New drawings and another submission

Turner-esque sunset on the river Arno

I am aware that my blogging has been somewhat sparse of late due to all sorts of things going on.  I aim to improve in future!

I had a wonderful week in Florence with Pete and eldest daughter; it was so lovely to show her all our favourite frescoes and walk round the city with her.  

View from the window of the fabulous Uffizi Museum

On two days during the week before last,  I worked with Andrew Dalton and Rob Oldfield in Richmond to take down the paintings belonging to the Green Howards Museum, where we hung them about a year ago in their temporary space while the museum was being upgraded.  We then took the paintings up the hill back to their permanent, newly and beautifully refurbished museum space.  A hot, sweaty and very satisfying couple of days work; the paintings look splendid in their new spaces.

Furniture still stacked up all round the room, but the paintings look great back up on the wall!

I have made my arrangements to get down to London for the Islington Contemporary Art and Design Fair; thanks to my daughter for being a very able assistant and to son for offering to assist with driving across London over the weekend.  It was part 1 this weekend; I saw some pictures of the show on Twitter, there was an exciting breadth of work.  My turn next weekend!  I have one or two queries to ask about and sort out on Monday, then I think I am ready. I have a comprehensive list so I don't forget anything!

Meanwhile I am happy to be able to say that I have been in the studio every day this week, yes, EVERY day.  Not all of them were whole days, but I have four finished drawings to show for it and I am satisfied with progress.  

Two of the new drawings. Above: untitled so far. Below: How Many Hopes. Both mixed media, 38.5 x 38.5 cm on thick water colour paper.

I seem to have spent most of yesterday preparing a new submission.  I  finally pressed the "send" button quite late at night, and experienced a huge sense of relief.  I wrote two short statements, edited, corrected, uploaded them and then selected my three images which caused more anxst and heart searching, uploaded those, accidentally removed them, started all over again and finally got to the review button, edited one of the statements as I found a typo, AND FINALLY PRESSED "MAKE PAYMENT". Job done and now fingers crossed, but I'll just forget about it until I hear whether I have been selected or not, this will be easy to do because I am very busy at the moment.

On Monday I am going to attend a meeting in Ripon at the Workhouse Museum, to plan my part in facilitating a school party making drawings for the Big Draw later this month. I'll be travelling over with Sue Slack, so it will be a nice chance for a catch up.

For the rest of the week I will be making some more home made business cards, each with an original drawing on the back and making cakes for the upcoming meeting at Kirkbymisperton village hall on Thursday evening, where Ian R Crane will be giving people an unbiased overview of the benefits and risks of fracking.  Obviously I will be in London by then but I'm planning to make the meeting in Pickering.

Once back, I'll be dividing my time between studio and home as there are some things that need to be done in the house, post builders.  I'll be erecting my trestle table in the old studio space, now library, to use when the weather is very cold too.  My studio is bitterly cold and damp in the bad weather and this might just be the opportunity to get those prints and artists' books started.

Shop window in Florence full of jolly Pinochio figures: they are one of the symbols of the city but I don't know why!




Images Sue Gough. All rights reserved

w0budong

I am gearing up for w0budong.  My trusty friend, curator and printmaker Andrew Dalton has kindly offered to drive the van, I was lucky enough to receive expenses that cover almost all of the costs so I can afford to pay him to do it!

Here is the flyer, with information about opening times and events:

This time next week I will be on my way to Manchester in a van containing:

• my large painting 
• some drawings
• a trestle table 
• two chairs 
• Four breeze blocks, painted white for said painting to stand on
• a step ladder
• a folding table for drinks with tablecloth
• an extension cable 
• plus my suitcase. 

As you do!

I am really looking forward to meeting the other artists and seeing all the work together along with Jayne's performance piece.

Brief catch up:

I am very busy as usual but somehow do not seem to be achieving very much of my own work at the moment. However, even when I was at college, I used to have months of inertia where I just seemed to freeze followed by weeks of manic production.  I wish I could keep everything on an even keel, but it just seems to be how I am.

