Poetry Thursday - about shades of black and darkness

An excerpt from a meditation on darkness by George Szirtes. I heard it on the Echo Chamber (BBC Radio 4, Dec 17; available on vimeo) as a result of researching Sam Winston's durational drawings.

Exhibited at the Poetry Library, South Bank, 2017-8 (via)

Having established a bedrock of pure darkness we may perhaps be able to name its sub-classes, all the classic blacks we know. Let’s say their names: Ebony, Taupe, Davy’s Grey, Noir, Charcoal, Soot, Jet, Onyx, Lamp Black, Carbon Black, Super Black, Vantablack. That black.

The black of your polished shoe, the black of the ribbon on the undertaker’s hat, the black of drypoint in curled metal. The raven, the crow, the rook, the blackbird, the black swan. And other blacks. Keep adding. These are only names, and names are there to be invented. But do it in darkness. In the dark backward and abysm of time. In time’s eloquence. In time’s infinite capacity and its vast belly that keeps expanding and never will stop expanding.

Are we there yet? Is the thought of time a black thought yet? Is darkness visible supposed to be visible?

It’s just a room. These are just thoughts waking to find themselves returning as words. But they are waking in darkness, a darkness in which it makes no difference whether your eyes are shut or not.

The rest is here, on Szirtes' blog.

An exhibition of convenience

The need to get out of the house during Betwixtmas sent me to Tate Britain, a convenient destination, and the Burne-Jones exhibition (till 24 Feb) was convenient to the entrance, so in I went, even though my interest in the Preraphaelites wore out some decades ago.

He certainly could paint, and draw. But oh those languid ladies, so bored with life, so frightened, so passive...

Early work - painted on part of a piano!

Striking stained glass ...

... with lovely "medieval" plant details

Rubens was his least favourite painter - this is a
caricature of a Rubens Annunciation

Straightforward drawing

Strangely raised and gilded drapery (and lettering) on a
wood panel - how did he do that?

 And speaking of drapery - great swathes of it, in many colours -

Drawing Tuesday

(Last week's work at the Brunei Gallery is on Sue's blog, here. )

A few days have passed since the Drawing Room summer school and Tuesday seems a good place for thinking about it.

Starting point, and outcome; it seems the "drawing" happened elsewhere!

Not sure what I expected - to be tackling "something" unexpected along with other people doing the same thing, and enjoying it, even though it might be a bit scary? To be exposed to other people's approaches, not just the tutors but the other participants. To be pushed out of my comfort zone. To "see" differently as a result. To improve my skills, with any luck.

Maybe that's a retrospective list, because all those things happened. What I didn't expect was to feel so tired & emotional so much of the time - blame it on the excitement of the day, and onthe daily commute!. Nor did I expect to feel so resistant - phew did I feel resistant to some of the things that were going on, but where did that come from? The briefs, or prompts, such as they were, were so open-ended, so elastic, there should have been no resistance: I could have done anything. And did; and that might have been the problem, for me ... a bit more direction, some on-the-mark feedback, a hint or two about being on the wrong track? Or maybe, being tired&emotional, I just didn't take it in.

I felt I was on the wrong track, chaotic and unfocussed. Yet this situation is about messing about and finding something (new?) that interests you, something to take forward later. What did I do? I went back to my cosy comfort zone, books. Perhaps (almost certainly!) I'd set this up by bring along a book-like map as my significant object.

After a day of "collecting" figurative images from other artists' work I was so unimpressed with my results that I needed to collect the originals, and out of my graphite chaos make a nice tidy book. Just a leporello ... floppy paper but nice hard covers. This object caused some astonishment - artists know about paper, but maybe not about its sculptural - and humdrum - possibilities?

On the last day we carried on with our "personal project". I'd figured out how the map's folding system worked, so that was one objective achieved. Also, something that I haven't been able to do for a while, I found myself just thinking about "crazy" possibilities and drilling down to something essential: a map of a city needs some sort of representation of streets. And I had just such a grid on hand, easily used via frottage. Which led to a bad habit surfacing: working in a frenzy at the last minute, rubbing as much paper as possible before leaving for class, and having to rush to get there.

Late Friday afternoon, as we set up for the "show&tell", that same bad habit had me determined to "finish off" all that paper and in using it up, some rather rudimentary work emerged.

At the last minute, there was no time to make the final fold!

That rush to finish, and hurrying to set up "a nice display", is one of the sources of my dissatisfaction, along with knowing that the work could have been more pared-down, less chaotic, more thoughtful, had I not squandered my time and energy through negativity about this&that throughout the day. I find myself focussed on the product rather than the process, but it's the process that's the valuable part.

I think the book format interested the others - there were some good questions about it - and I fantasise that some will use it a vehicle for their own work or, even better, look at artists books more closely.

I also fantasise about making "flat art" - on paper or canvas, is that "proper" art? - and can't quite accept that I'm more of a 3D person. 3D takes up space! ah but books, with their 2D/3D fluctuations, transcend this. 

