An old friend in a new guise loafing by the path

So we come to the end of the year-  lah di dah  : all rubbish!

The year ended on the 21st of December and the new one began the next day.

We are nine days into the new year already.

Anyway, guess who I met along the way all dressed up for the positively last appearance ( no comebacks )  :

 

 

Now you thought - dare I say, hoped -  that  this was gone for good - well now it is.

The path across the garden

The is a certain feeling of surfacing after an indeterminate time spent in wet cotton wool - its called Christmas -thankfully the real world - such as it is  - beckons once more.


With apologies to Richard Long:

 

Really, just trying to make out that thinking about the project never stops. ...and coincidence upon coincidence  - last night I began a new book  called 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson and the central character in this future novel is a landartist working on Mercury (as you would) who makes large land pieces called goldswothies and uses her body for abramovics; - its everywhere : you can't leave it.

 

This time of year inevitably is a mixture of happiness and sadness and on Monday I will attend the funeral of a very old friend - Dennis O'Driscoll, poet - who I have known for at least thirty years.

About twenty-five years ago he very kindly invited me to open a reading in Thurles from his then second book of poetry Hidden Extras and who shared that night was the artist Tom Shortt ( showing some photographs )  who, I believe still teaches in Limerick. I was the odd one out as both Dennis and Tom were natives of Thurles and I the blow-in. The last time I met Dennis was at the launch of his latest volume but there were so many people that it was impossible to exchange more than  few words.

He will be missed.

 

Next week I hope to do some visiting, particularly to carry out my regular pilgrimage to the Turner watercolours in the National. I will report.

sauntering

Who ever thought that nature had good taste:

Sunset over Liscahill 18/12/2012 -  I know, I know it's clicheed hackneyed et al and definitely not 'less is more' ....... but it was still pretty impressive; these were not taken with the phone!

Here I would like to indulge one of my favourite conceits and that is to proclaim that today -Dec 21 - is in fact ( or should be ) New Years Eve. Alright, the reasoning here is that today is of course the Winter Solstice or shortest day of the year; ergo, tomorrow the days once more begin to lengthen, hence we proceed into a new year.
The other so-called new year is simply a societal convention and should be disposed of forthwith; so tonight I make my perennial new years resolution ie to enjoy myself even more in the coming year.

In the meantime here is my Christmas card to all (!!?!) my readers solely in deference to those who claim this time as a christian holiday:


Star of Wonder:

 

 

and  of course:

 

 

 

A certain amount of humility and withdrawal from the material might help everyone

 

 

Enjoy.

Images on the path

I spotted this as I was walking up the path (the domestic one, that is) and I thought it amusing:

 

but what's more interesting is what can happen next:

 

a potential print?

 

Another domestic and its sequela:

Okay, maybe too much time an my hands.

.....and even worse:

The Spot Diary on tour:

the primrose path of idleness

Well not exactly, but a little slacking now and again is a no bad thing.

As I mentioned yesterday I visited some galleries and the first of these was Kerlin in Annes Lane near Grafton St. This just appears as a door in a wall and this is what you see inside:

When you get to the top you are led into a beautiful space and this is what is there at present:

 

Siobhan Haspaska  -  the recent incarnation of two advanced souls  -  2012

 

The present show consists of large conceptual pieces by Siobhan Hapaska and paintings by Stephen McKenna and the juxtaposition between 3D and 2D is quite challenging, particularly as the latter is - at first look, anyway - quite traditional. Indeed, the juxtaposition also exists within the concept pieces between the heavily industrial and the organic. The above image doesn't really do justice to the highly polished aluminium that constitutes the inorganic and really has to be seen - and looked at - for full impact.

Here is another:

 

four angels  -  2012

 

Again the effect of the light inside the selenium crystals and the high reflectivity of the aluminium is lost here.

I do not wish to undervalue the paintings which required more lenghty viewing to achieve their effect - rather more than one might have imagined at first glance and much more rewarding.

