The Decline of Eels
Sushi survivor
Passing the Azores
Hinkley and Steart Marshes
All images by Julia Manning
22 January - 19 March 2022
Jubilee Gallery
Julia Manning RE SWLA, Somerset based printmaker and MAKE Southwest Member, working with Andy Don, International Eel Expert and Fellow of the Institute of Fisheries Management (FIFM), has produced this series of large-scale prints and supporting material inspired by and documenting the amazing life of eels.
Did you know for example that the majority of Somerset’s silver eels swim under the M5 bridges, the railway lines and many pass the pier at Somerset’s Burnham on dark, stormy, wild nights? Using high river flows and the tides to their advantage in late October and November, they are completely single-minded in their quest to reach the Sargasso Sea, near Bermuda, some 3500 miles away where they breed and die.
There is then the hazardous new journey back towards Europe and transformation of eggs into larvae, then leptocephali and then glass eels. In their 3500 mile journey these juveniles might succumb to rogue currents, starvation, or fall prey to fish and seabirds. The surviving glass eels teem into Somerset’s Bridgwater Bay in February time.
Read more about the work of the Sustainable Eel Group here.
A Zoom interview with Julia Manning, about her exhibition in the Jubilee Gallery. For closed captions please open in YouTube and turn on captions.
BBC One Countryside Program - Rewilding the River Seven.
How to print a collagraph plate without a press, by West Dean College.
Artist and short course tutor Vicky Oldfield demonstrates how to print without a press so you can create artworks with your existing collagraph plates at home. Why not turn them into artworks, work into them with watercolours, or make cards for friends and family.
Video courtesy of West Dean College of Arts and Conservation
Linocut reduction technique
Art writer Charlotte Mullins takes a look at a set of Picasso linocuts acquired by the British Museum in 2014, with help from Art Fund. The two prints, Still Life under the Lamp and Jacqueline Reading, were both made in 1962, when the artist was 80 years old.
Video courtesy of ArtFund UK.