At the end of last month I went down to London and saw the following exhibitions:

• Painting Now, at Tate Britain - http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/painting-now-five-contemporary-artists
• Klee at Tate Modern - http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/ey-exhibition-paul-klee-making-visible
• Jameel Prize at Victoria and Albert - http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/exhibition-jameel-prize/jameel-prize-3/
• Hannah Hoch at Whitechapel - http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/hannah-hch

Apart from Painting Now, all these shows were truly excellent.  Klee, with 17 rooms of exhibits, was superb but exhausting.  My usual approach with exhibitions is to go through the whole show and to go back through it once I've reached the end, to revisit particularly interesting works but not for this show!  Use the links to find out more, because, frankly; I am just too lazy to write about these exhibitions.  

I will say though, that I found Painting Now to be one of the most sterile shows on painting I have ever seen.  I have since read most of the very positive reviews and the writers are all either suffering from the Emperor's New Clothes syndrome or I am completely and utterly ignorant about painting and what is going on today, which is entirely possible.  This thought frightens me somewhat and makes me feel VERY inadequate. . .

What, for heaven's sake, is the point in making paintings that aim to deny the many qualities that paint has to offer?  Even the painterly and slightly skewed urban landscapes by Simon Ling just reminded me of Ladybird book illustrations from the 50's and did not seem to be saying anything in particular; all towns and cities have their run down, derelict areas after all. Much is made of the fact that he paints them directly in front of the subject, even if they are finished in the studio, big deal!   My  opinion is that these artists would be better off writing about their subject rather than painting because the paintings did not invite me in to look for longer than a second or two and I actually found the whole experience frustrating.   I want paintings to try and engage with the quality of paint itself and what it can do, to have a bit of gesture, certainly to contain colours; the flat monotone of some of these works and the dirty colour of others, thinly applied with hardly any evidence of the hand of their maker just left me cold.  

This article popped up on my facebook feed while I was writing this blog:

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/arts/visual-arts/tiffany-jenkins-art-education-fails-to-paint-a-pretty-picture-1-3001935

It makes some very pertinent points with which I agree.  If art schools were teaching people the skills they are asking to be taught like painting, the new independent schools that are beginning to spring up such as the one led by Turps Banana Magazine would not be necessary.

Sheila Ceccarelli of Access Art emailed me on 10th February to tell me that she and Paula Briggs had attended a conference at Tate Britain the previous week where they made a presentation about collaboration in the digital age.  As part of this presentation, they used a slide of a piece of my work alongside work made in response to it by teenagers in a workshop. (Workshop not run by me).  

Does this mean I can say I have shown at Tate Britain?  HAH HAH!  

I bought a piece of thin mdf this weekend to use as a printing bed for my wooden mangle.  The mdf needs cutting down to the correct width and then I will be starting work on some prints and artists books very shortly. . .   I seem to have been saying this for a while, sigh.  But I will be doing it soon!

My studio has become slightly congested at the moment because I am storing easels and Directories for Ryedale ArtWorks and other sundry items , alongside some timber I have been saving to use on shelving projects among other things.  This is making the construction of my large stretchers for the two remaining paintings I want to make impossible and so I need to sort out somewhere for all RAW stuff to be stored for the future and quick.

We have started work on the latest Ryedale ArtWorks directory; the usual flurry of admin to keep track of who has applied, paid, reciepts sent etc has ensued.  Andy Dalton and I have managed to produce a passable document for the next Creative Commissioning bid to Ryedale District Council, so now we have our fingers crossed, while we continue delivering the projects funded from the last successful bid.

The transportation of my large painting for w0budong in Manchester on 12th March is now sorted, which is a relief.  I will be taking some trestles a table top and some chairs in the van along with the painting itself.  Oh, and 4 breeze blocks painted white, to put the painting on! I am now pondering how I will be able to anchor them to stop them moving about in the van and damaging the painting.  I might have to put them in the foot well of the passenger seat!

http://w0budong.wordpress.com/

So as you read this, you can see I am busy.  I just need to produce some work now!