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A handmade stab bound book featuring new images from the River Dove in the Peak District National Park.

THE WAIT. FOR WINTER TO END. FOR LONGER DAYS. FOR BIRDSONG AND BLUE SKY. FOR WARMER WEATHER. FOR GROWTH TO BEGIN. FOR SPRING. FOR GREEN. THE WAIT. FOR THE NUMBERS TO COME DOWN. FOR VACCINES. FOR LOCKDOWN TO END. TO GET A HAIR CUT. TO SEE FAMILY AND FRIENDS. FOR A RETURN TO NORMALITY.

On dull days and in the rain I went into the trees. My eyes were drawn up stems and branches to the sky: Monochrome matched the mood. Moss covered oak, frilled with fern, twist and strain for those parts of the sky that coniferous interlopers have yet to commandeer. Not all succeed. Birch snatch raindrops from the sky and hold onto them briefly before their inevitable return to earth. Beech and sweet chestnut provide punctuation and give the red squirrels vantage points to surveil the human below. A series of images made in the remnant Atlantic Rainforest in Knapdale, Argyll, in November 2019 and turned into a handmade book in November 2020 when Covid-19 had changed the rules for humans, but not for trees. To buy my handmade books visit https://www.michelagriffith.com/

22 September 2020 Autumn in my part of the Peak District felt like it began on 31 August but September continued to gift us some gentle days, each more precious than the last. I began to photograph the River Dove again. One small, unnamed stream, always draws me to its nooks and crannies. On 22 September, the Autumn Equinox, I paused again. Beech leaves, held amid the rocks glowed with water saturated colour. On the dark days to come before this strange year ends I will value their colour and resilience. Now available as a Limited Edition of 5 copies - visit https://www.michelagriffith.com/ for details

Trees often recur in my images of the River Dove, reflected in whole or part. I like the strangeness that the water’s movement, and sometimes the breeze, can introduce and the unending permutations that are possible. As I’ve been engrossed with the water, I’ve usually been alone save for assorted sheep and my bankside audience of trees. One day in December I decided to make a rare ‘straight’ image of one of these trees. It’s an easy favourite, a small hawthorn, one of the few with room to breathe. Three days later in the comfort of home, I wondered what might be the result of combining it with one of my soft images of the river …. and so An Audience of Character came about. The seed was sown, an idea for a new series, which draws on recent work to further explore the ground between interpretation and construct, while mixing the sharp with the soft. Over the course of winter 2016-17 I turned my lens on my audience of trees. The words in the book were inspired by reading Alice Oswald’s poetry in “Falling Awake”; they are a commentary upon my audience, and the occasional imagined conversation. © Michela Griffith 2017

Selected images from a series of photographic works made at two fixed locations on the River Dove and on an unnamed tributary stream were made into a handcrafted stab bound Artist’s Book The concept of memory allowed me to come to terms with the visual divergence of the images and prompts me to consider the ways in which they may be represented. This freedom allows flexibility in format, processing and printing, and extends to the selection of washi paper to suit each image: opaque, semi-transparent to echo the transparency of water, or with included mulberry fibres which both echo the lines in the image, a symbiosis of natural mark making. A limited number of images are printed on lustre which adds richness to their colour and echoes the reflective quality of the water’s surface. Front cover and endpapers feature handmade paper; another memory of water. To read the included artist's statement visit https://www.michelagriffith.com/section726614_754173.html

A series of iPhone images made during essential exercise In March 2020 we went into ‘lockdown’, allowed to leave the house only for ‘essential’ purposes which included a single outing for exercise. Our regular route around the lanes linking the villages took on new perspective; eyes and ears scanned a familiar landscape anew. The lines left on the tarmac by a punctuation of trees grew new meaning. Tentacles from the virus reached us all; restrictions built cages and we remained indoors, looking out; drones surveilled visitors to the Derbyshire Peak District. Nature carried on regardless, her seasonal rhythm in full flow. Sunlight flooded into dark places and softened the sentence. The birds sang longer and louder than ever in skies free of planes and along roads empty of cars. © Michela Griffith 2020

in 2020 our vocabulary changed words we were previously unfamiliar with became commonplace others took on new meaning in these images noir came first on impulse i paired them with some words i had been collecting i liked the symbiosis i thought of adding a coloured glaze the blue-green of surgical masks perhaps? but these are dirty days © Michela Griffith 2020

as i navigated the patterns formed by the flow of acrylic ink i found myself looking down at the juncture of land and sea, continents and islands linked by lines of charcoal, a sea chart for these times when we too find ourselves in an unfamiliar situation rife with dangers and difficulties © Michela Griffith 2020

One week On Skye One week Scene from one window One tree Seven days of weather One week Waiting for crows © Michela Griffith 2017