An exhibition of collage works by Practical Visionaries Sophie Herxheimer and Chris McCabe has just opened at the Deptford Lounge. Sophie has said a few words about the experience of assembling this new show.
Yesterday I spent a fruitful day in Deptford hanging the etching series from The Practical Visionary as well as several new Blake inspired collages that I’ve been making recently.
There was room too for some of my Emily Dickinson collages from 2017, and hopefully we will be able to add more work by Chris McCabe next week.
So a zig zag panel of collagepoems, poemcollages: explosive bible words finding new sense in a grapple with paint & other found and minted phrases - worlds of painted and glued colour within a civic world of wandering colour, aka Deptford Lounge, a large utopian library just near the market.
It’s quite something spending a day in a public library - these brilliant spaces being amongst the last ones left where anyone and everyone is welcome. The right kind of space to channel the ghosts of some of our favourite poets - who are brought alive as much by the presence of kids doing their homework, the by turns concentrated and drifting browsers, and the drunk guy sprawled by the window, as by any attempts me or my collaborator might make in nudging them and their ideas into our parallel contemporary London.
The show is up until the end of June and open every day - check the Deptford Lounge website for times. On 18th June, Sophie and Chris will be reading their poems and discussing William Blake and his continuing influence at the Deptford Lounge at 7:30. The reading is free, and copies of The Practical Visionary will be available on the night.
If you can’t be there, or if would like to experience more of Sophie and Chris’s thoughts on Blake and his world, then we are pleased to bring you this MP3 of our two visionaries on foot around Blake’s Lambeth. The recording was created by audio producer Ben Eshmade.