The King the Castle Builder and the Magician (cont).
The Story of the King , Castle Builder and the Magician starts again.If you go back to posts 12-17 on this blog there you will find a tale which describes this situation.
Continuing with this tale then after many months away, the magician had made new friends and new contacts and was weaving magic all over the land. Re-drawing maps, working with museum collections, illustrious poets, storytellers and even animals and children as the book of magic spells warns us all against. The magician was carefree casting spells where ever his fancy took him. In fact the magician’s order book was filled to the brim and thoughts of magic discussed many months or a year ago hardly entered the magician’s memory.
Then late one afternoon the castle builder contacted the magician explaining that the paperwork was almost ready and the magician could weave his magic in the Kings lands and all he needed was some details about when exactly the magic could be delivered and how the magician wanted to organise payments for his services.
Well the magician dropped his wand at this news and spluttered spilling his fine wine. OMG OMG.
The magician remembered a gentle joke he had made with castle builder suggesting a race between himself and a band of contracted skilled craftsmen. The craftsmen were to build a large fine hostelry with all mod-cons and appliances catering for many many visitors at any one night. And he the magician could make his magic in a quicker time and finish before them.
As it turns out the magician is likely to be very very wrong. And a little lavish with his promises to deliver magic for other patrons who had disappeared into the shadows for a while, returning this very week, also asking for the magic he had agreed to supply!
OMG OMG OMG..
Another day in the cooler:
I been in the cooler a lot, and progress is being made, I am over half way through my second panel and completed Nunhead Cemetery. It has some nice trees.
I noticed that the more I work on it (the mosaic) the more I don’t want interuptions. The other meetings I have to attend, or the documents I need to write, the things I need to plan or go out and buy, all seem a nuisance. The planning decisions for other projects go round and round in my mind and I find myself unable to see what might be the right decision. I dont want to make phone calls or write emails, the continuation of more mosaic becomes overiding. Outside contact is to be shunned. A self imposed exile seems to want to creep into my world. It is a very small world in the cooler, yet a reluctance to connect with the outside needs to be overcome.
I’m not going back in there this evening, even though I want to prepare for a lettering modification. I’m not going in their tomorrow either.
Thoughts from the cooler:
I cherish and am probably quite protective of my moments of solitude.
This does not include time in the cooler. Inside it is a practical place, I never sit ponder or gaze. I never read or research in there, never really daydream either. But I get a little sense of panic knowing I will be in there for any considerable time. Its never welcoming in there no-one exept me ever goes there. There are no windows to look out of, only reeded glass ones in the roof to let the light in.
Its a work place no cross over into an office or study and any considerable time in their I feel disconnected from the world. I read about artist studio complexes shared spaces, lots of interesting people doing stuff. Being part of a collective or group, discussing ways forward and stuff. I’m feeling everyone is ahead of me being great.
I thought I might be able to write about being in the cooler…..I cant, I dont remenber my thoughts when I’m in there? Though I’m totaly absorbed in when I’m working. Its a black hole in my thinking.
However: I would like to show you my tile nippers, they are fantastic. I have a box full of different kinds, and lots of the same kind, more than 20 probably. I have several blue ones….But this particular blue pair are way and above better to use than anything I have ever used before? The spring broke this week and I have only had them a couple of months? I needed to take a spring from another older pair to replace it. I have examined them very closely and can find no differences to any other blue handled pair? Except they dont open very far?…..Even with a different spring in they dont open very far…..all the others wide open. How far they open is irrelevant as the cutting action happens in a very narrow area only milimeters across. And was the fact the spring broke related to these nipperss not opening very wide?
This is the world of the cooler
PS the black star in the map indicates a Post Office !
Mosaic Map
Marion left a comment which I never replied to, ‘Dimension: Wonder! everywhere’. So I decided I would explain a little further here.
My brief was to depict the village feel in an urban metropolis highlighting the many green spaces in the area, and if possible the cultural highlights, and as Marion points out the distinctive local character and businesses. My initial design included the names of some of these shops to highlight this small pocket where global chains, high street branding has not been able to take hold. It was decided by a local steering committee to omit specific business names, probably due to decisions about who do you favour and who who do you leave out. But the unusual pub names were allowed to remain in the design.
I forget exactly without checking but the map is approx 8-9m long and 30cm high, in three sections. It is both a linear tour of the Nunhead area and a ‘you are here’ navigation aid which will be permantly sited at Nunhead Station.
The ‘you are here’ navigational aid is a strange one as it does provide quite accurate local information. But it reminds me of an Eric Morcambe joke about ‘all the right notes, but not nessacerily in the right order!’. As you can imagine to depict an area in a very linear format distortions are required and changes of scale sweep through the design.
Selection and ommission is often a compositional decision as this has to be a very edited map. The fact that it is only 30cms wide proved to be a hudge design challenge to be able to make this in mosaic as intricate lettering can be painted easily enough, but the letters in mosaic…..hang on…is that really achievable at 30cms wide?….I soon realised that lower case letters were impossible on that scale, too many curves. Economy is everything and stright lines are favourite as readabilty is essential. I think being able to read the text on this map is one of reasons it is engaging. It crossed my mind that writing in history may well have been adapted to suit the materials that were used to produce it. Cuniform and wooden wedges in clay, and possibly imperial roman capitals might have been developed due to the carving requirements, these might be examples of this? Same with my mosaic capitals, I have needed to create a formulaic system to create each letter (and remember its not just the letter shape, just as important is the background behind the letter). This has resulted in a ‘condensed mosaic capital’ font style.
Wales is underwater, so I am unable to progress with my other lettering project. But my job in Winchester (see project blog)http://winnalmoors.wordpress.com/ is in an intensive phase so time in the cooler is intermitant.
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.
