A Map of Nunhead
Just for the record I have used the Tabula Peutingeriana as the inspiration for this commission. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana. I saw something similar, long linear map in a antique map shop in Bath and looked at it. It was a journey from London to Bath or Wales or somewhere, cant remember where. I was looking at it for ages (as I had recently designed something similar) and the shop keeper said it was drawn by John Ogilby http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ogilby who was the first to invent this ‘road map’ linear map type design in the 1670’s. I said Oh really, I like it a lot. He went on to say it was a section of a much longer map and this piece shows the route just passing the outskirts of london into rural areas.
I did not tell him that I thought the Roman Empire was mapped using that same technique, or that I had recently designed a map of Nunhead in London using that exact same idea.
So it looks like I will be spending quite a bit of time in the cooler making my Nunhead Map. Its got a lot of lettering, but I should not be daunted as I got a lot of practise doing the poem on the stone. Thing is this lettering is so much smaller…..in mosaic……its murder. I am very pleased with how its shaping up though.
The irony in all of this.
I started this blog to cover a long period of time where I thought I would be working on a series of 7 mosaics. I thought I might be in the cooler for 6-7 months, possibly longer, day in day out working on them. The reality has turned out very differently, I don’t know if you read Julie Dodds blog; Day to Day Life www.a-n.co.uk/p/648002but my life is very similar, in that everything going off in all directions. I have 3 public art projects running simultaneously at different stages of development. My time is spent co-ordinating, administrating, accounting, driving and running workshops etc ect.
Documentation is also a large task as many commissioners request project blogs to accompany the project and within the fee, time is allocated for this kind of documentation. I have 2 of those types of blogs running at the moment. I have my own main website/blog to keep up to date http://rob-turner.blogspot.co.uk/ Twitter; I keep tweets to a minimum and under use the potential of this platform. Facebook…..not even got an account. I have this blog which is a bit free form and rudderless and I also have my ‘Over the Golf Course blog, which I thought would provide a release valve while I spent months in the cooler. I thought it might act as the exercise yard for a prisoner, providing a welcome blast of fresh air. I thought I would be able to generate non commissioned more personal artworks through that blog, providing a balance in my artistic outputs! A lot of time is spent on digital photography maintaining this level of documentation.
Wales has had torrential rain and the site preparation has been delayed, so part B of my poetry project The Taliesin Stones is delayed. This actually turns out to be a good thing. About 5-6 weeks ago I had a tantrum on this blog about indemnity insurance, well Southwark Council have agreed that I dont require it after all, and my Mosaic Map of Nunhead can go ahead and I’ve been paid to start.
The irony of all this is that I started this blog fearing my sanity due to isolation in the cooler. Looking back I actually enjoyed working in there on the Taliesin Stone and really want to be in there to make this mosaic map. But with so much other stuff its impossible to get in there at the moment. I dare not even ask what happened to the original 7 mosaics project, as I could not make them if I was asked.
The Final Word
So the final word is completed, which means grouting. This is a very messy job but essential. Then when I come back from taking down my work in Bath I better start organising part2 of this project and get the Taliesin Stone delivered to site.
The other thing I aught to do is credit the author of the poem. Gwyneth Lewis who was commissioned specially to write 2 poems for the site at…
Strata Florida…….
Soil is the dead
Of all ages. Pass
Through this door
Into Christ, the expanding
Universe. Dimension:
Wonder. Uplands bare,
Riches below. Through
This door, be proud
As a blackbird,
Where the humble fern
Blossomed to stone,
Then back again. This
Door. Find your own elsewhere.
Now. The future. Then. Then now.
By Gwyneth Lewis (the first Welsh Natational Poet).
http://www.gwynethlewis.com/
It’s not really the final word at all, as I have to complete the second poem in Welsh no less. On site as well! Not a job that can be done in the cooler. That means a least a couple of weeks in the ruined abbey in the middle of the Welsh nowhere.
The Unswept Floor.
Yesterday’s work: Then. Then no
I am approaching the finish of this poem now and thought that I wouldn’t bother sweeping the floor until the end, but it got so bad I had to sweep up. Cruncy or what!
‘Sosos’ of Pergamum was a master craftsman in Greece about 200BC and became very famous for inventing a fashinable type of floor mosaic called ‘The Unswept floor’. These depict a white mosaic floor with the remains of a feast strewn over the floor. Including a mouse tucking in.
So in time honoured tradition then: The Unswept Floor! No mice thankfully. Though I have noticed that the cooler is a wildlife habitat and several spiders boldly march across the bolder while I’m working on it, then come back in the opposite direction a bit later! Cheek.
Triangles.
Yesterdays work: Now. The future.
I have approched this whole thing with an organic fluid approach, as I thought formal systems and rules would be imposssible to keep. Some mosaics may well benefit from systematic approaches. Not this one as the lettering distorts on curved surfaces, and freedom needed for making tiles cover curved surfaces, tiles need cutting where the surface changes direction, like paving slabs do on slopes and non flat surfaces. So a crazy paving solution is what I thought would be best.
Now cutting angles to make tiles fit is auto pilot for me after all these years….except triangles…there are plenty of triangle bits of shrapnell all over the floor. NONE of them ever fit the right shape for what you need. So a new triangle is reqiured pracitally every time you need one. Is it that there are three angles to a triangle and guessing all 3 exactly is unlikely. Use right angled triangles then Rob I hear you say. And I agree as only one side then needs cutting…problem solved. Exept that if so many pieces are right angled triangles it is no longer crazy paving. Its jagged, harsh, looking triangles, which stutter over the surface. I am looking for a less agressive organic flow over the surface. The only way I can resolve that is by offering up the tile 2 or 3 seperate times often drawing a line with a pencil to get it right. I have found this painfully slow method, but conciderably quicker than sifting through and testing the debris on the floor, finding none of it fits and then making a new one.
How many triangles do you think there are in crazy paving?
Answer: an eye watering amount.
Have I lost sanity over this issue or is it a real one?
