The path is a little smoother

First I would like to put in a picture  I took last Thursday night on my way to the station after the Print-off - I am really sorry not to have posted it  then because Eoin Barry has a much better and admittedly later shot of the same project on his Facebook page -he also explains what it is about; I couldn't agree with him more - go and see it and be cheered up and maybe a little more optimistic about the coming culture year in Limerick;

 

As I have already said elsewhere - Ed Ruscha eat your heart out!

 

Was in Dublin on Wednesday and did a bit of visiting -first to Graphic Studios for their Winter show -as always very impressive  -here are a few images:

 

 

I Phone 5 - Packaging  : Screenprint  -  Raymond Henshaw

 

I particularly liked this one and notably there were very few sceenprints the very vast majority being etchings of one sort or another ( A lot of aquatint, I would have thought)

 

Up the Dubs   - Linocut  -  Constance Short

 

Simple and straightforward - really nice - a lot of cutting.

 

There were 74 pieces and of these  51 were etchings  -   interesting.

 

Onward to IMMA for my first visit since it reopened and great to see it back in business with some terrific art on show.

The main exhibition is a retrospective on the Irish architect and designer; this is long-overdue as hitherto there has been a small feature on her in the National Museum in Collins' Barracks. Admittedly she spent most of her working life in France and she has been feted there with a major exhibition in Centre Pompidou, nonetheless we do not have so many top artists in Ireland that we can afford to ignore one such as Ms Gray.

It is an excellent show and a timely reminder that we can produce great designers here even if they have to go further afield to bloom fully:

 

 

Cork Screen

 

Chairs

 

Collage

Again, collage

 



 

Screen

 

Furniture

Standard Lamp

 

Another artist was Klara Liden and I loved these 'posters':

 

 

 

Another exhibition is One Foot in the Real World and here is a quote about it:

 



"Drawing on IMMA’s Collection, One Foot in the Real World, includes works that explore the urban environment, the everyday or the domestic. Elements of architecture and design recur as points of departure in the works; such as bricks; the keyhole; the window; the door and the table."

 

Some pieces:

 

 

Antony Gormley

 

Max Bill - Doublement

 

Picture does not do this justice

 

I also liked this piece of writing contrary to my ongoing tirade against artspeak:

 

Didn't get to see Leonora Carrington, but maybe again

 

Just in case you all think I was just swanning around art shows while sitting in my daughters house I came across an old friend fro an earlier course and couldn't resist a portrait:

 

 

 

 

 

Finally these are for you Aoife -  they made it to their destination despite various difficulties which I put in their way (more another time)

 

 Thanks again

 

 

 

 

The Path of Superstition

~I gave this title some thought - maybe the Rocky Road or the Path of Relief - but in the end decided on the above for the irony involved  -this will be explained later.

First lets go back to the collages because these have now morphed into A2 digital prints which grace the corridor outside the canteen:

 

Here are two close-ups:

 

The second one I did later as a Super A3 and both would look better as Tif files but they won't load as such.

Anyway, I would  have to say I am a lot more interested in the world of digital and of scanning in images even from my own smaller flat-bed here at home. Also I hope to do some more collage work here over the hols.

 

Before I go any further I should mention the print-off which took place in the workshop on Thursday evening with duels between Eoin and Barry(winner), and Des and Derek(yes, the same!); after Derek was declared the winner ....Des declared everyone expelled. I forebear comment invoking the 5th Amendment, but will show some carefully selected pics:

 

 

Stabbed in the back

 

 

 

If the pictures are less then perfect let us just say the conditions were less than perfect

 

I now have to return to the title and the irony. First let me just say that I don't remotely believe in superstition;  then let me show you this:

 

 

 

 

 

That is all that remained of my car  after 2.30pm on Friday the 13th.

 

Ok I exaggerate slightly but as they say on the TV news the other pictures are too unpleasant to show  - just lets say that car won't be going anywhere again. Interesting start to the hols.

