“I've been able to do a lot more than I thought”

What Steven asked Ionut Bertea, Liz Howe and Paddy Tutt, artists at the Hazelnut Press

Medway Open Studios is on now and runs until July 20th, with multiple events and exhibitions happening across Medway. A number of events will be occurring at the Hazelnut Press in Rochester, so we spoke to three artists - Ionut Bertea, Liz Howe, and Paddy Tutt - at the studio to discuss what people can look forward to, how they came to be involved with Hazelnut Press, and their own artistic practice.

Hazelnut Press artists Liz Howe, Paddy Tutt and Ionut Bertea.

How would you describe your artistic practice?
Ionut: I don't know, random. I focus a lot on nature, flowers, plants, animals, birds, anything I can think of. I do a lot of printing, lino cut, and I do collages as well. A bit of painting.
Liz: For about the last ten years, I've been coming to Hazelnut Press and printing here on a Wednesday. Lino cuts, we've done some lithography, we've done some collagraphs. We've even had a go at screen printing here, which is a bit ad hoc. You need a lot of water in hosepipes and things like that. I go for colour. Colour is the thing that really dictates it to me. Sometimes I'm doing people on a platform in a station. Sometimes I'm doing flowers. A very varied amount of things inspire me. At the moment, I'm into patterns but not too distinctive. I like them to look a bit blurred, which suits my style because it means I can make mistakes and still think it's looking good.
Paddy: I'm probably the newest member of the group. I'm still exploring what I can manage to do. But so far, we've had some flowers and some people. Lino cuts, because I didn't think particularly that I'd be able to do lino cuts because I've got funny wrists, but Heather (Haythornthwaite, owner of the Hazelnut Press) is really encouraging. I've been able to do a lot more than I thought I would be able to do.

How did you come to be involved with the Hazelnut Press?
Ionut: When I was doing my Master’s at University of Kent, they had these extracurricular activities and one of them was Heather doing a talk at Nucleus Arts. I participated, seeing the studios, and from all the talks I thought, ‘That's a very interesting place and things to look at.’ Where I come from, we don’t do printmaking. That was a completely different art style. I went with Heather to see, visited the studio and then I did the introduction course that she does with everyone, and I stayed. I've been here since 2017.
Liz: I live in Gravesend, and I met Heather through another woman called Fiona Spirals. Fiona was running a collage course in Gravesend in an old, decommissioned church on the river, and Heather came along to that course. Also, she'd got a small exhibition of her work. I was really inspired. I've been an art teacher all my life in secondary schools, it’s years since I did a degree. I thought it's time to refire my batteries. I've been coming for many a long year. At the moment, I'm on a slight sabbatical, but I'm coming back in the autumn.
Paddy: I live in Rochester, and I've got children similar in age to Heather, so I have known her for a long time. But I think it's probably to do with printing. My husband came here a couple of years running. He wanted to do printmaking Christmas cards, so I did a few things and then after he died, my friend bought me a course here to do. A while after that, I just thought I love it here, she's so encouraging, and it's such a lovely environment. Everybody encourages you, and they also value your opinion of their work.

What can people expect from the Hazelnut Press as part of Medway Open Studios?
Ionut: Very nice coffee and biscuits.
Paddy: (laughs)
Ionut: That's the first thing you get here.
Liz: Well, variety. Everybody here prints very, very differently, distinctively. I can walk in here usually, and even if I've not been here for weeks, I can tell whose work is what. There's no repetition. There'll be work on show down here (in the studio) and up through the ground floor of the house.
Paddy: A warm welcome and prints, but also cards. There's something for everybody, whatever their price band is. I think it's just inspiring because, Liz is absolutely right, people's style is so different. You'll be in one room and see a few of somebody's, and then go down the corridor, and then there's some more of somebody else's. They all sort of complement each other, but aren't at all the same.
Liz: It’s amazing how varied it is.
Ionut: Heather has a soft way of teaching. She comes and goes behind you, and then she cuddles a little bit with you. She guides you without you realising.
Liz: She's also very talented herself.
Paddy: She's also really good at coming past you and saying, ‘What about trying the green or something?’ Not ‘you need to do that’, but ‘what about trying it?’ Then you do something else, then you try that and realise that she was absolutely right.
Ionut: Heather's principle is for you to develop your own style, but obviously, because she's a very experienced artist, as a working artist, she knows what's right and wrong in a piece of work.

Crowd Out Nature by Ionut Bertea.