London Trip

Returned last night from a weekend trip to London and a flying visit to Tate Britain.  Had a peep at the Saatchi Gallery and ended the visit at The Royal Academy to see the Glasgow Boys ( http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/glasgow-boys/).  Tate Britain was full of greatness and a joy to spend a couple of hours before it closed looking at some old favourites.  The Glasgow Boys was a really good exhibition of artists with whom I was not previously familiar and whose capturing of light and colour held me spellbound.  It was well-attended but I managed to see everything without being trampled underfoot.  

I found most of the Saatchi gallery's current collection predictably dreary.  It neither excites nor shocks any more.  It was however, interesting to hear a guide trying to justify some juvenile dross to a party of schoolchildren.  Despite the no entrance fee policy these days, it was very quiet, with a collection of gallery attendants who were barely civil.  It all felt a bit parallel universe.  But hey I'm only a punter.

Collagraph II

 

A second run of collagraphs with chine colle.  It's starting to feel like a race against time before the Festive Season takes hold  and everything grinds to a halt for a few weeks.  Although it is good to get work out at any time of the year.

Collagraph

Been painting, making little boxes, small sculptures and working on some collographs for a change.  This little landscape is a collagraph with chine colle and is headed to Australia with 3 others in the series.

I have also been working on making the studio a warmer place to work during the winter months.  Last year was a battle with condensation damp getting into everything and the summer was such a non-event that I knew I was going to have to get some heat going.  I now have curtains at the windows, some old underlay and carpet on the floor and a thermostat on an oil radiator to keep the temperature level.  So far so good.

Book Binge

 

Yesterday I came across a second hand book store with a table outside and a sign saying 'free to good home - help yourself'.  And needing no encouragement, I came away very happily carrying four old hardbacks and some ancient engineering plans to use as Altered Books, including this poor battered thing with a very beautiful cover that I am sure can be brought to life in some way.  Funny isn't it, the small things that can brighten the dullest day?

An Origami Moment

 

I have been exploring ideas for One Hundred Boxes and have been folding paper in an origami kind of way - immediate apologies to any origami purists for this folded work in newspaper and tracing paper.  A few months ago I started looking at ways to use all the bits of artwork lying around the studio - files and files of paper experiments that hadn't quite worked out.  I began a journal with some of it and then the boxes were born and the focus has shifted in that direction as a way of recycling with an autobiographical emphasis. 

I am finding it interesting to see where the wandering, creative mind travels and the little boxes are proving very useful in giving a structure and starting point to the work, whilst allowing free-reign to fill the boxes with whatever is developing from one to the next.  The discipline of recording each one is very useful for progress.  Some of them still need changes and some are on the shelf awaiting a bolt of inspiration to move them along at all.

Feel a bit more blog-happy this week - moved the furniture around and changed the decor a bit. (Blogger seem to have dumped a lot of their design templates?)

Mid-Blog Crisis

It's coming up to 2 years since I began the blog. Perhaps this is the time to take stock, maybe there is a 2 year hiatus common to bloggers:).  There are times I enjoy posting and times when it feels a chore and I would rather be in the studio or vice versa!

Living in a rural environment, I do feel isolated from other artists and very much enjoy looking at other artists' blogs for the inspiration and the camaraderie I miss, having previously enjoyed a city-based studio practice.

But this does not solve the current dilemma of where to go with This Artist's Place.  I quite like the format on One Hundred Boxes - no dialogue and just images with media description.  I don't think I gave much thought initially to blogging and it has evolved in rather an untidy way with my posting whatever I was creating at that moment - more a sketchbook of ideas and thoughts than a coherent entity.

I have noticed that many of the bloggers I follow have moved, created additional blogs, given up, been amalgamated into zines.  There must be a natural lifespan to blogs with  many changes on the journey.  Where do all the dead blogs go?

Steve McCurry Retrospective, Birmingham City Art Gallery

Called in to see the Steve McCurry Retrospective at the Modern Art Gallery bit attached to Birmingham City Art Gallery and was quite bowled over by his absolutely sensational photography.  Amazing colours, thought-provoking images - check out his website http://www.stevemccurry.com/main.php or better still if you are in the Birmingham area,  go see it - it runs til October 17th.

Small Object

 

Sometimes everything goes to plan and at other moments it's an uphill struggle and this week has been the latter with a brain in underdrive and frustration levels in overdrive.  I have been working on the latest small box and just can't get the composition right.  I think it might have to rest on the shelf until I find out why it won't hang together.

I've been doing some camera practice today to take a break from the studio - closeups of small objects like this old tin box that houses my pins, needles and cottons for those repairs I never do.