My work explores layering through the medium of history. An aspect of my work is the presentation of self in everyday life. My practice is located in 19o4, this blog includes sketched thoughts and reflections, aspects of research and can serve as a window on process. It is virtually a work in itself.
Me Then Now is quite demanding and its strength is showing forcing me toward a difficult decision: persevere or give up? I believe the work has value. The most readily accessible part is the making of ephemeral portraits on a street as I pass through to which the majority of the passive audience are indifferent, a small minority jeer and another minority enquire or compliment. In my earning capacity I am being pressured to dress in a conventional manner for such is the strength of the work that I have been told it will compromise my professional credibility. That my attire is part of the work that gets its meaning through longevity would be undermined by this and the work would end. My forays into the Live Art network have met with little interest and it has not been possible to make a connection with an established body or by my own efforts bring in a sustaining income. There are so many shouting for attention and my voice does not carry. Nonetheless I believe in the work.
So I am beginning to confront the possibility of ending a work that I am confident has much potential for addressing the role of history in culture and society whether in Architecture or Art. My aim is toward a deep understanding of Then through immersing myself as much as possible in Then. This means giving myself over to the work and in drawing out from within, giving that momentum and then allowing it to change me. In that is a work and from that comes work.
Watching “Scenes from an Execution”, written after my time but the choice of a friend and a very good choice, I was taken with the wonder of theatrical performance for the first time in quite a long time. It is so very creative, though outside my own practice I was buoyed by the performance. Standing before the Corot in the National Gallery I feel much the same. The play raised questions of the artists’ right to expression under patronage. This applies to Architecture as well as Art and seemed to conclude that taking the risk may cause embarrassment to the establishment, may bring censure, but an enlightened establishment will in the fullness of time recognise the value nonetheless.
In truth I am overwhelmed, yet the approaching wave has not broken across the bow.
My work explores layering through the medium of history. This revelation coming to me as a fever grew to lay me low, brought on by relief and overwork. And in small part by the exclusion of certain work to tip the balance to one side (the unexpected outcome being a deeper interest in the means toward food and shelter). The balance has yet to return though its messenger, the desire to tip the balance quite far the other way, is most certainly here. Up shoot ideas (even in approaching Autumn), the desire to drink deep of the well, the desire to turn, they are all rising at once threatening inundation and release into the madness of glorious freedom. No. Task incomplete. But it’s only a little bit longer. Strong, must be strong.
And therein lies the tension: feeling overwhelmed and with the wave still approaching.
But what will happen when the wave breaks?
From an ongoing collaborative work between the Artist and Photographers Morley Von Sternberg and Natalia Kubica.
The current exhibition at the Guidhall Art Gallery Age of Elegance 1890 to 1930 includes a fine selection of works with the majority, fortunately for me, at the earlier end of the date range. I began with http://collage.cityoflondon.gov.uk/collage/app;jsessionid=2A788ECD3C53CD1B6D3EE9D880EE20B5?service=external/Item&sp=M35223%3AT%3AF%3AF&sp=9313&sp=X
Miss E. Forbes in this broad picture conveys an Aesthetic sensibility in the principal figures in a landscape rendered in the manner of the moment.
A deceptively innocuous landscape by Mr. John A.A. Brown features ill-fed cattle that have wondered from their pasture into a crop, the central figure sneers at the viewer, as only cattle can, amidst a supremely controlled landscape showing detail in the foreground and colour only toward the horizon. Medium can be perceived in the sky through a pattern of brush strokes, and perhaps finger marks too. http://dorotheasharp.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/john-alfred-arnesby-brown-river-bank.html
Actually painted in 19o4 is The Heart of Empire by Mr. Nils Lund http://collage.cityoflondon.gov.uk/collage/app?service=external/Item&sp=M35782%3AT%3AF%3AF&sp=9393&sp=X from the roof of the Royal Exchange looking West. This great city I call my home is spread out beneath hazy skies, the rooftops and street pattern more the subject than the street life seemingly far below. Beyond is the river and stark against brilliant cloud the dome of St. Paul’s. It is a composition with a breadth of view that swells the heart with pride at the great achievement of this great city.
Evening by Mr. William Ingram http://collage.cityoflondon.gov.uk/collage/app?service=external/Item&sp=M35569%3AT%3AF%3AF&sp=8924&sp=X is of a different feeling entirely. I cannot be sure why it has stepped forward so, for it is largely sea and sky alone and in such contrast to its near neighbour on the wall, but there is something sublime about the sea that has been evoked with the most economical of means heightened by its particular blue. The sky gives us the hour of the title suggesting rest and yet there upon the horizon a ship far from harbour. I would perhaps have left out the ship, but who am I to pretend to such a fine conception evoking feelings at once of desolation and hope and the great power and beauty of sea.
Opposite is a work by Mr. Frank Brangwyn, http://www.frankbrangwyn.org/home%202.html friend to my teacher Mr. Alfred East. Titled The Lord Mayor’s Show in Olden Days http://www.bridgemanart.com/asset/6155/Brangwyn-Sir-Frank-1867-1956/The-Lord-Mayor’s-Show-in-Olden-Days-c.1905-oil-o?search_context=%7B%22url%22%3A%22%5C%2Fsearch%5C%2Fartist%5C%2FBrangwyn-Sir-Frank-1867-1956%5C%2F868%3Flang%3Dfr%22%2C%22num_results%22%3A%22147%22%2C%22search_type%22%3A%22creator_assets%22%2C%22creator_id%22%3A%22868%22%2C%22item_index%22%3A1%7D it evokes the work of S. Caneletto and M. Matisse in its use of rich colour. A small canvas that looks back to an earlier time when such spectacles graced the Thames using a contemporary mode. Three centuries spanned in the stroke of a brush.
This was my second visit of which the foremost highlights I have shared, though there are many others, particularly those from the 1890s. We are fortunate these works are accessible and as an exhibition it follows wonderfully from the permanent collection of works exhibited upstairs. http://www.guildhallartgallery.cityoflondon.gov.uk/GAG/Exhibitions/CurrentExhibitions/Age+of+Elegance.htm
The Museum of Domestic Art and Architecture has proven to be a wonderful resource
http://www.modamuseum.blogspot.co.uk/
The collection includes a number of publications that will help to describe the Me Then Now home and studio to those who may be interested. My aim was to get to grips with the collection in order to plan my research more effectively. Communicating the scope and intent of the living and working space authentic to 1904 is important, a big task, and enjoyable, but important for raising interest and drawing support for what will be a unique living work of art. MODA has numerous journals for consumer and trade as well as wallpapers, paint colours, flooring and furnishing catalogues. The staff are very helpful and I look forward to continuing my research.
Understanding has come to me later than some and I expect this comprehension to continue. For various reasons outside the conventions of progress through this society individuality has provided me with an opportunity to explore what social freedom here can mean; an artist of 19o4 living Now using oil on canvas, drawing and a little photography as part of Me Then Now: a life of Then lived Now.Â