... is all i'm saying and seeing these days.
thoroughly back in the fields, there's no metropolitan video art to keep me distracted. instead, i'm with the weeds - one of the 'usefuls' [someone will giggle afar], as the pragmatic german language defines.
the wild carrot. daucus carota. or queen anne's lace.
someone has a better camera than i do. and while i'm patiently doing 50x70cm studies each day of my favourite bundle of wild carrots, i fear i'll be missing some of the details on this page. but, i may just as well have 1/3 sec [7 frames] of a daucus carota animation movie.
fields in detail. and in movement. phew. that seems to be going to somewhere new, doesn't it? maybe a little bit.
here's someone else's fascination with the wild carrots.
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Friday, 16 July 2010
zig.zag
... back to the fields in the land from jarman's personal political colour field of digital blue.
this one i haven't watched, just saw that youtube has it as 10-min parts. however, it figures prominently in my mind of the labour and work that has gone into cultivating a field. it served as a reference point for numerous geography fieldtrips to the west coast of ireland. it also figures prominently as to relations of property and the consideration of belonging - and of those who do not belong, by property or presence.
seeing the dominance of the church, pain and the pastoral also can refer to the pain of the pastoral. the pastor as pain. now, there's a few more openings along the way.
but. here's the opening of the field (1990, ireland, jim sheridan)
this one i haven't watched, just saw that youtube has it as 10-min parts. however, it figures prominently in my mind of the labour and work that has gone into cultivating a field. it served as a reference point for numerous geography fieldtrips to the west coast of ireland. it also figures prominently as to relations of property and the consideration of belonging - and of those who do not belong, by property or presence.
seeing the dominance of the church, pain and the pastoral also can refer to the pain of the pastoral. the pastor as pain. now, there's a few more openings along the way.
but. here's the opening of the field (1990, ireland, jim sheridan)
Monday, 12 July 2010
... and then it's blue
(D. Jarman, 1993). only in excerpts so far.
it's a conclusion in more ways than one. the highly saturated hues of journey to avebury are replaced by the colour of jarman's increasing blindness.
so, a film that consists of a single 'image' - the blue of one man's blindness. the blue inspired by yves klein's monochromatic paintings. it's all and nothing it seems to me. it's a refusal - to turn one's struggle with hiv-related illnesses and approaching death into a film-able narrative. so it's a social and political positioning. without images other than blue, the image recedes - in it's all-encompassingness - to make way, to heighten one's senses of voice, sound and music.
strangely, i find the hues of avebury far more disconcerting. somewhere i read a review of 'this garden of eden'. it could well be that 38c in berlin is frying my brain a bit too much, but the sickly hues of avebury shout at me: pain and the pastoral. the pastoral as pain.
it's a conclusion in more ways than one. the highly saturated hues of journey to avebury are replaced by the colour of jarman's increasing blindness.
so, a film that consists of a single 'image' - the blue of one man's blindness. the blue inspired by yves klein's monochromatic paintings. it's all and nothing it seems to me. it's a refusal - to turn one's struggle with hiv-related illnesses and approaching death into a film-able narrative. so it's a social and political positioning. without images other than blue, the image recedes - in it's all-encompassingness - to make way, to heighten one's senses of voice, sound and music.
strangely, i find the hues of avebury far more disconcerting. somewhere i read a review of 'this garden of eden'. it could well be that 38c in berlin is frying my brain a bit too much, but the sickly hues of avebury shout at me: pain and the pastoral. the pastoral as pain.
Thursday, 8 July 2010
take a journey
to avebury, with derek jarman (super 8, colour, 1971, 10mins). images rather than a film.
look! it' so full of colours! how beautiful is the countryside!
i saw it yesteday at ngbk's excellent exhibition on goodbye london - radical arts and politics in the seventies.
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
noting change
... is nothing extraordinary since the world is constantly changing. - a phrase that still sticks in my mind. heard over ten years ago when trying to piece together a long piece of writing.
how true. and still how difficult, not to shout at: oh, there is change! how unusual!
needing frameworks that are suitable for the unforeseen makes my application of frameworks often a bit undecisive. [while all the while building complex, flexible systems in my mind].
so, here's a bit of change. a new template, some rearranging of the sidelines and most importantly: some play with the content of this blog. a recent unsubscription note reminded me of the fact that this blog has for some time not been about 'paint and pastel'.
waymark number 1: pain and the pastoral. with an ensuing observation of the meaning of bucolic. still in digestion, and all the blogger wizadry (and snail pace) tonight is enough to make the promise of a bit of thinking around the current blog title.
