Friday, 1 June 2012
Retrofit City
Walking home from college I called in to The Architecture Centre on Narrow Quay, to look at the exhibition called Bristol: Retrofit City.
This was a small but extremely well presented and interesting show, looking at how some of the city's old and otherwise neglected buildings have been revamped and re-vitalised through sensitive architecture and careful development. Not everyone in the city would agree, of course, and Bristol has had at least is share of planning horrors, and some others only narrowly averted over the pat few decades. But the examples on show in this exhibition were impressive, and uplifting in terms of confirming that there is scope, and hope, for really sustainable and imaginative alternatives to Tesco-style new building.
Leonardo Drawings
This is the last week of active term, when we can use the college facilities. I am pretty much OK with my work for the final show, but it is still slightly anxious-making to be in college full of feverishly busy people, some of whom still seem to have a long way to go to get their work ready for the show.
I went in to college on Friday (not one of our usual days but effectively the last working day of term) in order to paint the 'sand box' which Jan has made for me for the show. It was an easy task, and gave me time to hang around little, and take a last session in the library.
But it needed two coats of paint, and while I was waiting for the paint to dry I went along to the City Museum to see the Leonardo Drawings currently on show.
A study for an equestrian monument, c. 1485-90, Leonardo da Vinci
The Royal Collection © 2012, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
There are only 12 of them on loan from the Royal Collection, and perhaps we are all getting a little too familiar with reproductions of his work, but I was less excited by them than perhaps I should have been. The drawings were of a range of subjects - the foot, the shoulder, detailed plant drawings, a map of the Pontine Marshes, various improbable war machines. I can see that the selectors (presumably from the Royal Collection who have farmed out various bundles of drawings to provincial galleries this year) have tried to provide a representative sample of different types and periods of Leonardo's work, but the net result felt like a rag-bag - a teasing set of tit-bits which left you with no clear impression. Or so I thought.
There were very few people there, and I gather there have been no queues (in contrast to the Birmingham Art Gallery, where - when I was there in february for the Lost in Lace exhibition - there were quite long queues of people waiting to see the equivalent Leonardo show). Perhaps people have maxed out on these drawings - or perhaps it was a sunny day and people had better, outdoor things to do.
I went in to college on Friday (not one of our usual days but effectively the last working day of term) in order to paint the 'sand box' which Jan has made for me for the show. It was an easy task, and gave me time to hang around little, and take a last session in the library.
But it needed two coats of paint, and while I was waiting for the paint to dry I went along to the City Museum to see the Leonardo Drawings currently on show.
The Royal Collection © 2012, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
There are only 12 of them on loan from the Royal Collection, and perhaps we are all getting a little too familiar with reproductions of his work, but I was less excited by them than perhaps I should have been. The drawings were of a range of subjects - the foot, the shoulder, detailed plant drawings, a map of the Pontine Marshes, various improbable war machines. I can see that the selectors (presumably from the Royal Collection who have farmed out various bundles of drawings to provincial galleries this year) have tried to provide a representative sample of different types and periods of Leonardo's work, but the net result felt like a rag-bag - a teasing set of tit-bits which left you with no clear impression. Or so I thought.
There were very few people there, and I gather there have been no queues (in contrast to the Birmingham Art Gallery, where - when I was there in february for the Lost in Lace exhibition - there were quite long queues of people waiting to see the equivalent Leonardo show). Perhaps people have maxed out on these drawings - or perhaps it was a sunny day and people had better, outdoor things to do.
Tuesday, 29 May 2012
End of Year Show coming up!
Things are hotting up for the final show - and final assessments. Lot of frantic people being busy. I am relatively calm...but I still have a lot of work to do including sorting out my research file and writing up my records and sketchbook entries. But there is plenty of time..... I hope!
Monday, 28 May 2012
More filming
Today I had another go at filming my paper strips, having seen how the first efforts came out and having a (slightly) better idea of what kid of images I wanted to create. I rigged up a kind of stage set in the painting studio with sheets of black card on the floor and making a wall behind, of sheets of card fixed to the edge of a long strong table, which I could stand on to scatter the paper strips. With assistance from James, who kept a watchful eye on the camera settings and angle, I let the strips fall from about 5ft high, onto the black floor. They scattered beautifully (it was a slightly higher drop than previously, and a slightly bigger floor area too).
