Coastal view postcards

Continuing thoughts on unfinished, or in this case, barely started projects: part of my collection of postcards showing Guernsey coastal views. This image taken in Guernsey some few years ago. Current interest for me resides mainly in the images of docks and martello towers. No answers to this as yet - it probably needs another few years of sporadic pondering. 

The Starting of Finishing Things

Step one of finishing projects that refuse to die after several years: have ordered a print of one of the lightbox images to check out size and proportions of image and border. I've used the proportions of the transparency that is at the root of this, but have an idea that maybe the lightboxes need to be  small and jewel-like, contrast of colour and darkness.

Next I need to research lightbox manufacturers.

AND is it meaningful that the barometer in my studio always points to fair weather?   

Some Space.

A rare few moments in the studio since my return from Africa and this china deer stamped 'Foreign' seeming poignant on my desk.

Before I forge ahead wanting to 'make stuff', my task will be to take stock of the studio and the new amount of space by the back window, cleared  just recently. How will I make best use of it? I also need to update some of my web presences and tackle the problem of updating my own website.

Enchanting Arcadia

The overgrown 18th Century pleasure garden that is Hackfall. A wooded paradise of cascades, overhung pool, moss and fern - originally a contained and artfully contrived sylvan idyll. And when I stayed there - snow, hail and ice. I became transfixed by the aspect of the overhung pool, both looking down from above, as in these images, and in the reflections close up. When the thaw set in the fountain began to play again.

Transformation of the studio bunker ...

The bunker at the back of the Queen of Hungary Studios, now behind the Nissen Hut, has undergone a transformation. The ivy has received a haircut and an impromptu playground has appeared. Here is a before and after comparison. What a surprise when I went to empty the cafetiere. Perhaps this is an inventive type of camouflage?

Inspiration for a sculpture

I rediscovered this old photograph from our Guernsey family side. I think it may be of my Grandfather's beehives - I certainly remember him keeping bees. I like the accretions of the storeys of this wooden tower and imagine it gradually increasing in height until, under the final weight of the blanket, it topples over.  It looks like a tower on the edge somehow and not long to reaching that critical point. 

Make more models

A visit to The Hepworth Gallery to view some of Hepworth's plaster maquettes and other model workings. They were a joy to see, but highlighted my own woeful lack of 'finished' maquettes for sculptures. My studio is littered with half-baked working models abandoned and interest and focus lost. Hepworth's maquettes have inspired me to do better and to value them more for their own, intrinsic value and character, as well as useful steps in the creative process. Whilst at the gallery I took these images of boat shapes to help with maquettes for a work that currently is either too boat-like or not enough.

Collage challenge

I went to the London Art Fair last night, managing to get there and back in a weather window gap in Norfolk's  week of snow and ice. The presentations from the newer and fresher galleries usually provide more stimulus and visual excitement - although they probably don't make as much money from sales. 

The visit strengthened my resolve to try and push my collage work further in terms of materials, format and colour and taking them more into the sculptural. I've been teetering on this edge for a couple of years now at least and blaming lack of time for not being braver in the work.

At a slight tangent, a delivery of A1 (not A0 this time) flyposter Iran stamp collage images was waiting for me on my return from London. They were not scanned on a black background this time, so the perforated pattern edging the stamp blends in to the background - not sure whether I like that.

Dirty Yellow Splodge

Still on the subject of dirty yellow, which just will not rest, this was the desktop scene in my studio as I was attempting yet again to resolve the (life)boat sculpture drawings. My thoughts have gone back and forth like a pendulum - origami, not origami, lace, not lace.  Last week I thought I had a breakthrough in the form of the piece, changing it to a big, sharp black object. Part boat, part architecture.  I got quite excited about it for about an hour. On reflection, I think that is a different piece, one that can sit alongside the lace (life)boat perhaps.

New Old Scissors

At last, scissors for collage cutting so that the house scissors do not keep disappearing, resurfacing next to a pile of postcard or stamp fragments. The larger pair, from Holt, North Norfolk, have been re-sharpened to devastating effect. I don't think tools are generally sharpened as much as they need to be, not now. The smaller pair were bought from Suffolk. Now to cut out some Martello Towers....

Cyrus Garden End & Beginning

Although the Cyrus Garden Project, as funded by the Arts Council, has officially ended, the visual research and inquisitiveness continues unabated. The initial points of interest and departure remain, although perhaps morphed or transmuted or diverted into new and different areas.  These new pockets of interest are connected by threads (perhaps silken, who knows) to the umbrella of WW2 and Persian Gardens. So much remains a continuing work in progress. And as ever, I have difficulty editing out these interests, so many are fascinating and perhaps distracting.

Perhaps a mini review is in order? A list of outcomes and shortcomings, such as those sent in the Arts Council report? Except I think that all these things are embedded within this scrapbook and there for all who care to delve into.

