yesterday afternoon, while i was sat outside in the sunshine (after doing some gardening) i decided on impulse to make a short audio recording (on my mobile phone) of the myriad sounds of the birds and their twittering birdsong in the garden together with the sounds from the woods just over the fence...click the play button to listen [3m 30s, mp3 485k][audio mp3="http://www.jazzgreen.com/journal/swfs/birdsong-garden-lq.mp3"]…p.s. i have some of my work in a new art exhibition, 'on the map'…On the Map: Historic Maps & Contemporary Map Art10 March - 17 June 2012Hastings Museum and Art GalleryJohns Place, Bohemia Road, Hastings, TN34 1ET...
on van gogh, trees, skies and birds
I went to see the current crowd-pulling exhibition at The Royal Academy this week, The Real van Gogh: The Artist and his Letters.... What person doesn't feel an affinity with the life and work of Vincent? The passion, the determination, the frustration, the rejection, the anxiety, the joy and the sadness. I have been twice to Amsterdam, to the excellent Van Gogh Museum and the equally splendid Rijksmuseum, so even though I feel quite familiar with Van Gogh's early and later works, it did not deter me from wanting to visit this exhibition. To see the exquisitely detailed pen and ink drawings on some of his letters was delightful, despite the annoyance of the inevitable crowds of people, huddled and jostling for a closer view. You can read and view Vincent Van Gogh's letters online...I was most captivated by his early drawings and paintings of the Dutch landscape, because of their similarity and resonance with the East Anglian landscape.
Vincent Van Gogh, Pollarded birches with Woman and flock of Sheep, March 1884In a letter to Anthon van Rappard in March 1884, on his landscape drawings (including the one pictured above), Vincent wrote that: I always count it among the possibilities that some day or another I’ll find an art lover who would like to take them off me — not one or two, but 50, say. [...] If I didn’t have to, I’d most certainly much rather keep studies, at least, for myself, and I would not want to sell them. [...] I sometimes think about not doing anything else except pen drawings and — painting.These drawings revealed his raw determination to understand the landscape, free of the subsequent stylistic influences such as orientalism, pointillism and impressionism, as colourful and energetic these later oil paintings are to view in reality. It was most inspiring to see so many of Van Gogh's many studies of trees together, the pollard birches and contorted willows... and I even attempted to quickly sketch one or two details... I am inspired to return to sketching in the woods once again...
[sketchbook studies of Van Gogh's tree drawings]...Three hours later, as we headed back to the train station there was just enough time to quickly see the soundscape installation by the French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot at the Barbican Centre. Here is a video clip of it on YouTube.I found this exhibit both delightful and mildly unsettling. The birds (Zebra finches) seemed happy enough and unconcerned by our human presence. At one point, most of the birds gathered together in a playful formation and elegantly swooped and swerved between us, or rather between one end of the space and the other, from one musical perch to another. I then noticed that one of the finches was not as active as the others; it was huddled on a guitar, its feathers puffed up and with its eyes closed, and so I felt I had to tell the invigilator that I thought it looked sickly. I am sure they thought I was being overly concerned (no animals are harmed in the making of this artwork...) What would Van Gogh have made of this art installation, I wonder, or indeed the enduring fascination and attention surrounding his art and life? In the Royal Academy shop there were tea trays, fridge magnets, necklaces, in fact every conceivable Vincent-inspired commodity except perhaps chocolates in boxes...On the final drive home it was nightfall, and in the skies were near-black, heavy rain clouds, magnificently set against the light of the full moon. On arriving home, I proceeded to draw this view from my immediate memory, three quick impressions of a night sky with dark clouds, in ink pen...
Seeing the work of Vincent van Gogh once again, reminded me that to be an artist you have to scratch beneath the surface of things, you have to be truthful and honest in your search for the meaning of things, you must see and interpret things through your own eyes and not be totally steered by the eyes, ideas, words or opinions of others...The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and his Letters at The Royal Academy is on until 18 April 2010.Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's' installation at The Barbican Centre (free admission) is on until 23 May 2010.
when the wind blows
Another abstract in an ongoing series of small mixed media works on canvas...
