Tag Archives: Poetry

NEW STUDIO Week Ten

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Starting with the Easter Bank Holiday this week was truncated. I’d not been in the studio for six days when I arrived on Thursday morning. That’s not to say I’d been entirely idle, besides working on the 3d model for the garden film I’d done some sketches in the garden.

Sketchbook 20th April

Sketchbook 20th April

These are looking for the marks that make the garden and also have notes that point towards the solutions for the models.

When I did get into the studio I moved the screen out into the space and started a new sculpture.

Garden Screen

Garden Screen

The new sculpture ‘go,go,go, said the bird’ is one I started when I first moved in but put to one side.

'go, go, go, said the bird'

‘go, go, go, said the bird’

In common with a lot of the things I’m building this is made from furniture left behind by the previous tenant.

On Friday I painted it white.

'go, go, go, said the bird'

‘go, go, go, said the bird’

Ready to be drawn onto when it’s dry, and then made some sketches towards the newest big drawing.

sketchbook 26th April

sketchbook 26th April

The rest of the day was spent tidying and cleaning off the whiteboards that were left behind.

Out of studio diversion – ‘Snow Line’ alternatives.

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It was wet & white & ...

It was wet & white & …

When I’m not in the shop building I’m generally either working on the computer or painting/drawing at home. ‘Snow Lines’ has occupied a good amount of this time in the last few weeks, particularly given that my slightly sprained ankle has meant that I couldn’t run. Running is an excellent way to empty your head.

I’ve thought about the poem on and off for a few years and for some reason it has come to the fore now. I don’t imagine why that might be, I’ll let the work that arises reveal its motivation or not. I imagined the ‘character’ of the poem as the space inside a cave, just on the snow line, injured in some way, perhaps falling into and out of existence as the temperature changes. I know, or think I know, that for Berryman Henry is the wounded creature contemplating his abandonment and feeling sorry for himself. I’d rather think of it as a literal piece for my purposes.

Drawing April 2019 - 28

Drawing April 2019 – 28

I began a drawing before I started to build the large sculpture, and I assembled a scrapbook in which I laid out the poem to play around with found materials. The drawing is based on a curled up creature, protecting itself. In this case a pangolin, I’ve seen a lot of news about pangolins lately. Apparently their scales are made of the same material as rhinoceros horn. I also found a hedgehog in the garden a week or two ago, during the day, curled up and obviously not well. The hedgehog hospital told me to put it under a bush and leave it. I buried it the next day. I’m wondering whether the drawing attracted the hedgehog or vice versa. I’m not really.

If I had to do the whole thing ...

If I had to do the whole thing …

NEW STUDIO Week Five (with a break!)

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After my last studio post I went to the Future Now conference – posted here  – and then for a walking holiday in Derbyshire. So this is officially week 5, and week 6 if we’re counting days.

My first day back was a bit of a farce, I put the installation back together and then decided to put a door on the shop wall so that I could close the whole back of the space off. I then got an email telling me that the agent was bringing a prospective purchaser around so I had to take the installation apart again. When they had gone and I had finished the door I put the installation back together again.

Shop Floor 21/03/19

Shop Floor 21/03/19

The door is the lighter hardboard on the left of this picture. The main consideration was that it closes off the painted section of the wall so that it looks better.

I have been working on the sound and been diverted into text, based on the TS Eliot – Burnt Norton stanzas I used on the walls, I looked to emphasise the nostalgic aspects of the verse by combining it with Tennyson’s ‘Tithonus’ . I decided to interleave lines of the verses, playing around with them a little, to break up the meaning of the poems.

The video has a section of this recording overlaid onto birdsong. The recording is not as good as I want, because of my nasal midlands accent that I can only hear on recordings and the quality of sound on my camera. The lighting is also not correct, I had to brighten the video after recording so the quality suffers.

I also worked on a distillation of the texts into something shorter and more individual. My idea is to create something of my own that I can use instead of the ‘found’ text.

The same caveats apply to the recording.

I have also begun to work on new sculptures and rescued the ripped up flooring of the first floor studio to make some new work with.