Hope is the thing with feathers... Bird by Bird is a celebration of the beauty of birds and a lament for the many species on the edge of extinction. As Mark Cocker, who knows a little, to say the least, about our winged cohabitants, observes, it is "a joyous collaboration between two visionary artists. It is not just an urgent call to arms for the natural world; the book is itself an embodiment of how wildlife and landscape inspire, fertilise and awaken the creative spirit within us." As writer and artist respectively, Julia and Jayne will speak about the friendship and shared focus that has led them to create this beautiful new publication.
Julia Blackburn has written six books of non-fiction, a family memoir, The Three of Us, which won the 2009 J.R. Ackerley Award, and two novels, The Book of Colour and The Leper’s Companions, both of which were shortlisted for the Orange Prize. Julia's 2019 book Timesong: Searching for Doggerland was shortlisted for the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize 2019. Born in London, 1948, the only child of the poet Thomas Blackburn and the painter Rosalie de Meric, Julia lives in Suffolk and sometimes in northern Italy.
juliablackburn.com
Jayne Ivimey studied art history at the Sorbonne, then fine art at Wimbledon School of Art, a masters at NUCA (Norwich) and a teaching Diploma at Leicester University. An East Anglian by birth, the Norfolk and Suffolk coast is deeply engrained in Jayne's work. She has returned to the subject repeatedly over many years, in a quest to understand its geology, its ecosystems and its morphology. The works have slowly left the landscape behind as it becomes more vital to address the pressures on our wildlife and coast. Seven years in New Zealand working in bird conservation alerted her to the global problems in the bird world and this increasing awareness feeds her new work.
jayneivimey.com