A key project as part of my PhD studies and in developing my artistic practice generally is ‘The Line’. This is a transect through the local landscape from Coldstones Quarry in North Yorkshire to Pelstone Cross Quarry in West Yorkshire.

I first travelled along The Line on a bike ride from my home in Otley to Greehhow Hill. The ride is about 15 miles long and I am about two thirds of the way through a project that involves creating 100 linocut prints from ‘One Hundred Points on The Line’. These are based on photographs I took cycling along The Line and stopping every 0.15 of a mile and taking a picture of the boundary next to me – invariably a stone wall, hedge, building or open fields and moorland. These photographs are being translated into small, black and white linocut prints.

I have now also walked The Line. Only as the walk does not follow the roads it is over 20 miles in length. I have already done this walk in Spring, and I posted an entry on my Blog about that back in early June. Then, a few weeks ago I set off and walked The Line in autumn. This walk was exactly 20 miles from quarry to quarry (the route varied slightly from my first walk as I detoured to avoid livestock in some fields!) but once again I took photographs at each mile along the walk, stopping and shooting simply what was in front of me. The photographs were taken on a reusable plastic Lomography camera using a 200 ISO colour film.

I intend to make a bookwork similar to the one I have made for ‘SPRING’, but in the interim I made this small, concertina bookwork, 10cm x 10cm, which includes all 20 photographs from the walk, for an exhibition opportunity with 13B Gallery in Slovenia. That book is now winging its way to Slovenia for the exhibition which opens on the 1 December 2025 and runs until 16 January 2026.