Dover-London Return

Went in to find my studio floor flooded! Oh for a nice warm dry and equally cheap studio. I couldn’t do any work so have improvised at home in my office.

So here’s me too back on the blog after the Christmas festivities. The ice on the road at my parents in law was thick enough to bring out two Mancester ice hockey team players out in full team kit with hockey sticks and and pucks, while everyone else slithered about on foot or on wheels. The dog was impervious to the cold and of course our valiant attempts at recall.

I took a break but managed to read up a little on Paul Klee.

“In everyday language abstraction refers to the proess by which one draws a generalized notion or formula from the particularities of real experience. … But in visual art this is not the meaning of abstraction … Klee was the first artist to point out that for the painter the meaning of abstraction lay in the opposite direction to the intellectual effort of abstracting: it is not an end but the beginning.” (Making Visible, Bridget Riley in Paul Klee, The Nature of Creation, Hayward Gallery Catalogue)

The snow and ice have brought chaos to the roads, trains and cross-channel services. However, a general thaw today meant that I was able to go to the launch of Katie Paterson’s Streetlight Storm on Deal pier. It was a really beautiful piece of work and quite magical to be there as the pier lights flickered in time with lightning strikes across the world. Down here, in the southeast, where often there is a sense of disconnection, this piece conveyed just for a moment, and then for another moment, a feeling of connectedness.

See http://www.katiepaterson.org/streetlightstorm/info…

Trying to get work ready for the Interim show at the Bargehouse. The space is one of those spaces which has so much character of its own that it will be hard for my work to acquire an independent presence.

Snow in Dover – just a tiny bit but enough to make the cars in the road sound different.