The resulting film is about 3.41 minutes long, which is about right, and has sharp sound of the paper falling - it sounds a bit like rain. In fact, the sound is almost too sharp - it was a very hot day and windows were open os there is a slight roar of traffic throughout, enhanced by an emergency siren at one point: I don't know how to deal with this so will accept it and leave it in, as added context. The angle of the camera is such that the 'horizon', i.e. the edge between the horizontal floor and the vertical backdrop, is almost exactly in the centre of the film, and this enhances the impact of the growing heap of paper, white against the black background.
Here is a still of the paper pile at the end of filming.
I was pleased with the result and I think it will stand well as it is, without any need for editing or further work. Just a title, which Wesley says he is going to do, constant in style, for all the films to go on the show reel.
The resulting film is about 3.41 minutes long, which is about right, and has sharp sound of the paper falling - it sounds a bit like rain. In fact, the sound is almost too sharp - it was a very hot day and windows were open os there is a slight roar of traffic throughout, enhanced by an emergency siren at one point: I don't know how to deal with this so will accept it and leave it in, as added context. The angle of the camera is such that the 'horizon', i.e. the edge between the horizontal floor and the vertical backdrop, is almost exactly in the centre of the film, and this enhances the impact of the growing heap of paper, white against the black background.
Here is a still of the paper pile at the end of filming.
I was pleased with the result and I think it will stand well as it is, without any need for editing or further work. Just a title, which Wesley says he is going to do, constant in style, for all the films to go on the show reel.
Sunday, 27 May 2012
Bath Holburne Museum
A day out in Bath on Saturday included a visit to the city's Victoria Art Gallery, where I confess to having been distinctly underwhelmed by an exhibition about art and sport. Lots of small sculptures of sprotspeople of various kinds, but not my cup of tea either sports-wise nor arts-wise. I felt this was simply attempting to cash in on the olympics year. I am not sure whether the works had been specially commissioned: if not, I am surprised that so many small and accommodating pieces could be found, but perhaps I ma a sports dinosaur and this really is a fruitful commonwealth for sculptors.
Then I walked the length of Great Pulteney Street to visit the Holburne Museum which is a small but imposing Georgian house facing back towards Pulteney Bridge and the city.
It was originally a hotel, so the blurb tells us, and converted into a gallery about 100 years ago. It has had a major upgrade and extension in the past few years, only re-opening to the public about 18 months ago. The extension is all at the rear of the building, and on first sight looks pretty dreadful - black pillars and lot of smoked glass. My i-phone photo is not very clear but gives the general impression of the back view...
But the extension does warm on you - and on a lovely summers day, with the garden full of elegant people having elegant lunch from the museum's up-market cafe, it all looked rather splendid. Inside there is a sizeable permanent collection including glass and ceramics as well as 18th and 19th century portraits.
On the top floor there is space (in the new extension) for small special exhibitions. The one currently on view is stunning: Portrait Sculpture is a study of how the human head has been used as a subject for sculpture and various forms of 3D portraiture, from classical times onwards. This is the Silstone Head, described in the catalogue as the striking head of a North African carved in green siltstone in the 1st century BC. with incredibly detailed carving of the hair.
The whole exhibition is a wonderful selection - there were probably less thn 40 pieces in total gathered from various homes including the V and A and the NPG - which demonstrate the enormous range of sculptural work, and how effective sculpture has been in recording the personalities and scale of our forebears - somehow more lifelike than painted portraits, and some, of course, taken from death masks and so exactly reproducing the features and form of the departed. There is even a waxwork from Mme Tusssaud's, which looks tawdry by comparison with the 'real' sculpture - and is ironically of Sir Henry Moore, who own work was so diametrically removed from the wax-works. The range is wide and comprehensive and includes a magnificent and hugely more-than-lifesize head by Ron Muek
Ron Mueck, Mask II, Anthony d'Offay
Then I walked the length of Great Pulteney Street to visit the Holburne Museum which is a small but imposing Georgian house facing back towards Pulteney Bridge and the city.
