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Angela Harding

Brand · Paper goods

I live in the village of Wing in Rutland (the smallest county in the UK). My print studio is at the bottom of the garden and houses everything I need to make my work, including my much loved Rochat Albion printing press. I always say I have the best office in the world, the studio overlooks the sheep in the fields surrounded by gentle sloping hills – it’s not a dramatic landscape but somehow a comforting one that feels like home. I fell in love with print and printmaking whilst studying Fine Art in Leicester in the early 1980s, after spending time in the amazing print room. Once graduating, then taking some time travelling, I returned to become part of a group of diverse artists that formed Leicester Print Workshop, an open access studio that supports artists, of which I later became a Director. Later in life, after giving up my commercial roles, I decided I wanted to concentrate on a personal career in printmaking, and embarked on a journey that I have never looked back on. The British countryside, its birds and animals have always inspired my artwork. In particular I love familiar garden birds, like the gaggle of sparrows that live in the ivy at the front of the house or the blackbirds that seem to feel they own the garden. Waders such as Curlews, Redshanks and Oystercatchers and other seabirds also feature strongly throughout my work. My husband Mark and I have a small wooden sail boat, so our summers are often spent on the Norfolk and Suffolk Coast. I always take a sketchbook on these trips to record the coastlines, landscapes and birds we see in scribbles, so that later in the studio I can develop them into more formal designs.