Let's make it a bit more transparent,

non?!

Ok - the white room is history now. A funny, very present and very, very good place to have been for two months. To sort out far more things than I thought I could, hoped I would or even knew they needed sorting.

So, we got on pretty well with each other, I soaked up some past, memories and generally a lot of empty white space. And thus offloaded some of my past, memories, and above all: plans and hopes, into the two months and into this large empty room.

Many of them will begin to properly unfold as of in eight days (and counting). But until then: a bit of art.

I played a few games with myself and this space. Was curious what would happen with this two-months short-term lease in the middle of Kreuzberg, tagged it as a research trip. And research I did.

With all the training and cpd stuff I've been doing at work, I've become a lot more experimental and daring with the contexts in which I can work well. And I generally work well in chaos: pull everything out off the cupboards, mix it up and stir and be confident that whatever is important will emerge. So: I tried deliberate confusion. And confused I was. Until, one day - well: 31 july, really, it all became crystal clear.

With the White Room as art work I tried to be pushy, determined and rather forceful - after all: time was limited and so very precious.

I was intrigued by the bareness, the emptiness and some strong colours. I was also intrigued by this room as outwith time and space. A place that somehow had become unhooked from a past and a future, it only existed as an improvised holiday flat with bare kitchen and people coming and going, leaving some notes while passing but that was all.

I wanted, and still want, to capture some of that fleetingness, something that is present, remains out of focus and I can't quite grasp it while all the time I feel its presence.

And so I tried:
- Weiss, weiss, weiss, das weiss ich
- More white overlaid

and on Matisse, specifically:
- Interior illusions
- Matisse, colour and I

And sketched:

Hahaha.... and of course that challenge made me trip up. It mirrored some of my own confusion over the past two months, but as a wee sideline art project to play with, it was far too ambitious - or, well, maybe not... I could in fact not get it into focus. What I could see in front of my eyes was clear - in white and lime and orange.

But everything else???

I was getting myself lost a bit in Matisse - and that has been very useful and exciting. There is something so intriguing about his compositions and his constructions of space. And all the same, I can see far more about what I'm not after than what I can take. But I think that's a productive tension and I will keep asking about that one in Matisse's work.

There are really two points or rather lines, I finally got to with the White Room

1. Layering of one view (today)
2. Distortions of the room floor as picture plane (next post)

The obvious approach for me seemed layering: I tried tissue paper, with acrylic inks, pastels and other assortments. And was craving for tracing paper. Something more solid, stable than the tissue paper. On the last weekend I finally got some and did a few more turns with it.

It's only a small sample in my large sketchbook. It is layered, pulled apart and flipped. It is the view that intrigued me most: an old-fashioned window, with some strong colours and reflections. The layering in itself was not enough. It needed to be spread out and distorted this way. And I think, that idea can go a bit further: onto larger sheets and possibly some other media.

The White Room, study
mixed media collage, 25x20cm

It's the space, some definite lines and still it isn't. You think you can see it clearly and yet you can't. The shapes look familiar and yet they aren't.

What do you think?

"This is a gift..."

White Room remix in moving pictures... well, just a little movement.

My Quicktime Playtime also has a soundtrack. But with DRM and thus resistant to publication.

So, you need to manually (a) click on the youtube vid (well, it's really only audio), , and, 3 secs later (b) click on flickr video... and you'll even get a much better live recording than my DRM itunes restrict.

... Rabbit heart... Hasenherz,...
- if I ever was a singer I wish I'd be like Florence...

oh... did you see the suncatcher?

The care home for clowns.

"For most of the times, things were usually funny at the care home for clowns. The inhabitants had the habit of tripping up over their enormously large shoes, falling face down into those soft cream cakes that were lying about everywhere. Occasionally, there were visitors who, for a variety of reasons, could or would not keep their own clowns. They took their favourite clown out of the cage, let them make exalted jokes, and laughed when the clown made funny faces. Only the moment when the clowns were lead back to the cages and the visitors had to say goodbye to them with sadness, these moments were terrible. Then they would sit there, those sad clowns with tears in the corner of their eyes." (from the taz, a few days ago)

Sunny Sunday

... follows from Silent Saturday that was also Blistery, Rainy and Thundery Saturday aka Have a Scotland Day in Berlin.

