Random Writes.

The Stuff of Life. (Part 2.)

The previous post has for some reason truncated my list of “stuff.” So I have added the missing bit at the bottom. Also, Elena Thomas’s response to previous post, got me thinking and needed more space than a comment allows. Also plus, I was absolutely knackered when I wrote the last post and missed out some pertinent stuff.

So…my love of surface I think stems from falling in love with Acker Bilk, the most unlikely love object for an eleven year old. I was taken to London to see The Lord Mayor’s Show and unexpectedly, Acker and his band drove by in an open top vehicle playing as they went along.

The shock of seeing my beloved in the flesh, hearing his actual music and the crowds,caused me to run after the vehicle and pick up a card that it had inadvertently driven over. The card turned out to be a posh gold-edged invitation from the mayor himself, now mashed up with grit from the road and imprinted with the sacred tyre pattern of the vehicle ridden by Acker himself.

This dirty piece of card held iconic significance for me for many years and I think formed a neurological pathway that forever linked with emotion with surface and materials. And perhaps was responsible for the collection of and attachment to “stuff.”

Reading Elena Thomas’s comment on the previous post, I was struck by her comments about order, especially:

“The image you post also reminiscent of a piece I made for the exhibition, intended to be interactive, a magnetic board, and magnetic squares of fabric. There were either too many, or not enough of various types of fabric to make a satisfactory pattern… people became annoyed with it.”

What is a satisfactory pattern?

As I made my collage and tried to depattern it, I discovered the absoloute impossibility of random. As I started trying to place the pieces in the opposite “wrong” and unnatural way, I had to fight myself. But each time this resulted in a new kind of anti-pattern which in itself became a pattern and got repeated. The need for balance, order and colour-harmony was overwhelming, I tried throwing the pieces but found myself cheating and angling for best effect. We are so the sum of our parts.

But really, what is a satisfactory pattern?

This question has become an earworm, thanks Elena and something I need to spend time on.

To Depattern (cont)

Night sky from photograph, Carnival, 2005/deep Van Gogh, navygrey

Dishcloth, man-made, unused/candy floss-pink

Cropped edges of water colour paintings, unused, date unknown/pinkish-brown and greenish-ochre

Mock Crocodile paper, unused, worn, origin unknown/pale viridian-green

My for best handbag, pretend leather, 1985/deep mullberry

Child’s pencil case plastic 1969, used/viridian green

Ingres paper, unused, 1988/dove grey

Asda Value egg-box, used, recycled card, 2014/neutral creamy-vellum

Upholstery leather for dining chair, unused off-cut, 2008/chesterfield brown

Left-over, kid-glove leather, unused, from To Cover 2012/Alizarin crimson

Left over rubber sampler, unused, from To Smother 2010/bubblegum pink

Water colour cut-offs, unused (2)from Nicholette Goff (date unknown) yellow ochre & raw sienna and mullberry

The Stuff of Life

A conversation on here with Marion Michell, (see comments under previous post) about a shared love for researching the origin of words provoked, as it so often does with her comments, a flood of connections in my brain.

[The word ‘pattern’ comes from the Greek root ‘pater-‘ meaning ‘father’. So archetype can be understood as the principle pattern from which others are copied from.]

I had recently looked at the word Archetype and was fascinated by the gendered implications and speculated on a feminine version leading to subersive thoughts about un-patterning. At the time I was working on the mosaic started at the Paper Workshop, (scroll down) and got properly lost. And then Ding, amongst the antonyms I found: To Depattern and got that lovely feeling, where I know with immutable certainty, what to do next, so I did…

[Depattern( transitive) To brainwash so as to remove normal patterns of thinking and behaviour.]

To Depattern (written inventory to accompany image)

Cover of my father’s will (date unknown) /royal blue

Cover of The Sea, the Sea by Iris Mudoch, 1978, used/turquoisey-brown

Text from The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch, used, 1978/yellowy-parchment

Christmas chocolates, eaten, card, 2013/pale gold

Cover of my diary, used 2011-2012, shiny patent-leather/lime-green

My skirt, used, from 1977, suede/leaf-green

A love-letter, not mine, stolen, paper, 1971/lavender

My phone cover, used, rubber, opaque 2011-2013/fuschia-pink

Man’s phone cover, used, hard rubber, transparent/gentleman- blue

Paper bag from Turkish café, used, 2010/deep red

Paper hand-towel, unused, from ladies’ toilets, Lyme-Regis/ palest washed-out turquoise

MA Dissertation cover, transparent plastic, used, 2010/young-pink

Glove, vintage, suede, used/faded raspberry-pink

Night sky from photograph, Carnival, 2005/deep Van Gogh, navygrey

Dishcloth, man-made, unused/candy floss-pink

Cropped edges of water colour paintings, unused, date unknown/pinkish-brown and greenish-ochre

