Change and Evolve

I was watching Mary Queen of Shops tonight, and what became evident to me at about seven minutes into the programme was, that to survive we need to evolve. This rule especially applies to business - the woman that Mary was trying to help was especially resistant to change and because she wasn't allowing her business to change and evolve with the times her business was going down the pan. But this rule can be applied to most things. Even in poetry and art one needs to change and evolve otherwise the work becomes boring and stagnant.

In the Dust

I have been playing around more with the idea of juxtaposing text onto surfaces where you wouldn't expect to see it. I especially liked this pne as the text looked like it had been there for a long time. If you want to read more about artistic process visit my artists blog at:http://visual-poetics.blogspot.com/

Visual Poetry

I got a great gadget today that makes embossed letters on plastic tape and I started playing around with the idea of using it to make visual poetry. This is my first attempt so it isn't all that great but I can already see that there is great potential in the idea. This one isn't really a proper poem - just something that I came up with on the spur of the moment that was in keeping with the wall on which it is displayed.

The problem for me with this piece is that the text seems too removed from the wall that it is displayed on I really wanted it to look more as if it belonged there. However that is very hard to acheive and maybe I am approaching it the wrong way. Maybe I should make the alienation of the text from the medium it is placed in more an integral part of the piece.

Autobiographical Art Work

For some artists there is an almost insatiable desire to try and understand and change the self - often through writing and art. Through the mediums of autobiography and autobiographical art work we are holding ourselves up to a mirror for examination. There is a constant striving within us to understand ourselves and to be understood by others. It is as if only we can understand ourselves - our minds, our dreams, desires, wishes, what makes us tick then somehow life would be BETTER, the people around us would have a better empathy and deeper understanding of what we are about.

Women in particular seem attracted to autobiography within their art work. It's as if by getting it out it will make a difference to our lives - almost like a form of counselling or therapy. Maybe it is because women have so many starnds to their lives and that putting elements of these strands into their work ties all the strands together in some way.

Of course it could just be that the artists that produce a lot of autobiograhical work are the more troubled souls. Those of us who have had a difficult childhood, abusive relationships or some other adverity (illness etc). Does a happy well balanced individual have the same need to examine their past or understand why they are the way they are.

Out of his skull

Am I the only person in the world who thinks putting fifty million quids worth of diamonds onto a skull is pointless and not really art?

Well I suppose it can be considered art - but to me it just seems like someone with too much money making a point. Damien is reknowned after all for his penchent for splashing the cash. But this kind of thing just leaves me cold - when I compare it to the work of Antony Gormley or Andy Goldsworthy - or an exhibition that I went to last weekend at Salthouse Church in Norfolk - there is just no comparison.

The exhibition at Salthouse Church by Britz and McGowan entitled "Stars, Stones and Bones" is the best thing that I have seen in a long time and definitely the best use of the church that I have ever seen. There are a lot of differnet types of work in this show - paintings, collage, installations, mobiles - but they work together as a cohesive whole. Everything in the show is made from natural resources that can be found in Norolk - in itself quite a feat - but some of the pieces are massive. The most impressive works for me were a series of large paintings/ hangings that are placed between the windows. These paintings are massive and are made using mud, sand and clay from the Norfolk coast. Some of them have been made by placing pebbles on the paper and pouring mud over them, adding detail later. There is also a beautiful (if a little smelly) installation made using wire and starfish.

This is a breathtaking exhibition and well worth a visit if you get the chance - this is real art that comes from true inspiration and hard work and touches the heart and soul in a way that a diamnond encrusted skull never can.

Blind Light

I watched a channel 4 programme about Antony Gormley yesterday, which was both moving and inspiring. If yoy live in the UK and have digital or cable I would highly reccomend watching it.

It was a breath of fresh air to see a hugely famous artist who is still so involved in his work and not ruled by his ego.

The crew had filmed Gormley as he designed and worked for his current show at The Heywood Gallery. It was fascinating to see a project from beginning to end - the process to make the figures from huge metal cubes was amazing and Gormley was fully involved every step of the way. Starting by casting his own crouched body in plaster.

What was also fascinating was the painstaking creation of a cloud chamber and Gormley's reaction when it finally worked. When his dream finally came to fruition he had tears in his eyes. It was incredibly moving to see someone who believed so wholeheartedly in what he was doing and such a contrast to the programme I saw featuring Damien Hirst a few weeks ago. Hirst came across as quite a different character - arrogant, full of himself and quite removed from the work that his assistants were making. He would breeze into the studio for a while in the morning offering a few words of advice here and there, whereas Gormley was in the studio working at all hours and becoming increasingly frustrated by outside distractions like telephone calls.

I have long been a fan of Gormley's work - I especially liked Field for the British Isles (pictured above) and am hoping that I will get to see his new exhibition "Blind Light" before it finishes in August.

Curiouser and Curiouser

Double Vision - Door Handles
Originally uploaded by pupski.

This might be part of my current art project - I am doing a bit of experimentation with the pictures I have taken. Placing some of them in the place they were taken and rephotographing them. This would have been better if it had shadow the second time I photographed it but for shadow you need sunshine and we aren't seeing much of that this week.

Narrative photography

I am beginning to feeel the stress and strain of too much work this term and blog entries have suffered as a consequence.

I am getting to grips with poetry, kind of ok with fiction, behind with critical studies (through no fault of my own) but floundering hopelessly in a visual sea with no life raft in sight.

The cause of my angst is a wooly brief that involves narrative and photography/film. It's not that I don't have ideas. I have plenty, too may in fact. Some of them too ambitious or big for me to realise. No, what I am struggling with is to bring narrative to my ideas. Why I don't know - it should be easy. Other people don't seem to have a problem with it. The trouble is that some of the ideas that I tried that did have narrative didn't work visually and the photos that I like best don't (for me) seem to fit into the narrative framework.

Help!

Made by a Real Artist?

I just finished watching the South Bank show featuring Brit artist Damien Hirst and found myself wondering how many of today's more famous artists actually make any of their own work. The show featured interviews with Damien at several of his studios, in each of which, numerous assistants were working on different projects, sometimes it seemed that he didn't know exactly what it was that they were doing. Jeff Koons was also interviewed in his studios and he seemed to have hundreds of staff who were working on massive paintings and sculptures.

I know that artists throughout history have used assistants but I can't help thinking that I have missed the boat. I have tons of art ideas and I make some of them, but I am often limited by time, space and skill. how great it would be to do the preliminary sketches and have someone else to help me realise the dream. Really famous artists seem to go one step further though and produce some canvasses that they have not even touched with a paint brush themselves. is this making a nonsense of the art world? If you were to buy a work of art by a particular artist, wouldn't you want to know that they had at least done some of the work on it?