This week I have mainly been painting a door.

Making a factory door become an elegant and fashionable 18th Century set piece for the Nottingham Theatre Royal production of Sheridan’s      ‘School for Scandal’.     This being to celebrate 150 years since the theatre was first opened with thew very same play as the first production.

The fruit of one month in Abano Terme with the Sartori Clan.

the idea moves forwards, ever refining and deepening. Still at drawing stage.

After two days intensive pedagogy, history, relationship building and  emersion into the world of The Mask, we now collaborate to create contexts for our own masks and build up a repertoire of information a detailed characteristics from which we shall build up or own ‘mask’  but always in the context of our group scenarios.  Starting to draw.

It is the policy here to not take photographs in the studio so anything I can show will only be personal work I can take out of the studio. Here are my first experiments into the mask of The Strong Woman who will eventually kill her brothers for the sake of the greater good!

Here I am at Abano Terme, embarking upon another adventure in Mask.

I am a lucky chap to do this.

Mask finished and delivered. David well happy. I won’t post proper images until after the first public performance in mid August.

So these details are as a teaser.

A Harvest of fresh leaves, to make a mould from life, to cast paper leaves, to adorn The Green Man.

This month I have been playing with lino prints. Enjoying the process of cutting, and inking. Reminding me of how much I loved doing etchings at art school. Playing with ‘naive’ images of masks and masked men. Something so satisfying about reproducing an image in multiples. 

A new performance piece was created during the Open Studio’s Event by Gedling Artists at Burton Joyce, Nottinghamshire.

This was a recreation of an actual event which probably happened in 1958 or 1959 when Stephen Jon appeared on stage for the very first time. It was this very same stage at aged 5 or 6 when stephen was dressed in crepe paper by his mother and he recited the nurse rhyme ‘Little Jack Horner’.

In the absence of his mother, this time Stephen was dressed by Sarah Manton, Jess Kemp, Rosie Hobbs and Suzanne Hough.

Photography by Dawn Feeny