I think Antony Hegarty read my mind.
Saturday, 18 August 2012
A project, which may take some time
I've started work on a project - probably a painting, which draws on an experience I once had with my Mum. I think it will have humour and pathos.
I took my mother to the university botanical gardens one day in late Summer. We had a great time taking tea in the café, looking at her favourite plants, leading her in her wheelchair, around the paths. We came across a bed of poppies, some of which had reached the stage where they've lost their petals and grown a hard seed case. Mum had me position her as close to the bed as was possible, considering the wheelchair, the gravel and the metal edge of the path. Her speaking voice changed its quality, became soft and seductive "aw, would you look at that..., isn't that beautiful..., have you ever seen..." as she caressed a poppy seed case in a rather fawning way, then swiftly snapped it off and secreted it into her handbag! My uncle, her brother had told me about 'minnie the moocher', but Mum had never let her guard down before. My mother - the thief.
I'm collecting sketches: plants, aspects of architecture of the garden we had visited, thinking about metaphors. I'm off to the museum to sketch a stuffed magpie...
I took my mother to the university botanical gardens one day in late Summer. We had a great time taking tea in the café, looking at her favourite plants, leading her in her wheelchair, around the paths. We came across a bed of poppies, some of which had reached the stage where they've lost their petals and grown a hard seed case. Mum had me position her as close to the bed as was possible, considering the wheelchair, the gravel and the metal edge of the path. Her speaking voice changed its quality, became soft and seductive "aw, would you look at that..., isn't that beautiful..., have you ever seen..." as she caressed a poppy seed case in a rather fawning way, then swiftly snapped it off and secreted it into her handbag! My uncle, her brother had told me about 'minnie the moocher', but Mum had never let her guard down before. My mother - the thief.
I'm collecting sketches: plants, aspects of architecture of the garden we had visited, thinking about metaphors. I'm off to the museum to sketch a stuffed magpie...
Thursday, 9 August 2012
Damien Hirst
I caught the Tate Modern exhibition yesterday - the cases of bisected beasts in formaldehyde, the freshly butchered cow head and the flies, the surgical steel and pharmaceutical arrangements. I went to see if I might understand the artist better. After 14 rooms inc. one with live chrysalises and butterflies commanding the space and dictating where you take each step (but, hell - I know two butterfly farms in close proximity to Bristol). I think I 'get it', but don't find it inspiring.
If anything, and this in itself is not unique, Hirst provides a critique of art - if art preserves a moment, if art attempts to capture the natural world, why not use formaldehyde to do that? If art is a careful arrangement of colour and form, then a wall of tablets and capsules satisfies the same criteria. A video interview contained shots of his own naive skill with paint. I think Hirst admitted he could play with colour ad infinitum. It was evident a paintbrush wasn't going to the weapon of choice for long...
Look at some people on Facebook, for example. Thousands upon thousands of unedited photos lie in burgeoning albums: no editorship. It's as if a digital camera vomited its contents onto the web. Devoid of objectivity (or even subjectivity), we are presented with the blurred, subject-less, repetitive, unimaginative 'snaps'. If a single second of effort is made leading the viewer's eye, communicating something that is greater than the components of the image, one could consider a photo as art.
Perhaps I've learnt something after all.
If anything, and this in itself is not unique, Hirst provides a critique of art - if art preserves a moment, if art attempts to capture the natural world, why not use formaldehyde to do that? If art is a careful arrangement of colour and form, then a wall of tablets and capsules satisfies the same criteria. A video interview contained shots of his own naive skill with paint. I think Hirst admitted he could play with colour ad infinitum. It was evident a paintbrush wasn't going to the weapon of choice for long...
Look at some people on Facebook, for example. Thousands upon thousands of unedited photos lie in burgeoning albums: no editorship. It's as if a digital camera vomited its contents onto the web. Devoid of objectivity (or even subjectivity), we are presented with the blurred, subject-less, repetitive, unimaginative 'snaps'. If a single second of effort is made leading the viewer's eye, communicating something that is greater than the components of the image, one could consider a photo as art.
Perhaps I've learnt something after all.
Tuesday, 7 August 2012
'Life'
I've just finished reading Keith Richards' autobiography 'Life'. It manages successfully to present (to my eye) a cohesive picture of a musician's development and what it takes to be a member of The Rolling Stones.
What fascinated me the most was the progress of 'Keef' in finding the music that turned him on. There is his interest in what made that music tick. The book describes the long hours he spent teasing apart the threads of that music, when the group's initial aim was to simply bring American R'n'B to the attention of their audience.
There are bits where I knew exactly what he meant about the creative process. Keef comes up with a tune and the lyric is not entirely clear, but he knows the sound of it - the line has to end with an 'ay' sound, or an 'aw' sound to be right. I've been there. I think, in all creative fields, one should never be afraid to experiment, dabble, have a go, leave it, come back to it, let the thing grow piecemeal if it must. Don't expect to have something creative arrive intact, perfect. The fear of imperfection is a bloody great hurdle to creativity, I think.
Reading Keef's exploits, they both attract and repel me. He's a bon viveur and that has led him into some intriguing and terrifying scrapes. He mentions projects outside the Rolling Stones which interested me and led me to pursue recordings I'd never known of before. He makes friends with anyone he feels an affinity with. He says something in the book like 'I'll trust you until you let me down', which I admire. He details his close working relationship with Mick Jagger - that's a tough job. I think Keef would be a great guy to chill with, but on the other hand I'd never want to piss him off!
I enjoyed the book a great deal. It had been on my shelf a good year or so and took me about two weeks to eventually read. At the end of it (an abrupt end, I have to say - took me completely by surprise) I felt that sense of loss, the thing you feel when you reach the final pages of a book and want it to go on forever. That's a bittersweet feeling, but a good thing.
I'd recommend 'Life' to anyone who loves real music and a free spirit.
What fascinated me the most was the progress of 'Keef' in finding the music that turned him on. There is his interest in what made that music tick. The book describes the long hours he spent teasing apart the threads of that music, when the group's initial aim was to simply bring American R'n'B to the attention of their audience.
There are bits where I knew exactly what he meant about the creative process. Keef comes up with a tune and the lyric is not entirely clear, but he knows the sound of it - the line has to end with an 'ay' sound, or an 'aw' sound to be right. I've been there. I think, in all creative fields, one should never be afraid to experiment, dabble, have a go, leave it, come back to it, let the thing grow piecemeal if it must. Don't expect to have something creative arrive intact, perfect. The fear of imperfection is a bloody great hurdle to creativity, I think.
Reading Keef's exploits, they both attract and repel me. He's a bon viveur and that has led him into some intriguing and terrifying scrapes. He mentions projects outside the Rolling Stones which interested me and led me to pursue recordings I'd never known of before. He makes friends with anyone he feels an affinity with. He says something in the book like 'I'll trust you until you let me down', which I admire. He details his close working relationship with Mick Jagger - that's a tough job. I think Keef would be a great guy to chill with, but on the other hand I'd never want to piss him off!
I enjoyed the book a great deal. It had been on my shelf a good year or so and took me about two weeks to eventually read. At the end of it (an abrupt end, I have to say - took me completely by surprise) I felt that sense of loss, the thing you feel when you reach the final pages of a book and want it to go on forever. That's a bittersweet feeling, but a good thing.
I'd recommend 'Life' to anyone who loves real music and a free spirit.
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