I am saying nothing, me!
Silence
Monthly Archives: August 2014
Quite a rare one – no annotations at all!
I’m still enjoying making these #Letter365 pieces each day but sometimes posting a blog entry palls!
Can’t be doing with this now
I have done art all afternoon, including this #Letter365 and I need a break so no great words or other images now. We are going out to a local festival gig and I’ve just put this up in case I drink too much or it gets too late.
Great artistic delivery for No155
Acclaimed sculptor Greta Berlin delivered today’s piece through one of her sculptures. It was the Preview Evening of the combined show of three generations of the Berlin family at Bridport Arts Centre. Alongside Greta’s sculptures and paintings areworks by her father Sven, while downstairs her daughter Zennor Box is showing her puzzling and witty paintings. Greta kindly agreed to the last leg of the delivery and it was her idea to post it through her piece to Arts Centre Director, Polly Gifford. By the way it is a very interesting show and well worth a visit. I’ll certainly be popping back to give it a lot more concentrated time.
So busy I found it hard to remember
When I saw the photo above I did think of the pueblos blancos of Spain, that harsh light on whitewashed walls, but really there are no Spanish houses in St Andrew’s Road. Bridport and the sun, though warm, was not as harsh as southern Spain. It is just one of those post boxes set into the side of a whitewashed Dorset house.
I have been busy again today with planning and preparations for the show in Ramsgate, plus the added excitement of selling an ink drawing to someone in the United States this evening. So when I came to write this post I found it hard to remember what I had done for #Letter365 only 9 or 10 hours ago! Part of the reason might also be the process of creation. I went to the studio wanting to do some work on a piece in progress as well as my #Letter365. When I got there, in quite a fired-up state, I found that I had left two sketchbooks open as reminders of things I wanted to develop. One of these was the long drawing I had been planning to do in a Moleskine concertina book. Making the first mark on a pretty expensive piece of paper or book is at times a pretty scary act and I had been sort of putting it off. Today I was up for it. I was full to overflowing with what I wanted to make: it was time. But there was just a little time for one last act of procrastination, my excuse being that I had to do #Letter365. And there laying on the table was the other open sketchbook with an idea that I wanted to develop – and remember that I was all fired up – so what could be easier than using that. I set to work and soon had created something I was pretty pleased with! Now I could get on with the drawing in the Moleskine. That went really well, actually even better than I had hoped. Once dry and I could interact with it I fell in love with it. So did someone else: it was the piece I sold to the woman in America.
Ink drawing on Moleskine concertina book
So then I went back to the piece I had so boldly and confidently produced for #Letter365. I realised it was missing something; it didn’t quite work. I played around with different things for quite a while before realising that what was missing was me. I had skilfully found a way to get #Letter365 out of the way so I could get on with a piece that was really important to me, a piece I was full of. I wasn’t full of the piece I had made for #Letter365 and it wasn’t full of me. It was OK and had some interesting aspects but frankly it just wasn’t good enough! It didn’t pass the “would I have it on my wall and love it” test. Bit of a lesson there then! That meant I had to start again. Well I made a new piece, but I distilled some of the good aspects of the previous idea and sat with it until I could resolve it with honesty and integrity. In the light of what went before I am a little diffident about making any qualitative statement about just how good this latter piece is but I would be happy to have it on my wall and it pleases my eye.
So little to say
I have really run out of energy and although I really enjoyed making this piece and there is mileage in the technique, I cannot lift myself enough to even think about trying to write something witty or erudite or intellectual. Early night for me!
The most stressful yet
I nearly didn’t make it tonight! I posted No152 with just 12 minutes to spare and only posted a holding page here at 23:58! To be frank I have struggled all day, mostly because I was struggling with designs and words for invites for the Ramsgate show – mostly still trying to get some quality reproductions of my work! I think I can be better placed to get what I need when I next have a photographic session.
So in my usual slightly-overconfident fashion I was leaving #Letter365 until this evening. I had not taken into account that working from home today I had only a minimal range of materials and decided that I really needed to go to the studio. I also did not take into account that my printer might malfunction in a much more complete way than a visit from Violet Lines. When there is a problem my printer communicates the issue by specific numbers of flashing lights. In this case it was twelve. I looked up what 12 flashes meant in the manual but the list had a reason for 11 flashes and an explanation for 13 but 12 was omitted from the list! Fortunately my partner, Sally, was able to print it for me. This little scenario made me even tighter on time and I was a bit “flustered” by now. By the time i got to the studio I was back to a composed state and set to work. Even after a false start – well two false starts – I remained confident and relaxed. I even took a little time out to make some notes of ideas for something else and to try out a little technique to see if it would produce th eresults i was looking for. I only started getting stressed again when I was photographing the elements when I heard a drip that was clearly inside the studio. It was lucky that I was there to put a bucket under the drip or else a sketchbook and some drawings would have been ruined. I moved everything else that might suffer to what i hoped was a place of safety!
I treated myself to a different post box
The height of excitement yet another different post box.; a George V one at that! We know how to live in Bridport!
The musical allusion isn’t summery, but then the day didn’t really turn out that way. Added to which I cannot find a clip to embed so if you want to hear and see Talking Heads Live in Rome version of Electricity (Drugs) check out this YouTube video. It only got into my head because I have been dealing with electricity companies today.
And we thought yesterday’s visit by Violet Lines was a one-off but she has knicked some of the pigment at the trailing edge of today’s print.
I thought we had seen the end of Violet Lines
I had hoped that we had seen the last of Violet Lines, but she is back to celebrate getting to 150!
One of the problems of having a split working facility is the logistics of the envelope. Until I move my computer to the studio I’ll have to do the envelopes at home. This morning it seemed it was going to be a nice but not too hot summer day so I hinted there could be a mention of some summertime music, but long before I started on the piece the sun had gone and it became a mostly overcast afternoon. So I didn’t get into a summery mood and I’m too tired now to manufacture such a state so sorry but no music today!
I chose to detour via a different post box today just to add a little zip and pizzazz to the proceedings!
A very interesting process
Today’s piece was very interesting for me and apart from being hugely enjoyable for me it gave me a huge sense of confidence; a sense that I could work in a whole range of untapped and untried ways. I still feel quite excited about it. I had prepared and taken some materials with me with a specific idea in mind following on from the work I did in Bath the other day. The idea was very different from Bath in some fundamental ways but shared some features. Specifically, I had chosen different materials. As it turned out I was inspired by some aspects of Birmingham as a cultural centre and the whole thing took shape in my mind very quickly and very differently to the plan. Fortunately it worked really well, though it took rather longer than usual to create. I did have back up materials, but wouldn’t have been able to create the original idea without buying some more stuff and putting more money in the parking machine or abandoning the idea of creating it till I got back home or the studio!
It’s all Bs! Bradpole, Bridport, Birmingham, Bath! Have I created a #Letter365 anywhere else yet? Maybe I should just do work in places starting with B?