The end of the project calls into question the aims of this visual scrapbook now  - is this a natural conclusion or an arbitary deadline somewhat disconnected from the organic nature of the research process itself? This is, of course, one of the difficulties I experienced through all those months of creating the Afterlife -Docks Inventory book, trying to define the elements of a process whilst still in the midst of the process. (Incidentally, I am still working on different versions of the inventory, just as the research process has continued.) It is all a journey of discovery.

This image took my fancy today, not sure why.  It is a telephone in the Western Approaches Museum, Liverpool from The Touring Territories first research visit there.

Toiuring Territories East Anglian U.F.O Archive

We have finally delivered the East Anglian UFO research that Nicola Naismith and I undertook on behalf of Dave Evans, Co-Director of The Royal Standard, Liverpool. We journeyed up to Liverpool to give a talk about the project to the fabulously welcoming Royal Standard and had an interesting discussion about disparate UFO matters.  Part two of the evening was a snapshot of our interest in parts of Liverpool such as The Clarion Cycling Club (Nicola) and the Sugar Silo on Huskisson Dock. 
Coincidentally, we also displayed the Satellite Portfolio that our artist's group collated for Aid & Abet, Cambridge last year.
Nicola and I stayed with Dave and Fran overnight, but missed out on the Special Edition of Close Encounters, in favour of the local watering hole.
This is a polaroid of the archive table as laid out for Dave, and as we left it for him. The next day we returned to the docks, where my Polaroid camera decided to have a melt down.

http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/1329759

Nine Perspectives

During a recent Satellite meeting, Nicola Naismith referred to The Becher's Typologies of varying industrial structures photographed from similar perspectives and formatted into a grid for comparison.  German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher had begun working together in 1959.  http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/95

I immediately realised that this was one of the implicit motives for me photographing from within the WW2 defence fortifications, so I've played around with a grid format, almost like a list or catalogue of the views.  Of course, by no means completist, even within my modest boundaries of collecting. I have other versions of these, but decided to try this one as a double-sided short-run A3 print. This is ideal for someone who cannot resist collecting sets of items and I could just aswell apply this to my images of cranes....

Ideas about boat sculpture

Whilst in France I spent some time thinking about my "bateau sauvetage" boat sculpture idea - another piece I have been circling round for over ten years. (approximate Guernsey French for lifeboat.) I discussed the idea during my In Process Residency at The Queen of Hungary Project Space with Nicola Naismith, which set me thinking in a slightly different direction. Bigger. No origami.

I'm planning a maquette first to test some of my thoughts and considerations. I'm still a long way off from even starting the piece, but small steps forward.

Prototype book, belated image.

I 've realised that I haven't posted any images of the Afterlife-Docks prototype book, the culmination of countless hours of work from the Cyrus Garden project. I'm about to 'crit' the book at the Queen of Hungary Project Space and conside rthe next steps with it. Still, most exciting. 

Load docks collage

"Load" Digital collage image.
Postcard collage of White Rock Pier, St Peter Port with two types of loading/unloading and slightly differing colourway choices.

Resurrection of a Nissen Hut

Strange things have been afoot down at the studio.  The pillbox has been given a severe haircut and a Nisssen Hut has appeared.  The piece of corrugated iron that I appropriated for the In Process Residency has been magnetised back to the whole, limited edition poster  and all.

Of Black Glass and Nasty Yellow

Bunker /House, Dominique Rey

            Abigail Reynolds at Ambach & Rice       

Black glass and nasty yellow have been on my mind this past year. Whilst in Liverpool I saw some interesting work by the artist Abigail Reynolds, with a connection to collage, at Bluecoat www.thebluecoat.org.uk. Another piece of work by Reynolds pinged a resonant elastic band with my Bunker /House (still no definitive title) and most recently the hotly disputed yellow window mount for my "Meeting Place" collage shown during my In Process residency in March. Perhaps it is the wasp syndrome?

Two photography darkrooms

Photographed on my recent research trip to Liverpool, this is at the National Trust owned, former house of Mr And Mrs Chambre Hardman, well-known portrait and documentary photographers around Liverpool.   The house is itself like stepping into a tinted snapshot from the 1940's and 1950's; higly photogenic particularly with some interesting lighting.  The darkrooms seemed fascinating both by daylight and redlight and the ticking clock and the ground floor was stacked high with yellow Kodak boxes. Just the redolent smells of the chemicals missing, but nevertheless transported back to my childhood.

In Process Residency - last day.

Two polaroids recording the last day of my In Process Residency. Polly Cruse curated the 'show' or arrangement of work that was finally viewed by an audience, so it was interesting seeing how that influenced the process of editing work. In particular, Polly and I made two small but effective and noticeable alterations to the layout. We turned the 'Facade' arch  round so that the back was facing the audience as they entered the space, which in effect created more of an internal space the other side of the arch and more of an impetus to get there with two routes seeming more available. The second small but effective change was to project the video through one of the sandblasted glass panes and into the arched tank, creating layers of shadow both within the tank and on the wall. The space remained architectural in the way it was informally broken up  into smaller spaces by a repeated arch or curved shape, the best we could do within the single space. Good reactions from the visitors and good conversations had.