Katy Alston – Creative in Residence

Published on 26.01.16

I dropped by our Illustration department last week to catch up with Katy Alston who has been spending her time alongside the Illustration Degree students at College Road on Book Arts day as well as the Print Workshop at our Folly Lane Campus. Katy is originally an Illustrator and Map Maker from Shropshire and participating in the

I dropped by our Illustration department last week to catch up with Katy Alston who has been spending her time alongside the Illustration Degree students at College Road on Book Arts day as well as the Print Workshop at our Folly Lane Campus.

Katy is originally an Illustrator and Map Maker from Shropshire and participating in the Creative in Residence scheme is allowing her to experiment with our facilities and workshops, both for books and printmaking to enable her to make a series of artists books.

From our chat I sussed that Katy has been having such a great time working as a Creative in residence she doesn’t want it to end!

Katy’s book arts project has been loosely titled ‘The Enchanted Forest’ and will mean investigating further into the land of the brothers Grimm with particular reference to the story of Hansel and Grethal.

“I chose the story of Hansel and Grethel for various reasons, a major one was that this is the book I remember my father reading to me as a child. He too was very excited by the idea of fairy tales and that seems to have engrained itself in me. It has a forest, this is most important as I love woods and trees and the idea that everyone has this imaginary ‘forest ‘ in their minds where all the scary, worrying things lurk. I like the idea of having a witch to represent the scary worrying elements, and equally a home that is both a sanctuary but also where the wicked stepmother lives.”

“My knowledge of artists’ books and bookbinding is ever increasing, helped by the  library books but also by attending the book arts modules in the Illustration department. I am going to repay their kindness by delivering my own topic of ‘carousel books’ back to them.”

She has also been working on a few extra’s to go along side her books such as the witches matches seen in the image below.

We are all very excited to see the final results in the acuminating exhibition that features all of the Creatives and their works during April, keep an eye out for dates!
Sophie