i have also revised my decision of a separate learning blog paint and pastel: study. it is far less tedious as i feared (notably because the main writing still takes place offline) but that also means that there are rather few postings and the division between here and there does not make much sense any longer. so, i imported all the post from there to here - they may show up in your blog reader.
still imageless for today. you can look at the background though (if it doesn't hurt too much).
how true. and still how difficult, not to shout at: oh, there is change! how unusual!
needing frameworks that are suitable for the unforeseen makes my application of frameworks often a bit undecisive. [while all the while building complex, flexible systems in my mind].
so, here's a bit of change. a new template, some rearranging of the sidelines and most importantly: some play with the content of this blog. a recent unsubscription note reminded me of the fact that this blog has for some time not been about 'paint and pastel'.
waymark number 1: pain and the pastoral. with an ensuing observation of the meaning of bucolic. still in digestion, and all the blogger wizadry (and snail pace) tonight is enough to make the promise of a bit of thinking around the current blog title.
i have also revised my decision of a separate learning blog paint and pastel: study. it is far less tedious as i feared (notably because the main writing still takes place offline) but that also means that there are rather few postings and the division between here and there does not make much sense any longer. so, i imported all the post from there to here - they may show up in your blog reader.
still imageless for today. you can look at the background though (if it doesn't hurt too much).
Sunday, 4 July 2010
4 days. 3 books.
amidst the strawberry fields, many variations of strawberry cakes; granita; and 20 jars of jam, there have been plenty of figure drawings and three books.
1. kurban said's ali and nino. - while not sure about 'the best love story ever' (but i. will grin and say that that verdict is rather typical) there is a fascinating account of baku, karabagh, tehran at the start of wwi. and the intermingling of various easts and wests. i am looking forward to the biography of one of likely authors, lev nussimbaum, the orientalist by tom reiss; also in the package that arrived on thursday. i so know why it made it to the gift selection. thank you!
2. more prosaic but apart from the somehow laboured chapter 1, a very worthwhile read is john berger et al. collection of essays that started their life as a bbc series in the early 1970s - ways of seeing. it was high time to read it. i very much enjoyed the essays on the nude and on oil painting. possibly rather straightforwardly an analysis of social relations of property and the role that art plays in this, i still wish more of these programmes would be made today.
3. and freshly finished, no english translation seems to exist: christoph hein's frau paula trousseau. another gift from a past long gone and with an disrupted exchange renewed over cake - strawberry, of course - and coffee. its various time strands of the early 1960s and then 1970 onwards in east germany enticed and weaved a story of a life that in narration is warm and sensitive and yet it casts so many doubts over the narrator that the end - retold from a different view in the prologue - still leaves me baffled. paula went to berlin to study painting at weissensee, and persisted, and persisted.
there were other plans - botanical drawings of organic veg and fruit. but they succumbed; to too many plans; too many degrees centigrade and three very good books. now onto the next five.
summer time.
1. kurban said's ali and nino. - while not sure about 'the best love story ever' (but i. will grin and say that that verdict is rather typical) there is a fascinating account of baku, karabagh, tehran at the start of wwi. and the intermingling of various easts and wests. i am looking forward to the biography of one of likely authors, lev nussimbaum, the orientalist by tom reiss; also in the package that arrived on thursday. i so know why it made it to the gift selection. thank you!
2. more prosaic but apart from the somehow laboured chapter 1, a very worthwhile read is john berger et al. collection of essays that started their life as a bbc series in the early 1970s - ways of seeing. it was high time to read it. i very much enjoyed the essays on the nude and on oil painting. possibly rather straightforwardly an analysis of social relations of property and the role that art plays in this, i still wish more of these programmes would be made today.
3. and freshly finished, no english translation seems to exist: christoph hein's frau paula trousseau. another gift from a past long gone and with an disrupted exchange renewed over cake - strawberry, of course - and coffee. its various time strands of the early 1960s and then 1970 onwards in east germany enticed and weaved a story of a life that in narration is warm and sensitive and yet it casts so many doubts over the narrator that the end - retold from a different view in the prologue - still leaves me baffled. paula went to berlin to study painting at weissensee, and persisted, and persisted.
there were other plans - botanical drawings of organic veg and fruit. but they succumbed; to too many plans; too many degrees centigrade and three very good books. now onto the next five.
summer time.
images? make up your own...