It was originally a hotel, so the blurb tells us, and converted into a gallery about 100 years ago. It has had a major upgrade and extension in the past few years, only re-opening to the public about 18 months ago. The extension is all at the rear of the building, and on first sight looks pretty dreadful - black pillars and lot of smoked glass. My i-phone photo is not very clear but gives the general impression of the back view...
But the extension does warm on you - and on a lovely summers day, with the garden full of elegant people having elegant lunch from the museum's up-market cafe, it all looked rather splendid. Inside there is a sizeable permanent collection including glass and ceramics as well as 18th and 19th century portraits.
On the top floor there is space (in the new extension) for small special exhibitions. The one currently on view is stunning: Portrait Sculpture is a study of how the human head has been used as a subject for sculpture and various forms of 3D portraiture, from classical times onwards. This is the Silstone Head, described in the catalogue as the striking head of a North African carved in green siltstone in the 1st century BC. with incredibly detailed carving of the hair.
The whole exhibition is a wonderful selection - there were probably less thn 40 pieces in total gathered from various homes including the V and A and the NPG - which demonstrate the enormous range of sculptural work, and how effective sculpture has been in recording the personalities and scale of our forebears - somehow more lifelike than painted portraits, and some, of course, taken from death masks and so exactly reproducing the features and form of the departed. There is even a waxwork from Mme Tusssaud's, which looks tawdry by comparison with the 'real' sculpture - and is ironically of Sir Henry Moore, who own work was so diametrically removed from the wax-works. The range is wide and comprehensive and includes a magnificent and hugely more-than-lifesize head by Ron Muek
Friday, 25 May 2012
Lines and drawings
I came across more images of drawings by Sol le Witt the other day, including this one, Wall Drawing 86....
MASS MoCA BUILDING 7
This is very interesting - as on first sight I thought the sections of 'text' sitting on each drawn line were not real writing, but some kind of non-text, rather than the detailed instructions for the location of each line.
Wall Drawing 86
Ten thousand lines about 10 inches (25 cm) long, covering the wall evenly.
June 1971
Black pencil
Private collection
June 1971
Black pencil
Private collection
FIRST INSTALLATION
The Bykert Gallery, New York
FIRST DRAWN BY
R. Holcomb, Kazuko Miyamoto
MASS MoCA BUILDING 7
GROUND FLOOR
The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (whose web site link is here) describes it thus:
In 1970, Sol LeWitt further distilled the formal vocabulary he used in his wall drawings. Whereas bands of parallel lines characterized his earlier graphite wall drawings, he later began to isolate the single line as a basic conveyance for his ideas. Additionally, LeWitt relaxed the requirement of applying lines in only the four absolute directions, fostering new relationships between his verbal instructions, the performance of those instructions, and the surface on which those instructions are performed.
Noteworthy in Wall Drawing 86 is the disparity between the simplicity of the instructions and the seeming chaos they produce on the wall. The number of lines drawn here is derived from a traditional Eastern concept that ten thousand is a unit emblematic of all inconceivably large numbers. Lines are applied at the singular discretion of the draftsman, who is instructed only to maintain the length of the lines and appearance of evenness across the surface of the wall. The even distribution is conditioned by the dimensions of the wall, giving each iteration of the drawing a different level of density. Other aspects of the lines (their orientation, how often they intersect each other, etc.) are decided by the draftsman as the drawing progresses. The operation of restriction and flexibility results in a visual marriage between pattern and intuition.
My drawings of shredded paper as it fell onto black paper were made using a kind of system (i.e. trying to match as exactly as possible the places where the paper shreds happened to fall) with in-built randomness (i.e. the random falling of the strips) and there is a certain similarity in the way the marks appear on the drawing.
I also came across another of his drawings, Lines from the Midpoints of Lines, 1975, an etching in the National Gallery of Australia (the image was copied from the NGA website here)
Sol le Witt, Lines from the Midpoints of Lines, 1975, etching.
The NGA website catalogue describes the work thus....
