Paris - Sheila Hicks at the Pompidou Centre

Well, what can one say other that when you hear that a major exhibition of Sheila Hicks' work is on show you have to go! 

I just adore Hicks' work, and as fibre art seems to be having a bit of a revival she and other fibre artists are being shown - with Olga de Almaral being shown in Bruxelles and Annie Albers at the Tate Modern in the Autumn it is a good time to catch up on seeing the actual works that one otherwise just ends up looking at in books or one the web. So off I went to Paris for a night so that there would be one full day for the visit to the Pompidou Centre. I stayed in a small hotel near by, with tiny rooms and even smaller shower cubicles which you had to squeeze into. 

Here's a view from my hotel room to the building opposite:

And as the very first thing to see at the Pompidou Centre was of course the Hicks' exhibition, Lifelines - I took lots of photographs but do not want to infringe copyright so will not include any here. But I can tell you that it was quite a spectacular show, with many large scale works and a lot of her minimes, the small weavings she weaves on a small mobile loom - these spanned her whole life of making, so there were weaving from 1958 or so and onwards.

There was a lot of colour in this work - and it was quite a controlled use of colour, palettes led by main colour keys and lovely textures of woven, wrapped and untangled rope-like materials. There were a long series of films covering her more recent her career from the 1980s onwards. I spent a couple of hours in the gallery, watching all the films, studying the smaller works and wondering at the larger wrapped works.

I could spend a lot of time describing my exaltation at being at this exhibition. How wonderful to have been around at a time when the fibre arts movement was at its early beginnings as Hicks was, to be given the opportunities to travel, meet fascinating textile cultures in the South and Middle Americas, to experience encounters with architecture and sculpture, photography and yarn and synthesise all these impressions. Hicks' work was really ground breaking sitting alongside the other textile Modernists of the 1960s and -70s as the early voices of monumentally scaled work that related to space in particular ways. 

In one film she discusses discovering the use of the repeatable textile module and using this in many different permutations. Various works were described in the films and impressions of her work methods. The exhibition was really a gift and something I will try to remember for a long time - and it gets even better: she was sitting nearby my table in the museum cafe, and I summoned up the courage to go and ask for her signature in the catalogue I had bought, and she kindly wrote a dedication in it! I am so thrilled that she was so generous and didn't seem to be bothered that someone quite excited came up to her like that.

The rest of the photos will show a few impressions from the Pompidou, starting with the grafitti in the women's loo, where people had written into the grouting between the times, which showed a but of inventiveness:

On the 5th floor there was a very nice outdoor gallery of sculpture or sculpture garden. The day was very hot so the water that was the reflective base for the sculpture was a cooling relief.

And a pigeon also found the water useful, he landed just in front on me and drank plenty, creating his own small figure in the water.

The building reflected in the water 

West Dean 5th course - Intuitive drawing

So, it has been a while since I did a course at West Dean and in late August I attended the 5th course in my series of 10. Half way through, and having looked back at soem of my work for the OCA I have to say I think the work is improving, and going to West Dean somehow gives you permission to think in a focussed way about what is happening with the work.

The tutor was Christopher Gilvan-Cartwright. A thoughtful and inspiring teacher who brought us many techniques to try out to give us a tool box of ways of creating surfaces, textures and mark on paper with charcoal, graphite, acrylic paint and ink. There were flattish marks and heavy textures, there were analyses of line and working over te paper in blocks of colour or mass of substance in charcoal or ink.

We each got a table and an easel and he pointed out that we could think about how we want to work - at three levels: on the table, on an easel or on the floor. I tried all three and they each gave something different to how the work developed: in the table  or floor your pour ink, on the easel you can sit back and really look at the work as it progresses.

Here is my table and bit of the floor with work in progress in sketchbooks and on paper (drying where ink or oil bar was applied):

Surprisingly I tried to keep tidy, as the space on the table was quite limited. We were mostly working on A1 or A2/A3 depending on whether finished work was being made, or test pieces to try out techniques were being made.

The 'intuitive' bit in the title suggested we were going to work with Dada automatic drawing, which we did do on the first day, but after that we simply worked very freely with the new techniques being taught. He did mention the idea of the exquisite corpse drawing and I read in the course description that we would be sharing work, but in the end we didn't do much of that, and just got on with our indendent work.

