Written musings on making art and the results. Life in the slow lane
-
Empires End
“You guys have no idea how painful it is to have been young during the absolute peak era of the greatest empire in human history and now be forced to watch it all unravel. The saddest part is that we are doing it to ourselves. Absolutely agonizing experience. Like watching the most beautiful person you…
-
Morning Prayers
One of the first things I do in the morning in my every day routine is as I come downstairs, I turn right while the cat sits and waits, posing. He knows what I’m doing, I’m going to turn on the computer and collect the camera from the office. I then return past the bottom…
-
In Slater’s Footsteps
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas With the addition of a photographic record of decay, the four books of images of paintings and photographs of the sea defences at the Cuckmere…
-
Mary Watts
Mary who? I tried to find her in my art reference books. Mary Seton Watts, wife of the Victorian establishment painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts (1817 – 1904), and he is definitely in the books. First British artist to have a gallery devoted just to him, it is claimed. His work, including his portrait…
-
A Garden Studio
We moved to the seaside when my partner retired as she was born in this area and waited tables in a local caff as a teenager, having happy memories of the coast. Her roots were here, whereas my RAF upbringing wedded my heart and soul to England but not to any one place. So I…
-
Emma Stibbon at the Towner.
Now the Turner prize has gone, and we have our gallery back. Still not free of the corrosive Arts Council social work arts programme, but ignore the excrescence on the ground floor, despite its claim using the Bayeux Tapestry to justify the size of its awfulness. No, bypass it and head for the stairs leaving…
-
Henry V – lessons from history
I’ve just been reading Juliet Barkers analysis of Agincourt. Not as entertaining as Bernard Cornwell’s story (he uses her research) but far more detailed and informative of reality. Recently we have spent much time denying the relevance of history to current events, toppling statues to past greatness, all to appease urban minorities. Barker’s book illustrates…
-
Morning
It tickles my cheek, this flicking furry tail. I snake a hand out from under the duvet and rub his head. Fumbling, I struggle to see the luminous glowing hands on my watch face. 05.55. Early but light is coming under the curtains and cat is doing the ‘I’m starving’ act as if he hasn’t…
-
An English Village
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”] [et_pb_row admin_label=”row”] [et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”]There are, apparently, 3 churches in Sussex with round flint Saxon towers. I am constantly passing two, the charming little church in the hamlet that is Southease , and, glimpsed as I drive by over the flint walls and behind conical building which I took to be an ancient…
-
Westward Ho!
The only town in Britain whose name ends in an exclamation mark sits on the North Devon coast. Nearby is the beautiful little town of Bideford, perhaps one of the most beautiful places I have visited in recent years. It was here in the 19th century that the novel Westward Ho! was written by novelist…
-
Sussex Lakes?
As the rain continues, one commentator remarked that “Alfriston is afloat”. Flooding from the Cuckmere is commonplace around the village and its church, the ‘Cathedral of the South Downs’, and only increases as the Environment Agency allows the sea defences at the river mouth to decay, along with the destruction this inaction brings with it.…
-
Looking Ahead
Do all artists go through creatively sterile patches? Maybe it’s a bit of creative exhaustion having made and exhibited so many paintings based in the decay of local sea defences, or maybe it is my increasing physical handicaps, but I haven’t been in the studio seriously now since before Christmas. That is about to change.…
patrickgoff.com 