In a work such as Lines from the midpoints of lines, one of a series of etchings entitled The location of lines 1975, LeWitt's humorous side emerges. Each of these lines occupies a place on the sheet that is designated by a set of complicated instructions. For example, in the upper left corner a line is accom-panied by the following description of its location: ‘A line from the midpoint of the left side to a point halfway between a point halfway between the mid point of the top side and the upper left corner and a point halfway between the midpoint of the top side and a point halfway between the centre of the page and a point halfway between the midpoint of the left side and the upper left corner.’ In this absurdly long-winded sentence it becomes clear that the instructions supposedly governing the work are poorly suited to account for the simple fact of lines on a page. Here the artist gently pokes fun at his own practice while making an important point about the relationship between art and text: Pictures and words are totally distinct realms and even the simplest image is ultimately beyond the reach of verbal description.
This is very interesting - as on first sight I thought the sections of 'text' sitting on each drawn line were not real writing, but some kind of non-text, rather than the detailed instructions for the location of each line.
I find Le Witt's drawings intriguing. They are so siple in concept and execution, but the effect is often quite impressive. I like the bigger, more random ones better than the strictly geometric earlier ones (all those different ways to fill a square with drawn parallel lines in various directions seem to me to be rather tedious). Moreover, although it looks impel, drawing like this is difficult to do - either to maintain a systematic copying or shadowing of a drawn line, or to maintain constant density of line over a large (sometimes enormous) canvas. But the end products are, to my mind, compelling and convey a sense of balance.
Tuesday, 22 May 2012
Feeling good, being adventurous
I'm feeling very pleased with myself this evening, as I've just been down to my allotment, and back, on my bike. To most people, this would be nothing exceptional. But I'm a very wobbly, new cyclist who has found it takes enormous courage and determination to get on my bike. So tonight I made the extra effort, and was pleased that the journey took ten minutes instead of twenty walking. It's a fraction over a mile.
And while I was there, I did a bit more weeding of the raspberry patch, removing mares tails and bindweed while both are still small and not too invasive.
I brought home yet another big bundle of rhubarb from this enormous patch...
And this post is another first. Written laboriously with one finger on my i-phone, this is the first time I've blogged by phone. Now all I need to do is upload a photo from my phone and I think I will have earned some kind of milestone award! (The photos here were added from the computer, at home, later).
I brought home yet another big bundle of rhubarb from this enormous patch...
And this post is another first. Written laboriously with one finger on my i-phone, this is the first time I've blogged by phone. Now all I need to do is upload a photo from my phone and I think I will have earned some kind of milestone award! (The photos here were added from the computer, at home, later).
Monday, 21 May 2012
College, 21st May
Things are hotting up at college, towards the final assessment and end-of-year show next month. We only have one more Monday studio session after today.... and there is still a lot to do.
This morning started with a group tutorial with Mark, mainly about writing our evaluations, and preparing for the show. After that, we were free to work on our projects. I had booked a video camera and tripod to film my paper scraps, and I had brought in a large box full of scraps, plus some black cloth as a backdrop.
After a quick tutorial from Wesley about how to use the video camera, I wandered the college searching for a quiet place in which to film. The only place seemed to be the cubby-hole where people can store portfolios, a tiny broom-cupboard of a room, with very little floor-space but with a door which closed.
I set about rigging up black cloth and sheets of thick black paper to make a backdrop and to block out the racks of portfolios, and then squeezed the tripod into a corner, with the box of strips balanced on a cupboard.
Off I went - switching the camera on to run on its own, and scattering strips from above. The trouble with this was that, because of the tiny space, I couldn't actually see into the monitor of the camera, and had no idea how the film was coming through. When I paused, to zoom in and then out, I still couldn't really see if the angle was any good.
When I finished, and had a look, it seemed to me that the lines of sight were very short and constrained (they really were!) and although the film had worked on the most basic of levels, it was hardly going to make good piece. Rather dispirited, I gathered up all the paper scraps, undid the black screens, and trailed back to the print room to reconsider. I was close to giving it up as a bad idea.
