Most people following this blog will not know the background to the Photo etching we do. Many years ago when Rebecca was a visiting lecturer at The University Of Newcastle Upon Tyne's Centre for Lifelong Learning, Photo Etching was one of the courses she ran regularly and I was one of her regular students.
Moving on and much detail in between I took over whilst Rebecca was on maternity leave and when she came back to work we job shared which meant more printmaking courses because there was two of us doing it.
Then we got our own studio but we continued to run some courses particularly Photo Etching from the University's print room as they had the dark room and equipment. BUT... after the university got shot of the Lifelong Learning department to The University of Sunderland our position on Newcastle University premises became less guaranteed. Sure enough three years ago the university said they no longer wished to give us access on weekends to run any of our courses and this meant whilst most of our courses could simply shift to our studio Photo etching could not as we had not facilities or equipment to do it from there.
This was not unanticipated but it was still a big blow especially as there has always been a huge demand for photo etching - the course was always over subscribed. It took us 3 years and much research on Rebecca's part to find a suitable exposure unit that would fit in the limited space in our studio. Once we had the unit, time was required to become familiar with it. As soon as we were in a position to run our first course we were inundated with enrolments and have had to turn away a significant number but this we hope bodes well for the fact that it will once again resume its popularlity and we will be able to run more and fill them easily.
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