 

Leaving Kerlin:

 

 

 

 

 

My second visit was here:

 

 

 

Douglas Hyde gallery - Trinity college - and for any students who are interested in fabrics and textiles this one is worth seeing. It is in two parts:

 

Chanteh

Tribal textiles from Iran

 

 

Image is not great because I scanned it from the gallery leaflet; this is a collection  of little bags woven by girls in Iran and the designs were amazing -they were in four groups of about thirty each but no pictures were allowed .

 

 

The Paradise[38]

Eva Rothschild

 

  the latter was a group of three pieces produced in reaction to the above display and featured 'weavings' in man-made materials such as acrylic and resin.

[I was right in the title of this post - I have loads of time and this has taken three days so far -work faster when I am at school]

The third visit was to Taylor Galleries at the top of Kildare Street and they were running a very big exhibition called the Winter Group Show with about forty artists participating including John Shinnors, Charles Tyrell, George Potter, Brian Bourke, John Devlin, Anne Madden, Tim Goulding et al. All the work was new and much of it done specially for the show. It was an impressive array of what is going on at present in one particular area of Irish contemporary art.
Along the way,I picked up this newsletter published by Fire Station Artists Studios of Buckingham Street, Dublin:

 



The booklet is a mine of information on programmes for artists and the provision of studio space. Resident artists in the past have included Alice Maher, Makiko Nakamura (in the Taylor show), Mark Garry and Niamh O'Malley. There is a run-down on present artists in residence and available skills programmes. I must find out what is transpiring similarly in Limerick.

Ok, that will do for now and let's get back up to date.

Holly with red berries at the side of the path

 

The Spot Diary

 

 

 

Ok -so there it is the last day and the last move and it just goes to show that  nothing is what it seems  - red is black is red; black is red is black.I suppose though the giveaway is the drips - the red (?) now looks like a red giant star with solar flares.

 

Next step to try to animate - interesting

 

Today was the first field trip: three gallery visits and an amzingly contrsting assortment of work which I will describe in detail tomorrow with some images and directions as to galleries

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the path becomes a meander

Well I arrived in this morning and the first thing I did was to check the new hanging in the corridor. The small woodcuts had fallen and were replaced but I would have to say that the reception has been much more favourable. In many ways more importantly, I like it much more myself. As Sylvia Shortall said, it fits far better with the body of my work.
Then I returned to the studio to a beautiful clean white wall and set to work selecting, rejecting, masking-taping and hanging. After approval from Sylvia as to the direction I was taking (less is more), I began to seriously tidy up margins on all work and I used double-sided tape to hang. Here is the result:

 

Printwork on the left, images of multiples which went to make up the animations in front and 3D on the table. The laptop will be there with blog and animations.

 

This all took rather longer than expected, not helped by cutting my finger due to carelessness (thankfully no spillages on prints!!) and thank you to Sean for Elastoplast (and stories about Young Munsters!).

Then I went for a tour around the other studios and it was marvellous to see the positive volcano of creativity everywhere. I even got a compliment on the Spot Diary.

What a wonderful place is LSAD.

My last visit today was to the gallery where there is now an exhibition by Nuala O'Sullivan who I am led to believe is an alumnus of this college. I hope she wont mind me putting one of her pictures up here but I really did like them.

 

 

Unfortunately, I do not have title or date but if I can find this info later I will amend.

 

 

Guess what

 

The Spot Diary

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walls pull back : path widens

The first thing I did when I went in this morning was to check the new wall piece and on looking, I decided to put a few spots of emulsion where there were stains  - I think it was worth it:

Sorry for the aggressive size but otherwise difficult to see the white print.

