An exhibition of my fine art photographic prints is on display at The Gallery, Malton for the month of January.

All works are available to buy including framed and loose prints, canvas prints, original cyanotypes, unique one-of-a-kind polaroid emulsion lift art. The exhibition features my landscape and abstract prints, including my recent work from the Ebb/Flow series.

You can also pick up a copy of my two books on motherhood – ‘Motherhood and Identity: Tattooed Mamas Breaking the Taboos’ and ‘Motherhood’ – exploring identity and the transition to motherhood, social stereotypes and images of real life modern day motherhood. 

Prices from £15.

The Gallery is located on the main Market Square in Malton – noted as the Foodie Capital of Yorkshire! Why not make a day of it and pop in for a browse and pick up a unique piece of art, before popping to one of the many cafes for lunch or a delicious ice cream from the famous Groovy Moo or the delicious macarons from Florian’s Poirot as featured on The Hairy Bikers!

Twelve months ago I had this idea, after a year of challenge, to bring together different perspectives around the globe with a uniting theme of the sea. Starting on 31st December 2020 after what can only be described as a challenging year for everyone, the sea and the horizon was a beacon of hope as we inched into 2021. 2021 by no means brought the return to normal that we’d hoped for and we’re ending the year with yet another new variant on the horizon.

But despite the tumultuousness, the sea and the horizon has remained a constant, always there when we need it for contemplation, rejoicing or just reconnecting with the call of the wild.

I’m so grateful to all the artists who took part – and especially to those who reminded me each month that we all needed to post something! Turns out I was very forgetful in 2021! This little community of artists that we’ve built, joined in our love of the sea, has been inspiring and supportive and brimming full of talent. It’s been an absolute joy seeing each perspective each month – from Canada to Australia.

November saw me pulling together more work in progress on my Strandline project, with a mini project that became Ebb/Flow exploring the dialogue between land and sea. I started by photographing the November spring tide and low, mid and high tide at Reighton Sands in North Yorkshire.

Exploring the foreshore as it is reclaimed and relinquished by the sea with each tide, I collected artefacts left by the sea, photographing them back in my studio black and white, devoid of colour, out of situ and developing the negatives with seaweed developer to figuratively ‘bring them back to life.’

Exploring the foreshore as it is reclaimed and relinquished by the sea with each tide, I collected artefacts left by the sea, photographing them back in my studio black and white, devoid of colour, out of situ and developing the negatives with seaweed developer to figuratively ‘bring them back to life.’

The result was a small artist’s book – handmade with a cover made from pulped cyanotypes of strandline artefacts, hand bound with old fishing rope collected along the shoreline, interspersed with maps, charts and polaroid overlays signifying the various perceptual influences on our association with the seascape and place.

Welcome to our Coast to Coast loop. We are a group of photographers from around the world, from timezones as far flung as Australia to Canada and in between, each with a different seascape. Coast to Coast aims to document our changing sea views and perspectives – both literal and philosophical – of what the sea means to us, month to month through the changing seasons. To follow the loop go to the talented Marialaine Delisle

As my project on The Strandline has evolved, I’ve been doing a lot of research into other artists and creatives who are drawn to the sea but also to wild places as well as looking at how our connection to place is informed by our memories and associations with a place. These layers all overlap to give us a unique perspective on places that mean something to us.

This month I’ve been exploring the dialogue between land and sea – inspired by a quote in Robert MacFarlane’s Wild Places (an awesome book that I highly recommend reading cover to cover) in which he talks about the dialogue between liquid and solid. That conversation on the foreshore takes place twice daily where land is reclaimed or relinquished by the sea.

Focusing on this dialogue I’ve been questioning the concept of time and the constant and yet inconstant nature of the sea. Tides dictated by the pull of the moon, yet timeless and in constant motion, almost impossible to capture.

October saw me working on some night photography with long exposures with a large format camera at Sandsend in North Yorkshire, just north of Whitby; walking along Filey Brigg with a medium format camera, where the land jutts out into the sea imposing itself into the water; capturing details left behind by the tide on my mobile phone, with strandline finds at Llanstefan in South Wales; and fully immersing myself in the water with underwater housing, as the tide turned at Hunmanby Gap.

Welcome to our Coast to Coast loop. We are a group of photographers from around the world, from timezones as far flung as Australia to Canada and in between, each with a different seascape. Coast to Coast aims to document our changing sea views and perspectives – both literal and philosophical – of what the sea means to us, month to month through the changing seasons. To follow the loop go to the talented Jo Haycock

September has been a funny old month in which I’ve not picked up my camera much. The end of August was a flurry of activity preparing for my installation of my project The Strandline, exploring the metaphorical mark left by the sea, as part of Ryedale Open Studios. And then there was a hiatus while the children went back to school and re-settled in, and I took a break to get stuck into some further research.

But September also saw a week spent in Northumberland at my parents’ house, without my children or husband – something which it is at least a decade if not twice that since I last had that amount fo time just me and my folks. My dad was undergoing an operation and I went up to help out and ferry my mam back and forth from the hospice visiting hours while my dad recuperated. On one trip back from the hospital in Newcastle, after my dad had been moved from the high dependancy unit to a normal ward and I’d been able to visit him for the first time, as we approached the Northumberland coastal village where my parents live, and the summer afternoons turned the corner clearly into autumn and that luminous light of this time of year, that is particular to the north of England, danced across the landscape, I suggested a brief trip to the beach before we headed back to my parents’ house.

Connecting with the coast line again grounded me once more. The sea did with its greens and blues and turquoises as the clouds gathered overhead, and the remnants of the rain and wind and storm that herald the change in the seasons left their black shale-scarred mark on the sand and the flotsam and jetsam of razorbill and guillemot carcasses reminding me of the cycle of life and the constancy and inconstancy of the dialogue between land and sea.

Welcome to our Coast to Coast loop. We are a group of photographers from around the world, from timezones as far flung as Australia to Canada and in between, each with a different seascape. Coast to Coast aims to document our changing sea views and perspectives – both literal and philosophical – of what the sea means to us, month to month through the changing seasons. To follow the loop go to the talented Jo Haycock.

I’ve probably been to the coast more times in the last six weeks since I moved to Malton than I have for the last six months. It’s so much more accessible; there’s so many fantastic beaches and coves to explore and swim in; and I’ve been spurred on my the impending assignment deadline for my Photography MA to show a work in progress portfolio on my project The Strandline.