Project Announcement: Funding to illustrate Wilson’s “Tales of the Borders”
I applied for some grant funding this summer for support for a project working in partnership with local organisation, the Wilson's Tales Project, and Berwick-upon-Tweed Library. With sincere thanks to Create Berwick and their funders - the North East Combined Authority and Northumberland County Council - I'm thrilled to announce that the grant was awarded in late August.
So what am I going to be doing?
I’m really excited about this project, which started from a conversation with Andrew Ayre, the Chair of the Wilson’s Tales Project. The grant funding is covering a number of different elements of activity and I’m going to be:
Designing and illustrating a self-guided walking trail of Berwick-upon-Tweed (for the Wilson’s Tales Project)
Spending some time experimenting with materials and approaches to create 10-15 new original illustrations inspired by Wilson’s Tales
Running a series of workshops on illustrating one or two of the Tales (in partnership with the library)
Putting on an exhibition of my new work, plus the illustrations created by people in the workshops, to be hosted by Berwick Library
Wilson’s Tales of the Borders
The whole project is inspired by Wilson’s Tales of the Borders - a set of Victorian historical and imaginative 'tales' from Northumberland and the Scottish Borders (and beyond) that were collected and retold, initially by John Mackay Wilson.
Wilson was born in 1804 in Tweedmouth, now part of the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. As a child he was surrounded by traditional Border ballards, stories of the Jacobite uprisings of the previous century and news reports of the heroic actions of Britain's navy in the Napoleonic Wars, which were still being waged against France. After working for a local printer and a brief stint trying to make his fortune in London, Wilson became a lecturer, poet and finally a journalist, returning to Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1832 to take up the post of Editor of the Berwick Advertiser. It is no surprise then that he is best remembered for his weekly editions of 'Wilson's Tales of the Borders, and of Scotland: Historical, Traditionary and Imaginative' - initially printed in the paper when short of news, before being published on their own. 2,000 copies a week were printed in early 1834 and within a year this had grown to 30,000 to meet demand. Sadly, Wilson died in 1835 (aged just 31), but a new Editor continued to publish the Tales for another six years, with a variety of contributing writers. There were eventually 312 editions, containing 474 tales and these were seldom out of print for the next 150 years.
Walk with Wilson: a self-guided walking trail
I’ve actually already started some of the work for the first element of this project, to work on the design of a self-guided walking trail leaflet
I’ve worked out the layout for the leaflet, placed the copy and created placeholders for images and illustrations. I’ve also already drawn out the base map and started creating the map icons that will help people orient themselves along the route.
Once the walking trail leaflet is finished and printed, it will be available (free) from a range of outlets within Berwick-upon-Tweed, including the Visitor Centre and Berwick Library as well as to download from the Project website.
The Wilson’s Tales Project also has the ambition to create an interactive digital version of the trail, complete with actor-voiced recordings of different Tales that will be available to download and listen to at the relevant points on the walk.
What’s next?
I’ll be kicking off my project to illustrate some of the Tales later this month, starting with deciding which Tales to focus on and disappearing down the research rabbit hole. As someone who studied History at university, I've never lost my interest in cultural heritage, so this is an incredibly exciting bit of the project for me!
I'm planning to research the Victorian context - looking at how stories were told, illustrated and consumed at the time, as well as collecting references of Victorian illustration styles to inform and inspire my approach to the actual creation of new illustrations of the Tales.
I’m then hoping to experiment with some different materials and techniques.
I'll be keeping a project diary and a working sketchbook as I go along and plan to post regular updates about the project here, so do check back to see my progress (or join my monthly newsletter mailing list to stay up-to-date).