SPRING/2022
[This website works best on a tablet, laptop or desktop computer - not so good on a phone]
PLANNING A PROJECT / SKETCHBOOKS /
SKETCHBOOKS
During this half of the term we will be developing our sketchbooks. In a mixed media project we will experiment with composition, colour, mark making and subject matter in our sketchbook in order to develop our own projects.
QUOTIDIAN TEXT
How do we decide what our subject matter is?
The quotidian text is an approach developed around the idea of a personal narrative that has the potential to develop plenty of visual scenarios. Both the above artists - Louise Fletcher and Eva Kalien use poetry as an instigator for some projects - see their websites.
Meanings can range from weighty gravitas to light and incidental. It can be explicit or implicit, be arcane, either difficult or easy to interpret - these are our decisions as artists.
MEANINGS CAN BE SIMPLE BUT ART CAN MEAN MORE
IF IT IS PERSONAL
An artwork can be as simple as a plate of fruit, perhaps the design or pattern may carry some personal relevance. Perhaps choices are purely aesthetic based on shape and colour.
EVERYDAY ELECTRIC
My written example and artwork (Eastbourne Grove) carries personal symbolism, personal emotions and pathos. I have to ask myself are these ideas transferable to other viewers and does this matter?
COMPOSITION / JUXTAPOSITION - RELATIONAL MEANING
During the term I will add artists to this page that represent the idea of the relational space, where meaning is generated through association and not from a perspectival single viewing position.
ARTISTS TO LOOK AT
R.B.Kital
Eastbourne Grove
Oil on paper, 2020
EVERYDAY ELECTRIC
In the side room, the room at the side of the house with the telly in it, chairs in an arc, an arc I would later recognise on visits to nursing homes. lying next to the 3 bar fire, head propped with cushions - toast and tea, school over and tired from the long walk home.
This cosy space in front of the fire is where I watched TV, films and loads of westerns. In this reflective, nostalgic scene I wear a historiographer's hat, uncritical, for a moment at least. It is the heroic, the goodies and the baddies, it is physical, it is emotional, it is dramatic - a story of 'exotic' 'others'.
Lying there, drifting on the plains of the wild west, I decide to finally reach in and touch the end of one of the 3 three bars on the 3 bar fire - a mistake for sure. Lifted off the floor and across the coffee table, also physical and also dramatic - everyday electric!
BIBLE BLACK
Blackpool, Bible Black, walking streets, electric lines, the right side, the wrong side, the criss-crossing tram tracks, a twisted route to the fun fair, the rollercoaster, the ghost train of frightening memorials. Not a formal learning, a truancy, a walk from home to the wurlitzer in the morning sun and the warmth of memories of family visits to Blackpool.
With 10 pence to spend, a snack, a drink or a gamble on the arcade - of course, double your money. The game, not complicated, smack the cue ball as hard as you can, scatter the coins out of the white drawn circle - snacks and drinks all afternoon…a little miscue! In a split second with his back turned I quickly shove the pennies with the unchalked stick out of the circle. He's got eyes in the back of his head - ‘clear off, get out of here’, I feel criminal - heart beats louder than the clatter of the Blackpool Pleasure Beach.
Robin Brooks
Text to follow
