From the archive - April 2013 - rules for living

Six years later, this still rings true!

21 April 2013

Rules for living (part 1)

(image from here)

Beware of all enterprises that requires new clothes. (Thoreau) And especially: Don't ever buy clothes on vacation.

If you have your best ideas in the bath, take writing materials into the bath with you.

"Ten rules of thumb"  formulated by Wendell Castle:

1. If you are in love with an idea, you are no judge of its beauty or value.
2. It is difficult to see the whole picture when you are inside the frame.
3. After learning the tricks of the trade, don't think you know the trade.
4. We see and apprehend what we already know.
5. The dog that stays on the porch will find no bones.
6. Never state a problem to yourself in the terms it was brought to you.
7. If it's offbeat or surprising then it's probably useful.
8. If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it.
9. Don't get too serious.
10.  If you hit the bullseye every time, then the target is probably too near.

"If you're depressed, you're living in the past. If you're anxious, you're living in the future. If you're at peace, you're living in the present." -Lao Tzu  

Simplify, simplify, simplify. (7 ways to do so are here.) Indeed, “Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Riches beyond measure

Before

After pleasant times with all the family, near and far ... a quiet moment on Boxing Day morning, with strong coffee, mini-panettone, and the pleasure of opening presents from friends.

After

I'm loving the whole kit & caboodle of the almost-too-crowded table, including the magpie teatowel and swanky-hanky from Oz, the disposable furoshiki (with instructions for how to wrap), the spotty pencil case, the art materials from last-century (West) Germany, the lavender bag ... the thoughtful messages on the cards. I'm loving the quiet street, the daytime candles, the music on radio 3, and the second pot of coffee ... and thinking of friends near and far and even, though with sadness, of the dear departed.

So much to think about, so much to be grateful for. 

Well, what now?? Carpe diem; "pay it forward"; be of good cheer ... and, after the inactivity of the past few days, get out in the air for a nice long walk.

Things are getting seasonally grouchy again...

Now that the clocks have gone back, and with Hallowe'en out of the way (at last), out comes the tinsel and frills and we're into the C******** season. "Peace on earth and goodwill to men" and you can bet it's the women doing the shopping and cooking and wrapping the presents and writing the cards. Bah humbug.

Good to see that Posy Simmons has been updating that old favourite, Dicken's Christmas Carol, translating Scrooge into Cassandra Darke - read an excerpt here -

(via)

An important part of the seasonal jollification (aka consumerism) is the John Lewis Christmas advert. Perhaps I'm the only person in the UK who hasn't ever - to my knowledge - seen it in years past, but I'm aware of its cultural clout and what a wonderful topic of conversation it is. When will it air? Are the shop's windows a clue to what's in the ad? Oh my ... speculation is rife...

Caveat emptor. Or do I mean Cave canem? No, not that either. Aha, here it is - a thought to hold on to even in the midst of grumpiness and excess, in spite of everything ...

- carpe diem -

Drawing Tuesday

(Last week's work at the Brunei Gallery is on Sue's blog, here. )

A few days have passed since the Drawing Room summer school and Tuesday seems a good place for thinking about it.

Starting point, and outcome; it seems the "drawing" happened elsewhere!

Not sure what I expected - to be tackling "something" unexpected along with other people doing the same thing, and enjoying it, even though it might be a bit scary? To be exposed to other people's approaches, not just the tutors but the other participants. To be pushed out of my comfort zone. To "see" differently as a result. To improve my skills, with any luck.

Maybe that's a retrospective list, because all those things happened. What I didn't expect was to feel so tired & emotional so much of the time - blame it on the excitement of the day, and onthe daily commute!. Nor did I expect to feel so resistant - phew did I feel resistant to some of the things that were going on, but where did that come from? The briefs, or prompts, such as they were, were so open-ended, so elastic, there should have been no resistance: I could have done anything. And did; and that might have been the problem, for me ... a bit more direction, some on-the-mark feedback, a hint or two about being on the wrong track? Or maybe, being tired&emotional, I just didn't take it in.

I felt I was on the wrong track, chaotic and unfocussed. Yet this situation is about messing about and finding something (new?) that interests you, something to take forward later. What did I do? I went back to my cosy comfort zone, books. Perhaps (almost certainly!) I'd set this up by bring along a book-like map as my significant object.

After a day of "collecting" figurative images from other artists' work I was so unimpressed with my results that I needed to collect the originals, and out of my graphite chaos make a nice tidy book. Just a leporello ... floppy paper but nice hard covers. This object caused some astonishment - artists know about paper, but maybe not about its sculptural - and humdrum - possibilities?

