Tag Archives: Balby

Less Space in the Studio

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A lot less Space in the Studio

Another New Studio

In the book ‘The Garden Against Time’ Olivia Laing writes about the restoration of a garden, delving into its history and the forces around it that shape that history. She writes

“ …I was exhausted by the perpetual, agonised now of the news. I didn’t just want to journey backwards through the centuries. I wanted to move into a different understanding of time: the kind of time that moves in spirals or cycles, pulsing between rot and fertility, light and darkness. I had an inkling even then that the gardener is initiated into a different understanding of time, which might also have a bearing on how to preclude the apocalypse we seem bent on careering into. I wanted to dig down, and see what I could find. A garden contains secrets, we all know that, buried elements that might put on strange growth or germinate in unexpected places. The garden that I chose had walls, but like every garden it was interconnected, wide open to the world.”

It is a fascinating book drawing on notions of the garden from Milton’s Paradise through John Clare and the ravages of enclosure and even to Iris Origo’s war diary from la Foce, ‘War in Val d’Orcia’ with all the diversions you would imagine and never shirking the moral ambiguity at the heart of all interactions with the land.

That idea of connecting to everything through a seemingly solitary activity is exactly what I’m trying to achieve with ‘woolgathering’

A lot less Space in the Studio

tree one 16 12 24

So in December I made one more big drawing of the flower beds and worked on the VR world, firstly refining the ground so that the lawn is flat and then working on the jumps between the life size and micro views that will lead into the other worlds before finally putting in the background from Google Maps to place the garden in a bigger environment.

This is the environment before i adjusted the lawn.

This one has the new lawn

and this one has the surrounding environment.

Obviously alongside this I needed something to put my energy into when the VR becomes too frustrating so I started some drawings of trees after seeing a photograph by a friend.

As well as the one above the videos I made two other small ones.

tree two 16 12 24

tree three 16 12 24

Before these the big ‘woolgathering flowerbed’ drawing was done over two days in the studio and is around 130 x 110 cm, pastel on cartridge paper.

Even less space in the studio

Woolgathering Flowerbed

I made a process gif over the two days the drawing took.

woolgathering flowerbed process

Meaning I have even less space in the studio

Even less space in the studio

I started a big drawing of the trees on the 3rd January and also a couple of paintings based on the flower drawings while I was downloading an environment maker for Blender so that I can add a meadow to ‘woolgathering’ after John Clare’s ‘Helpstone Green’

tree four 03 01 2025 in progress

 

Flowers Painting 03012025

Flowers Painting 03012025

Both these are c. 50 x 50 cm

Drawing

I’ve continued to draw every day;

The December drawings can be seen here

  • Draw Every Day – December 24
    Draw Every Day – December 24
    Draw Every Day - December 24 Continuing to draw every day,  i completed book 20 on the 7th ...
    See photo »

…and the November images here

Draw Every Day - November 24 Continuing to draw every day in book 20 (a larger sketchbook) with brush pens and a mixture of black, grey, sepia and sanguine ink, as well as the occasional graphite drawing. The drawings are made any time from 9:00 am at the breakfast table and occasionally later in the day if I'm away from home. The drawings have been posted since the beginning, 6th May 2020, on instagram https://www.instagram.com/latham_1959 You can see previous months through the galleries page https://www.ian-latham.com/blog/galleries or you can go straight to  October's drawings here -
  • Draw Every Day – October 24
    Draw Every Day – October 24
    Draw Every Day - October 24 Continuing to draw every day, began book 20 (a larger ...
    See photo »

There is a link to the previous month’s Gallery on each page.

The drawings are posted to  Instagram each day.

 

 

 

Moore’s Law

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Moore’s Law

Another New Studio

Moore's Law

studio 03/07/24 headset no artist

Apparently “Moore’s Law” is dead, and has been since 2016. The result is that programming has to improve in terms of performance if advancements are going to come at all. Programmers need to make processes more efficient so that less power is needed and the machines can do more without getting significantly faster. Not that anyone will notice this as this as software has for a long time been continually updating so that it outstrips machines every few years and becomes, like streamed music or e-books, something you don’t own you only rent.

This is essentially an aside, as I’ve been looking at ways to update some of my projects so that I can finish them without resorting to acts of destruction as the frustrations mount. Every update makes things harder to resolve and seemingly ignores any idea of intuitive iteration instead opting to completely redesign the wheel with every turn.