Wednesday, 23 June 2010
stretch
... to another summer. 2 years back. as i am packing again i'll be sending off my eigg/berlin sketchbook to a fellow student to use the sketchbook for some music composition.
it only occurred to me that she could get this sketchbook as alternative to the chile one. so. i am back with summer preparations. again with going to being in berlin for a good part of it. going to be sketching for a good part of it. and glad again to be leaving glasgow for a bit. and yet: so much is vastly different.
i am also back with the malleability of time: how it stretches forwards and backwards. radiates outwards in all direction from any presence. how past and future seem constantly folded into and onto the presence.
a curious one. this relationship to time. and how it is social and the experience seems mostly my own. how far can i stretch forward. and backward. while all is now.
flicking through the eigg sketchbook it was also all about time. lykke li and island time. all in rain and low clouds. all the time.
so,
while making tea. sun am. pastel, w/c, pencil in moleskine
it only occurred to me that she could get this sketchbook as alternative to the chile one. so. i am back with summer preparations. again with going to being in berlin for a good part of it. going to be sketching for a good part of it. and glad again to be leaving glasgow for a bit. and yet: so much is vastly different.
i am also back with the malleability of time: how it stretches forwards and backwards. radiates outwards in all direction from any presence. how past and future seem constantly folded into and onto the presence.
a curious one. this relationship to time. and how it is social and the experience seems mostly my own. how far can i stretch forward. and backward. while all is now.
flicking through the eigg sketchbook it was also all about time. lykke li and island time. all in rain and low clouds. all the time.
so,
stretch. while making tea on holidaysi also begun rebuilding my 0kb music library today. some borrowed, some stashed, some carefully saved. so. back to that summer there goes this.
a look out of the window
how close is the world today
depends on the mist and the low clouds
is it as far as the dry stone wall?
or can you see the cairn?
or even the high moors?
stretch. the abstracted lines come easy
capture the horizon. a tree or two
but not more
close is far more stretching
what about the stones?
or the bracken? or the sheep.
lucky i was: no sheep in sight today.
oh. she will get the ghost of time, too. no point in doing things by half.
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
wordless summer madness
OMG. There is life in the astroturf. Quick.
Cowcaddens. 23.22pm. Where are the solar panels.
Saturday, 12 June 2010
recordings
... used to happen here much more frequently.
they have moved since. but, frankly, it's a bit of a mess. i am trying constantly to figure out how and what and also for whom i am recording.
i am thinking back to the many discussions i. and i used to have about diary writing, about keeping records. for ourselves or for others. i am also thinking about diaries burnt on a frequent basis so as not to leave a record.
part of my current recording mess is to do with teaching instructions: to keep a logbook of your learning. hah - something i turn to also when i am teaching. reflective journals abound to provide a space to externalise, reflect and thus absorb more easily what is to be learned.
do i record textually, visually, aurally? organised by subject; by approach; by who it is for?
all these questions stop me from recording. i need to figure out the entirety before i can get started. and the entirety needs to provide plenty of openings for unforeseen developments. oh dear... thinking and living in wholeism can be a bit daunting.
so, i'm devising ever more journals in my electronic journalling software notetaker (very good, exc. that it is not half as integrative as it claims to be, and exporting to pdf is a bit of a pain); have written notebooks (divided in three; currently: General/Research - Art - Skills work); and plenty of sketchbooks, divided into portability, assignment work, and general.
my plan is to work on 2-3 art projects at any one time; my plan is also to organise these a bit like course modules. there are three in development: (1) soundworks/ (2) landscapism art, naturally/(3) body identity makings. the middle one is the most clearly formed (somewhat easily so: it's a more decisive interrogation of my fieldwork paintings/drawings/prints to take in also an urban element (beginning with matta clark) and some details of nature). the media for these will largely be drawing and printmaking (etching) for the next year.
today, (2) landscapism in art, naturally, acquired its first page in the new a3 sketchbook that will be the overall holding file for it. phew. that only took me six weeks, largely due to my recording hang ups, see above.
happy recording - wherever and however.
they have moved since. but, frankly, it's a bit of a mess. i am trying constantly to figure out how and what and also for whom i am recording.
i am thinking back to the many discussions i. and i used to have about diary writing, about keeping records. for ourselves or for others. i am also thinking about diaries burnt on a frequent basis so as not to leave a record.
part of my current recording mess is to do with teaching instructions: to keep a logbook of your learning. hah - something i turn to also when i am teaching. reflective journals abound to provide a space to externalise, reflect and thus absorb more easily what is to be learned.
do i record textually, visually, aurally? organised by subject; by approach; by who it is for?
all these questions stop me from recording. i need to figure out the entirety before i can get started. and the entirety needs to provide plenty of openings for unforeseen developments. oh dear... thinking and living in wholeism can be a bit daunting.
so, i'm devising ever more journals in my electronic journalling software notetaker (very good, exc. that it is not half as integrative as it claims to be, and exporting to pdf is a bit of a pain); have written notebooks (divided in three; currently: General/Research - Art - Skills work); and plenty of sketchbooks, divided into portability, assignment work, and general.
my plan is to work on 2-3 art projects at any one time; my plan is also to organise these a bit like course modules. there are three in development: (1) soundworks/ (2) landscapism art, naturally/(3) body identity makings. the middle one is the most clearly formed (somewhat easily so: it's a more decisive interrogation of my fieldwork paintings/drawings/prints to take in also an urban element (beginning with matta clark) and some details of nature). the media for these will largely be drawing and printmaking (etching) for the next year.
