Introducing... Catherine Aldred

Catherine Aldred is an illustrator whose interest lies in capturing the world around her through pen, ink and watercolour drawings and printmaking methods. She has a particular interest in the architectural detailing of buildings in both urban and landscape settings, and has exhibited widely in both group and solo shows. Catherine also works to commission, and her illustrations have featured in a wide variety of publications including Homes and Gardens, Artists and Illustrators, Cheshire Life and Yorkshire Life magazines…

Exhibition curator Si Smith caught up with Catherine to chat about living in Leeds, Henry Moore’s Elbow, and Japanese Gocco…

Si: Hi Catherine, welcome to the Stations of the Cross blog.You've got an exhibition of your own on at the moment...

Catherine: Thank you. That's right, I have an exhibition at Seven Artspace in Chapel Allerton which runs until the end of March. It's a display of some of my pen and ink architectural illustrations that were commissioned by the New Arcadian Press for their limited edition New Arcadian Journal (I have been illustrating for the Journal for about the past 15 years), also some private commissions of watercolour and ink architectural drawings, and some limited edition Gocco prints - 13 pieces of work in all.

Si: It’s a nice little show in a good venue – I’d recommend that folks catch it while it’s there :) Meanwhile, you've been in Leeds for a while now - can you tell us a bit about what brought you to the city? And maybe also what's kept you here... :-)

Catherine: Yes, well I am a Yorkshire lass. I was born in Mirfield and moved to Headingley when I was two, and then left Leeds for my art degree in London. I did my Foundation Art & Design course at Jacob Kramer (Leeds College of Art) as it was then called, and then I studied Illustration at Camberwell School of Art for my degree. I stayed in London for a few years and managed to survive, just about, on freelance commissioned illustration work and part-time jobs. I returned to Yorkshire in the early 1990's during one of the many recessions we've had, because I was unable to find work in London following redundancy. It was very tough, and I remember competing for very basic jobs with people who were much more qualified than I was at that time. I couldn't afford to pay my rent unfortunately. I returned to Yorkshire because I was offered a job in a commercial gallery in Bradford, and that's how I entered the gallery world. I have stayed in Leeds ever since, because of work; I work at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, and because I met my partner (Danny) in Leeds, and we have settled here, in Chapel Allerton, and we now have three children!

Si:  I'm glad that you mentioned your day job, because I’m curious to find out a bit more about the work that you do at the HMI, and whether that informs or influences the work that you make...

Catherine: My work at the Henry Moore Institute doesn't really inform or influence the work I make, well I'm not aware that it does.

I am the Operations Manager at the Institute, which is quite a full-on and wide-ranging role. I look after the building, the front of house staff, set and manage budgets, H&S, HR, manage projects big and major, some external projects, security, some of the training etc - all the things that keep us going basically. I also deputise for the Head from time to time. It's creative in that I have a lot of autonomy, I pretty much manage my own working day, and I work with creative people in a creative environment. I think I approach problem solving in quite a creative way; a lot of my job involves trouble-shooting.

Last November, I organised the build of the new plinth and the return of Moore's Reclining Woman: Elbow, outside the entrance to the art gallery. That was quite a creative and rewarding project, if quite complex at times. Also, recently I helped a couple of colleagues source some rather unusual supplies for a series of events we've been holding, which was a bit different from the norm.  I would also add that I have absorbed a lot of knowledge about sculptors, sculpture and sculptural methods over the years, but I am by no means an expert.

As our exhibitions stem from quite in-depth research into the sculptural field and are curated by our own staff with a self-generated programme of research events, they tend to be quite scholarly. We are a research institute, and hence it wouldn't be appropriate for someone without this knowledge to be involved in the programming, so I tend to keep my professional role at the Institute very separate to my artistic work, which I think is the best policy.

Having said that, three years ago, our Librarian organised a display of illustrations celebrating 30 years of the New Arcadian Journal; our library has been collecting the journal for over 20 years, and so I, along with four other contributing illustrators displayed work in the display vitrines in the Institute Library, which was rather nice.

Si: Those New Arcadian illustrations of yours are really lovely, and very evocative. This is something that I explored a bit with Jo Dunn in an earlier post – the question of how much of your work is done on site, actually sat drawing out in the landscape, and how much is done back in the studio using reference material?

