No Day of Rest on this Path

Tomorrow the first elective begins and for me that will be printmaking. To that end I spent Thursday afternoon and  a good part of Friday researching sources of ideas in the library.
A number of these I have copied and they have gone into my contextual notebook but I would like to pursue some of them a little more here.
One in particular really surprised me in that he was carrying out the most meticulous and beautiful of copperplate engraving that goes all the way back to Albrecht Dürer. When following up on him I came across a video which I think well worth watching in that it typifies the sort of devotion required to be a printmaker and artist at this level. His name is Andrew Raftery:


www.youtube.com/watch?v=roZcbDca5nc

In passing, I should mention that there are one or two other clips of him at work and I will drop them in later.

 

The other artist I would like to mention is Paul Catherall particularly because I could only find b/w material in the journal and while this really does show the sort of outline I love, colour is essential in a full appreciation of his work

 

 

 

 

 

What I really love about these are that they are linocuts and at this stage I understand how they are done and I would dearly like to be able to do this sort of work.

 

Well, tomorrow morning, hopefully that process may begin.

 

PS  will return later this week to a few more of the gallery visits that took place over the Christmas hols and,  wait for it......... we will have a new serial: 

 

Public Printwww.youtube.com/watch?v=roZcbDca5nc

The Wandering Path

OK  -you want to Know what those last two imaghes ere about;

Well the second one first - did I draw : no but for where it is its not bad and if it were me I wouldnt be ashamed of it:

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  As you can see this is on the top of an electricity fitting - imaginative use of the space

 

Now the first one ........well, here is a slightly wider view:  this is a mullion from a rather unusual window in the Jervis Centre- I suspect it was saved a nd refitted from the old Jervis St Hospital which stood on this spot  -   you see, making the fanmiliar unfamiliar again.

From where I saw these I went across the river to Temple Bar and had a look into the Temple bar Gallery, Passing another intresting electricity fitting (I wish I knew what these are called!) :

which had a rather cryptic note on the end..........................

 

 

 

Flatter path

Its Thursday and all the assessments are done and the externs have visited and seen their selected students.

I was nervous, I don't mind admitting and as I was reading my statement I was afraid it sounded a bit pretentious but then I thought that I was  actually being unfair to myself because it really was what I believed. My hand was still shaking as I was reading it though.

I hope I did ok.

This morning we had a brief intro to the first elective which will be print on Monday morning. I have started on trying to put together some images for the brief which is  'Urban(Us) '.
I'll say more about this later but as I have now discovered how to upload pics again there are a few things I would like to cover and I will do this over the weekend.

Teaser:

 

 

 

 

Think about these.

Animations

Here is a selection from the animations I have made during the last semester.

There are four and they start with the earliest which used photographs taken by my self:

Hard Edge World

 

 

 

The second uses photos of spots derived from the first and digitally edited:

 

 

The Spot Show

 

(to Norman McLaren)

 

 

 

 

The next was generated from a series of images painted by me, photographed and digitally manipulated: 

 

 

River Edge:

   

 

 

 

 

Lastly, there is a stop/motion piece with an image derived from the Spot and multiplied and segmented:

 

 

Spotticus

 

 

                                     

 

 

I enjoyed making these and discovered something in myself I was only  half aware of: a pleasure in producing images that I could only describe as tangential to the perceived world.

 

 

The path with words

One thing I forgot to mention was that over the hols I acquired a number of books through presents and purchases and these covered a lot of ground.
I should also mention a book which was suggested to me by Ann in the library and it is one I would highly recommend as it chronicles the advent of commercial colour in the twentieth century through the comments of a number of artists starting with Marcel Duchamp.
It was worth it to me simply for the entry on Ellesworth Kelly with a number of pieces I had never before seen.
It is called: Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today (2008), New York:.MOMA

There is a remainder bookshop in George's St (Dublin) which I believe I have already mentioned but I paid it a couple more visits and these are what resulted -I'll just show the covers and comment a bit:

 
This is a pictorial autobiography  of the Scottish multi-artist whose most well-known work would probably be Lanark : A Life in Four Books (1981)  -his first novel which was also illustrated by him as are all his books.

Some impressively robust print work in this








This one and the above resulted from a rather expensive birthday and Christmas present which I already had and was thus able to exchange. I felt that this was one I could be using throughout my time in school

I picked up on this in a very good remainder shop in Dublin(as mentioned) which keeps publishers I have never seen elsewhere -it is a catalogue raisonnee for printwork by Roger Shimomura and attracted me because of my interest in Japanese woodblock work.