[the 2-3 limitation is a bit of a cop out, easily unmasked: there are as much as 20-30 strands on the go at any one time, and i maintain that i can maintain these with ease... ever optimistic]
today, (2) landscapism in art, naturally, acquired its first page in the new a3 sketchbook that will be the overall holding file for it. phew. that only took me six weeks, largely due to my recording hang ups, see above.
page 1, monotype, 20x25cm
happy recording - wherever and however.
Friday, 11 June 2010
The Quillet
Bren Unwin, The Quillet
[all else to follow in a couple of days... again in the need of a hosting site]
Monday, 31 May 2010
peter lanyon
has made it on my list for the land art investigation.
i hadn't seen his work before. but richard's course on modern and contemporary art at the tate britain last week introduced me to this one here:
i think it was my favourite painting of the lot. - in far as my emotional response goes. i love it for its colour balance and rythm, emphasised by the strong gestural marks. the rythm of calm and dynamic. it depicts the tragedy of the flooding of the tin mines in levant, cornwall. the tin mines were under the seabed and too close digging under the seabed led to their flooding with the loss of 39 miners' lives in 1919*.
see this bbc archive for some information on the cornish tin mining industry.
so, a couple of books on lanyon and lanyon's landscape paintings are ordered. it's been a while that i was that intrigued by a painter. there is a potential, from what i've read so far, that his landscape work actually provides a radical departure over previous landscape genre obsessions with harmony, a hiding of ownership and power relations in the landscape. i'll wait on the post delivery to read on.
*this is the information given on the tate website. i did some reading about the levant mining disaster and can't find any reference about flooding; instead, the miners were trapped and suffocated when the mechanical ladder on which they ascended after a shift broke and brought some of the shaft down with it. an incident from the mid-19c is the mining disaster at east wheal rose, where 59 miners died when shafts flooded. see the wiki entry here. i will wait to read more about the painting to get a sense which tragedy lanyon referred to.
i hadn't seen his work before. but richard's course on modern and contemporary art at the tate britain last week introduced me to this one here:
Peter Lanyon, Lost Mine, 1959, 183x153 cm, oil on canvas
Tate Britain
i think it was my favourite painting of the lot. - in far as my emotional response goes. i love it for its colour balance and rythm, emphasised by the strong gestural marks. the rythm of calm and dynamic. it depicts the tragedy of the flooding of the tin mines in levant, cornwall. the tin mines were under the seabed and too close digging under the seabed led to their flooding with the loss of 39 miners' lives in 1919*.
see this bbc archive for some information on the cornish tin mining industry.
so, a couple of books on lanyon and lanyon's landscape paintings are ordered. it's been a while that i was that intrigued by a painter. there is a potential, from what i've read so far, that his landscape work actually provides a radical departure over previous landscape genre obsessions with harmony, a hiding of ownership and power relations in the landscape. i'll wait on the post delivery to read on.
*this is the information given on the tate website. i did some reading about the levant mining disaster and can't find any reference about flooding; instead, the miners were trapped and suffocated when the mechanical ladder on which they ascended after a shift broke and brought some of the shaft down with it. an incident from the mid-19c is the mining disaster at east wheal rose, where 59 miners died when shafts flooded. see the wiki entry here. i will wait to read more about the painting to get a sense which tragedy lanyon referred to.
there is a forest. this is its sound
there is a rainforest. this is its sound.
one forest. many sounds. from dawn to dusk. in my explorations into soundscapes, i listened to chris watson's introduction of his sound installation, whispering in the leaves, at the palm house at kew gardens on saturday lunch time.
a mix of rainforest sounds are mixed to trace the time that passes between dawn and dusk.. transmitted via 80 speakers throughout the palm house that houses tropical plants from wherever tropical plants grow.
the sound piece came towards the end of three days spent in kew gardens and an investigation into botanical collections, drawings, the endeavours of dreams of imperial order and totality.
the sound piece: a lot of sound. a lot of humanising of a rainforest. and above all: the assumption that there is one forest that makes sounds.
i think installations work best if they don't try to be authentic.
can i consider this as a piece of popular education? as: other senses than the visual and oleofactoral engaged while in the hot palm house? not sure about that either.
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