Written musings on making art and the results. Life in the slow lane
Sixties London
London in 1964 was on the verge of a revolution, a social explosion that involved the whole of society, and which we are still trying to come to terms with today. In real terms the war years were behind us, and Britain was in the throes of casting off imperial pretensions.
Life with the Lions
African communities have to live with wildlife, not slaughter it. It is distressing to see images of stupid hunters who think it is glorious to kill the shrinking numbers of beasts in the ever decreasing wilderness area. Much better trophies are the images ‘hunted’ in a camera, demanding the same physical skills often as those of the hunter with a gun but demanding much more in terms of brain power.
Seaford’s Shingle Shore Saves Streets
I was finishing a triptych of drawings based in the colours from the images taken on a visit to this killing ground of WW1. In Verdun birds still don’t sing. Over half a million men died there and the ground remains sacred to the French nation today. The visit was made in 2001 when digital cameras were in their infancy
Seeing in Seaford: Myth making and Ritual
English artist Bernard Cohen talked of the balance between personal myth making and ritual. Myth making occurs through drawing and preparatory works. Here an artist indulges in activities that clarify the vision he is pursuing, that set up potentials for the ritualised realisation of the beliefs into the statements that are finished works – paintings, sculpture etc.. Of course the process of ritualisation raises more questions which leads in turn to more drawings, more myth making and then another cathartic ritual event.
Seeing: Monet’s Garden at Giverny
Mark making also reflects the person within so aggression for example finds expression through the mark. Charcoal makes different marks to pencil, different again to thread or paint, or to those made by a carvers chisel. Monet’s work shows his grappling with rendering a reality he created in the gardens around his house in Giverny, responding with paint to colour and vision.
Seeing Seaford’s Sunset on the Sea Shore
Dad taught me to see, taught me to draw. He had an artistic side that rarely found any outlet. He did a little marquetry but enjoyed teaching me how to image a ship’s bow looming up, how to image a Spitfire wing growing realistically off a fuselage.
The Outsider – A Perpetual Watcher.
I was brought up a ‘service brat’. When your father is in the services you move every three years or so. But you are not alone in this, all the kids in the married quarters around you have dads whose postings rarely coincide with yours. So you make friends, grow together for maybe eighteen months then they are gone. Self sufficiency becomes the natural order, and to the civil community these kids who flit in and out of the school playground for a few years are passing interruptions, Outsiders ‘from the camp’.
Last Light at Days End
The sun shone amber and pink onto the cliffs, their colour reflected in a sea that was calm and blue. I stopped to talk to a violinist and painter from Minnesota about mastery of instruments in both art and music,
Seaford Seashore Shingle Shovelled
Seaford’s seashore is a single shingle bank. Not a beach it seems but actually Seaford’s sea defence system. Some say this sea defence was made necessary by the extensions to Newhaven harbour, and the wakes of the larger vessels going in to the port which scoured away the previous sandy beach. Whatever the reason as a sea defence it is becoming the subject of debate as to the long term efficacy of the Environment Agency’s methods of keeping it intact.
Seduced by the Seven Sisters Again
It was such a beautiful sunrise, and unusually for mid-November it was followed by a gloriously sunny day, almost Mediterranean. Now the leaves are gone from the trees I can see the headland easily from the house so after my morning porridge I took my camera for a walk
Origin of the Unicorn?
The Unicorn was reputed in mythology to be cloven hoofed and horse like, both of which descriptions fit the Oryx (forgive me if I stick with the name Oryx rather than the guttural harshness of the Afrikaner Gemsbok).
Poppies are not just for Remembrance
Our wearing a poppy honours these lines and in my mind at least signifies an acceptance of an obligation to the fallen for us, ourselves, to stand against tyranny. The poppy of the poem and of the British Legion still stands powerfully as a symbol of Remembrance, but the poppy is not just a symbol of Remembrance.
Old town, new war
This post is about how I beat type 2 diabetes in a battle back to health. It is a new war we wage as obesity and unhealthy eating shortens our lives. If I can do it so can you
Softly Susurrating Sands in the Sossusvlei
Like the views of the Seven Sisters, the giant sand dunes in the Namibian sand sea have been snapped by hundreds of amateur and professional photographers. The fascination with landscape and the scale of our selves against it are common factors in much of todays imagery.
Seven Sisters
It was love at first sight. Seasoned traveller that I am, I was astonished to find the beauty of the Seven Sisters and Seaford Head on my doorstep. This is an anti-travel tale really, an introduction to the pleasures there are next door.