it is a yellow morning, meaning the sun is rising through, or behind, or despite of, a layer of watery atmosphere
– something like that.
a friend of mine died on 12 Jan, he befriended our family when we joined him to help rejuvenate the local magazine about 15 years ago.
he was a real citizen of the world, and with his wife, and sometimes his children and grandchildren, set about seeing as much of the world as possible, in retirement. He was a true socialist – worked enthusiastically to help change and create things that would benefit the wider community, using intelligence, wisdom and humour.
Now I sit here in the early yellow morning and think about him, and wonder where that energy has gone.
I’m a very solitary worker, but I value the contact with other artists, and it’s important to be able to share work with peers – so when I went along to Kent Creative Arts meeting yesterday to talk about my work, I was nervous, but hopeful that a few people would be interested.
It turned out to be such a rewarding experience! I was given such useful and enthusiastic feedback, that I honestly hadn’t expected, and have been able to invite people for the discussion at the Beaney (Can images move us any more?) I will be contacting them with bits of interesting stuff in advance of the day, so that we can hit the ground running, so to speak.
i deliver my work to the Beaney today, it has moved on since I submitted the original image, which I felt was ‘too easy’ Now it’s finished, and satisfies me.
Kent Creative Arts was set up by Faversham artist Nathalie Banaigs to encourage artists to develop business skills, and to foster networking between Kent creatives. She’s doing a brilliant job, and yesterday’s meeting marked the first for KCA Swale & Medway – from the numbers in the room yesterday, there’s going to be a lot of arts development going on in that area from now on, all springing from grass roots. And I look forward to starting some peer-to-peer crits, which is something I’ve felt has been needed for a long time.
Posting this last blog for the year. After the Christmas celebrations and hiatus, I return to my thoughts, and my work.
I look forward to the exhibition ‘Trouble & Strife‘ at the Beaney in Canterbury, a companion exhibition to the touring exhibition ‘Manet’s Execution of Emperor Maximilian’ making its first stop there.
Manet used newspaper reportage to make his painting, and was banned from exhibiting it because it was politically loaded. My work uses war photography and asks
‘Can a picture move us any more?’
I hope to encourage artists to take part in a discussion about warfare, image saturation and helplessness. Let us see what happens!
The world mourns Nelson Mandela. He was certainly an icon for the late 20th century, but they’re still arguing, fighting and oppressing their own people. Nothing ever changes, it seems, human nature being as it is. And it doesn’t matter at what sophisticated level of detail we share information, most people think themselves powerless to change things.
I’ve made a piece for an upcoming exhibition at the Beaney Museum in Canterbury, and I’ve made it to shock, to make people think. At the same time knowing that it will simply be consumed, like any other image.
And this basically is how we all operate – at one level (public engagement) we feel dismay, fear, shock, but because we’re cushioned in a relatively peaceful lifestyle, and believe it’s not our problem we can still operate at level two, looking after the personal.
I expect it was like this in Syria, and many other countries, before they plunged into war.
As far as the personal is concerned, I’ve more or less finished the mirror commission. And the series of little paintings I was making in between seems to be very useful, so I’ll carry on exploring. Painting is where I become completely absorbed in the process, unlike digital work, where my brain is always thinking about ‘ends’.
Painting – my ‘level 3’