Moore's Law

studio 03/07/24 artist no headset

studio 03/07/24 artist and headset

studio 03/07/24 artists view

At the start of the month I organised the studio to reflect the intended organisation of the objects in a space accompanying the VR environment.

Since when I’ve been researching galleries and other potential display spaces for the work.

Moore's Law

studio drawing 17/07/24

So when I am in the studio I work on the gardens project VR world or draw. Drawing refocuses me when I get frustrated with the rebuild I’m doing of the gardens project as there are frequent failures and new learning to be done with the software updates.

I found using the paper I protected the floor with when I painted the sculptures gives a good background to draw on.

Moore's Law

maquette drawing 19/07/24

By the end of the month, I’m no further forward with display options, my portable hard drive failed meaning I lost about a weeks work and I’ve dismantled all the sculptures to make more room for new things.

Moore's Law

Studio drawing 26/07/24

Studio from door 31/07/24

Moore's Law

studio towards door 31/07/24

Drawing

I’ve continued to draw every day;

The July drawings can be seen here

  • Draw Every Day – July 24
    Draw Every Day – July 24
    Draw Every Day - July 24 Continuing to draw every day, finished book 17 on 10th July and ...
    See photo »

…and the June images here

  • Draw Every Day – June 24
    Draw Every Day – June 24
    Draw Every Day - June 24 Continuing to draw every day, in book 17 using brush pens and a ...
    See photo »

There is a link to the previous month’s Gallery on each page.

The drawings are posted to Threads and Instagram each day.

Reason vs Motivation

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Reason vs Motivation

Another New Studio

On the Open weekend I had twenty visitors on the Saturday and two on the Sunday, I can’t complain because I sold a painting.

I’ve called this post Reason vs Motivation as a step towards an explanation of my current practice. When I was talking to people at the open studio the film elicited some comments about its elegiac quality, which tied into my thinking through Eliot’s ‘deception of the Thrush’. Given that gardens in Christian thought are always the garden of Eden and consequently serve as a metaphor for the loss of innocence, the reference to my own garden uses it as trigger for the desire to reclaim something lost. The something lost is lost “in” innocence rather than being innocence. The problem with the past is that memory and nostalgia render it different to the degree that what you desire from the past isn’t what it was in the past, and the suggestion that it can be reclaimed is doubly erroneous as you yourself are the major difference that prevents its return. This is of course entirely obvious and is not the reason that the work is made but is probably the motivation for it being made. I’m still trying to articulate this properly and perhaps that’s the wrong thing to do as nothing kills creation for me quicker than having a reason to do it. I think it becomes contingent when it has that kind of rationale attached. It has to remain poetry rather than prose.

Since the open studio I carried on with the drawing of the photograph made by Jamie Bubb 

Reason vs Motivation

jb-flowers one

Making the image darker and darker.

jb_flowers one

This was the state of play on the 7th December, and started another drawing from the same source.

jb_flowers two

This was the second drawing on the 7th December.

jb_flowers two

And this is it on the 8th December.

jb_flowers one

The first drawing was darkened considerably by the 11th.

jb_flowers two

More detailed was added to the second drawing by the 11th.

Reason vs Motivation

three trees sculpture 15th December

On the 15th December I returned to the big sculpture and added white paint. Initially I’d thought of painting spots where I wanted to piece holes but when I started I decided that I should just paint the gaps between branches, or an idea of them.

pigeon

As I waiting for that to dry I drew a pigeon.

I made a small cardboard maquette to explore the three trees as separate elements on the 18th December.

adjusted the low section of the model on the 21st December.

three trees maquette 19122023

On the 19th December I built a cardboard maquette developed from sketchbook drawings of the new big sculpture and then on the 21st I painted it red.

studio 21st December

The polycam scan of the thin red maquette.

Reason vs Motivation

A few days after the open studio weekend and before I got really stuck in the mud mentally I wrote a further piece in my journal.

The question hovering above all art is ‘What is it about?’. These days there are labels so that you know immediately, or at least you get a clue that helps you make sense of the piece. Personally the question is always ‘Why did you make this?’. Because the act of making is the act of translating a desire into a realisation (or does the translation create the work?). The work starts with an idea that changes through application, an act of both compromise and development, and is presented, mutated, at the end. My response is ‘that’s kind of what I meant’. I […] think that there is a well of experience, belief, prejudice and angst stirred with study, planning and effort that the work springs from.

It doen’t really make it any clearer.