I used up paints in mt sketchbook, used collage and added to some books I had brought that needed to be thought about in a drawing sort of way. The tutor gave some very valuable feedback for the FDAD side of things, so overall it was a helpful and valuable course.

Here are some works I made over the weekend:

A lot of the work was done in black and white, but I did use some of my XL graphite as it leant itslef well to the large scale of the work and sits well with the charcoal and ink,

These long coloured things are the concertina books I had brought from home to add to - I have also started stitching on them, so this brief piece of work was just to add a bit of texture in paper or paint.

A drawing based on the moon's light that looks better in reality - the black sugar paper is already greyish, but looks even more so here.

Recent holiday to Germany

It has been while since I have written about something of interest. Not because there was nothing to tell, but because time is passing with busy things to do, both at the weekends and after work - vegetable dyeing, acid dyeing, knitting and felting. So for now I will add a few images from a holiday we had to Germany in June. We went to Hamburg and Lübeck. Both cities are great for different reasons: Hamburg is a big vibrant city, with fine museums, a large river, the Elbe, and an interesting history. Lübeck is a smaller city with an ancient city centre on an island in a river, the Trave, with many, many churches and great old buildings. We also spent a period further north and went for walks on the coast.

I should say that I don't take many long view photos of cities as I always feel that they look flat when I get home, and by focussing instead on particular details you can find new interesting things that may be useful for future art work.

Hamburg

We have been to Hamburg before and have done some touristic things like sailing on the Binnen Alster boat that gives you views of the city from the large lake in the city centre, whilst this time we returned to the Kunsthalle and the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe. This time we went for a walk to parts we hadn't explored before and found some amazing architecture to explore - Chilehaus and the building that houses chocolate museum (which we did not visit), both lie in the Speichertsadt, which also includes canals and warehouses.

Here's a detail of the Chile Haus - a solid dark bricked building with a jagged sharp-edged facade.
 

 

The building opposite was softer with a curved facade running along the road and sculpture by Lothar Fischer:

 

 

Near the historic office distric which is now a Unesco world heritage site the old warehouse buildings sitting next to the canals still look grand. I am guessing that many facades somehow stayed standing even after the bombing of WWII as the walls and brickwork looked old and not at all 'renovated' and some looked quite run down, although other are clearly now being used as trendy techie offices.

There were quiet moments for coffee and looking out into court yards with beautiful trees 

 

And on the way to the Kunsthalle we came across a grand building that must have been an important building as a kind of providential society or other:

 

We also came across a place that looked like a closed bar - it had a large folded paper polar bear in the window which was quite a fantastic thing:

The Kunsthalle was showing a temporary exhibition of Manet's work, which was good, with many small works and interesting connections made to for examle Berthe Morisot, and then we went around finding things that might inspire - this time I concentrated on the modern collections and was happy to find work by Gerhard Richter, Robert Morris - a very impressive piece of felt folding down by force of its own weight - and a white painting by Robert Ryman. Then on to the historical collections to see the German impressionists including Lovis Conrinth, and a room dedicated to Caspar David Friedrich, whose work I never tire of looking at. They also have fine modern art including a fish by Paul Klee I like and next to a Giacometti sculpture they had a painting by him to again make connections I guess of influences and how stylistic characteristics echo across media and disciplines.

We took a boat trip this time as well - but on the Elbe - along a couple of canals and then out onto the river proper to see the port. A huge place, with ship building, repairing and all manner of freight and blossoming culture. I did not take too many long views, but looked at the side of the canals and the concrete walls running along the river in places, some conceret decaying:

 Here's more decaying paint and iron:

Paint work on boats can be very painterly.... but it also so very available and visible, it is almost ubiquitous in harbours and in old yards of different types.

There were many cranes and large metal structures to study on the river:

Along the coast to the North

There was also a trip to the more Northern parts and I walked nostalgically on the beach, enjoying the sunshine of summer and listening to the sea and the wind in the trees. These environments were some of my favourite places in the past, and it is great to go back and enjoy them again:

And the seaside always have wonderful things to look at and touch and pick up -

A dried up section of orange:

 

On a ferry we took, some thick rope - which is a great source for thinking about thick textile objects:

Sea cabage:

And lovely seaweed floating in the water:

We took a short trip to the Nolde Stiftung again, it is a great place and every year they put out a new set of paintings and water colours, so it is worth a re-visit. Nolde's work really is some of the best water color work I have seen. I am always amazed as the way he used his colours.