When we sat underneath the sun cover that was temporarily (and not very well) providing rain shelter, J laughed: 'You brought your weather with you, haven't you.' - How right he was. Hehehe... and I also brought the glorious sunlight that comes with, or rather after, a rainshower. He noticed that too.

So, one of the tasks for while here is to draw and paint the rain and thunder... This is something I haven't succeeded in so far.

But: a few days ago my windows to the West promised a fantastic evening sky.

Thursday evening, westwards, 9pm
Pastel in A4 Moleskine

And guess what: they far exceeded on their promise, with this 15 minutes later.

Thursday evening, westwards, 9.15pm
Pastel in A4 Moleskine

Silent Saturday

White Room, Two views,
Ink in A4 Moleskine


White Room 1, Remix
Mixed media collage, 35x40cm


White Room, Drying Rack
Pastel and ink, A4 Moleskine

Berlin.... is getting multi-dimensional

Yesterday, in Nearby Bakery no 5, I got it: wow... 'a little piece' - a Teilchen - full of sweet doughy pastry flavours that you remember, remember and remember. The best little piece for a long time, and their rolls work similar wonders. 'Welcome back, stranger', it shouted.

On a different sensory plane I am listening to the radio. Much of what I listen to in the UK, and then, inbetween, electronica. So much electronica. Wonderful dance music, like proper dance music - neither techno nor club but, again a memory brought to the present of nights danced 12, 15 years ago. Chiquitita mia - I know that you don't like electronica, but please, please, please: vaya bailar conmigo!

Hahaha, and talking about which: I signed up for a Spanish class, the tutor called me today, confused: you know so much and so little. What are all these basic mistakes about? Pick a class, any class... so I did (y Chiquitita.... I'm relieved that you didn't do the same test ;))

And lastly, I discovered some wonderful handmade canvasses, cheap and nearby, just need to get the easel that was offered to me from A to here. And then there's a project emerging: a video project at the Baltic Sea. How exciting - I'll be Best Girl, how's that for a new job description.

More as they unfold...
The little piece is already eaten, but music should do for tonight, not? Take these two... UK to Berlin, past to presence....

There's a lot in here about strangeness, distance, memory and familiarity...

More white overlaid

Now... if individual views are combined, it may look like this

White room wide, mixed media collage,
A3 Sketchbook

There are different possibilities... about the sense of moving across the room; but also about placing different things across the room, the paper plane. I want some large tracing paper and some acrylic medium for proper collaging. But inbetween, a bit of ordinary drawing practice: perspective, attention and detail... phew... so difficult. Yet, I'm sure that will see to the development of the concept too.

Weiss, weiss, weiss, das weiss ich

White room 1, mixed media collage on paper, 35x40cm

... white, white, white, that's what I know.

A room full of white floorboards, window frames, walls and doors. And a bit of orange and lime green.

A room in a flat full of history: of someone's ex-flatmate, of others' ex-comrade, of someone's ex-lover, and another ones ex-lover. Right in the middle of Kreuzberg and the lives lived here.

And still: the flat isn't lived in, noone's home other than temporarily mine. With all its history, memories and things. And the smell of current emptiness.

A room full of white. Obvious white. What's with the layers of it - the windows got painted, new layers on top of old ones. Will they hold? Will they peel away?

Thus: some cartridge paper, some glue, some tissue paper, some acrylic ink and a marker pen. For a start.

White room 1 (Detail), mixed media collage on paper, 35x40cm

Weiss, weiss, weiss, das weiss ich....

It's about experience and knowledge in the middle of interior still life. I am sitting on my new bed and marvel at the sights of whiteness, colour and their invisible connections to past and presence.

Next: better glue, more marker pen, more ink, other walls and windows.

All new beginnings..

... need a bit of art, don't they?

I've been looking at this room for two weeks now. Today it got freshly painted windows and I took it as a cue to get the sketchbook out...

Nothing fancy. It's Berlin tenement dailies... a radiator and a window. It's in graphite and continues the whiteness from the first picture post.

But... there's colour here too. Sunshine orange, 1970s orange and a variety of lime to apple green.

There's a hint of a domestic series coming through the window. But first it looks like another thunderstorm. Oh, how I miss summer thunderstorms, they are so rare in Glasgow. But I've had my fair share over the past fortnight already. - No, that isn't metaphorical but applied weather science :)