Catherine: Thank you, well, a bit of both really. I must say I prefer to draw from life, because once you get into the zone of concentration you begin to notice things and develop a relationship with a place that you wouldn't get from looking at a photograph; you really get to "know" the building or scene and you will remember tiny details. You can also include particular objects that otherwise wouldn't be there, for instance including a particular type of car that happens to draw up or include a person wearing a specific type of coat. The drawing also tends to be more spontaneous and fresh. If I am listening to the radio or music when I am drawing, I find that when I come to look at the drawing some time later, I can recall what I was listening to when looking at a particular section of the drawing. When I was a student at Camberwell I did a lot of reportage sketching and was taught by some really amazing tutors. I remember visiting the London Docklands when Canary Wharf was beginning to be built and seeing all the cranes and the sky scrapers going up, and visiting historic landmarks like Apsley House in Marble Arch and drawing all the ornate detail in the rooms and studying the perspective. When you draw from a photograph you only have the one viewpoint and so can't find your own unique composition. I am always aware of composition when I start a drawing; how the drawing is going to sit on the page and the balance of it and what to bring to the forefront to create a sense of depth and what to push back into the background. I like to be true to what I have seen, but I also use artistic license from time to time especially if I am drawing to a particular format which means I have to somehow fit all the elements into quite a small space. Even if I am using photographs which I would revert to because there wasn't time to sketch from life or I am asked to draw a building oversees which I can't visit, I never copy it slavishly, otherwise the drawing becomes a bit heavy.

Si: I also have that thing with recalling what I was listening to, maybe it's a thing all illustrators and artists share?

More importantly though, I think that sense of you understanding a place really comes through in your drawings. They seem to not be just about what the place looks like, but what it is like, if that makes sense? I’m not sure you can get that same connection with a place just using photographic reference…

Meanwhile, and for anyone who doesn't know (me included) what's a Gocco print?!

Catherine: Ok, a Gocco print is a small A5 print made by a Japanese Print Gocco machine. The machine is battery powered. You have to purchase specially designed bulbs, screens and inks. You make a "master" or a template, which could be a drawing or a photocopy; it's vital that your master contains carbon as the image is transferred onto the screen by the interaction of the light from the bulb and the carbon in the master. Once your image has been transferred to the screen you then apply printing ink and away you go. The ink will adhere to your image, be that a line drawing or an area of block shading. You do this several times if you want to build up a print comprising of several different colours overlaid on each other. You can print over 100 prints from one master. 

The advantage is that as the machine is so small you can do this at your kitchen table. The disadvantage is that because of its size you can't really go any larger than A5, and if you try, it becomes quite difficult to register your paper to the screen, as the paper sits on an A5 sized bed. The supplies are also expensive as Print Gocco machines are no longer made and so the supplies are in demand. I like using it because, the effect I achieve is similar to a screen print and also to a lithographic print, which is a print technique I particularly love but one which is not that readily available in most print studios. I think the intention with Gocco is that your end result should be a very graphic block colour or line image, but I have experimented with trying to produce more of a "wash" background, more akin to the effect you would achieve with stone lithography. I plan to experiment more with Gocco printing and would like to try my hand at prints with several colours, with a strong line laid over the top holding the image all together.

Si: So Catherine, one last question. What next, have you anything in the pipeline..?

Catherine: Yes, I'll be exhibiting work in St Edmund's church in the Roundhay Open Studios on the 26th April. I have been commissioned by Hurlingham The Bath Company to draw another of their beautiful vintage roll-top baths. I have a couple of  private commissions to complete, and I'm also starting a series of drawings of Leeds doorways which may end up as Gocco prints, so once my new Gocco supplies arrive from Japan, that's what I'll be focussing on next.

You can see Catherine’s Gocco prints and drawings in Seven Arts until March 31^st. Alternatively you could visit her website - or her blog

And you can buy Catherine’s prints in Chirpy’s in Chapel Allerton.

Work in Progress... Gillian Holding

Introducing... Jon Vogler

Si: Hi Jon, welcome to the Stations exhibition blog!

The story of how you found your way into Art is a fascinating one - not least because you started out in engineering...

Jon: It actually started some sixty years ago.  One of my aunts was a painter who took up sculpture.  I asked her what art was about and she showed me a picture of Van Gogh's "Chair" and said "That is the essence of a chair".    When I was at university I discovered that the girl I was in love with was not very interested in wind tunnels and supersonic aerodynamics but was very willing to go and look at art with me.