On the last day we carried on with our "personal project". I'd figured out how the map's folding system worked, so that was one objective achieved. Also, something that I haven't been able to do for a while, I found myself just thinking about "crazy" possibilities and drilling down to something essential: a map of a city needs some sort of representation of streets. And I had just such a grid on hand, easily used via frottage. Which led to a bad habit surfacing: working in a frenzy at the last minute, rubbing as much paper as possible before leaving for class, and having to rush to get there.

Late Friday afternoon, as we set up for the "show&tell", that same bad habit had me determined to "finish off" all that paper and in using it up, some rather rudimentary work emerged.

At the last minute, there was no time to make the final fold!

That rush to finish, and hurrying to set up "a nice display", is one of the sources of my dissatisfaction, along with knowing that the work could have been more pared-down, less chaotic, more thoughtful, had I not squandered my time and energy through negativity about this&that throughout the day. I find myself focussed on the product rather than the process, but it's the process that's the valuable part.

I think the book format interested the others - there were some good questions about it - and I fantasise that some will use it a vehicle for their own work or, even better, look at artists books more closely.

I also fantasise about making "flat art" - on paper or canvas, is that "proper" art? - and can't quite accept that I'm more of a 3D person. 3D takes up space! ah but books, with their 2D/3D fluctuations, transcend this. 

So to sum up, although at this point I'm still bristling a bit with residual resistance, the gains are getting the upper hand over the pains. One of the books especially is ripe for development, and I'm eager to get on with that. Small learning points from the process are starting to emerge - for instance, I'm seeing tone everywhere, after a day of trying to achieve it. 

The first little book got a title: "Kolnische Kirchen". The basis is a map/diagram showing the proximity of the 12 romanesque churches in Cologne, and the medieval city walls. Photos were found on the internet, and on the other side are architectural footprints of some of them -

The other "finished" book (well, I'm not going to tamper with it, though it could be improved in many ways) juxtaposes plans and appearances and includes the Gothic-style Dom, famous symbol of the city, which appears on the cover of the original Falk map. If you've ever arrived in Cologne by train, you'll know how close the Dom is to the station, and how it overshadows this modern intrusion. Whereas the older churches have to be sought out.

Searching out the churches is one idea behind this, unfinished, map. Another is the red line, which would be better as "the red thread" - a peregrination, a pilgrimage, or just wayfaring or tourism - connection, connection, connection.... What will go in the blank areas - images, words, or ...?

On Friday afternoon I ended my explanation of my "objects" with the phrase "the mapness of maps" and this simplification is something to keep in mind when working further with this format.

postscript: "I know what I think when I hear myself talk." Writing this has uncovered so much for me! It's good to "talk" to yourself about what you've done, or are doing.

Starting and stopping

It being half term at Morley College as well as at schools throughout the land, instead of printing woodblocks I am stuck at home with The Footballers. The piece has been lying on the floor for a week, and six scenes are still to be painted, plus there's the tricky matter of laying out the fabric in between the scenes, after which it will be quilted in parallel, narrowly-spaced straight lines, avoiding the figures. So, it's a long way from being finished, at the moment.

The quilting will lead to a lot of loose threads on the back, like in this sample -

I intend to darn them all in. And I'll keep checking that the backing fabrics behave themselves. Adding the backing as a facing, with just a bit of stitch to hold it in place, is getting to be an ever more attractive possibility, though.

As the morning slides past and lunchtime approaches, everything is ready for the painting - but here I am at the computer, pursuing other objectives: booking tickets for talks, answering overdue emails, doing a few "lessons" in the current online courses (music notation has been started, palaeography awaits). I wonder why I'm so avidly "filling the time" - to have an interesting life, right! - and am concerned that still, in the wisdom of age, I'm not able to do the important things until they become urgent. Deadline? oh, it's more than a week away ... no need to panic just yet - even though one of the delights of not having a day job is that tasks can take as long as they need ... panic is supposed to be a thing of the past. (As for emotional panic, that's another matter, and mentioned only in passing.)

So there it all is - several tubes of useful new paint, and lots of brushes, and three images off to a good start. 

The great insight that hit me is this - having it lying there is a disincentive. The ritual of getting the materials out, and putting them away after the session, is so important. Going into the studio to collect the paints, brushes, palette-plate, etc takes only a minute - and that action is the start of the actual work, it's like starting the flywheel turning. One thing will lead to another - the paint will be squeezed out, the brush will be chosen, the first mark will be made, and another and another.

Then there's the difficulty of stopping. I like to have a time in mind, even though this harks back to the day job and subverts the dream of having allllll dayyy in the studio. "Little and often"? And the putting away of materials - good studio practice! - is part of the stopping; time has to be allowed for cleanup. 

Stopping in the middle of a sentence, as it were, has its advocates - it's easy to pick up the thread, they say. Tidy people, though, might want to finish the task, and have in mind what needs doing next.

These are on my list for today. You can see from the pixelation, and the rough cutting, that they are quite small - about 2" high, if that. 

