As I was passing through the marketplace towards the forum building in Norwich, to revisit the exhibition Elements: Man and the Environment on its final day, I passed by a secondhand book stall, and, after a few minutes browsing the shelves, came across the novel Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale - perhaps, with a sense of deja-vous or subliminal or tacit knowing, I instantly conjured up what this story might reveal... when one door closes another door opens... the end of an art exhibition is a good time for some reflection.This is a self-portrait taken in the seductive, highly-polished surface of Andrew Campbell's bronze sculpture, 'I remember' at the exhibition Elements. There is always something narcissistic in the allure of the mirrored surface - less about the physical form of an object reflecting its environs, and more about how it plays with our own self-perception...
It appeared to be a direct cast of an inflated balloon, and as a bronze it looked like a majestic orb on its plinth, the sophisticated, beautiful cousin of the ill-fated lead balloon (but even bronze will sink), and also (in my eyes), recalled memories of childhood, of releasing fairground helium balloons high into the sky, with a mixture of uncertainty and excitement - never quite knowing how high or how far they would travel, and where they would eventually land. This bronze balloon was grounded but would, at the very least, avert an instant death by pin... I found by chance (googling bronze balloon) more of Andrew Campbell's work on flickr...Nearby were two mixed media sculptural works by the Norwich-based artist Louise Richardson, pieces which were imbued with a simultaneously poetic and macabre narrative in their dichotomy of materials - dresses made of concrete and bronze, dresses stained and tainted by the earth, left to nature and the elements, enchanting in their suggestion of ancient myths or fairy tales, of the craftsmanship in their delicate making, and yet sinister and haunting in what we see in the casket-like frames, the relics or remains of a past event, of mortality, death or ghosts...
Louise Richardson, 'Being' left and 'Host' right; concrete, cold cast bronze, mixed mediaVeronica Grassi's Decaying Vessels have a simliar, delicate resonance - of fragility and strength, the remains of nests, shells or cocoons, and all exquisitely made with the finest of threads and paper pulp.
Veronica Grassi, 'Decaying Vessels', stitched thread and paperJamie Andrews sculpture, 10,000 Men was the centrepiece of the exhibition, having won the £1000 Bayer Prize. It is made up of 10,000 toy soldiers, coagulated into a resinous, bloodied funereal pile, with a clear message that war is both messy and futile - it made me think of the collective will in the construction of ant-hills too, that even in a situation such as war the soldiers (or workers) just get on with the job ...
Jamie Andrews, '10,000 Men', mixed mediaThese are just a selection of the many artworks in Elements:Man and the Environment, ones which resonated with myself, in a very mixed, curated exhibition. These works were the more inspiring ones, ones which at their core, had materials and craftsmanship as integral to the concepts of the finished work. I may not have earned the grand but I am proud that I was selected, and pleased that my work received such good exposure and some recognition in the process. I will look into that occasional mirror of doubt and see that I am still an artist - it may not be the all-day-every-day occupation that myself and many other artists aspire to, but it is, in the end, my one-and-only vocation...
Jazz Green, 'Rost', mixed media on canvas
here, there and everywhere [drawing]
I had some free time this week to get out sketching for an hour or so, here and there......
These are small sketches, about 14cm square (travelling light again, with a new sketchbook that just about fits in my bag), finding odd moments of calm and contemplation, experiencing some cool blustery breezes and light rain showers, a sprinkling of frost and a little sunshine too...
[looking north east, rain clouds ahead]
[view over brow of a hill in field]
[open fields, hedgerows and big sky, early afternoon]I made a trip to the fine city of Norwich (that's their promising tagline, Norwich, a fine city) to see a few exhibitions this week (and to pick up my artwork from the Forum)...One of the exhibitions I went to see was Watercolour in Britain at Norwich Castle (part of the Great British Art Debate, on until 18 April 2010). However, before I went in to see the main exhibition, I perused the rotunda of the Cotman Art Gallery. Here, you can see (in a somewhat subdued and yellow light) the watercolours and drawings of John Sell Cotman and his contemporaries. There is permission to take photographs (without a flash), and so with a lens pressed against the glass I tried to analyse this particular drawing. I felt a little touristy in this regard, but wanted something I could look at again and again.
John Sell Cotman, Irmingland (trees and vale)black and white chalk drawing on grey paper, 1841 (with an unintentional self-portrait)
[left hand side of drawing]
[right side of drawing]This one was apparently drawn over two days, 10th-11th October 1841, and Cotman had briefly returned to his native Norfolk in the autumn (from London, where he was working as a drawing tutor) due to ill health (he died the following year, aged 60). He said in a letter 'judge for yourself my happiness on finding your flints capable of once more creating a blaze in my heart'. One can assume that these drawings were preparatory studies for paintings that he did not live to complete.Firstly, it's interesting that he added an extra piece of paper to the right-hand side to make the scene more panoramic (on the second day?). I like how the foreground although roughly sketched out in hatched shading, creates angles of interest before one's eyes find the cluster of trees in the middle. It is difficult to know what this foreground vegetation might have been, but as an autumnal landscape, I could conjecture that its texture and colour would have been pivotal to the overall composition. I've often felt that Cotman's Norfolk landscapes are too sentimental, at times over-embellished and exaggerated, but this drawing has a truthful, wind-swept bleakness about it. Irmingland no longer exists as a true village, having been effectively consumed into a larger parish by the Enclosure Acts of the 1800's (an act of parliament in which previously common or grazing land was passed over into private hands) - and perhaps by the sprawling estates acquired by the many country manors - forcing the locals to live and work elsewhere - often migrating to the cities. According to Oulton Parish Council, in 1845 Irmingland had only 13 residents, by 1881 it had dropped to only 5.The landscape of East Anglia, broadly-speaking, with its patchwork pattern of arable fields and reclaimed fenland, especially when seen from above, has all the obvious markings of a rural landscape shaped by man - a factory without a roof - it can be just as polluted as the city, and its green-edged agricultural roads are often noisier than the average suburban avenue. I have no romance with it, but I want to explore my relationship with it, none the less - and drawing has been a means of doing this in a more immersive and emotionally direct way.I have been preparing some box frames for four of my farmscapes this week..
These are looking like they will have the colours of spring, I think... (but no daffodils)...
and this one, with a cooler palette of metallic greys, bronzes and blues, of autumn perhaps... agriculture depends upon the seasons, and nature through its cyclical changes imparts its identity on an otherwise structured landscape.Too many words already; I will have to continue with my thoughts on the the intriguing side exhibit Drawing on Cotman, and the main exhibition at Norwich Castle Watercolour in Britain tomorrow... and what I saw and made of the other two current exhibitions, The Artist's Studio at the SCVA and The Jerwood Contemporary Painters show at NUCA...
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).