Summer nights

Here’s an attempt at painting an idea.

In the first one I got carried away and left out an element.

In the second, I faithfully copied reality.

In the third, I went with the idea.

Which one works best?

Kitchen Table

I’m not going to insert an essay on William Scott here.

Looking at his paintings at the Tate and reading around the subject I was caught by his referencing of domestic interiors. Which made me think of a kitchen I know well and enjoy being. I expect the people who know this kitchen will recognise it. I spent a few days trying to paint what it meant rather than what it looks like. Lets hope now I’m back in London i wont forget ALL about it.

Cornish sketches

I try and take a sketch book everywhere with me. Some times i get caught out and have to buy a new one… and a big fat soft pencil. Don’t worry I actually managed to fill up quite a few pages all at once.

William Scott – Tate St lves

As i’ve been away so long, setting up someone else’s blog I’ll stick these notes here for the moment, and hope that I’ll be able to come back with some more thoughts later

thoughts while at the exhibtion

 

MER

Some Windows

Breakfast at a Bothy

Roger fly’s pot in the Crypt

Upper half landing

The aircraft on the left is smaller than I remember.

Milk Window with Bears.

a limited world

Lower half landing

a hole in a wall of unknown purpose

no the walls do not go on for ever

through the window, through the room, through the door

Windows

Hot Summer Night

A picture is framed, by nothing more than the edge of the supporting medium. Making a window of the picture adds an extra layer of interpretation to the picture. The picture plane is not infinite. Having to look though a window changes what you see in a picture. Standing inside, looking out. Looking in standing outside. There’s an extra layer between you and the view.

The Stone Barge

Many years ago Dad made the Barge of Stones. It appeared one day in the clutter of his studio. There were always interesting bits of wood littering the house,  rescued from his time working in Exhibitions at Kew (the Botanic Gardens). He had stood up a semicircle of pitch pine and secured to it’s deck with string and kindling some of our extensive pebble collection. It wasn’t much of a thing, yet it put me in mind of an Egyptian model boat taken from some tomb. Those barges took their cargos into the afterlife. They had both a mysterious destination and freight.

BS.9524

For many years our boat sailed serenely on window sill until Mum took it apart because no one was doing anything with it… which is an unnerving propensity for anyone to have, let alone a mother. Things like the Stone Barge don’t have to have a use, and it’s constituent parts certainly don’t.

So the Barge of Stones is no more, it sails on only in my memory and imagination; maybe now it will sail on on yours.

Stick the code into the  Museum number and Provenance search to find out more about the model. I leave it as an exercise for the student for more information about Egyptian funerals if they care to.

Blue Glasses

 

Since January I’ve been waiting for my blue glasses. The are meant to make reading easier. Finally now that they have arrived I‘ve found they do make things I wouldn’t have read easier. However they don’t make sitting down and writing any more straight forward. I’ve got so many things doing around in my head it’s hard to separate them out enough to be a coherent statement.

While I’ve been away I’ve been helping a friend will an exhibition, watching the snow fall, going for walks, trying to edit a newsletter and visiting various exhibitions. Above all I’ve been trying to make some sense of the stew that is my mind and then remember that I’ve done it.

 

It never seizes to amaze me how hard I find this writing malarky. However I do have a pile of posts I’m busy composing so I’ll endeavour to post them soon.

Little Joe – Joseph Oliver Ruddy 15/03/76 – 13/1/08

At the Battery on Mount Pleasant, Cornwall

It was five years ago that my brother died, shortly after recieving his cancer diagnosis. I miss him. I wish I had talked to him more: about things that happened years ago, about things that might well have happened in the future.

I keep a scrap book, of things that I’ve done that he would have liked to hear about, things that would have interested him, thing that remind me of what he liked, what he did.

You can find some is work here  and here. These images wasn’t all that he was of course, all that he did. I see him often in young men passing in the street, on the bus. Really I would like to know what happened next in his story: with his wife, his daughter, his great enthusiasms.

Five years ago my brother died, what ever his plans were, they are no more. We make a new story instead with only his ghost in it.

 

Two Joes, my brother and my dad.
Some time in the early nineties? in the snow.

Pebbles – An Introduction

This years adventure in Alphabets wasn’t the first time I’d dallied in Geography. A few years ago I took some Introductory courses in Printing at City Lit, London. I thought I should turn up with some kind of plan from day one, to make the most of the teacher’s time. Pebbles are simple and at the same time infinitely complex.

three colour pebbles

At their most basic illustrating a pebble is a closed loop, positioned on a background; content and arrangement is everything. Pebbles were once part of some mountain, weathered off and eroded away. Their subsequent life and original rock type determine their ultimate fate.

I enjoyed the print classes, but found that multi-plate mono-prints gave me the most satisfaction. This however wasn’t very practical for print runs. Currently I’m making collage to explore pebble space while I work out a less frustrating printing technique.

I’ll post some more images as I scrape them together (from other computers).

MER