Umberto Eco caught my attention because of The Name of the Rose all those years ago and because of semiotics; and also, undeniably because I am an inveterate list maker - so here we have lists combined with art.


















The Immendorff book was bought because it was all about drawing  - in every way possible - I was not familiar with this artist before now but the book is a very powerful piece of work and helpfully was also a bargain














The last one I will refer to was a present from my daughter and proved very interesting with a selection of 100 Ideas that Changed Art that was far from obvious.
















OK there is something seriously amiss here. I cannot get at my pictures to upload them so I am going to have to get some help on this and I will come back later with those book covers and remarks.
  
[OK....again -This is Thursday and after much huffing and puffing I have discovered a way of getting the pictures in - it is roundabout and slow so I along with a lot of others would like Blogger or Google or whoever it is to fix the normal route!!]


Meanwhile tomorrow is Monday January 7 and term begins again and with it assessments.

Fun Fun Fun  -  Nerves Nerves Nerves.

My next post will be for my assessors and will carry my chosen animations.

Capital path

Right - back to the business in hand.
As afore-mentioned I headed for Dublin today with the purpose of visiting a number of galleries and the project met with mixed success; I had not quite bargained with the reluctance of the commercial gallery owners to return to the fray. I suppose when I thought about it, before Christmas was when they were most likely to do business and there was hardly going to be a huge rush at this time of the year - only annoying people like me who weren't going to buy anything anyway.

However, the first visit was, as always, wonderful:

The Turner Watercolours in the National

I snuck a few shots with my phone - no flash,of course - but really they don't do them any justice and I would advise anyone to go and see them if they can during January. Aspiring art students really should see what this amazing man was doing in the early 19th century:

 

When you look at these, the true meaning of the word abstraction really comes to mind. Here was an artist, who, in pursuit of meaning was not afraid to abstract what he saw as the essence of the scene in front of him, as he perceived it.

 See this exhibition: if not this year, make it your business to see it when it comes up next January.

 

On my way, I noticed this building in Nassau Street which I must have passed about a million times ( not exaggerating!) but I never saw that sign before - seeing, not looking!

 

 

 

Red on Green was closed, as was Peppercanister, so from there I wound my way up to IMMA for another look ant Alice Maher's wonderful show -once again I have to say that now that I understand animation a bit more I am even mere impressed by what is here.

 

A walk through Iveagh Gardens at the back of IMMA ( UCD as I knew it!) brought me over to Camden Street and to The Copper House Gallery:

 

 

This takes some finding but it was open and that was mainly because it is a working printmakers and they were working.

 

The exhibition was nothing if not varied :

 

 

this being one example that particularly appealed to me. If you go to their website:

 

http://www.thecopperhousegallery.com/

 

you will get a lovely tour through the show and see some of the work their artists are doing.

I am only now beginning to get some idea of the range of work that is covered by the term 'print'.

 

On a wall near the gallery I noticed some graffito which I think merited record:

 

 

Sans Parole.

 

 

Moving on down Camden Street and into Stephens Green I found the  Rubicon also closed so after the inevitable visit to Hodges Figgis I dropped in to Sol who are now running a separate entity for more contemporary art called 'Eight'

Here there was another rather different show by Anne Hendrick called Hokum:

 

 

...and here are a couple of her pieces:

 

 

They have something of the look of fantasy landscapes but without the cliche and some of the rocky scenes reminded me of William Blake.

 

By this time, the walking was beginning to take its toll but I made a sally into  Temple Bar hoping to get into Graphic Studios - sadly still on hols too...............but so am I so why should I complain.

 

 

 

 

 

Gone

I have often heard the phrase 'an outpouring of grief' and I would have to admit that in the past I would have regarded this as perhaps somewhat over the top.

Yesterday, I attended the funeral of my friend Dennis O' Driscoll and I experienced an outpouring of grief in away I have never been subject to before.

I do not mean that there was weeping and wailing - this was a whole-hearted sadness that united and enveloped all who were there without the need for outward show, because Dennis was a deeply loved man.

I wont say anymore except to recommend the reading of his work especially Dear Life his last volume. It is very accessible and relates very much to the life around us today.