So, I hope we are going to New York??!! C'mon lads, those who said they wanted to go - it'll be a great trip!
More printwork this morning - the beginnings of a monoprint -a bit ham-fisted I would have to say but we have to start somewhere and when I get a bit farther on with them I will put up some pictures.
Meanwhile here are some of what I was doing before with the woodblock print and some proofs of the second cut.
Second Cut
Original by Ralston Crawford
Second cut proof
A while back, I was at an exhibition in the Gkucksman in Cork and I saw this woodcut which I really liked:
and the artist............Josef Albers - rather different than most of the rest of what was on view (Terrific!)
Self-portrait -MaxPechstein 1906
I really do love the uncompromising harshness - and, yes - edge of monchrome wood or lino cuts -
hopefully,eventually I can approach this.
Was only able to see part of Mark Harris' lecture -was surprising and I felt a little roe-tinted in the view of the counter-culture. It wasnt always great for the kids of the people in the communes, I think.
I also feel he ought to have mentioned Aldous Huxleys book on psychotropic drugs - 'The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell' - even though it was originally published in 1954 and was about mescalin.
I wrote that title during the afternoon and then got called away - it looks a bit pretentious at this time of night but sometimes one is just at a bit of a loose end and a shallow low sweeps in from the Atlantic.
Well, thankfully the barometer has risen again and thanks in no small measure to a fascinating dip into colour as a vital component of making art. Dr Brancaleone warmed the coolest of blues and once again one of my longest favourites figured strongly with 'The Portrait of a Bridal Pair' -a picture of deeply felt affection. There has never been anyone better than Rembrandt at evoking human feeling -in portraits of himself or others. I have loved his work as long as I can remember consciously looking at paintings.
It's late and I'm tired; I hope to do more print work tomorrow so I will then update on where I am going with that.
Print today - but lots of carving of the medite block first. At present, I have, regrettably, no pictures because hands or even gloves, covered with ink do not make for the best instruments for handling a camera.
Will take some pictures of the block, the subject and some of the proofs tomorrow.
However, here is the latest animation:
Red on Black
Soundtrack : Desire by Anna Calvi
- I feel like one of those radio programmes :'There is an unavoidable interruption due to technical difficulties - normal sevice will be resumed as soon as possible'.
OK - I couldnt get it from YouTube for some reason but got it another way:
That title is accurate -today, anyway -but I will survive - mar a deireann an amhrán!
That business of coincidence recurred this morning. On the train in to Limerick I have been reading a book by John Berger called 'About Looking' (1980)
Great visage
- a collection of his articles - when I came across one simply titled 'Paul Strand'. This really is surprising because up to a few weeks ago I hadn't heard of Paul Strand and you may have noted my recent interest in the Precisionists of whom he was one and only a couple of days ago I posted one of his films.
I am beginning to wonder if Arthur Koestler knew something.
Mary Nagle gave us an introduction to typography today and one particular area of mention struck a chord - metal and other things on the ground. On my way to the station this pm I was not in such a rush so I picked up on a few interesting visuals:
Ok,ok,ok.........I was a bit hasty (as usual) in my comments about semiotics, but I was recording honestly my reactions to image reading at the tutorial the other day.
Just now, I was re-reading seminar on semiotics from October 1, which I believe was given by Patricia Green, and which I really should have remembered for the name the ham sandwich acquired.
Anyway, reading it again was good because it clarified the terminology and expanded considerably on the subject of codes.
All that is very good, however I still hold to my position on the subjectivity of the discipline which I note is referred to as I 'tradition'. Equally, I still wonder about who or what originates the codes.
I'll leave it alone -for now -but I would love to discuss this further at some length, in the future.
Here are some strange pictures:
And you thought that Escher was simply fantasy! I came across a similar image in the travel section of Saturday's Guardian and was immediately grabbed.
This is a step-well in Chand Baori,Abhaneri, Rajasthan, India. It was built (dug?) in the 10th century and is 20 metres or 11 stories deep.
The world is full of fascinating stimuli.
So saying, I would like to refer back to a pointer Sylvia Shortall gave me the other day when we were discussing animation. She mentioned the Eames's and their chair. It tickled my memory but I couldn't quite place it until I saw the chair then I recalled it:
It really is well-known but it is not their only famous piece of design:
This was the first stackable mass-produced chair which led to what we all know and love:
[wow! I have just heard a guy announcing sport on the radio who says his name is Adrian Eames - what a coincidence -I told you the world is a fascinating place; by the way, a writer who has now fallen out of favour - Arthur Koestler - maintained there was no such thing as coincidence: he said in a book called'The Roots of Coincidence' that everything was connected by an underlying 'net of synchronicity' - there: stuff you didn't need to know!]
Charles and Ray Eames were a husband and wife design team who also produced a number of very interesting short instructional films one of which we saw in the orientation week -'Powers of Ten'.
An earlier one - 'A Communications Primer'- used animation techniques which came up later in ' Powers of Ten':
This one is about twenty minutes so I just put the link in, but another one of theirs which relates to the house they designed and built (apparently in a few days - all prefabricated components ) and lived in happily for years is worth looking at for the coolness of the imagery:
OK that was a rather rambling pst but we will put it down to it being Sunday and a day of rest(?!)
This came in an email from Kerlin gallery this morning and is the work of a young Irish artist called Aleanna Egan born in Dublin in 1979 and now living between Dublin and Berlin. Most of her exhibitions seem to have been in Europe hitherto. Once again edge and line are to the fore -will have to get up there to see that.
(ps -got that slightly wrong - this was only a notice that they are representing her now - no exhibition yet --- pity,that .......... apologies for misleading)
As I am here now, I would like to comment on a tutorial the other day from Fiona Wood(s?) which I hasten to say was great, but during the course of a presentation on how to read an image the subject semiotics of came up. I first head of this a good few years ago when I read a book called 'The Name of the Rose' by Umberto Eco. I looked him up and he proved to be a professor of Semiotics (or Semiology?) in Italy. I investigated a bit and came across the whole terminology of signs and signifiers.I found it very interesting but always had a faint sense of unease. That surfaced the other afternoon when suddenly I felt that so much of semiotics is or appears to be subjective. Who decides the codes? How can one have a science whose 'standards' appear to be based on a subjective view? To an extent, these are rhetorical questions, and as it is obviously a well-established discipline(?) I am missing something critical so further study is required. Rant over....but I remain to be convinced .
It's only Saturday moring so Im sure I'll be back here giving out or raving about something else before Monday.
I can't believe that!.....You dont know what a quaver is?? - Art isn't just about eyes you know - ears are important too.
Anyway, I promised that The Spot Diary would be up every day, but I nearly didn't make it tonight because I have just come in from a musical event with Julie Feeney. I know that sounds a bit po-faced but a concert would be too much and she's not really a gigger --- no, she's just fantastic! Her new album was released last night and I got my copy and she signed it for me - just an aging groupie!!
She has a new video and when I can find it, it will be posted.
Ok -enough of that -to the main business of the evening:
