[new boots]is my shoe art? it is most certainly a design classic, with the tough, trademark yellow stitching and the air cushion soles, on which it reassuringly says 'made in england'... these boots are not just made for walking anywhere, they are built for the road... there is something so very uplifting to the spirit when one acquires a new pair of boots...
these dr martens airwair boots were a delightful, serendipitous find in a charity shop yesterday - brand new, never worn dm's in just my size (gasp!), in a beautiful pewter leather, my favourite (non) colour - and only £7!the bargain purchase (and subsequent formal analysis as evidenced in the above photographs) of some shiny new dm boots instantly recalled memories of charles thomson's (of the stuckists) appearance on bbc's newsnight, of the perennial debate that always surrounds the turner art prize, the is it art? and of the classic moment in the discussion, is my shoe art..?...charles thomson debating the merits (or not) of the turner prize 1999thomson need not have been so indignant; it spawned a new painting, one with more than a satirical nod to ex-friend tracey emin...
charles thomson, is my shoe art? oil on canvasbut, what about van gogh's still life of boots? a painting which i fondly remember first seeing whilst on a college field trip to amsterdam. i am sure charles thomson would agree that these shoes are art...
vincent van gogh, a pair of shoes, 1886but, what if one forgets for a moment that this is a van gogh painting - what then? the visual recording or transcription, using oil on canvas, of a pair of boots does not make it (yet) a notable work of art. however, these boots, looking very worn and placed as if they have just been taken off might reveal a back story - one of a hard day's labour or ongoing financial hardship - there is no money for new shoes. furthermore, if one imagines what might have been going through the mind of the maker of the painting (the artist), then the story unravels still further - the boots are perhaps now discarded, worthless, they signify poverty and perhaps misery in the mind of the artist. if these boots were van gogh's own then this painting is not just a still life, but a poignant self-portrait, one embued with the struggle of one man's existence......these thoughts led to a nostalgic trip down memory lane... to an old drawing of a boot that signifies my beginning as an fledgling artist...
pencil drawing of a monkey booti did this drawing of a monkey boot when i was about fifteen or sixteen years old. i remember well those monkey boots, they were in an ox-blood leather and i recall polishing them with a matching ox-blood boot polish. i remember too that it was a drawing study that i started at home (probably homework) and clearly (as was my bad habit then) i didn't complete it. looking at the drawing now, i am wondering why (or, in fact if) i did just draw the one boot and not actually draw the pair? the drawing, which is interestingly much larger than 'life size' has been cropped and stuck to an A2 sheet of paper with another drawing of a sheep's skull. i have deduced that the art teacher must have guillotined off the unfinished part of the drawing to make a more interesting worksheet for the exam portfolio - the exam work, as i recall, was sent off to the examination board in those days...these monkey boots remind me of my adolsecence, in the making of my identity, not as an artist but as an individual. every crease in the leather is a silent witness to my 'growing up' - of trying (and failing) to be different, pretending to be a rebel who really wanted to be accepted, of the self-consciousness and the wanting, the wanting-to-be an artist, but not knowing then what art really was...so, was my shoe art? back in those days i thought it was...
on digging, drawing, and discovering a van gogh
last week i had a go at scaling up one of my own drawings ... this one metre square print-out of a scanned lichen drawing came out quite well but the component parts were quite fiddly to join up with tape.. shown here on the floor with the original drawing in a sketchbook... (the 'mosaic' refused to stay up on the wall)...
this is the original drawing, 15cm x 15cm... see more lichen drawings here...
these lichen drawings, though beginning as observational studies, soon become re-imaginings - re-interpreted, flattened, schematic....here are some more smalll lichen drawings in black pen in a sketchbook, early june 2010...
these drawings are perhaps not so far removed from my large rust/decay paintings, as both involve a re-imagining of surface, playing with scale and magnification... i would be quite happy with a microscope today...a word that comes to mind is geomorphology, which is quite separate from the appropriation of the term landscape (by the English) and notions of the natural environment - words which nearly always imply a concrete vista, a horizon, a sky, a cultural or subjective reconstruct of a landscape made more tangible or meaningful by the viewer, sentimental in the widest sense... but these are just thoughts......last week i spent a couple of hours digging the garden to plant out peas and french beans, then later that same day came across this framed picture in a charity shop... I had to buy it, even though it cost me my last £5...
Vincent van Gogh, Peasant woman digging, Nueuen, 1885this drawing is, as far as i can ascertain, 'actual size' at about 40 x 50cm although the drawing is cropped slightly to fit within the mount - nevertheless it is delightful to look at, the reproduction being of a very fine quality... and i am certain this is one of the peasant women drawings included in the recent Royal Academy exhibition... Vincent mentions drawing these peasant figures in a letter to Theo in early July 1885:I’m sorry about what you write about the money, that you’ll be short yourself. Painting is sometimes so damned expensive, and nowadays it just comes down to following one’s own idea at all costs. [...] I’ve got a few figures here, a woman with a spade seen from behind, another one bending over to glean ears of corn, another one from the front with her head almost on the ground, digging up carrots.Vincent van Gogh to brother Theo van Gogh, Monday, 6 July 1885...i might be adding another exhibition to my roster this summer, having received an invitation to exhibit some of my work in a contemporary art show, the broad theme of the exhibition appeals, having some philosophical relevance... details and works to confirm......
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.