So to sum up, although at this point I'm still bristling a bit with residual resistance, the gains are getting the upper hand over the pains. One of the books especially is ripe for development, and I'm eager to get on with that. Small learning points from the process are starting to emerge - for instance, I'm seeing tone everywhere, after a day of trying to achieve it. 

The first little book got a title: "Kolnische Kirchen". The basis is a map/diagram showing the proximity of the 12 romanesque churches in Cologne, and the medieval city walls. Photos were found on the internet, and on the other side are architectural footprints of some of them -

The other "finished" book (well, I'm not going to tamper with it, though it could be improved in many ways) juxtaposes plans and appearances and includes the Gothic-style Dom, famous symbol of the city, which appears on the cover of the original Falk map. If you've ever arrived in Cologne by train, you'll know how close the Dom is to the station, and how it overshadows this modern intrusion. Whereas the older churches have to be sought out.

Searching out the churches is one idea behind this, unfinished, map. Another is the red line, which would be better as "the red thread" - a peregrination, a pilgrimage, or just wayfaring or tourism - connection, connection, connection.... What will go in the blank areas - images, words, or ...?

On Friday afternoon I ended my explanation of my "objects" with the phrase "the mapness of maps" and this simplification is something to keep in mind when working further with this format.

postscript: "I know what I think when I hear myself talk." Writing this has uncovered so much for me! It's good to "talk" to yourself about what you've done, or are doing.

Natural mark-making

Walking in the park, I picked up some pine needles - long ones and short ones - and a couple of partly degraded pinecones for good measure. 

Tied up, mostly with masking tape (hmm, how long will that last?) they have been added to my collection of natural drawing materials ... with the hazel charcoal (repaired with masking tape where part broke off) in the mix, for good measure.

 Some mark-making ensued...

 And I found a pebble at the bottom of the bag when I unpacked the shopping, so tried it for mark-making on some cardboard that coincidentally was heading for the recycling ...

With the ink (and a "regular" paintbrush) to hand, it became this -

 which led to more mark-making on other bits of brown paper ...

Quick and dirty fun. Not worth keeping, but instructive in their simplicity.

Art holiday, part 2

Everyone seemed to enjoy the "draw each other" exercise. Helen had brought a roll of cellophane and cut off long lengths, which we held in the air (and stood on the bottom) and our partner outlined our face, hair, arms, clothes (aprons!), shoes with a chunky marker. Instant amazement!

Another task was to make a "group costume" for the party on Thursday night. The theme was "sci-fi" and "silver and white" - we made spock-ears, supported by headbands (sometimes embellished) -

 Ready to party -

 Some of the other groups had gone to a great deal of trouble, producing mini-plays -

Back in the studio ... I spent the final days revising some of the less successful drawings - often with erasure -

 ... and overpainting with ink and, hmm, coffee I think - the paleness is channelling Ian McKeever's palette -

 These swoops of ink should have gone straight in the bin. They are a bit gestural and totally meaningless and unpleasing -

They became a trial of white paint and powdered graphite applied over oil pastel. The paper around the pastel came off in crumbs and became part of the texture, which the graphite enhanced -

Still not much of a design - call it a spaceship to go with the sci-fi theme?

But what a great texture!

Three charcoal rubbings of different types of ground (twigs, path, etc) happened to be circular -

and inspired the composition on another erased sheet of paper, with a little white paint on the old lines for augmentation, and string laid onto the central whorl because it was too dark -

Using nature's brushes - bundles of twigs or bark

This rubbing of bark and stumps

was overlaid by an alphabet of big-flat-brush marks -

The drawing on cellophane influenced this

Some of the less successful efforts were transformed by being made into one-sheet books and I was so happy to pass this process onto the others, whose work became really interesting in book format, allowing a close look rather than being an overwhelming network of lines/marks.

(Also, it's easier to take home when large sheets are folded up!)

One of my bundles, crow feathers (used to scratch into swathes of ink) was lying on my open sketchbook along with some card I'd used as a template, and Helen pointed out how the separate elements complemented each other. An eye-opener! -

In my small notebook I'd been making "mini-McKeevers" -

 ... which got the "add something" treatment -

The afternoon of the final day was a chance to round to the other courses to see what they had produced. Which meant showing what we had produced, and every surface was covered -

 Tidy-up in action -

 Result = display of interlocking one-sheet books -

I'm amazed at how important "nature" was in all this, and how
I enjoyed being direct rather than twisting the work into
complicated concepts (note to self: Remember This)

 These trees-that-drew-themselves (using brushes from their own twigs) are one of my favourite pieces -

 also this, which involved washing off a lot of fussy marks and changing them to a simple branch (but the feathers stayed)

This was made early on, with a feather dipped in ink, and brought on thoughts about the kinds of structures found in living things - how is a feather like a tree? -

This started from a big flint, enlarged - it's become, what, a fish swimming into murky water? Or maybe it's just a shape and some tones -

 My favourites -

Goodbye new friends, goodbye room 45 (open window) -

Hello rain, hello train! The heavens opened and the rain pelted down for hours. I'm so grateful to Jan for a lift to the station, through the lakes that had formed everywhere along the roads.