Conversation / Encore Verses

April 2020

2020 marks Panel’s 10th birthday and to celebrate, artist Laura Richmond (Encore Verses) has designed a pair of t-shirts which reflect upon our evolving programme.

I find isolating words very enjoyable, so each word has space to be considered and broken down to its origin, without adorned distractions. For me, shaping and composing letters and unpicking established word structures is a perfect balance of play and order - you get to mess around with the rules a bit but there’s a line of legibility you need to settle on.

In thinking about Panel over the years, celebrating a decade of collaboration, discussion and display, I wanted to highlight the company’s continuum. Etcetera – it sounds like seamless movement, implies going forward and I also just find it a really appealing word to look at.

My main reference points for the designs stemmed from Oskar Schlemmer’s hand-drawn typefaces for various Bauhaus publications. Each letter diverges from the previous one’s style, sits at odd angles, tightly bound together, touching sometimes. Its awkwardness is so appealing and also very considered. I looked at the Oulipo poets and the rules of constraint they set down in order to create really unconventional word forms. Also, railing design! I wanted to acknowledge everyday art and design everyone can relate to – always a focus in Panel’s programmes. I feel like I’ve explored every single street in my neighbourhood recently, which is great as I’ve been able to carry on with my railing preoccupation and discovered so many amazing patterns in iron.

Yes. I spent a few years researching the area of Newhaven in Edinburgh, where I now live, coincidentally. I came across an old ballad entitled ‘Newhaven Fishwife’, written entirely in Scots dialect but broken in the middle by the phrase ENCORE VERSES. I know why it’s placed there, it has a function, yet it’s such a strange and sudden break from the colloquial - It really stuck in my mind. I had already been playing about with creating a faux post-punk band called Exercises in Style, who hailed from Newhaven, and imagined Encore Verses to be the record label to which they were signed. This grew arms and legs for a while and once the project ended, I decided to keep the name for myself.

I’ve been listing a lot of words. Most of the ones I enjoy at the moment are linked to fabric and food. I love when colours are imagined through food. In Hotel du Lac, Anita Brookner describes the rooms and the ‘veal-coloured walls’ of this once-magnificent luxury hotel. This sounds quite sinister and perhaps more fit for some surreal horror plot, but it really helps to access a specific colour tone in keeping with the rest of the worn-down interior descriptions.

Gabardine / Mirepoix / Chenille / Aspic / Lurex / Unctuous

I hope so! I’ve been writing more than drawing recently. Concentrating on a new visual project has felt a bit overwhelming but writing is a way for me to locate strange locations and scenarios that are challenging to describe but also quite fun and playful and exist outside my flat. I expect the images will appear later.

I’m very drawn to three things right now – memories of the static caravan park in Fife, where I spent every summer holiday with my grandparents, Adolf Loos bedroom and the thought of the ideal room service – I’d like to think these disparate parts may converge on a page.

Laura Richmond is an Edinburgh-based artist and printmaker, with a background in fashion and textiles. Her work explores the relationship between play and order and is often in response to self-made works of fiction, poetry and wordplays. Laura also works alongside Catriona Duffy and Lucy McEachan at Panel.

T-shirts are £25 each. Buy the t-shirts here!

100 % of all t-shirt sales will go to the For the Love of Scrubs campaign. Funds raised will be used to purchase the fabric and sewing supplies needed to construct brand new scrubs to dispatch to hospitals accepting donations across Scotland. www.fortheloveofscrubs.scot

All proceeds will be donated, and Panel will cover packaging and postage costs.