But then I realised that, during the lunch hour, other rooms were empty and quiet, and also more pscaious. I went into 04, the painting room, and it was empty of people. I found a bit of floor-space and covered it with black card. I found Maeve-Ann, who had been saying, earlier, that she was not terribly busy, and asked if she would give me a hand, which she did very willingly. With Maeve-Ann operating the camera, I could concentrate on dropping the scraps. We shot one film, just of the scraps falling, and then we gathered them all up and shot another 5 minutes, this time with me in the shot, dropping the paper pieces. This looked much better, and the pile of scraps grew wonderfully on the studio floor. Since I had cut more over the weekend, I hadn't seen the size of the full pile before... and it is now BIG!
Then Maeve-Ann set the camera running again without telling me, and so we had a third, quite long, piece of film showing me playing with the scraps, rather like playing with sand on a beach, and she and I talking about what they mean, as we gathered them up and put them back in the box a second time. The heap was so big, it was possible to dig right into it and make mountains and sharp jagged sculptures out of them. Some of them reminded me of the images of the twin towers after 9/11, when the jagged pieces of the buildings stood out against the sky. Some just reminded me of playing with sand-castles with children, letting the strips fall through your fingers, and watching the shifting shapes of he mound as they moved. It was great fun to do, and surprisingly tactile. Actually, the whole business of dropping the pieces was extremely satisfying, and cathartic. It really did feel as I'd intended, as though I was letting go of years of academic study. It might have felt better still if I'd been able to use real work papers, but in the end it hadn't proved possible to get hold of those kind of papers. And over the decades I have sweated quite enough blood over academia too.
By the end of half an hour or so, I had really quite a decent amount of film - and I'm very grateful to Maeve-Ann for her help as it was very tricky to get the angles right and I would have been struggling to do all this on my own, and it was also very good to discuss it with her as we worked.
Later I saw Wesley who helped me down-load the film from the camera, and showed me the briefest outline of how to edit it using i-movie. So tomorrow I will see if I can take the best bits of these films and transfer them into a single run which would be fit for showing on the show-reel in the final exhibition. If need be, Wesley has offered to help me get this right. Also Mary, who has done some film editing during her A-level course. So I will be well-blessed with advice on this...and I'm sure I'll need it as I'm still struggling to get onto the same intuitive wavelength and the Mac designers.
I also had a useful tutorial with Mark this afternoon about my plans for the final show, and the idea of having a kind of 'sand box' on a plinth in which the strips will be placed, and people encouraged to handle them. I then saw Jan in the workshop and have left him a drawing and instructions about materials, dimensions, etc, and he says he will make this for me for next week. I had thought I'd like the box about 3' x 2'6"... but on the way home I thought perhaps a square would be much better, to allow the pieces to fall in a circular mound, and so tomorrow I will alter this to ask for a 3' square box.
I finished the day feeling I had made real progress and cemented my plans for the final show - which fortuitously also require very little by way of further preparations, once the film is edited. Which means I can concentrate now on tidying up my sketchbook, organising my research file, filling the gaps in this blog, and also preparing my portfolio for the UWE interview on 12th June.
This morning started with a group tutorial with Mark, mainly about writing our evaluations, and preparing for the show. After that, we were free to work on our projects. I had booked a video camera and tripod to film my paper scraps, and I had brought in a large box full of scraps, plus some black cloth as a backdrop.
After a quick tutorial from Wesley about how to use the video camera, I wandered the college searching for a quiet place in which to film. The only place seemed to be the cubby-hole where people can store portfolios, a tiny broom-cupboard of a room, with very little floor-space but with a door which closed.
I set about rigging up black cloth and sheets of thick black paper to make a backdrop and to block out the racks of portfolios, and then squeezed the tripod into a corner, with the box of strips balanced on a cupboard.
Off I went - switching the camera on to run on its own, and scattering strips from above. The trouble with this was that, because of the tiny space, I couldn't actually see into the monitor of the camera, and had no idea how the film was coming through. When I paused, to zoom in and then out, I still couldn't really see if the angle was any good.
