Went to the local park the other day and took some snaps for my project. The fine weather had brought lots of people out. You see such a wide range of people enjoying themselves; every age, colour and so many different languages spoken. The mix is easy, the aim, the pursuit of pleasure, if the wider world were as uncomplicated as that.
I firstly photographed the wrought iron cherubs that decorate the park gates and benches. As a kid, they puzzled but intrigued me, I guessed they had something to do with the council, since they appeared as part of the town crest, but was uncertain beyond that. I think I imagined that these “council angels” were guardians of some form, patrolling the park. They didn’t worry me; they appeared heavenly and benevolent. The Park Bye laws are displayed just inside the gate, the text is faded and barely legible, they are dated 1958, I learnt later that they have not changed since that year. The rules appear quaint and out of time. I doubt if anybody even bothers to read- apart from me! Do rules matter? Do people need rules to guide their lives? What are the rules that guide our lives today? The protocol of a space may not be obvious – I remember the first time we took our kids to the local Roman museum. The centre piece of the collection is a large Roman mosaic, centrally placed, a low slung rope separates it from the public. We allowed the kids the freedom to roam and explore the museum on their own. A little later we heard shouts, all at once museum attendants seemed to appear from every direction: it turned out that our kids had stepped over the mosaic rope and were doing laps of the mosaic – you live and learn.
Oh well I can finish my park map now, will add cherubs and some of the park buildings.
Visited the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square London, outside the museum we encountered the marble sculpture, "Alison Lapper Pregnant". I thought it cast a dignified, somewhat noble air, quite in keeping with the grandeur of Trafalgar Square. A testament to personal fortitude – I found it interesting and challenging, well done to all involved in that project. In the gallery we saw the Leon Kossoff drawings, these studies are based on paintings held in the National Gallery collection, Kosoff created them in situ, marking the images directly onto metal plates. What an energy , the frenzy of the ‘marks’ advanced the formation of the image; I like drawings where the process is so evident. The only one that disappointed was his drawing of Rembrandts ‘Bathing woman’. Rembrandt, by contrasting areas of light and dark focuses attention to the beauty of the bather’s skin. I felt this was missing in the Kossoff drawing. Continuing on my fleshy trail, I next encountered the Velasquez nude, “Venus at her mirror”. A famous painting, it’s a most sensual thing; I felt myself drawn towards it and I studied it up close. Some minutes later I became aware of a group of students studying me studying the picture, I felt a little embarrassed, I suppose it could have been worse – it could have been Courbet's “L'Origine du Monde”.
I suppose our sex influences the way we see and react to images. You can hardly leave your balls out in the entrance foyer of the museum.
Some of my images have returned from the printer, I am happy with the outcome. Unfortunately, on the next leg, to the framer, they somehow stained, it’s not a great disaster but it does mean having them reprinted. It’s just a little more unwanted expensive. In the main this project involves sending files off to printers (usually found on the internet), you cannot always be absolutely certain of the end result. Some efforts I have scrapped, you learn, but at a cost. The colours might not right or the substrate is unsuitable or simply that a poor job has been made of it, this is the problem when others are making the things for you. My exhibition is only a few months away, I feel quite daunted by the various things that need to be done. I will knock up a excel spreadsheet; at least I can then see the task in hand. Will sign off there, going to a Hare Krishna do tonight. Love the chanting and the food is not bad either.
I’m sat looking at my keyboard, over ten years old its patina of newness is long gone. Over this time it has accumulated interesting and diverse accretions. I’m guessing that this detritus is mostly me, looking closely I can make out dog (Harry) and human hair, there’s dust, bits of food. The depressions between the keys are well and truly furred up. This is not pure unsullied technology; some sort of fusion has taken place between me and my gear. It doesn’t bother me at all, actually in some ways it is somewhat reassuring. I won’t even start to tell you about my monitor screen – achoo.
I’m sure you could have done without that, but I thought I would mention something about my brushes. Attended the Cardiff AIR event last night; a very pleasant occasion. My spiel followed on naturally from this blog, I took along one of my wooden cubes- Local to us a mature Beech was felled in a storm, the wood was available so it was cubed : the timber was cut into identical wooden cubes, imagine kids wooden blocks, but on a much larger scale. Our house is clogged with them, which is causing some friction. Great fun is to be had messing with them. But you do have to be a little wary of fingers and toes. The one I took along has a section of rope attached to it, which lends it rather a weapon like appearance, see snap.
Well the cube had absolutely nothing to do with my mapping project but there you are. On the mapping front- When printed my images will be large, I can only ever view/print a small section at a time on my home equipment. So I will only get to see the final product in its entirety once it has returned from the printers. I await that moment with some apprehension.
I’m thinking of performing a resurrection; well, of sorts, read on. I want to map ideas associated with ‘social’ change, around here, over the last hundred years. In this direction my thoughts have turned to the local stately home, “Tredegar House”, this was the ancestral home of the Morgan family. An enormously powerful and rich family they owned and controlled much of this city and its port. Tredegar house, a palatial heap, stands as a symbol of their omnipotence. Sometimes worlds collide, I remember my father recounting, of how as boy, he would illicitly enter the house grounds. He described to me his sense of wonder, at seeing the huge mature magnificent trees and the block colours of mature rhododendrons, a view into another world I suppose. That was not that an unusual situation around here in the nineteenth century. At the forefront of the industrial revolution South Wales and its industries was carved up and controlled by a small number of families. Cardiff which is close to here was under the aegis of the Marquess of Bute.
Time has all but erased the Morgan family, and ownership of Tredegar house has passed to the local council ( a very grand council house). Now the house and grounds are an amenity enjoyed by all. On a sunny Sunday afternoon you will see many people spending time there. As a basis for a sculpture I imagine a scenario where users of the park, both past and present (including Lord Tredegar himself) will be brought together, to spend one afternoon in the grounds together. How would we see each other?
My day starts with a shave, a quiet contemplative moment for a bloke, it’s that moment in the day when you get to look at your fizog up close. The other day whilst doing this, I was a bit alarmed to notice/imagine that my nose seemed to be bigger than normal. Independent of that experience and later in the day my wife Jacky made the same observation, she tells me it’s one of those things, time moves along and so we are carried by it. Why it should suddenly appear so apparent I really don’t know – hope it stops there! Reminds me of the first time I took my wife to visit my Greek relatives, they had arranged a large family gathering, we all sat down but what became quite apparent was the fact that they were staring at Jacky. It turned out they were fascinated by her nose which is a rather sweet retrousse nose (a Pontypool nose perhaps?). Greek noses it must be said are of the strong nature, a characteristic that I share, even more so now, it would seem. I know racial stereotyping can be an unpleasant thing, but it would be a sad old world if we were uniformly the same. I love those old Roman statues where the physical characteristics of the faces are so strongly expressed.
Moving from noses to hands. I want to map part of the old commercial quarter of the city. In the form of a sculpture this will include shops both past and present. Early in the twentieth century there were lots of ‘makers’. Hat makers. Basket makers, watch makers etc, in other words things were being made locally. I want some sort of graphic that represents that idea which I can incorporate into my sculpture. The common element is the idea of being hand crafted, i.e. the use of the hands, I want to try and pose a pair of hands suggestive of that – the craft of the artisan. Old religious art is full of expressive hands, perhaps it seems too melodramatic to modern taste. I think it depends where you come from, Mediterranean people readily express meaning through gesture and hand movement. Actually thinking about it my kids are not adverse to the odd hand gesture.
