On loan...

... to various friends is where my paintings have gone post-exhibition.

I liked the idea: no space at home means that all the paintings I collected on Friday need elsewhere. So, I've been giving them away for the time being.

Well - I would have really liked to sell at least one of the bigger ones or so to get back the framing costs, but it looked as if that wasn't going to be. But, more importantly, once I had them all framed and at home, I realised that they shouldn't all be in one place, and definitely if that place was going to be my flat: too small, too intense, simply too much of my own stuff around.

So, they've been going travelling for now. I just need to keep a list of where they all are, in case I may need them back.

A couple of friends are coming round for breakfast shortly, I see if I can lose a few more paintings before lunchtime.

Psst...

the first birthday came and went... rather nicely, rather quietely... I'll send an invite for no 2 in just under a year's time.

Have another look

at the exhibition...

I've been going along late last week to steal another look at our paintings. It's all good. Very quiet. That's ok, I suppose.

I uploaded some more photos of the paintings, the venue and the opening in this Flickr Set. Tom and I did a picture swap. So, I'll be getting one of his Gestalten (the grey one) on Friday and he takes one of my Fields around my Parents' House paintings home with him. He hasn't said which one it'll be, but I think I know. It's nice to know it goes somewhere good.

I wish I was

ACEO Colored Sands #9,
Watercolour on Paper

... a synesthesist.

To hear colour, or to taste words. But above all I would love to see music in colour. Wouldn't that be great?

Not about translating, transferring or changing state from one sensation to another, instead they are the same. They don't exist without the other... Hm, thinking about it, I am not sure if I cared enough about tasting words or sounds - too much bad taste.

But the music/colour assemblage would be fabulous.

Have a look at Philip Schreibman's Gallery to see (hear?) what I mean:

Or, similarly, the Belgian Synesthesia Association on Art and Synesthesia


And then I wonder: how would I know if I were? How do I know what it is that I experience?

Dance, dance, dance

Lykke Li Dance Dance Dance (Bowery Ballroom, NYC, 7 May 2008)

From gigs to themed Moley's... here's a glimpse at my work in progress on David's moley...

Last weekend's gig, last night's music and today's idea. There'll be a bit more on colour, paint and music.

Now I just need to figure a way to make those small pages large again.

The things we do

... are the things that matter.

So: this is what we've been doing yesterday. With a big thank you to everyone involved: on the walls, off the walls, on the floor and off the floor.

And that's all there is...



But I think there may be more

Painting is sooooo boring

I am telling you: painting frames is just mind numbingly boring. I spent the evening with it. Kept looking at my self-assembly floater frames (they are very pretty) and my paintings. It was a task I surely could have done without. Had meant to order white frames for the oil paintings. Of course, the white frames were out and I said: och, no probs, I take the untreated ones and just DIY them. I should not say these things, I know. Not that I can't DIY them, but I probably could have used those hours better.



So, while painting away, I kept casting my eye across - frames, oil paintings, frames, oil paintings - hm, something's odd here. Hm... keep painting, casting my eye across - frames, oil paintings, frames, oil paintings - hm, something is definitely odd here. No, surely, that will just be the angle of how the frames sit against the cupboard. Keep painting...

Did I not sort out my frames properly from S-J's for whom I also ordered some? Count. Well, 8 pairs, 4 paintings, all's in perfect order. Keep painting. Finish painting. Sit on sofa, cast my eye across.... [well, it was a long day, and my thoughts got pretty slow, so you kind of get the picture, hm?]. I pick up my notebook with the paintings' dimensions. Look at them. Big one #1 is 70x80cm, yes - that's what it is. Big one #2 is down as 24"x28". Hm. I'm bad with inch to metric conversion. But that was the most recent set of stretcher bars I bought, and that was DEFINITELY A LOT SHORTER than 70x80cm. I look at the paintings. No, they are exactly the same. 70x80cm for Big one #1 and Big one #2.

It starts to dawn on me. 24"x28" is the one that is being left unfinished for the time being. Not ready. No need to be framed. But in eager anticipation I must have ordered a frame for that one.

This leaves me exactly one frame short. Well done, Dr Helms! 20 points for observational skills! And these two were to be hung next to each other. So, effectively I am missing two frames.

Good. Smile to yourself. That's where all this planning and preparation gets you to.

Frames? Overrated! It'll look grand all the same, I'm telling you.

In the post... this time:

David's Moley and his Tango dancers

David's Moley from our Moleskine Exchange. His theme of Dancing is the one I'm slightly worried about: it clearly shouts: Gesa, draw figures! at me. And not just any old figures, but people dancing.
Hm, well... maybe it doesn't. I need to think about this for a while. David's Tango dancers in oil pastels are an excellent start, so I could digress to: oil pastels, blue, Spain, Flamenco, castagnettes, sound... I'm sure I'll find some more associations.

BTW: to my Flamenco-dancing friends: how about some pics from your last show? And I could go into Portraiture commissioning. Or maybe not, I don't think anyone would pay me for that. LOL.

Exhibition inhibitions

The road to the blue trees, 64x45cm
Acrylic and paper on board

This will be the most recent piece for the exhibition. I finished it last Saturday, and will drop it off at the framer tomorrow morning. I'm just waiting on a friend to drop all the small paintings off at my house tonight after she picked them up from the framer earlier today. All this coming and going... it's a nice set of tasks to prepare for the exhibition: quite clearly circumscribed, ticking off items on the list.

