Mary has added two new single poem books to her list, Memory (her smallest yet at 3 x 9 cm) and Other Worlds, which is illustrated with one of her own paintings instead of a photograph. The subject inspired her to get her paints out for the first time in many years.
Both will be on display at the Scottish Pamphlet Poetry Christmas event at the National Library of Scotland, George IV building, Edinburgh, on December 15th, 6-8.30 pm.
Mary is delighted to have been invited to take part in the exhibition “Art on the Wing” at the Maclaurin Art Galleries, Rozelle Estate in Ayr from August 28th to September 25th next year. Collage/prints with texts and related books will be on display.
Thank you to all who stopped to chat, read and buy at the By Leaves We Live event at the Scottish Poetry Library on September 25th, what a good day!
I was also delighted to have my new tiny version of Skylark chosen for the exhibition “Small’ at the SPL. I really am thrilled to be in such good company as the rest of the books on display are so imaginative and beautifully made.
At the event “Its A Long Way”, at the Ilkley Literature Festival on Saturday October 2nd, Mary described the physical, emotional and artistic journey that has taken her from running an Art Gallery in Yorkshire in the 1980′s to now living in Scotland as a poet and making handmade books. She read poems that reflected some of the key moments of the journey as well as recent unpublished poems. She enjoyed the experience very much and thanks all who came for listening with such empathy.
Mary Thomson makes collages of images and texts relating to her poems which she shows when exhibiting her books. The next opportunity to see them will be at the Scottish Pamphlet Poetry event at the Edinburgh Book Festival in August 2010 – details later.
Mary enjoyed a great couple of days selling and talking to visitors and meeting other book makers at the Glasgow International Artists Book fair in April.
Mary Thomson also makes framed texts and images in mounted collages and will be showing some examples at the Glasgow International Artists Bookfair, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, 16-17 April, 11am-6pm.
I always carry a notebook – which is mined for poems after the event – and my other recording device, a digital camera, has replaced the sketch book over the years. But, for the most recent single poem book, Water Dreaming (the image used at the top of this page), I did deliberately go looking one December afternoon as the sun began to colour the clouds over the loch in my village. The reflections were superb but static and the poem is about how water moves, runs, forms and re-forms into an infinite number of shapes. I dropped a pebble into the water and snapped.