspiration comes from the Stone, Plant, Standing, Animal and Human peoples and is part of my healing process. My imagery touches on aspects of Soul Loss and Retrieval, Ancestral Healing, Power Animals, the Medicine Wheel and Shapeshifting that emerge from Shamanic Journeying.

Printmaking embraces these experiences and becomes almost a meditation process which cannot be rushed or forced but results in outcomes often unexpected, helping wounded parts tell their stories, through hands, feeling and touching, being guided by intuition.