RPS Visual Art Spring weekend in York

I set off for the weekend by ferry to Inverness staying overnight and catching the train to York.  Up early on the Friday to explore York.  I met up with Carol later in the morning and we had a wander with a few images in one of the parks.

practising my in camera multiple exposure

We met up with the rest of crowd in the bar before the presentations.   Mike and Sally set us all a challenge for the weekend.  We were given the York Cat Hunt leaflet.  A trail around York to make images of cat statues.  These cats have been created since medieval times and put on buildings to deter rats and vermin.  The image Sally and Mike liked the most would win the prize.  

On Saturday I set off with Carol, Jayne and Paul to walk York’s city walls and find the cats.  

We started on the wall at Gillygate and walked clockwise.  No 23 Cat was outside the wall and I thought we should be able to spot the cat from the wall.  Carol spotted it straight away.  It was on the rooftop of a building.  

We continued on the walls.  There were lots of opportunities for making images.  

At Monkgate we came off the wall to look for coffee and more cats.  We found the climbing cat no 21 called Hope in Goodramgate, comissioned in 2020 by The Cat’s Whiskers Cat Cafe.  

We had walked past Cat 20 - the clue was “it’s not a meat eater” so of course was above the vegetarian cafe.  The cats were very easy to miss if you were just wandering and not looking for them.  

A break for coffee sitting outside in the sunshine.  More cats found after coffee after snapping other images.  Two were at the Cat Gallery shop in Low Petergate.  Number 1 cat above the shop was commissioned by the Gallery when they moved here in 2010.  Cat 22 is in the Gallery window.  

Around the corner in Stonegate was Number 2 cat named Gordon.  He is modelled on a real cat who was born without eyelids on one eye and wears an eyepatch to prevent infections.  

Time to rejoin the wall at Rougier Street about 200 yards from where we began.  This time we walked counter clockwise enjoying more views of the city.  

We came down for lunch at Lendal bridge.  Refreshed we detoured by the River Ouse to hunt for more cats.  There were four cats sunning themselves on the window ledges of the houses facing the river.  I think the china Siamese cat may have been put out by the owners of the flat! 

On to the middle of the Ouse bridge to post Cat 7 on the roof top by a tall tree on the right.  

In Low Ousegate were the two oldest cats placed there in the 1920’s.   In Peter Lane we found cat 4a   It took awhile to find cat 10 as I was trying to navigate the trail in reverse.  The clue was “how much might an elephant weigh?”  We found it above the Three Tuns pub! 

Time to rejoin the wall and we continued counter clockwise back to Monkgate.  

Some lovely stoneware by the Minster

A tired group wandered past the Minister back to the bus stop and to the hotel for the evening’s presentations.

On Sunday we were on Nat Coalson’s workshop and I was hoping to find some of the cats we missed.  However, first we had assignments set by Nat.  One of them was to make images on a theme.  I decided to go for cross shapes.  Nat led us to various sites and assisted us in making images.  A lovely day spent.

A couple of crosses

I took a few images of the dog!

Another cross

A cross in the scaffolding

Multi exposure of the scaffolding at the Minister

Back to the stoneware graveyard

After lunch, I spotted Cat 16 covered in netting.   We walked past 14 and 15 on to our next assignment of the workshop.  No 15 is the only two dimensional cat.  

The rest of the afternoon we continued with the workshop - more crosses and some abstracts.

At the end of the workshop, some of us stopped off for refreshments.  I took the opportunity to dash around and find three more cats.  Number 11 is known as the ghost cat and can be found in the Pavement.  Two more were found in the Shambles.  I was in luck as the Twirly cat was the last one I found and was the one Sally and Mike found to be the most attractive.  I won the prize, a mini cat statue.

My prize

On Monday, Carol, Mark, Jayne and I stayed on and had a trip to Rievaulx Abbey.

Playing around in Silver Efex

Another excellent weekend came to an end.  I wonder what Norwich will have in store for us.  Hoping there will be volunteers for the team to take over from Mike and Sally otherwise Norwich could be the last weekend.