Mock Crocodile paper, unused, worn, origin unknown/pale viridian-green

My for best handbag, pretend leather, 1985/deep mullberry

Child’s pencil case plastic 1969, used/viridian green

Ingres paper, unused, 1988/dove grey

Asda Value egg-box, used, recycled card, 2014/neutral creamy-vellum

Upholstery leather for dining chair, unused off-cut, 2008/chesterfield brown

Left-over, kid-glove leather, unused, from To Cover 2012/Alizarin crimson

Left over rubber sampler, unused, from To Smother 2010/bubblegum pink

Water colour cut-offs, unused (2)from Nicholette Goff (date unknown) yellow ochre & raw sienna and mullberry

Make first – Think Later.

This post is necessarily retrospective in that the work forming the subject, was made some time ago. And it wasn’t Art, rather, just a couple of bits of hoarded tat that I had an urge to do something to. Aeons ago a friend, knowing my strange tastes for old knackered stuff, presented me with what had once been a skipping rope handle, but now barely recognisable. It looked as though it had been buried for centuries and then partially digested by insects. I liked it, but at the time it did not speak to me.

Fast forward to recent past, when my husband, while restoring an old Greenhouse, took down the disintegrating finial to use as a pattern for a new one. He placed it on the table, next to the skipping rope handle that was languishing in a dish. Boom-then it happened. The two unpromising dead-looking objects jumped out at me in a gestalt–like never-to-be-forgotten way and became a magical pair. A lady and a man, and they appeared steeped in layers of mysterious and ancient cultural symbolism. At once prophetically wise and at the same time, foolishly human.

As most of my artistic output begins life at our dining room table, my family witnessing what may have looked like a religious conversion, did not share my enthusiasm but said they were very happy for me…

I could not stop thinking about, or looking at this ungainly, mis-matched but infinitely married pair and it was only a matter of time before I felt a delicious, slightly naughty urge to dress them. I (almost) never resist a (creative) urge. So after the usual agony of decision making about materials and processes, I “dressed” them culminating in a feeling of profound and deep satisfaction. And still they were not “art” just some odd playful experiment.

They only really started to become art once they were hung on the wall and photographed. Today I have researched my new verb: To Storify and shocked to find that the way I want to use it, is now obsolete. Who decides these things?

Sto’ri·fytransitive [ Story + -fy .] To form or tell stories of; to narrate or describe in a story. [ Obsolete]

To Storify seems such a profoundly human thing to do, to project whim and myth, onto inanimate objects, in order to process events and memories. And this covers the initial instinctive part of the work, but for the first time, I needed a sub-clause to cover the literal and mental dressing, the curiously feminine (?) need, very adequately covered in the dictionary description below.

To Dress

1

A: to make or set straight

b: to arrange (as troops) in a straight line and at proper intervals

2

: to prepare for use or service; specifically: to prepare for cooking or for the table <dress a salad>

3

: to add decorative details or accessories to Embellish

4

a: to put clothes on <dress a child>

b: to provide with clothing <feed and dress a growing family>

5

archaic: Dress Down

6

a: to apply dressings or medicaments to <dress a wound>

b (1): to arrange (as the hair) by combing, brushing, or curling (2): to groom and curry (an animal)

c: to kill and prepare for market or for consumption —often used with out

d:cultivate, tend; especially: to apply manure or fertilizer to <dress a field>

e: to put through a finishing process; especially: to trim and smooth the surface of (as lumber or stone)

Intransitive verb

1

a: to put on clothing

b: to put on or wear formal, elaborate, or fancy clothes <dress for dinner>

2 of a food animal: to weigh after being dressed—often used with out

3 : to align oneself with the next soldier in a line to make the line straight

— dress ship

: to ornament a ship for a celebration by hoisting national ensigns at the mastheads and running a line of signal flags and pennants from bow to stern

Merriam-Webster online dictionary.

In the Company of Women.

Three posts ago, in Comfort Marks I mentioned being invited to a workshop by Clare Smith and Rosie James however, unable to attend, held my own solo workshop. Well happily Clare and Rosie invited me to the next one, the Paper part of Thread, Cloth, Paper. I looked forward to this immensely and then on the day felt rather nervous, assailed by ridiculous doubts of the socially inadequate variety. It is so easy not to do things like this. Once there though, all negative thoughts cleared off, when I was warmly welcomed in.

First there was a talk about paper from a man called Ron, who had worked in the industry and retains passionate enthusiasm for his subject. Listening to him and letting his esoteric paper-language sift through my thoughts, began a softening-up process, a narrowing of focus and shedding of the outside world. Looking around at my peers I recognised in their unfamiliar faces, the familiar traits of a tribe or clan where I fit. I found myself breathing out.