When I finished, and had a look, it seemed to me that the lines of sight were very short and constrained (they really were!) and although the film had worked on the most basic of levels, it was hardly going to make good piece. Rather dispirited, I gathered up all the paper scraps, undid the black screens, and trailed back to the print room to reconsider. I was close to giving it up as a bad idea.
But then I realised that, during the lunch hour, other rooms were empty and quiet, and also more pscaious. I went into 04, the painting room, and it was empty of people. I found a bit of floor-space and covered it with black card. I found Maeve-Ann, who had been saying, earlier, that she was not terribly busy, and asked if she would give me a hand, which she did very willingly. With Maeve-Ann operating the camera, I could concentrate on dropping the scraps. We shot one film, just of the scraps falling, and then we gathered them all up and shot another 5 minutes, this time with me in the shot, dropping the paper pieces. This looked much better, and the pile of scraps grew wonderfully on the studio floor. Since I had cut more over the weekend, I hadn't seen the size of the full pile before... and it is now BIG!
Then Maeve-Ann set the camera running again without telling me, and so we had a third, quite long, piece of film showing me playing with the scraps, rather like playing with sand on a beach, and she and I talking about what they mean, as we gathered them up and put them back in the box a second time. The heap was so big, it was possible to dig right into it and make mountains and sharp jagged sculptures out of them. Some of them reminded me of the images of the twin towers after 9/11, when the jagged pieces of the buildings stood out against the sky. Some just reminded me of playing with sand-castles with children, letting the strips fall through your fingers, and watching the shifting shapes of he mound as they moved. It was great fun to do, and surprisingly tactile. Actually, the whole business of dropping the pieces was extremely satisfying, and cathartic. It really did feel as I'd intended, as though I was letting go of years of academic study. It might have felt better still if I'd been able to use real work papers, but in the end it hadn't proved possible to get hold of those kind of papers. And over the decades I have sweated quite enough blood over academia too.
By the end of half an hour or so, I had really quite a decent amount of film - and I'm very grateful to Maeve-Ann for her help as it was very tricky to get the angles right and I would have been struggling to do all this on my own, and it was also very good to discuss it with her as we worked.
Later I saw Wesley who helped me down-load the film from the camera, and showed me the briefest outline of how to edit it using i-movie. So tomorrow I will see if I can take the best bits of these films and transfer them into a single run which would be fit for showing on the show-reel in the final exhibition. If need be, Wesley has offered to help me get this right. Also Mary, who has done some film editing during her A-level course. So I will be well-blessed with advice on this...and I'm sure I'll need it as I'm still struggling to get onto the same intuitive wavelength and the Mac designers.
I also had a useful tutorial with Mark this afternoon about my plans for the final show, and the idea of having a kind of 'sand box' on a plinth in which the strips will be placed, and people encouraged to handle them. I then saw Jan in the workshop and have left him a drawing and instructions about materials, dimensions, etc, and he says he will make this for me for next week. I had thought I'd like the box about 3' x 2'6"... but on the way home I thought perhaps a square would be much better, to allow the pieces to fall in a circular mound, and so tomorrow I will alter this to ask for a 3' square box.
I finished the day feeling I had made real progress and cemented my plans for the final show - which fortuitously also require very little by way of further preparations, once the film is edited. Which means I can concentrate now on tidying up my sketchbook, organising my research file, filling the gaps in this blog, and also preparing my portfolio for the UWE interview on 12th June.
Saturday, 19 May 2012
Southville Saturday, 19th May
I am so lucky to live where I do! Today has been a lovely mixture of neighbours, community, art and gardening, and music still to come. And all within a few minutes walk of my house.
This weekend it is the Southbank Bristol Arts Trail (website link here) and for two days there are lots and lots of houses and community venues open to the public, showing art work and crafts of all kinds, for sale and just for admiring. I have spent a happy afternoon peeping into artists' houses and discovering treasures and surprises.
Alongside the arts trail, the North Street Spring Fayre has taken over the shopping street at the end of my road, and it has been carnival time, all day, with the road closed to traffic (it was markedly quiet this morning!), lots of stalls in the road, selling and inviting and informing and entertaining people passing through - and lots of yummy food on offer too.