People may have heard me saying that I intended to live to be 100 (!!?!) -well,I feel after Friday I really have been handed a get-out-of-jail card on the proviso that I use what is left to do something extra.

 

Enough of that.

 

 

Before I left I picked up some books from the library. I'll tell you about them:

Himself

 

Hannah Hoch and John Heartfield have become of great importance to me because of my growing interest in collage and Iwill post some uploads from the books later

 

Paul Kennard falls into a similar category with a greater emphasis on protest later in the 20c.

 

 

Berlinde de Bruyckere's sculptures speak to my work, with organic subjects which might be bodies and which might be the subject of violence or decay.

 

...and feeding into all this is the burgeoning fascination with Freudian theory (not that I necessarily agree with it), psychoanalysis and film; this, of course need not be limited to film but turns back on ideas of corruption decay and how these themes are worked together to form an art  of thought about our surrounding circumstances.

 

 

 

This book together with William Claxton's  Jazz Seen bring together an absorption with photography and music, particularly jazz.

 

The last thing I would like to mention is another book.

 From the beginning I have been fascinated by the concept of artists books and had decided that before I finished in school I would make one (in fact I already have an idea, but more of that later).

A while back I was looking through Printmaking Today and I came across an article about Tom Phillips and his  work 'A Humument' . This turned out to be   based on a Victorian novel he and Ron Kitaj had found in a furniture warehouse in the 60s after a bet from Phillips that he could make a life's work out of the first book he could find for thruppence - that was 'A Human Document' and he has been working and reworking this as 'A Humument' ever since and now Thames and Hudson have published a pocket edition. Here is the cover and some pages:

 

 

cover

 

 

as you can see, words are 'extracted' from each page making up a thread and the page is reworked around these in various ways; it is absolutely wonderful and I am going to have to get to see the original.

 

Ideas, ideas and more ideas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking back along the path

It's getting to that time of year when the path must be surveyed .

I think it is called Assessment.

Anyway I have been looking back along a windy, tortuous and at times narrow and broken surface and I realise thee have been a few omissions not least the source whence the w/cut came.

 

This actually came after the print and a number of people said that they were surprised that someone who avowedly loved books as much as I did should murder them in this way. My justification was that it was the content that was being attended to; anyway, as in most things in this world, I wasn't the first:

 

 

I hardly need to say it but this is The Book of Nails by a group known as Floating Concrete Octopus about whom at this time I know nothing.

 

However I decided to change the title of the murdered books for another object which murders books and I will do a print later of this with a metal spike through it:

 

 

...and no I am not a Luddite - I just don't like them

 

When I was taking the books down I had another idea:

 

Perhaps this speaks to the voyeuristic element of books where we spy on the lives of others, or perhaps it characterises the male gaze  or maybe it is simply creepy...... to be addressed

 

Let's just finish a little more lightly:

 

 

 

The accidental image - gold ink into which some white spirit had dropped prior to cleaning.

 

Reminds me of the  Mandelbrot Set - a fractal image from chaos theory.

 

...and finally today's date:

 

11/12/13

The Monochrome Path

I had omitted to mention in my last few missives the impact of photography and digital media so here are some images to make up for that :

 

The developed negatives

 

The contact sheet

 

 

Some test strips for enlarger exposure

 

 

Some prints including someone we know; the last one was a disappointment because it was a good shot of a guy in the street -however there was damage to the negative

 

 

The finished prints

 

The other area of activity has of course been the collages and these have taken on a life of their own

to a point where a number of them are going to constitute the required digital images although I can admit that at last I am beginning to make some headway with Photoshop. Here are some:

 

 

I am really not sure that any comment would add anything except that I am not sure where these images are coming from

 

Finally I should show where the woodcut finished for now:

 

 

I would say I am quite pleased  but I feel the project merits further development; I wasn't very happy with my registration and for the future I think  I will always make my own specific reg sheet.

 

OK enough  -train is arriving in Limerick.