talking of the Art of Faith.....

The Shell shrine bunker in Guernsey....

 The Art of Faith show at the Sainsbury Centre building comes down tomorrow and it is snowing again. A rather chilly paradise garden. Here 2D original shown  (as layout plan) with 3D consequences.

Sudanese temple graffiti.

 Trying out these 2 images mounted under acrylic.  I'm attracted by the idea of a protective covering or shield over these carvings at long last, a small recompense for their centuries of exposure to the elements and marauding colonialists wanting to leave their mark.

snow stops digging

A wistful remembrance of the Summer and the layout for the tiny -scale quincunx orchard. Only 3 trees planted and frozen ground (and old cottage foundations) stops digging. The measuring lines have sagged and broken and the markers trampled flat under the snow. Not quite up to Browne's ideal. This is what it should look like........

Art of Faith information

Rose Garden at School of World Art Studies, Sainsbury Centre Building.

From the single light source, thanks to Paul building one at the correct height. Best Rose Garden shadow yet? But is it transient enough, given the absence of sunlight? And a snowy private view....

 Another view of the Republican Palace and also dam pylons in the distance

Another dam, not sure if it is the reservoir I boated on (in a rowing sense), trailing my hand in the water to try to cool down .

Pyramid skyline  - fantasy postcard view of Khartoum, with the sand encroaching.

Merowe Dam stamp

Sudan Dam

Lots of conversations with the Sudanese I have met and questions about the Merowe Dam, east of Khartoum.  It seems to act as a sort of symbol of progress and one required for the rapidly growing needs of the masses (urban), particularly electricity, as opposed to the individual, or smaller group of people (rural or "Affected people") who  are  dispossessed  of their land and resettled elsewhere. It seems one of the tricky points in the process of rapid development and growth, just as the Aswan dam was on the border with Egypt. I was told there are other dam building projects in the pipeline, needed in the dry Northern landscape of desert sand pierced by the powerhouse that is the Blue Nile and the White Nile  - kinds of arteries giving life.
www.merowedam.gov.sd

Sudan from the Triumph Album 1945 perspective

A lot can happen within a country in 65 years and the Triumph pen sketch seems to almost apply to a completely different country from what I have read.   The visa finally arrived for Khartoum this week, the flight now booked for Sunday, so I will soon have a more up to date perspective. 

Pre and post Iranian Revolution

An interesting contrast, the top one colliding circa 1945 with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the lower one using as the base image a stamp that is presumably just post revolution? Also, again joining together historic architecture and signs of modern progress.

Bunker on the shingle bank

Perched on a small bluff surrounded by a bed of shingle

A predominance of bridges and dams amongst the stamps I'm  selecting from and using, and so the practical and symbolic importance of water in Iran and of demonstrating progress.

From a 1945 Triumph Illustrated stamp album

Quincunx Carpet

I like this picture of a wall painting of Shah Abbas for the lattice -pattern or quincunx patterned carpet he kneels on. And the line of dancing girls at the front.

One version with extra watermark, one without.  I seem to have quite a number of poppy stamps (1998) from my cousin .The office is still half packed in boxes, half strewn in piles of paper, files and photos and making use of a hi-fi box as a table.

mock-ups -  encroaching bindweed / morning glory, nature on symbols of modernity, themselves now arguably outdated and all that...

Actual size version made using a sharper scalpel blade.

New address (not this)

70 years ago

70 years since the Channel Islands were first occupied by German forces.

the matching pair of low-fi collages

Rose Garden stamps again 200%, still deciding about scale and the postmarks.I feel unsettled and out of place, so this gives me minutiae to focus on. Also reading the complete Sherlock Holmes and listening to the Pixies live 'Sell Out'. Not sure if it helps.

In the loft again and finally found my old stamp album. This collage is at least double the size, but perhaps with the aid of a magnifying glass I can do the cutting out on the actual stamps.

Eram Garden, Sa'adi tomb and the mosque.

Sorting through piles of old postcards in the loft has given me a chance to continue with the architecture collage I played with using the Indian postcards.  In these images mosque meets paradise garden and religion meets the spiritual, although still not completely secular.  I like the low-fi cut-out and the obvious artifice in the construction.

This is an interesting site of an East Anglian WW2 defence area - Walberswick, where you can view reconstructions of observation posts and defences, most now demolished, as if on a fly through. There are obvious contrasts with the German constructed structures. www.walberswickww2.co.uk

Persian Garden Collages and Indian Postcards.

Finished two more paradise garden collages, one after 'The Garden of the Octagon'. Thinking about the postcards found in the St Helier (Jersey) fruit and vegetable market and how they connect to my garden collages. I would like to make the architectural elements such as the garden pleasure pavilions in the islamic gardens more explicit - hence "The Great White Gate " amalgam here.

This is the other, unseen side of "Shot - reverse shot".