July 04, 2008
Back to the Balkans
It's time to head out east and set up the Summer School in Kosovo.
But first to Germany for Katrin's final show.
3 torsos, silk and starch
so if you happen to be in Munchberg next Tuesday, do call in...
Posted by john at 07:32 PM | Comments (0)
Scratchy Exhibition
the complete scratchy catalogue
the scratchy blurb
the opening night
see the show at the Holme Valley Warehouse, Honley, HD9 6AA, until August
Posted by john at 09:41 AM | Comments (1)
July 03, 2008
Scratchy Preview
full size prints before mounting
thumbnail prints to plan the hanging order
Posted by john at 05:19 PM | Comments (1)
July 01, 2008
Two mills and a posh house
Bankfield Mills, Huddersfield
Fairfax Mills, Huddersfield
Saddell House, Kintyre
Posted by john at 11:24 PM | Comments (0)
round and round the studio floor
Mess is a good thing, or at least the potential for mess. Too much mess and everything gets tatty. But you've got to be able to extend yourself if needs must.
I don't let go completely, for there lies madness and that can lead to destruction. Admittedly destruction often goes hand in glove with creation, but it's a fine balance, made all the finer by being aware of it.
To bring something from nothing it helps to not know what you're doing. I believe the work should be an experiment not a process. The work comes out of trying to get something down, trying to get across a set of feelings. Mind you most of the time it's like an itch you can’t scratch.
Pinocchio by Jim Dine, painted wood, from his series of the same name
Posted by john at 12:27 AM | Comments (0)
June 30, 2008
25 Scratchy Photographs- opening night
Posted by john at 01:57 PM | Comments (0)
June 29, 2008
In the Future
In the future we will live our lives only according to the pictures we have seen.
Posted by john at 10:32 PM | Comments (0)
Unstuck Polaroid
An early image from the beginnings of the Unstuck project.
Posted by john at 03:46 PM | Comments (0)
June 28, 2008
more than one way to skin a cat
Not that I’ve ever tried. There’s also more than one way to paint a portrait. Ingres, at the sharp end of 400 years of studio tradition would blend and layer transparent oil paint until an amazing lifelike likeness was achieved.
Matisse, on the other hand, held that the colours didn’t matter so long as the tones were correct. He would pitch solid colours next to each other in thick daubs and let them fight it out.
Ingres had a process, a system, to achieve his famous translucent skin tones. [Though he obviously had something else for when his students copied his process assiduously the results fell far short of the master.]
I don’t have a process, for one thing I often can’t remember from one session to the next how I achieved a certain effect. I like the actual act of painting. The physical business of looking and seeing and then trying to arrange a few colours and tones on a panel to give the effect of what I am seeing and feeling.
I like pushing the paint about - I like to see the whole thing at once, complete in every stage, so I can determine how it should progress. It is more a continuous experiment than an accumulated process.
I enjoy the struggle of putting paint up and seeing what happens. I like to keep all the colours working on the panel all the time, letting the picture appear rather than going through proscribed actions with a predetermined outcome.
Posted by john at 08:44 PM | Comments (0)
Return to the Locomotive Bridge
The bridge today, not a lot has changed,
except that now you don't lift the bridge by hand, with the turny-wheel, but by means of electronic wizardry
Posted by john at 05:05 PM | Comments (0)