Happy New Year!

Looking back, how was your year?  2017 was good to me - my books are on shelves, family and friends are at hand, the garden continues to grow, I've been able to take advantage of unexpected opportunities, and my enthusiasm for "making art" has returned.

The daily delight of the windowboxes

New year's resolutions? Pah, why bother? Every day is a new day. Well, maybe I do have one, it comes from the Hippocratic Oath: "First do no harm." [actually the oath says "I will abstain from all intentional wrongdoing and harm" - or in another translation, "I will utterly reject harm and mischief"]

Ah but from this stem other considerations - to do no harm, attention is required. To pay proper attention, distractions need to be put aside. To put aside distractions, self-discipline is needed. And so it goes on...

Thrifty happy

Last week was a good one, in terms of delightful things found in charity shops. For a while I hadn't been allowing myself to visit charity shops - too much came home with me each time - and that fairly lengthy period of denial seems to have ramped up my discernment, or else I've just become more stingey. I can walk out of several in a row, empty-handed. (Or, the money available has already been spent - this morning I took a deep breath and booked a "drawing with mixed media" course at the West Dean summer school, and residential courses cost £££.)

How we each choose to spend our money, and what we consider luxuries and/or "unaffordable", interests me greatly. What makes people reckless with money? what makes them generous - and is this generosity, financial or social, a luxury of some sort, or a reckless personality trait? It could be that sometimes we don't allow ourselves to be generous with our thoughts and opinions, or our time, never mind just money.

But I digress. Here are my life-enhancing, new-to-me acquisitions.

An assortment of dogs ...

... that stack up, like the Musicians of Bremen

Hand-made shoes, cared for and recently re-heeled ... no matter
 that they're men's, they fit so comfortably ...

... getting some TLC until I find the right sox etc
(nothing in my wardrobe is brown)

Irresistible - 100% wool, made in Scotland, sold at the RA ....

... and perfect with a purple hiking-jacket

Monsters of the mind

Trying to figure out what makes a shape into a "monster" - something repulsive and frightening), I went through my photos taken since hitting on the idea of using monster-like shapes for the japanese woodblock course. There do seem to be a lot of them - I started looking for accidental monster-shapes - and even though lots have been weeded out, this post does seem to go on forever! 

The twigs have nothing to do with it ... or do they?

Birds on the move, from a print - flying birds can be frightening in themselves

Seeing monsters everywhere!

 

Broken bones - monstrous, especially when inundated with river-bottom mud

 

Juxtapositions can do it, or reinforce it

Monstrous goings-on behind the drying plaster?

The predatory, knobby (mutilated) branches

 

Knobby and bulbous feels monstrous to me (something inside throbbing to get out?)

It suggests slimyness and uncontainability

Another effect of the light - the chaos and danger of garbage, in the gloom

Some monsters have tentacles, a long reach

A situation - shifting light, and something trying to creep in, or escape

If these were people, this could be a situation of psychological monstrosity

Contorted limbs, severed limbs

Contorted and slumped bodies presuppose lifelessness

The monster outside, trying to get in ... are plants so inert, after all?

  

A natural process - sprouting potato - captured in bronze, looking monstrously unnatural

Reflections - shifting, the changes caught in the corner of the eye

... or shaped purposefully

Partly it's the material - mud-soaked straw? tar and feathers? 

... partly it's the shapes and juxtapositions

Many stories going on here...

... and others here ...

... and here

 

Shadows have a lot of monster potential; ordinary things can have monstrous shadows

Various blobs on the ground

Windblown waste, configured randomly

Entrails, remains ... too close to "the bone"

Terrible processes (burning, explosion, etc) = monsters

Blobby silhouettes = monsters

This one is strikingly horrible - like a flattened animal corpse
or a thief stealing away in the night

A squished packet with gilding, rather beautiful ... or is it a bit too much like
the one-eyed monster?

These are boats, but if you're looking for monsters
 it takes a while to convince yourself of that

Some configurations have a threatening aspect; screaming faces?

Chaotic and possibly, but not completely, monstrogenic

Design by Balenciaga, but no less monstrous for all that ... those sinister folds...
and that reflection of a ghostly shape... 

The monster theme started with this inky, spontaneous, unthinking, left-handed drawing

Conclusion: it's a monster when it has asymetry and blobs and empty places and sharp protrusions, and could be imagined to resemble a human or animal form (we're hard-wired to look for faces in amorphous shapes, after all) and yet looks unnatural, therefore frightening or at least disquieting.

The monster-making happens in the mind of the viewer ... somehow an expectation is formed, and the imagination is triggered ...

Here's one I prepared earlier (rubbing)

This horror was unintentional -
the scar-like marks and missing nose, and the proportions,
 make for a monstrous look