Having been given the opportunity by ROAR (Rotherham Open Arts Renaissance) for the past two months, I have been working at Rotherham Minster in the town centre as an ‘Artist in Residence’. This has been a fantastic chance for ‘Making Making Visible’ and showing people what an artist gets up to in their day to day work. Over the period, sadly now finished, I worked on one large Lino print of the Minster as well as having one day a week where I would take a small detail of the interior of the Minster, and draw, carve and print an image in one session. This was so that the visitors to the church would see how the basic printing process can work. Whilst carving or printing, I showed a live stream of my working on a big screen so that visitors could see in detail what I was doing. Often, they would come and sit by me and chat about what I was doing, or just pass a comment (always positive – thankfully!) or sometimes just come for a chat about themselves and their lives, growing up, what they are up to now or often, what they did before retiring.

I met some fantastic people, and had some fascinating conversations as well as getting a lot of work done – probably more than usual as there were fewer opportunities to take a break if I felt like it – being on show is a great encourager to make you ‘do’!

This was the final image, and Im happy with it.