i've been doing some country living, not country living as in residing in the agricultural hinterlands, I mean Country Living, the magazine. I was perusing some back copies recently (I am taking a textiles class soon) and one can't help but admire (and wish for) some of the beautiful houses and gardens... the rustic hues of Tuscan villas, Rococo shabby chic, bookish Bohemian townhouses, Bloomsbury colours.. distressed plaster walls, oak furniture, Moroccan lamps, kilim rugs, antique mirrors, vintage fabrics and wallpapers, a bold splash of framed art on the walls, a sofa strewn with quirky cushions, a chair rescued (or is that recycled) from a skip, a collection of old teacups on a welsh dresser, a neat pile of split logs by an inglenook fireplace, strong sunlight softened through diaphanous drapes at a french window.. an infusion of textures, interiors with the patina of life, interiors that are matured, not designed from a mail order catalogue.. full of market finds and objects from more distant travels, all aide memoirs to a quiet way of life.. for here there are no TVs, mobile phones or PCs, no cheap plastics or synthetic fabrics, or any people for that matter, it's all about appreciating the space and what it contains..
when I decided to pursue art as a vocation, i went to an art school far away from home, a necessary right of passage, the first road to independence, and the time and space to develop one's own style of living.. i remember my first digs, a tiny granny-style annexe flat above a garage, as i had just acquired a vintage 1950's fridge from a house yard sale; it was buttercup yellow with flared legs and about a third the size of a contemporary fridge, cute as a button but barely practical as a kitchen appliance.. i then acquired some vintage print curtains that i made into window blinds, restyled some lampshades with Japanese papers, a coloured glass fruit bowl made an interesting light feature with the addition of some string lights.. but over the years i was slowly cluttering my homes (and my life) with a plethora of stuff from auctions (in the days before eBay), car boot sales and charity shops, thrifty style crafted through an appreciation of art means that for every gem found there are quite a few impractical rejects.. as William Morris said, have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful - or better still, useful AND beautiful.. Morris's declaration is as interesting now as it was then, the handcrafted (the arts and crafts movement) as a reaction to industrialisation - perhaps now, with the over-saturation of technology and gadgetry in our lives, more people will appreciate the hand-crafted and the handmade once again - and let's hope that it will not inspire a new wave of the home-homemade as seen in the 1970's, which gave us macrame plant holders, crocheted cushions and string pictures for art! i've been a bit of a fan of Art Deco and the Bauhaus style for a while, the strong geometric forms and limited palette of colours, and similarly their design ethos appreciated the quality of materials and the high craft of construction.
on another but not dissimilar note, whilst talking to a colleague this week, she reminded me that labour-saving devices, such as the washing machine, conversely mean that we are made busier than ever, not washing once or twice a a week, but almost obessively every day of the year, thus clothes wear out more quickly because they are often poorly constructed and cannot withstand the strong detergents and heavy machine washing.. so, we have to buy more clothes more often... and of PCs, there is hardly a job in the country that doesn't require the use of one to make us more efficient in our work, despite the fact they create more work for us to do...contemporary living makes for more work and less free time as we strive to maintain standards of perfection.. and so for me, the old style habits of flea-bargaining and thrift-shopping still remain..i could mention Kirsty's Handmade Home for new ideas and inspiration on creating stylish, practical interiors on a budget (like many of the TV style shows that have preceded it), but I'm not entirely convinced by Kirsty's style sensibilities, and maybe, like Louis Armstrong said of jazz music, if you have to ask what [it] is, you'll never know.. The Sensual Home by Ilse Crawford, which i bought for a knockdown price of 60p from a charity shop, is an interior design book with a difference, in that it doesn't tell you how to make things or what items to buy, or what colour goes with what, or what style of appliance or furniture is in vogue (all styles will date, some better than others), but more intellectually (and rather beautifully) it illustrates the poetics of lived-in spaces, the experience played through the senses, a sensitivity towards materials, the quality of light, aroma, the balance of colour, texture, shape, form and surface, all as a means to create one's own unique style philosophy for the home....
On snakes and ladders
Yesterday I saw a grass snake, the first in many years… he appeared languidly from behind some plant pots, taking a sun bath, but as soon as I moved in to view him closer he slithered away into the long grass... and with no camera, no photo opportunity. Significant perhaps as I am the sign of the snake, according to the Chinese horoscope. Ah, the symbol of the snake: enigmatic, graceful, alert but cautious, astute, and somewhat secretive.Which leads me to think about the board game Snakes and Ladders, a moral parable of the path of life, the ups and downs, taking and giving, greed and temptation versus piety and generosity of spirit. Life as an artist is such a game, in which you climb selfishly to reach new perspectives, but one ladder will only reach so far and it is a solitary adventure: many can help steady the ladder, but only one can climb to the top.It is a sign that we need to to take risks, move out of the comfort zone, avoid falling into the trappings of formulaic or derivative work. It seems too, talking to other artists, that it is quite natural to have fallow periods occasionally, where the creative urge wanes and needs new input, or when you receive rejections which dent the spirit, or you decide to pursue ideas quietly without any reference to an audience (or an income).I went to see the Margaret Mellis retrospective and the Constructed (De Stijl, Bauhaus, Russian Constructivism) exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre, and the Mellis turned out to be an eye-opener.
This exhibition is a celebration of her life and her work. Reading and watching a film of Mellis (on the video monitor), she became her most productive after the move to Southwold, the work beforehand was quite minimal in contrast (the dates on the few earlier works displayed in this exhibition are imprecise). I found out a lot about Mellis, such as she lived in a village not far from where I spent some of my childhood years, prior to moving on to the coast, her artistic productivity there helped by the numerous offerings of beach detritus from a generous public far and wide.It is strange to think that she was creating these textural and abstract constructions at a time when I was finding little joy in art classes at school - classes which consisted of drawing sliced cabbages and reflections of newspapers in chrome kettles - although I am grateful I persisted with a 2B pencil as my only medium, since a myopic scrutiny of things is the natural eyesight of an artist.Here are some of my own mixed media collages from the mid 1990s. It feels oddly fulfilling & meaningful when you can make some connections between your own art and another artist's work when you did not know of them or their work at the time of making them...