Death throes and final show

Well it is 2 years since I started and the Ma is finished, the thesis is in and the pictures are hung. If anyone would like to see the death throes of Drawing as Process then go to the Bargehouse, behind the Oxo Tower on the Southbank, London, wednesday to Sunday this week (29 October to 2 November) 11 am to 6 pm.

I am quite pleased with my work, but curiously it has not changed, or the core, heart of my art has not changed; I am still all about marks on paper although I think that the best piece in the show is a stitched piece.

If anyone goes they can vote, tell me what they think, it would be nice to have other people’s opinions.

Also another small success, I entered the Chichester Open Art Competition and was accepted. I am pleased because, well apart from ‘it’s nice to be asked’ I submitted one of my favourite drawings

This does not really do it justice (well I would say that wouldn’t I?)  I have had it framed twice now, first time in black, floating, seeing it thusly I knew it needed more space to breath so it was reframed in white and I had to have a mount added because it had been stuck down, then I could not bear the creased paper which seemed to be getting worse. I took it out and managed to iron out the crease and had it framed so that no paper edge showed. None of this really means anything to you good folks but suffice it to say that it does look beter, it can breath and is not trapped in quite the same way as it was.

Framing is such a tricky thing; after the agony of creating the work, the further agony of what feels like a million tiny framing decisions is almost the last straw, (and not a cheap straw either) but it is nice to get the art out of way and un-tinkerable with.  The work also looks so much more serious when it has been framed, especially very minimal ‘marks on paper’ which can almost at times look like ‘mistakes on paper’ without the gravitas of a frame and glass.

On a more prosaic note I am not looking forward to invigilating the show; the Bargehouse is so cold.  It is a huge thick walled building, with metal framed windows, that has never ever been heated, and which after a while seems to exude cold, slightly damp air. That and the fact that practically no one visits except the potential students they hope to lure to the University.  So it is a long, cold, lonely  watch,  any visitors will be very gratefully welcomed.

City Lit Drawing in Space

Went to an excellent workshop here some few months ago and just found these photos so thought I would share them.

Especially as I was recently sent a link to very

similar sort of thing

The lefthand side is a doll’s leg, sort of doll’s leg size 31 cms long overall.

The drawing is A1, an exercise in drawing without making an outline.

I really enjoyed the workshop. I had seen paper castings at a wonderful exhibition in Sienna, in the modern art gallery Palazzo delle Papesse. Unfortunately their website wont load so I can’t find the name of the American artist whose paper sculptures I saw there. They had been made over a period of about 2 years by US gallery staff and hung on paper ropes – paper toy guns, dolls, tricycles, bicycles, toy trucks, anything and everythng, quite wonderful.

Better late

The Guardian today has at last published an obituary of the wonderful/strange Bruce Conner, 1933 -2008,  a mere 3 months after his death.

Chinese workshop

Some time ago we had avery rough workshop – which barely anyone attended becaue it had been organised to fall just as all the BAs were getting ready for the end of year show (or something). However, we worked with the delightful Fank Wu  Http://blog.sina.com.cn/artistwu on how to use Chinese brushes and inks, to ‘do’ Chinese ink dawings. I fell in love with the delicate use of the brush, also the method of starting and ending the stroke. Which is thusly (rather clumsily described): from left to right the stroke would start with a tiny movement just after the starting point required, moving back, then flowing forward, thus crossing the start of the stroke, like a false start perhaps. The end of each stroke is the same, so that one ends up taking the brush off the paper just inside the stroke. Why I am trying to explain this (rather clumsily) is that I tried doing some ink brush drawings of my chairs, because this trailing off of the stroke is one of the things I am always working hard to avoid.  I was difficult, mainly because I had no decent brushes, (and I obviously need to practice a lot more) but I did do one small drawing, of one single chair which I quite liked. In searching through a load of drawings, to see what should and should not go into the final show I came across this drawing and it is going in. I must have been satisfied with it because I noticed that I dated it on the back.

I am refurbishing an old frame I found or bought somewhere, smothering it in gold leaf; the ink drawing will go in it in a lighthearted symbol of the iconic chair of my oeuvre or ‘portrait of an ink drawing of a chair’.

It doesn’t do to take all this art stuff too seriously, I mean look at this year’s Turner Prize shortlist……..http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/7397950.stm

Talking of which a friend went  yesterday and wanted to really see what was littered all over the floor of one of the larger installations, walked into the middle of it and was quickly hustled out ‘this is ART you can’t  go in it’.

Musical repetition

I began to look into muscial repetition to slot into the dissertation but then backed off because I realised it was way way  too complex a subject to dip into lightly, BUT I came across this  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8v-uDhcDyg Symphony for 100 Metronomes by Gyorgy Ligeti.  For me this is the perfect sound equivalent to much of my work. The metronomes all start at the same time – the chairs are all there then the eye begins to move round and round looking for a pattern, which does not exist – the metronomes tick and tick and tick and one strains to pick out a rhythm which never comes.  And then for one brief shining moment a rhythm appears, and then it is gone. I love it.

Soooo embarassing

I found this just now http://www.tapeart.com/installations apparently there is whole world of tape art out there that I had never heard of, so embarassing.  But if I ever want to create a wall of coloured chairs then …..

These are the new tape chairs.  I used the same electricians’ tape but as I cut each length off I cut the tape again, halving the width. The drawing is not finished (obviously).

‘Drawing’ the chairs in this way is similar to stitching or using the pen – a line is drawn/cut, laid down, another one joins it. Each length is different, each width is uneven, and when these are drawn/created while wearing a fluffy jumper they can sometimes have the added attraction of fibres caught between the tape and the paper. Sort of upholstered stick chairs.

Tape wall-drawing, maybe

Well I warned it could all change. The drawn-round chairs did not look right. Correction they did look right but did not fit with the ink chairs or the stitched chairs. They looked drawn-round, which they were, and then filled in. But the stiched and the inked chairs are made with single strokes. So the above chairs are created with ‘strokes’ of black tape.  I am not sure that the size is right but the effect is much better, or at least it has a feeling of unity with the stitched and inked chairs.  Actually the size is right but it is the  width of the tape which is wrong, also this tape (electrical insulating tape) stretches as it is pulled off the role, is prone to stretch again as it is stuck down, then as it settles is lifts slightly, In a word unstable. I will see if I can find any other type of black tape.

NOT the show

These are the 72 (71 actually) chairs, painted and up

These are the chairs turned round.

After a wonderful tutorial (the first for a while) I realised that I could now let the chairs touch. But more importantly, I think, possibly, the chairs may end up as a wall drawing.  I will put them all up, draw round each one, take each one down, then ‘colour’ each chair in, with graphite .  Well that might be the plan.

Watch this space. (That’s not an order)

success, hurrah

Well I shared my despair at the Jerwood rejection so I suppose it would be churlish not to share my joy at getting in to the Discerning Eye with the above. It’s less than 20ins wide – framed; that being one of the rules of the competition. I suppose because smaller means more affordable and most people have wall space for at least one more small picture.  Anyway I am delighted.

A different plywood chair

This is the only chair I cut out which is in perspective (well sort of). As soon as I cut it I decided not to do any more at an angle; unlike my first drawing of the chairs where I drew them at all sorts of angles, all the plywood chairs have been drawn and cut face on. Like the stitched chairs.  But now I have come back to it and finished it I really like it. I like the way it comes and goes, flipping between perspectives. Whether or not I use it in the final exhibition I am still not sure, it does not really fit, I could place it away from the main group, like a full stop.