Finding out that paper was once made from rags, not trees, illuminated the relationships between Thread, Paper, Cloth and the idea of intimate textiles being transformed into text was inspiring in itself.

After the talk, people began to organise themselves, some worked on the floor some on tables, some, set to, with a sense of purpose. I felt restless, on the edge of something, so drifted around until I got talking to Nicholette Goff, who like me had come with a private stash of paper, of intimate and treasured leftovers, experiments, cut offs and impossible to discard stuff. We talked easily, like new school friends and agreed to collaborate by swapping two pieces each and letting those be the starting point for new work.

I chose two scraps of watercolour paper, one mulberry coloured the other a sandy yellow, not paint but organic material connected to Nicholette’s practice. Swapping the scraps released a flood of ideas and I began to invent some rules to work with. Seeing Nicholette’s similar collecting behaviour helped me understand and frame my own. I am an obsessive collector of any surface material that connects me emotionally to the world. From ancient scraps of Formica to the cover of Iris Murdoch’s book The Sea, The Sea. to a particular paper towel and even my dead-dog’s fur kept in a matchbox.

I decided to make a mosaic out of the stuff of my life. I gave myself some rules; each square would be hand-cut, with only two (precious) squares of related material allowed and I also chose to work on grided paper as a structure. Selection of colour and tone was where I let go and just enjoyed aesthetic play.

While working, small conversations spontaneously erupted between participants, ideas were expounded upon, added to and exchanged. There was such a good, conducive-to-work atmosphere, a kind of relaxed concentration. One participant, Gwen Hedley was working with oiled paper stitching and layering and she told me about a Boro Exhibition on at Somerset House in London, I could see she had been inspired by what she saw there and as she talked I felt a shiver of recognition which made me determined to see it. And so mind-blowing was it, I have given it its own post. (To follow)

During another conversation floating around me about the nature of collecting/hoarding I heard Clare say “I just wait for the materials to speak to me.” This seemed exactly right and explains that gut-felt resistance if I try to throw any of my collected materials away…their time will come.

By the end of the day I had completed only a small section of “mosaic” but my brain was charging ahead with infinite possibilities. Clare and Rosie led a gentle round-up in the spacious sun-filed room and it was clear that people had naturally found innovative, witty, lateral-thinking-type ways of working outside the box as well as forging new, and strengthening existing, relationships with their peers. Brilliant day-it ought to be on prescription.

http://threadpapercloth.wordpress.com/

A Rant with Perspective

Part 2.

And now teaching again after a five year break, has been thoroughly enjoyable I have felt relaxed and comfortable. That is until last week when a sense of weakness caused me to go completely against my, usually sound teaching instincts. I decided that my keen students after several mutually enjoyable lessons (doing it my way) needed a proper perspective lesson.

The first dodgy sign was over preparation, I have always been passionate about teaching and thoroughly enjoy preparing, especially, reworking and updating familiar subjects. And to begin with as I revisited the theory of expressing 3 dimensional things 2 dimensionally, I was pleasantly surprised, a distinct feeling that I had moved on and could easily assimilate a projected conceptual construction into the lesson but as the time drew nearer, I felt anxious.

The lesson began very positively, me brandishing great visual aids as I showed and demonstrated vanishing points, one, two and even three point perspectives, all in easily digestible bite-size pieces. The students were keen and the first exercise was a two dimensional hand-out which they duly and correctly thought through and placed all the construction lines in the right places, it was thrilling…

And then we looked at real boxes and again things began well, it was all there in my head…until…getting carried away I stacked three boxes all at different angles to each other and tried to begin construction from a fixed view point. It was horrendously complicated and I suspect even Leonardo would have had trouble. I struggled on and staring hard at my little boxes as all logic dribbled away and I could made no sense of it whatsoever. I felt like Miranda when she turns intimately to camera and says, “I have absolutely no idea where I am going with this…” except that it wasn’t funny. My students were embarrassed, fidgety and lost. Eventually I pulled on the last rags of dignity and somehow managed to draw the bloody boxes and then impose the construction lines afterwards, which at least proved the theory.

And that seems to be the point, in my “Eureka” moment I understood that this mental construction that we know works, is nevertheless a separate thing, similar to comparative measuring where you shut one eye, hold out your pencil and take a measurement and then on your paper you make another parallel, relative measurement, the first measurement is a different scale and non-transferable (**) it is its own separate thing. And so it is with the rules of perspective if you let them into your head while you are drawing or take them too seriously, they will block out what is actually there and get in the way of your precious visual curiosity, exploration and final understanding.

If I have learnt anything from this salutary experience it is to trust my instinct that says perspective can help you understand your position in relation to an object.

It is just a point of view.

No more “true” than photography or holograms. So I am putting it in its place at the very far reaches of my brain and will begin each new drawing with a humble nothingness, prepared to discover something I don’t yet know.

** Except for sight-size.