Name: Radical by Jay Whittaker
Duration: 1 min 33 s
Description: A poem about Mushroom, a radical bookshop in 1980s Nottingham. Published in the poetry collection Sweet Anaesthetist, Cinnamon Press, 2020

In this third and final episode, host Lachlan Goudie talks about Joan Eardley's choice of materials and technique with conservator Lesley Stevenson of the National Galleries of Scotland. During their conversation, the panellists consider Eardley’s use of weathered hardboard and homemade paint, and marvel at the artist’s decision to preserve her surroundings for all time by attaching grass and flowerheads to some of her paintings. 

Also in this episode, Lachlan tries to contextualise Eardley’s work in relation to what was happening elsewhere in the world at the time with contemporary artist Jock McFadyen. A Royal Academician, Jock chose two Eardley paintings to feature in his recent exhibition Jock McFadyen Goes to the Pictures at the Scottish Gallery. Lachlan and Jock refer to the CoBrA group in this conversation. Formed in 1948, CoBrA was a group of Expressionist artists active in the late 1940s and 1950s. The name is derived from the letters of the capital cities of the countries of the artists involved - Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam.

Joan Eardley | Material and Process

A poem about Mushroom, a radical bookshop in 1980s Nottingham. Published in the poetry collection Sweet Anaesthetist, Cinnamon Press, 2020

Wristwatch

Radical

Jay Whittaker is an Edinburgh-based poet who grew up much further south, in Devon and Nottingham. Both her full-length collections are published by Cinnamon Press: Sweet Anaesthetist (2020), and Wristwatch (2017), which was Scottish Poetry Book of the Year 2018 in the Saltire Society Literary Awards. Jay is widely published (credits include The North, Butcher’s Dog and The Rialto), and two of her poems were included in the recent Bloodaxe anthology, Staying Human.

Radical

Jay Whittaker

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