All the time I'm getting rather giddy. Giddy at the thought of what it'll be like to look at all these things that I did over the past months. They are usually stashed away in different places, happy to be pulled out into daylight once in a while. But all of them up against a white wall?? That'll be exciting, a bit scary, and rather exhibitionist. Well: it's called exhibition after all, isn't it? Hadn't thought of that one before.

Somebody had asked whether I was scared or anxious. That I'm most definitely not. It's a funny one: for my job I do a fair bit of public speaking, and if someone had told 17-year old Gesa that she would have to talk in public regularly for her job, she would have surely hidden behind the sofa (any sofa) and never surfaced again. So, that kind of publicity took me a long time to get used to (and it still scares me from time to time). But this one feels very different.

Maybe that's because it's about something that is finished, done. It's ready. Whereas public speaking is always in the making, there and then. But maybe, more simply, it's not something I have to worry about as my livelihood depends on it? I don't know. It definitely feels like a lot of fun. And that's good enough, I s'pose.

BTW, I think this is a painting I'm not quite finished with: still feels too precious to let go off, and I doubt that will have receded by next week... so it'll possible have a Not for sale sticker on it.

And just to clarify any confusions over dates and times for the exhibition which have kept changing (to do with changing messages over opening times after everything seemed clear for a long time)

The Opening will be on Friday 13 June 4-6pm

From then onwards, the exhibition will be
open Monday to Friday 10-5pm (last entry at 5);
It will not be open at any point during the weekend.

The exhibition will close on Friday 27 June 5pm

The location is St Andrew's Gallery, Level 5, St Andrew's Building, University of Glasgow,
11 Eldon St, Glasgow, G3 6NH (off Woodlands Roundabout)

The website http://eldongroup.ghelms.com is being kept uptodate.

Sketchbook (re)formatting

Graphite in Moleskine, 13x11cm

Our Moleskine exchange is firmly on its way, and I'm looking forward to getting the first one sent from David (David: have you started yet??). The sketchbooks we're all working in is the small pocket size Concertina one: it folds out to a glorious, continuous 2.70m (if my maths up to speed). That's far longer than any of my Found Paper Books, which just come up to 45cm; but there is something wonderful about a format that is so much wider than higher. It just doesn't seem to end. And with its folds, the next (or indeed previous) pages can be hidden, as if they didn't exist. Oh, so much fun on empty pages.

I had bought a small pocket size plain Moley in my attempt to sketch anywhere. So, I've been carrying it round with me and do indeed use it once in a while. But, it's awfy small, really. It's a one person per page kind of scenario. And while it lends itself well to some minimalist lines, it is just tiny.

Graphite in Moleskine, 13x18cm

So: Plan B is already in Amazon's basket: a couple more Moley concertina books, same external dimensions, they will soon be like the Tardis: so much bigger inside than anyone would guess by looking at the inconspicous exterior.

On accidental loss

There's been an expression popping up throughout a number of discussions between Casey, David, Brian and others. I think it was Casey who named it first: in order to finish a painting one has frequently to 'kill the precious thing'. The one that you keep closest, most valued within the painting is so often precisely the one thing that stops you from finishing.

It's something I know too well: again and again I find that it is precisely the object, line, colour that drew me to that particular scene or composition in the first place, that proves later to be the weak point, the nag, the problem. It's a funny one. So, in many ways I wholeheartedly agree with this proclamation.

But, then again: to KILL it? My mind kept going back to it - and I also see that Casey refers to the messing up of a new truck rather than death. My mind kept wandering to some of the collage work I've been doing. The beauty of collage, as well as pretty much all other art is, that stuff, mistakes, failures do get lost: they submerge, recede in the background, become unnoticeable. Yet, all the same, they remain - and I think they do so very much being alive and not as corpses.

So, my proposition is on losing rather than killing. And I've got a good quote to give you a sense of what I mean. It's one that's been keeping cropping up in my academic work, and while I have difficulties with the sense of solidity it conveys, it - on one level or another - gets me to where I want to: lost.

"I wanted to see Kafka’s tomb. Knowing perfectly well (having verified it so many times) that you cannot see what you want to see, I went to the cemetery to see what I could not see. It’s the law. All is law. It’s because of desire. The law makes its nest in the peels of desire. Go on: you will not enter. If you did not desire to go, there would be a chance that the door would open." (Cixous, H. (1997), ’Attacks of the Castle’, in Leach, N. (ed.) Rethinking Architecture, London, New York: Routledge; p.303.)

Fields in Blue, WIP Detail
Mixed media on board, 50x35cm

The Eldon Group... by way of introduction

The exhibition preparations are getting ahead now; I've ordered (and need to pick up from the depot) the postcards that some of us have been designing. I also took the first lot of (small) paintings to the framers yesterday.

By way of introducing some of my fellow artists, I thought I'd post the images of their postcards.

So, here they are:

Thomas Bush, Korridors,
Acrylics on board, 67.5x54cm

Sarah Jane Sharp, Dancing Jelly Fish
Oil on Canvas, 100x100cm
Chris Turpie, Dreams of Sunset
Oil on Canvas, 70x80cm

They were all pretty clear of what my card should be, so I'm including this one for good measure.

Gesa Helms, Fields in Haze
Mixed media on paper, 58x40cm

We are having an Exhibition Opening Party on Friday 13 June 4-6pm - so, if you're around, come along!

For some general info on the exhibition see: http://eldongroup.ghelms.com

We were initially a bit worried about the date for exibition (16-30 June) being so late in the year and also after term has finished. Yet, it all seems to be working out rather well as it will fall right into the annual Glasgow West End Festival with lots of events, venues and general things happening.