But because I am a hardworking soul, I had started the day with a couple of hours on my newly acquired allotment, which is about a mile away, and is in a lovely open site with a clear view to the Clifton suspension bridge, and slow goods trains occasionally running alongside. I have only had the allotment for about a month, and the very wet weather has meant I have had far too little time on it so far. But I am making progress with digging, hoeing, and clearing it, and soon it will be fit for planting. Today I explored the allotment shop and bought seeds for peas and beans, chard and beet, and courgettes. And some lupins for green manure, so I can get growing on the whole plot even though it is rather late in the season to be starting out. I haven't had a vegetable garden for about 25 years, so it is pretty much like starting from scratch. But I've been very lucky in inheriting a plot (well, a half-plot to be honest) which has not been abandoned for very long and is in essentially very good condition. So I hope that I can concentrate this summer on getting to know it, growing a few easy things, and planning for a more adventurous season next year.
This is the allotment looking east....my territory runs as far as the huge rhubarb patch, half way down on the left hand side.
This was how it looked on the day I was given it, at the end of a very sunny March. Since then it rained almost constantly for 3 weeks, so I was unable to do anything at all. But in the last couple of weeks I've managed to get down several times, and now I have dug and cleared quite a bit, and I'm ready for planting. My friend Moira has already planted some potatoes (she is sharing some of the plot as it is more than big enough for me).
And this is the plot looking west, including enormous compost bins, beyond which there is another patch of about 8 ft which has been languishing under black plastic, is clean and clear, and is just longing for me to do something really interesting with....watch this space!
Tonight I'm off to hear Charles Hazlewood and the Army of Generals in a concert of Purcell and Handel at St George's. Treats all day long.
This weekend it is the Southbank Bristol Arts Trail (website link here) and for two days there are lots and lots of houses and community venues open to the public, showing art work and crafts of all kinds, for sale and just for admiring. I have spent a happy afternoon peeping into artists' houses and discovering treasures and surprises.
Alongside the arts trail, the North Street Spring Fayre has taken over the shopping street at the end of my road, and it has been carnival time, all day, with the road closed to traffic (it was markedly quiet this morning!), lots of stalls in the road, selling and inviting and informing and entertaining people passing through - and lots of yummy food on offer too.
But because I am a hardworking soul, I had started the day with a couple of hours on my newly acquired allotment, which is about a mile away, and is in a lovely open site with a clear view to the Clifton suspension bridge, and slow goods trains occasionally running alongside. I have only had the allotment for about a month, and the very wet weather has meant I have had far too little time on it so far. But I am making progress with digging, hoeing, and clearing it, and soon it will be fit for planting. Today I explored the allotment shop and bought seeds for peas and beans, chard and beet, and courgettes. And some lupins for green manure, so I can get growing on the whole plot even though it is rather late in the season to be starting out. I haven't had a vegetable garden for about 25 years, so it is pretty much like starting from scratch. But I've been very lucky in inheriting a plot (well, a half-plot to be honest) which has not been abandoned for very long and is in essentially very good condition. So I hope that I can concentrate this summer on getting to know it, growing a few easy things, and planning for a more adventurous season next year.
This is the allotment looking east....my territory runs as far as the huge rhubarb patch, half way down on the left hand side.
This was how it looked on the day I was given it, at the end of a very sunny March. Since then it rained almost constantly for 3 weeks, so I was unable to do anything at all. But in the last couple of weeks I've managed to get down several times, and now I have dug and cleared quite a bit, and I'm ready for planting. My friend Moira has already planted some potatoes (she is sharing some of the plot as it is more than big enough for me).
And this is the plot looking west, including enormous compost bins, beyond which there is another patch of about 8 ft which has been languishing under black plastic, is clean and clear, and is just longing for me to do something really interesting with....watch this space!
Tonight I'm off to hear Charles Hazlewood and the Army of Generals in a concert of Purcell and Handel at St George's. Treats all day long.
Thursday, 17 May 2012
Looking at Art group, 17th May
Today we had the second full meeting of the South Bristol U3A Looking at Art group. We went to the Grant Bradley Gallery in Bedminster, where they are showing the finalists of the RGB Photographic Competition, and a smaller show of 12 prints by a Bath photographer called Colin Powell. More info about the show on their website here.
