Here are my Bees,

brazen blurs on paper,

besotted; buzzwords, dancing

their flawless, airy maps.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......

  

Making tracks: words, footsteps, mark-making, mapping, tracing, beats, rhythm, stitching and time. Somewhere in deepest darkest Devon during the twilight hours in which, I am reliably told, any ideas generally worth having are formed, it was conceived by Frank Edmonds and Stuart Rosamond that twelve artists shall be invited to participate in creating an independently edited, inventive art zine to be published in time with the Spring Equinox, March 20th 2015 at 12.57pm and perhaps more consequently of all, this was remembered the following day from which it was written and said twelve artists were invited to participate in what was to be the inaugural issue of ‘Hive’!

 With the ambition of publishing biannually throughout the year each edition of the ‘Hive’ is guest edited by a different artist who collates the work, binds it and produces the cover plus any supporting content (is that all?!). The editor also sets the theme for each issue of which the first has been chosen by Hive’s co-creator, Stuart Rosamond who has set the seemingly cryptic theme of ‘Track 6’. The brief, that each artist produces a response to the theme, in this case ‘track 6’, on an A3 sheet of paper/surface in any medium of their choosing making either  thirteen copies or originals of their work  and sent to said editor. Each artist as a result receives a completed copy of ‘Hive’ featuring their page and that of the eleven other artists. Consequently by being an independently created form of ‘bedroom lit’ it bypasses the editorial rigmarole and red tape allowing for a more uninhibited set of responses from the artists and the creative freedom such set-ups bring. On an individual level it presents an opportunity to produce new work to the challenge/motivation of a deadline/theme and also a way of both owning and discovering the work of other artists. With plans for the artist contributors to increase each time a new issue is printed and develop a digital archive of ‘Hive’ publications it is something that could hopefully grow wings...

 Those who were ‘deliriously wishing to engage’ in the project replied to an emailed invitation and in doing so the Hive’s first  worker bees (a.k.a artists) are as follows; Nina Gronw-Lewis, Jon England, Anna Newland-Hooper, Malcolm Plastow, Frank Edmonds, Eileen Rosamond, Megan Calver,  Kevin Hawker, Stuart Rosamond, Tim Martin, Ruby Petts and me (Natalie Parsley)!

Personally I have wanted to make a publication of art work or a zine for a long time as it feels a natural progression of combining both my love of books (as a bookseller) and commitment/obsession to continue making art. It also presented an incentive to make work and has already opened up a dialogue with other artists and in turn is beginning to quietly influence the work I make for my ‘drawing a week’ project*. That and it is exciting to work on something that feels collaborative but a surprise at the same time, the reward of course seeing how each of the other artists interpreted the theme.

and honey is art.

At present all the pages have been sent off to be bound and be sent to each artist on March  20th. I’ll keep you posted and reveal exactly how I interpreted the theme of ‘track 6’ (there’s a clue in the picture above) plus an insight into the other artists’ work and any links to an online digitised version of ‘Hive’ here on the blog as it unfolds.  

You have bee-n told!

Buzzing throughout this post in italic are lines from the poem ‘The Bees’ by Carol Ann Duffy
* http://spannerintheworkz.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/unimportant-somethings-drawing-day-2014.html

Site for sore eyes!

Teacups, bronze ingots, a huge boulder and a model fountain don’t at first seem to have a lot in common, nor are they necessarily what you may expect to find in an exhibition responding to the majestic and imposing gardens and landscape of Hestercombe in Somerset, but in that and in many other unexpected ways, ‘Second Site’ at the Hestercombe Gallery promises to be something entirely and refreshingly different. The Arcadian landscaping by Copleston Warre Bampfylde and Edwardian gardens designed by Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll at Hestercombe have continued to inspire and delight its owners and public alike since their creation in the 17th century, now visitors have been invited the additional opportunity to experience an alternative perspective in a set of new, surprising and challenging artworks commissioned especially in response to the site and context of Hestercombe House and its gardens....

Jo Lathwood 'Phantoms and Candlesticks' (2015), white cotton and wood

‘Second Site’ opened on the 31^st January 2015 in the newly reopened Hestercombe House turned Gallery. With two previous exhibitions under its belt this is the first exhibition to respond directly to the site and context of the house/gardens themselves, curated by Tim Martin and featuring the work of five artists; Patrick Lowry, Megan Calver, Simon Hitchens, Laura Ellen Bacon and Jo Lathwood who between them have diverse practices with experiences of exhibiting nationally/internationally and all being based locally in Somerset or the South West. You'd be forgiven for expecting something slightly spooky based on the shows title and in many ways the house is a bit of a haunting place perhaps as, Jo Lathwood (having spent a residency in Hestercombe House since it re-opened in May 2014) found out as the exhibition inside the house opens with two ghost-like sheets draped over a mock-up of where previously real candlesticks were placed; a physical reminder of a past life of Hestercombe house.Her responses, like that of many of the other invited artists is both a reaction to the inside and history of the house itself as much as the gardens.

