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.