And there was also a day trip to Schloss Gottorf on the outskirts of Schleswig: a large castle on an island with great collections acorss the full spectrum of human culture - achaeological collections, including the Nydam Boat, historical collections, decorative arts (a set of Jugendstil gallery and a brilliant modern art collection, with expressionist work based on a collection, Sammlung Rolf Horn. There was so much to see you couldn't possibly see it all, so I concentrated on the most important things that I thought might inspire my own work.

On the way to Schleswig we stopped by the Dannevirke wall, which is a Viking-medievan earth work which was built to protect the Norther lands from certain tribes:

There was a small informative museum narrating the history of the building and the archaeology of the site. Some sections were also used by the Danish army during the war with Prussia in the 19th century - a real gem. If we had had more time there could have been a good walk along the wall, but we were headed to Schloss Gottorf, and that was itself a gem of a place.

Lübeck

Lübeck is an old Hansestadt. It is famous for its old Holsten Gate, which appears on postcards - of course without the busy roads that run on each side of its gardens, so here's a reality check:

 

The city is very beautiful, there are many old buildings and many churches to visit. Again we had been to Lübeck before, but that was to go to the Christmas market several years ago, and new museums have opened since then, and and there was plenty to do in the summer sun.

So we visited churches - these grand old places of spirituality and power. A lot of effort went into church architecture and so there is always some interesting architecture and art to study in tese places.

Here's a small example of the fine puppets in a museum devoted to puppetry:

This museum has both Western and Eastern puppets, a lovely Indian puppet elephant, and when we went they had an exhibition on Pinocchio with a puppet from a Soviet film from  the interwar period, and sections of the film on a loop showing the 'making' of Pinocchio. I love puppets and it was good to see a few films of stop-motion animation and so on, as puppets hanging on their strings look a bit sad. They are so much better animated and telling a story.
 
There was a church near the Puppet Museum which had been whitewashed and in its simplicity looked very grand:

We also visited the St Marienkirche, which is where JS Bach went to learn organ music with the local organist. This church is very grand with large areas of reproduction medieval murals. It is also a very beautiful place. In one corner the churchbells which fell during the bombings of WWII have been left with a candle as a reminder of peace and reconciliation:

In one church there was an ancient set of benches with carved wooden arm rests of head of monks - they had worn away with time and looked soft and shiny in the light:

Oh, and then there is the occasional piece of functional street furniture that is worth a mention, like this great door handle-cum-door lock:

As usual I took many photographs and will probably use some of them in the future, but just to end this short story of my visit I will add one on a rococo ceiling detail from a museum:

 

And a single example of a quick draing I did one evening in the hotel:

 

Drawing course and drawing day

Part of the FDAD (Foundation Diploma in Art and Design) course is the understanding that we will do at least three drawing courses. The College also offer drawing days for FDAD students and they can be very good. This post will cover the drawing course I did recently and a drawing day that followed on very soon after that.

The drawing day I did was run by a tutor whose work has a surrealist and humouristic bent. It was aimed at intermediate to advanced drawing levels, so I guess I probably was not quite there in terms of the expected level of drawing, however I did get something out of it and so it was still useful.

The first day and a half there were a number of exercises to look at different ways of working with drawing. This included different levels of looking at a still life, self portraits and mark making based on sensory memory.

Here are some of the drawings I did based on some of these exercises:

These practices were OK - there was much to absorb and consider, but the key thing that was useful for me, was the fact that you can make your own drawing books/sketchbooks, and an exercise where a detail was drawn and then greater levels of context were added from that foundation study in second and third drawings.

On the last day we were then asked to create our own project based on the ideas of 'collections'. This concept can mean many things, but I kept it simple and chose 'winged creatures' from objects or paintings that can be found around the house, using the three step increasing context studies. Henece this was meant to be a series of images of winged beasts - there are plenty of puttis, eagles, a buttlerfly and stuffed birds to choose from.

I chose to first draw a putti from a tapestry (the lower set of drawings):

Here I was trying to capture the weave of the tapestry, then the putti's wing, and further then the wing attached to the putti. I used watersoluble pencil. The tutor suggested I should vary the marks more, ensure there was more space for the eye to rest and to create more block coloured areas. 

