Had a wonderful day in Margate yesterday with Joanna. Started with a Stefani making workshop at Limbo Arts (in the old Substation) with Carole Day: http://margatestefaniproject.blogspot.co.uk
“The Stefani is a woven flower garland from Greek folklore and tradition. Every Maytime Greek women gather white daisies from the hedgerows and weave them into a garland with other vegetation such as ivy, grasses and cypress leaves; they hang them from their front doors to welcome the coming of Spring and to invite love into their homes and into their lives.” (Carole Day)
I find I lose some of my awkwardness with people when I am making things and conversation flows much more easily.
After successfully completing a Stefani using ivy and flowers, we went on to Party of One at Crate next door to see Lisa Milroy’s performance painting http://www.lisamilroy.net/c/1000007/performance-paintings.
There were two performances – the first with her usual performer and the second with Joanna. After the performances, the small group of us there had a wide-ranging discussion about the idea of the self/selves in a painting, the instructions a painter might give herself when working and how the ‘real’ is incorporated into a work, the act of ‘making’, which tied in nicely with the Stefani project, time, labour and cooking. When Joanna performed, interestingly, her hesitations and vulnerability added something that had not been there in the first performance – creating a kind of disruption as well as bringing a real body into the work and possibly making the work less about the self.
No images of the performance: Lisa was very clear about not wanting photos taken during the actual performance.
Went down to the Jerwood gallery in Hastings yesterday and saw the William Scott exhibition and the collection upstairs, which includes a lovely painting by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. I was sorry not to see more of Scott’s still lives, which I really love, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised as the exhibition was called Divided Figure, after all. I didn’t really go for the painted figures much, although I enjoyed the charcoal drawings.
Also on show were eight of the Chapman brothers’ Exquisite Corpse series. They seem particularly relevant at the moment. Death, war, bodies in parts …
Think I have some “interim” titles for my latest pieces. My titles tend to be a combination of the feelings at the time of making the work and how the work makes me feel afterwards. Ideas often come while walking the dog. I did toy with walking the dog #1, walking the dog #2 but I think that would get tedious.
Had a wonderful couple of hours in the studio today after a trip to the tip, homebase, park and the garden centre. All this despite only emerging from bed at 9am.
I think the work lies somewhere between painting and drawing.
Yesterday I was involved in the Dover Big Local conversation event, leading on a mapping project. The map worked really well as a way to start a conversation and encouraging people to write their comments on the acetate sheets I had layered over the top. I want to work on it a bit more now – add in some images for example. At the next event, I’ll put a fresh layer of acetate over the map and gradually build up the layers.
Why paint?
I typed that into my browser and came across this http://www.ktauches.com/WHY_PAINT_NOW.html
Some of the reasons put forward really strike a chord:
As I explore the reaches of technology for economic reasons, I have become more interested in how analog and “outdated” technologies can be a punk stance against corporate typography and graphics. A jpeg can travel social networks, but the painting can maintain a stubborn resistance to both Benjamin and the market. –Mark Leibert
In a world that is increasingly disembodied through technology, paint remains a way of embodying. –John Otte
I could also ask why I even try to paint, when the very thought of painting’s history should be enough to make me stop. That said, I am interested in what I can do with it, for now.
