My Recent Basel Trip

I recently spent a beautiful day in Basel and here are some of photos of my wanderings

a shop window

A Calder mobile in the Kunst museum

A beautiful painting in the Kunst Museum, can't remember who its by though

Reflections in a window

Sedums

more sedums

My new friends

Here's a couple of photos of some new pieces I'm going to be showing at Origin along side my paper cuts.

They are hand painted plywood laser cuts.  I would love to hear what you think.

Work in progress - London Transport Museum

Here are some in progress shots of the piece for the London Transport Museum exhibition.  The final piece won't be unveiled until next year but this will give you an idea of what I'm working on.

Some new birds

Here are a couple of new papercuts I have recently completed. As an experiment I have made them bigger than I usually work in, and I think I quite like it, so expect some more big birds.  The first one is cut from a map of the South pole and the second one from a map of Canada.

The cutter

Here's a short video of me cutting a bird that is part of a large installation I am making for an exhibition later this year.

This is what I do for hours on end, it's surprisingly physical. I have already had a RSI injury (or upper body work related injury as the hospital liked to call it) in my hand to I try to stop regularly to relax my hands and neck.

The key is to keep changing blades as the blunter the blade gets the harder it gets to cut the paper and then I am more likely to make mistakes or the paper can rip.

New Maps

I bought the lovely new maps recently.

The Alps

Mount Kilimanjaro

 I can't wait to get started on these.

Maps Lost and Found

I have been invited to be part of an exhibition at the London Transport Museum, which is part of the Cultural Olympiad next year.

I went along to the museum to choose some maps to work with.  Sadly I wasn't let loose in their archive but I was given a selection of old tub maps to work with.

Here's a selection