We went to a talk about Picasso's Guernica in Bristol Art Gallery.  This evidently worked, because she became my wife and we have been visiting art galleries together ever since.  However I was certain I had no ability as an artist myself. 

Si: 'Guernica' certainly is an amazing painting and a very stark exploration of the horrors of war. Great choice for a first date, Jon - heh heh!

Meanwhile, I'm interested that you say that you felt that you had no artistic ability at the time. 

Because I would have thought that your engineering work would have required you to be quite creative, and that many of the skills that you used in that line of work are actually quite relevant to the making of art...

Jon: Engineering is wonderfully creative - I was site engineer on the main turbines for the Niger Dam.  To stop the River Niger in its tracks, and walk on the river bed where nobody had ever walked before, was an extraordinary experience.   But it is different from art in that all your choices are rational; either you calculate or else you draw on your past experience.  When I started art classes they had me drawing on a big sheet of paper on the floor with a long withy stick.  I complained "I am not in control" and all the girls in the class laughed and said "That's right!  This is art not engineering!"

Si: And now you're studying for an MA in sculpture... can you tell us a bit about that?

Jon: As an engineer I wanted to know how things worked and how a good machine differed from a bad one.  During fifty years of looking at art I have wanted to know what made one picture, or one sculpture, better than another.   And, of course, how to make my own sculptures "good".   So the MA course is called "Contemporary art practice" - we continue with our own practice and consider it critically as we go along, with input from our tutors, from fellow students and, from time to time, from the public when we exhibit.   It is not always a comfortable process and that is why it is so valuable; all your cherished beliefs and preferences get challenged.

Si: I wanted to ask you about your garden – it’s a lovely space. In an earlier post I was talking with Phill Hopkins about his studio/shed, and the importance of that place to him and his work. 

I wonder if your garden has a similar significance for you and your creative practice?

Jon: Not really.  The current fashion for a man to have his shed to me speaks of a retreat, a corner from which the hostile world is excluded.  Our garden - Jill my wife is the green-fingered one, who produces all the lushness and colour - is an open place that invites the world to come in.  In my MA dissertation, on the subject of sculpture in private gardens, I recalled three Pakistani men who came to assist a courier collect some heavy objects.  They asked me about two stone texts near the front gate - one from Blake's Songs of Innocence and one from Paradise Lost.  I rejoiced afterwards that these simple pieces of art had prompted three Muslims to enquire and learn a little from two of the greatest Christian poets of all time. Yet those men had probably never been into a formal art gallery.

Si: That idea of  Art being there for everyone, and of open spaces being available and accessible brings me neatly round to one final thing that I wanted to ask you about - your work with the Friends of Roundhay Park, for which you were recently awarded the British Empire Medal..

Jon:  There is a great similarity between making a sculpture and organising a working party and, indeed, with installing a turbine in a dam.   First you have to visualise; then you plan - tools, materials, work areas, special skill requirements and, always, co-ordination with others who are involved.   Then comes the execution; the part I most enjoy, when you are in contact with the material, whether it is wax for a casting or tree poles to be cut into sections to surface a muddy path or huge cyclindrical steel parts to be welded together.  Each material has its own special feel, its own resistance to cutting or bending, its own surface texture that needs smoothing or grinding or just leaving as nature created it.   Finally, as you get older (and I am 76) there is the challenge to overcome the body's progressive dilapidation; to use the experience gained over a lifetime as a substitute for strength and stamina and acuteness of eyesight.  

I hate it when art galleries prohibit people from touching sculpture.   In my garden I want everyone to touch everything; to run their hands over the curves and their fingers across the texture. I have a granite elephant in the garden, the work of a giant Scotsman  called Ronnie Rae, and my most acute pleasure is to see small children climb up it and jump off over the head.   Even better, my grandchildren got in the habit of washing it, four of them, after pinching all the brushes from the broom cupboard.   Ronnie says the granite is three million years old and it is certainly so hard they can do it no damage.   So my hope is that their intimate encounter with a piece of sculpture, the feel of it under their hands and bodies, will remain with them and enrich them all their lives.

You can see more of Jon's work and explore his garden during the Roundhay Open Studios event on April 26th.