Pigeon lofts and allotments. A linocut printed in eight colours on 300gsm White Fabriano 5 HP. Image area approximately 210mm x 210mm. £ 95.00.
It’s taken two weeks to cut, print and complete but ‘Pigeon lofts and allotments‘ is finally finished. As always I’m not totally happy with the finished item but that’s all part of the process really and you just have to learn to live with it. My sternest critic, the Boss who is not slow in coming forwards with criticism likes the finished print, so who am I to complain about the finished piece. The original reference material was drawn somewhere near Middlesbrough but the passage of time has dulled the memory of precisely where. As a student I do remember that most allotments had quite a few pigeon lofts on them and if the owner of the pigeons didn’t produce vegetables the guano cleanings from the lofts was is in great demand by the other allotment holders to accelerate their compost or simply weather it for a year before applying the product to their plot. I loved these places and I still do, they’re another world and a sort of alternative edge-lands, not like the beach or tidal zones, but still a very different world.
John Richardson Lino Prints 