I am much happier with this as it is much more reflective of the process I have been following.
However, following on from this I had a hard lesson in printmaking today. As I said, I had made my last prints and I collected them and the monoprints and was in the process of trimming them when I leaned a little and to my horror discovered that that last layer (beige ) was not dry and had smudged the black.  I was about to attempt to clean these and Derek told me not to try that with white spirit as it would cause the whole print to flow. Anyway he gave me a great tip and I was able to improve matters enormously. Thanks loads, Derek.
I finished the painting of The Uncertainty Box and placed the ceramic spots:

 

These continue the theme I have been pursuing (in 3D); there is a concept here which may be developed further:

the box is positioned on a table with camera on a tripod aimed downwards and a remote control on the table; the observer is invited to place the spots in whatever arrangement they wish and then to use the remote to take one picture; at the end of the exhibit the resulting images are formed into an animation sequence, thus totally randomly generated. An extra possibility would be to record the sounds made by the spots on the wood and use this as the soundtrack.

I would like to have had the chance to develop this but perhaps in the future,

There was another 3D variation on this which fell victim to a shortage and late delivery of materials:

 

 

In this case, the spots were made of modelling clay, and were fixed in place at different heights; it was intended that they would be enveloped in silicone and ultimately cast in resin  -the silicone did not arrive in time unfortunately.

 

Considerable tidying up was done today; all the bits of tape removed and some more emulsionapplied where there were spots and stain;  some selection was made as to what is going to be in the presentation and  tomorrow I will do a trial hanging.

I have also written a first draft of my statement but it will need a lot of polishing, I think.

 

..........and here we are

 

The Spot Diary

 

 

 

Hair-pin bend.

Well that one didn't last long  - two tutors gave negative opinions on the wall piece so it's gone and may or may not be resurrected in the future. I suppose if I am really honest with my self, I wasnt really all that happy with it, especially when I saw the picture on the last post. Trouble was, I was too content with merely having something on the wall.

Well, theres something rather different there now and I will show it tomorrow.

Did the print work as I said and I will have a few more pictures of various prints.

Wall has also been dismantled and I will do a trialhanging tomorrow when I have separated all the images that are still taped. One of the other students in our area -Aisling -looked up and was amazed : she said that was the first time she had seen white wall in my corner since September!

I had two tutor visits today and both want me to be very selective. I had intended to do that anyway.

The Spot Diary

 

 

A narrow alley with high walls

Last week of term -extraordinary! When we sat in the church during orientation week and were told that there were fifteen weeks ahead .....................all gone.

Lots of work this week.
Finished and hung the painted version of what has come to be the central image:

 

I would be a liar and a hypocrite if I did not admit that I was pleased to see it on the wall - in truth, whenever I see a piece of my work in a public space I am delighted and I don't think that will ever change, because it wouldn't be there if I was unhappy with it.

The various stages in its making are recorded in my sketch book in photos.

 

I also have taken my reduction print to its ultimate stge today:

 

 

and finally

 

 

- not much left.

 

Tomorrow, hopefully the final print will be done, and also the monoprint should be completed, thus giving another version of the central image.

When that is done I will put up a picture of the proofs of the different stages of the print. I look forward to doing more work in the print shop in the next semester.

 

I have been reading John Bergers 'About Looking' during my train journeys and that has brought me back to the library on a number of occasions to look at artists he discusses. During the holidays, I hope to write a little on this subject and to do some visiting which I will record.

 

But for now

 

The Spot Diary

 

 

 

 

Just a couple of steps

Other duties calle dover the weekend so here I am on Sunday night wth a quick entry.
I have begun my plan for the assessment presentation and have already spotted a number of things that will need attention. For example, at a crit on Friday morning Michael Canning asked me to present  one of my animations and I was able to do so but if an examiner  was looking for them in my blog they are not immediately visible; so I will have to address that and to flag the posts where they can be seen.

The other more immediate problem is how I am going to get the large piece I have been working on up on a wall? - tomorrow, hopefully

 

This is what has been happening - painting with a roller has great immediacy and the consequent raw finish must be retained to try yo communicate this. I would like it to be up because then I would have a better idea of how successful this approach has been.

 

While at the other end of the same room:

The Spot Diary