Head to the Arcane Publishing website for a preview of the stock you will find on our stall at the festival next Saturday, our first event of the year!

I hope to find the time to post a blog about the festival on here, with pictures of the bands, etc. 

It is not too late to get your tickets for the festival, go HERE. 
Full line-up HERE. 

As the summer season has officially started, the Arcane Publishing/Matt ArtPix team is getting ready for what I hope will be a fruitful few months! 
If you find yourself in West Bay, Dorset, come and see us on the second floor of The Customs House (next to the East Beach car park, where the now famous Broadchurch cliffs are located!)

We have already announced an event for June: a local, grassroots alternative music festival which will be taking place a short drive from the beautiful Corfe Castle. 
More to announce! 

Our first event of the year! 

Last week, we went back to one of our (numerous) favourite spots close to our new home on the Isle of Portland: Fleet. This is a stunning and very tranquil natural heaven, away from the hustle and bustle of Weymouth (where the season is kicking off big time!). Moonfleet Manor is now a successful hotel and provides welcome free parking spaces to those who wish to enjoy a lovely walk on the banks of the Fleet Lagoon. The rapeseed plants are currently in full bloom and we definitely needed our shades to prevent us from being dazzled by the explosion of yellow (rapeseed) and blue (the sky, the water) colours all around us. There were birds everywhere, including terns and shelducks.   

Alice's Wicked Tea Party - 2nd and 3rd June 2017
At Knolle Farm, Soldiers Road, Wareham, Dorset

A grassroots music festival now in its third year, AWTP is moving to a bigger new venue in the Dorset countryside, next door to the famously beautiful Corfe Castle! 
It features a wide variety of acts including the fantastic Black Volition who played our first event in London in February 2016! 

Arcane and Matt Artpix will bring a great choice of carefully picked art, books, vinyls and more! ​

Event's page HERE. 
Tickets HERE. 

More news soon! ​

I found this book in the fabulous treasure trove that is Weymouth's Books Afloat. 
Alyse Gregory was married to Llewelyn Powys, and therefore entered the Dorset-based Powys literary clan and was closely linked to the literary village of East Chaldon.
​She wrote Hester Chaddock whilst living in Dorset with Powys. 
I still haven't resumed work on my third novel The Right Place, but I think about it every day. I even think  about my fourth novel, especially as I returned yesterday to Hell Lane, a favourite walk of mine between Symondsbury and North Chideock. 
I am planning on putting a writing and publishing schedule together for the book, but my very recent return to teaching will make progress very slow indeed. 

I hope to start posting about forthcoming events soon, just some dates to firm up before announcing anything! 

Last Saturday, we jumped in the car and drove up the A354 to go and see an artist who has been featured numerous times on this blog: the talented cellist Jo Quail.
It was good to finally catch up with Jo and her lovely manager Alan for the first time since our move away from the South East! 
​
Jo was a guest of the wonderful Salisbury Arts Centre for their popular "Live Lunch" series and the stain glass windows of the former church were the perfect backdrop to Jo's beautiful, otherworldly compositions. 
From her earliest tracks such as The Falconer to my personal favourites Adder's Stone, from the Caldera album, and Gold, from her latest album Five Incantations (see video below), Jo enthralled her audience with her gorgeous sounds, warm personality and dynamic performance (but no Jhanoem The Witch this time around, though, *sob*).
​Even though I have seen her perform quite a few times now in various venues around London (and now, Salisbury!), I remain in awe of Jo's music and performance - there is something magical, almost alchemical about it...  
I have been told that Jo might be back at Salisbury Arts Centre in the autumn for a "proper" evening show...
​We will most certainly be there! 

You can read my in-depth interview with Jo Quail on the Chaos Theory website HERE. 

Underworld occupy a very, very special place in my heart for reasons which would be far too long to explain on here...
And yet, the first and last time I had seen them live before their Ally Pally gig last Friday was in London in... 1998!

In October 2016, we had the privilege to go and see the multi-talented Karl Hyde talk about his work (part of the Sound of the Thames Delta event at the end of Southend Pier - read my report HERE).

To be perfectly honest, when we bought our tickets for the Ally Pally show last summer, we thought we would still be living in Essex in March 2017 as our house hunting in Dorset had hit a seriously rough patch...
And then things started to happen and we moved to Dorset, and then we thought we wouldn't make it to the show. 
OH, BUT WE DID! 
And what a splendid, splendid evening it was! 

The evening started with Underworld's Surreal Carnival Experiment, a feast of images (including pictures of the Alexandra Palace building before its refurbishment and photos taken at Underworld's project Manchester Street Poem), lights and music (the tunes courtesy of Underworld's master sound wizard Rick Smith).
​It was a beautiful and immersive installation.  

And then it was time for Underworld... 


I am far from being a happy-clappy kind of person, but those few hours made me incredibly, stupidly happy! 

We came back to Dorset that very same night energised and ready to throw ourselves into our new projects... 

​

Things have been really hectic here at Arcane/ArtPix HQ after our move and sadly, I haven't had any time to spend on The Right Place draft... 

Following up on my previous blog about the fantastic stuff on our doorsteps (read it HERE) - including St George's church and its intriguing churchyard, here is a great new video from local band The Dolmen shot near our house at St George's church and the Tout Quarry Sculpture Park! 
Portland is the perfect backdrop for music videos and promotional shoots - with its dramatic coastline, rich cultural heritage, intriguing and often uncompromising architecture... 

I am still without the car - I am looking forward to March when it will be here permanently! - and therefore, I am exploring the area by foot. 
Today, I decided to climb the coast path and make my way to a favourite of mine, St George's Church. It is a place worth a long, detailed blog: it is incredibly atmospheric and the headstones in the churchyard are very original and deserve proper research, which I hope I'll be able to carry out over the next few months! 
It's quite warm here, can you believe it? 

... or rather the lack of it! 

I adore my new office but even though it is bigger than my previous one in Westcliff, I have already run out of room... 
As I need a lot of space for various things I am doing (freelance, writing, publishing and soon teaching...) I cannot allow my books to take over, and yet, they have (this is only a small portion of my books - and I am not even mentioning the ever-growing stock of books for the unit, markets and fairs...)
I think we might need to turn one of the bedrooms into a library... 
​
SHELVES. 
​I NEED SHELVES!