I agree that my drawings often only use a particular level of line, and that is probably due to the untrained nature of my skill level, but I did not feel comfortable with the idea of using ink or some other strong colour to create a block of colour in the background. I need to think about how this would work in practice, with different types of motif, for example in a still life where there may be a more natural way to place the central concern in a flat background. To me the tapestry was already quite flat and uniform - it is a faded thing with little colour variation as the contrasts have reduced over the centuries, and the woven texture of the weaving also plays its part in creating a generalised sameness across the surface. I guess what the tutor was getting at was to create a stronger focus by blocking out blandness in some areas and leaving the central motif as a stronger concern, and I think that I need to train this if I need to in the future. It depends on the topic and purpose of the image.

The next drawing was of a putti in gold on a rococo clock:

This is a stronger drawing, the putti is reasonably complete - in fact I think I have captured the twist in its body fairly reasonably, so maybe the life drawing classes I am doing are teaching me something(!) Anyway, I spent so much time on the putti I was running out of time in the morning before coffee, and this led to speedier drawings of the clock itself and the clock shown on the wall. You can just about see some legs and a skirt of a pastoral scene of a woman and a man on the top of the clock, but in any case I tried to capture the rocaille swirls that were going on around the clock overall.

I think together as a series the three drawings work well - they use the same colours and the twists and swirls of the clock's ornament are present in all three drawings making the story of three a fairly cohesive thing.

Finally, after morning coffee I was tired and was a bit bored with drawing whole figures, as it is a large effort and time was limited. I had borrowed a book on Anselm Kiefer's work which reminded me of his winged sculptures and drawings, and as I had already been working on wings the evening before it felt natural to also continue with studies of wings from a painting of a swan. 

These are the wing drawings I did in the evening - I tend towards making things painterly, but the bolder wings on the top line are more open and loose and were just about playing with the idea of wings:

 And these are the wings based on a painting of a swan's wing:

The ink blots at the top were quickly developed the evening before as there was a fair bit of ink left from the day's work which would otherwise have gone down the drain. I tried to control it a bit and then drew over them to make them into 'wings'.

Here's a detail of the wing, the first drawing of the four of the swan's wing: 

I was quite satisfied with the outcomes of the course, I liked some of the exercises and will take them with me to things I will do in the future. I still think I need to practice a lot and will need to build more drawing work into my everyday work.

The drawing days

The idea behind the drawing day is to provide FDAD students with an opportunit to use the College, its grounds and the exercises or themes provided by the tutor at the start of the day, with finishing show and tells at the end of the day. The first drawing day I attended was OK, but nothing great to report on, and I have already written about the tutorial I had on the day which was very good.

Recently though, I attended a second drawing day and that was very good. We started with a mindfulness exercise, a nature study and then set out to do our work work. I first wandered outside to do some drawing at the back of the house looking at flowers and trees - which really is an obvious thing to do at West Dean when you walk about the garden:

Top: the nature study using glue to paste bits from nature onto the page before drawing onto it looking at details  - here grasses and weedy flowers.

Bottom: some of the studies of buttercups and other weeds, on the left a tree trunk drawn using the coloured jouices from plants:

Then during the day I made a series of small books mainly using 'mark making' - stamping, painting, scribbling using watercolour, graphite, ink pen - this felt good, I didn't think much about it, but it had a similar feel to the book I made on Cas Homes' course, and some of them came out quite successfully as whole, complete singular things in themselves, not bad for books made by other people's waste paper pulled out of the bin:

The top one was really a collection of small natural stuff glued in a painted over, using the weed/plant itself as a paintbrush and a frottage of a couple of grass types, the middle one is a practice in placements of different types of material in a collagey type set-up and the bottom one was a quick and dirty practice, trying to work more simply by limiting the colour used to two - blue and red.

Here a detail of these books:

I made another small study in containing colour use: I tend to always use a lot of colour, and am not good at simplifying things, so with the paper already slightly marked with charcoal smudges and marks, I used only red, a tiny little bit of blue, and an organge strip of tissue paper. I stuck on fallen petals from flowers in the dining room:

The book at the bottom is another study of texture, which is a bit of ripped piece of a woven materials bag and glued-on petals from potted plants in the quadrangle. This was to contrast the organic and the man made, the soft whites on coffee-stained paper, with the hard black of the plastic weave, that had been softened in its ripped state. I am pretty satisfied with this piece and may try to use it for a textile piece in some way.

Here's a detail of the 'pink' book showing how brush marks are themselves enough to fill space - at least I feel I can do simplicity, but I always do wonder what the purpose is - should this be to create beauty or to indicate something else?