[Pompeii, collagraph and painting on paper and canvas, 5" x 5"]Wikimedia led me to this pictorial reference for the above abstract (titled after its original creation) since these works are entirely about colour and texture, yet with a little analysis they link back to another place, another time... in this instance, to the remains of a villa in Pompeii...
Wall frescoes in the house of Lucretius, Pompeii (image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
The red (Pompeiian red is also a pigment) and grey stripes appear to reference the patterned wall frescoes of the ancient villas, and of the stonework and structure of the interconnected streets and avenues of ancient Pompeii.Many years ago I visited Pompeii... Although I didn't realise it then, the ancient relics and the eroded, weathered facades of Italy, Greece and Turkey were to become a creative muse of sorts... I would love to go back to these places, with the benefit of wiser eyes... but I would probably take far too many photographs...
These are from an old photo album (I wonder how many people still compile photographs in albums these days, after the advent of digital photography and online sites such as flickr?). That's me in the lower left picture, drinking from the water fountain (of youth!)... which prompted another visit to everyone's favourite photo album Flickr to see how many others had recorded this very same location at Pompeii...
Google Maps has recently visited Pompeii too, so I persevered with Google's virtual Street View and retraced my steps back to the original site of the water fountain...
Even with these many thoughts of distant travel on my mind, I would like to be homebound for a while... (if only to get on with some more artwork).I had a horrid drive home from work the other evening, in what at first seemed to be sporadic snowfall - but about two thirds into my homeward journey it turned into a heavy blizzard. The falling snow quickly compacted to a sheet of ice under the weight of the rush hour traffic, as the main road had not been salted or gritted. My journey, which normally takes about an hour, in the end took three and a half hours. The queue of traffic slowed to a near standstill about ten miles from home, as the drivers ahead were finding it increasingly difficult to drive with any degree of control or safety.The road was becoming near impassable - after two hours slow-driving on the most nervous of tenterhooks I didn't want to have to drive any more. A couple of miles further on and I decided to abandon any hope of getting home by car and parked my vehicle on a wide bit of the roadside verge. I could see that some cars ahead were sliding on the ice and a large articulated truck had got into difficulty going uphill, stopping any flow of traffic - it was fast becoming an accident zone (and I do blame the council and those who said the snow and ice wouldn't amount to much). Lots of cars were stuck in a static queue (myself included), occasionally crawling forward feeling the ever-present danger of the inevitable wobble and slide.After I had parked up, I walked along the snaking line of the (now) stationary vehicles, and, as you do in a crisis, you empathise with their dilemma and then share a little rant about the council not gritting the roads (yet again) - but this time it was serious. Taking a slightly safer snow-underfoot path, I walked the half-mile or so into the nearby town, where a good friend and now saviour (after providing a much-needed cup of piping-hot tea) decided they would take the risk and drive me the last few glacial miles to my door - the drive was quite dicey in places, but arriving home has never felt so good.I declined the early morning lift to pick up the car on the way to work, and decided I would instead walk the four or so miles back to the roadside verge later in the day. It was very cold but sunny as I set off and much of the snow had already melted - belying the ice-frightmare of the night before. Aside from the hassle of passing traffic (climbing high up onto the verge is always the safest procedure), the walk was quite relaxing - and not entirely without incident. A few minutes into this bracing midday stroll, I passed the small boatyard by one of the nearby lakes and was instantly captivated by the most unusual tinkling sounds coming from beyond the roadside hedgerow. A strong breeze, blowing through the hidden tangle of ropes, wires and chains of the boats' fixtures and moorings, had made an uintentional but quite magical melody.
Click to listen to the breeze-created tinkling sounds from the boatyard...[audio mp3="http://www.jazzgreen.com/journal/swfs/boatyard.mp3"]The same wind that brought in the blinding white flurry of a blizzard the evening before, that forced the wind-chill that plummeted the temperatures to below zero, that created the perilous sheets of ice on the roads, the very next day quietly sang to me when no one else was around......This weekend is the last chance to see the contemporary art exhibition, Elements: Man and the Environment, at the Forum, Norwich (read more about my work in the Elements exhibition).