There were 12 of us in the group today, and Sylvie Duncan start us off with a well-judged but short introduction pointing out the things we could look for in viewing the images, including subject, form, composition, texture, the use of contracting light and dark, colour/monochrome, the type of paper and printing, and the choice of mounting.
We then spent about 30 minutes having a good look at the images, which were very varied in subject matter, style, scale and effect. One of the gallery staff came and gave us some further thoughts about the competition itself, and some of the technical issues we could look out for in making our own photographic images. And finally we had a bit of a free-for-all discussion about what we'd seen and learned. It was a very useful session, and everyone, even some who started out saying 'I'm not interested in photography", had things to say and had found things to hold their interest.
I found I really liked the portraits, especially several striking black and white portraits, which were immensely strong in conveying the sense of the person behind the face. I wondered whether the choice of black and white is the trick here. We see people and faces around us all the time, always in colour, and very often without really looking at them. Partly because, culturally, we have been trained not to look closely at the faces of people we don't know: it can be seen as intrusive and sometimes an almost hostile thing to do. By taking portraits in black and white we remove the distraction of colour - it doesn't matter about hair colour or the clothes being worn. And we are also allowed to look closely, to really study the face, the lines, the skin quality, the shapes and expressions. Which we could not do if the real person was there.
I found the several colour portraits less compelling. I also found that I did not terribly like the prizewinning image, (shown above, copied from the grant Bradley website linked above, and by Gareth Iwan Jones). In the Gallery, it looked less like a colour photo, and seemed to be almost entirely black and white except for her scarf and her very red lips. I was confused because it seemed to me to be so obviously contrived, constructed, a posed 'character' rather than an 'ordinary' but real person. I wasn't sure of the point of this constructed person.
Moreover, its title, "The Third Woman' was obscure to all of us. Whereas for some of the photos, the caption seemed to be an integral part of the whole, and added meaning, in this case it caused puzzlement but no enlightenment.
Which is something I need to think about for my final project piece(s), for which I still don't have a title, and must do before much longer.
There were 12 of us in the group today, and Sylvie Duncan start us off with a well-judged but short introduction pointing out the things we could look for in viewing the images, including subject, form, composition, texture, the use of contracting light and dark, colour/monochrome, the type of paper and printing, and the choice of mounting.
We then spent about 30 minutes having a good look at the images, which were very varied in subject matter, style, scale and effect. One of the gallery staff came and gave us some further thoughts about the competition itself, and some of the technical issues we could look out for in making our own photographic images. And finally we had a bit of a free-for-all discussion about what we'd seen and learned. It was a very useful session, and everyone, even some who started out saying 'I'm not interested in photography", had things to say and had found things to hold their interest.
I found I really liked the portraits, especially several striking black and white portraits, which were immensely strong in conveying the sense of the person behind the face. I wondered whether the choice of black and white is the trick here. We see people and faces around us all the time, always in colour, and very often without really looking at them. Partly because, culturally, we have been trained not to look closely at the faces of people we don't know: it can be seen as intrusive and sometimes an almost hostile thing to do. By taking portraits in black and white we remove the distraction of colour - it doesn't matter about hair colour or the clothes being worn. And we are also allowed to look closely, to really study the face, the lines, the skin quality, the shapes and expressions. Which we could not do if the real person was there.
I found the several colour portraits less compelling. I also found that I did not terribly like the prizewinning image, (shown above, copied from the grant Bradley website linked above, and by Gareth Iwan Jones). In the Gallery, it looked less like a colour photo, and seemed to be almost entirely black and white except for her scarf and her very red lips. I was confused because it seemed to me to be so obviously contrived, constructed, a posed 'character' rather than an 'ordinary' but real person. I wasn't sure of the point of this constructed person.
Moreover, its title, "The Third Woman' was obscure to all of us. Whereas for some of the photos, the caption seemed to be an integral part of the whole, and added meaning, in this case it caused puzzlement but no enlightenment.
Which is something I need to think about for my final project piece(s), for which I still don't have a title, and must do before much longer.
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