 Generally a lot of the work explores bringing the 'outside', inside with current as well as past histories of the house and its uses providing context for the work; in some cases even providing the material from which it has been made. Do expect to be challenged; confused, delighted and exasperated by most of the works in this exhibition, it is not an easy or obvious ride! In fact I read an article ‘Is art best enjoyed in company?’ this morning that commented, “Art is now what religion used to be; an encounter with a mystery, which no one can fully explain and has no purpose beyond itself,” which I think could be said of this and a significant majority of art being made today. If you are open to a little mystery, a little weirdness then you will be rewarded and possibly, like me even learn something you previously didn’t know about Hestercombe in the process.

Megan Calver (from the work) 'Spill' Art Deco cup and saucer, chipped  

On that note, dotted throughout the exhibition on a series of Perspex shelves is a collection of ceramics dating from 1700’s til today. They range everything from a Chinese blue and white tea bowl to a 1970’s squirrel posy vase. There is no comment of ‘high’ or ‘low’ taste/value here with each item displayed on its own Perspex shelf independently with accompanying pamphlet of information on each piece, treated more like artefact than object. Collectively they make up the piece ‘Spill’, by Megan Calver whereby the recorded sound piece of ceramics smashing is played in the stairway/entrance hall to the house. We learn that the sound was recorded in an event which saw the ceramics dropped from the top of the interior stairwell in the Victorian tower of the house by children from Hestercombe’s Centre for Young Musicians. The event prompted by the story and sound of a cedar tree falling in the gardens right next to the house on Valentine’s day last year. The resulting work is both sensitive, with humour and I’m still undecided as to whether it is either blissfully or frustratingly conceptual as is often the case, I find, with Calver’s work in which its strength is in the storytelling and collaborative participation of its audience both in the making and in the interpreting of the work. I like the fact that she is working with old stories of the tree falling and creating new ones at the same time; the children from the music school will hopefully always remember the day they dropped fine china from the top of the stairway at Hestercombe house, it is a fun image and its story will hopefully live on with a time capsule of the broken ceramics planned to be buried in the gardens at the end of the project. In a separate piece Calver has worked again collaboratively with the Taunton Floral Art Club producing wallpaper of a Salvia seed packet, a bedding plant said to be loathed by the garden designer Gertrude Jekyll for its gaudy colour. Yes, you have to really 'work' to unravel this information which is revealed more in the text that accompanies the work than the work itself but when you do its interesting what you learn and in the case of this exhibition generally, it is often the hidden histories, incidental events and slightly subversive stories that the artists choose to bring to our attention. I for one am glad!  

Megan Calver with Taunton Floral Art Club 'Flame' (2015)

Jo Lathwood’s responses begin with the materials and during her time in residence she explored both the inside and outside stripping 15 kilos of copper wire from defunct electrical cable when the house was used by the council/fire brigade and collecting galls from oak trees in the grounds both of which then underwent alchemic transformations resulting in two separate bodies of work. The oak galls were mixed with gum arabic, water and various salts to make a permanent black ink. This ink was then used to create drawings of windows, their view blacked out. Interestingly their creation ties in with the unnerving story that one of the houses previous owners, the Hon Mrs Portman blocked the view from the house to the gardens so her servants could not look out and enjoy the views of the grounds and gardens. In the same room as the drawings the windows too have been blacked out with the same ink, our view of the gardens disrupted in the same way Mrs Portman denied her staff. Subsequently the copper also underwent a similar transformation being combined with tin from donated tankards from Hestercombe staff/volunteers and forged at Lathwood’s forge in Bristol into three bronze ingots inscribed with their maker/date/origin. This is more than just a recycling of materials and becomes symbolically representative of the importance of Hestercombe in all its parts, both its modern and past histories. In the same way that Calver’s ceramics force you to look at the building as you search for them, Lathwood’s work makes you think about the ‘stuff’ it’s made of, the miles of the buildings wire guts and innards made into something compact, something small, precious. The theme of inside/outside, revealed and concealed is present again in the galls from the gardens oak trees brought inside to become ink then brought outside in a representation of a blackened garden view. As Lathwood herself comments, she uses materials and process as ways of luring and engaging with her audience so that the meaning behind the work can in-turn be revealed. Somewhat agreeably I find the products of this labour are more understated in their ability to shout and excite than the often slightly more fascinating methods of their production.

Jo Lathwood 'According to rules and legend' (2015) bronze

Jo Lathwood's oak gall ink studies and experiments in the workspace she used during her residency. 

  

Also in this exhibition, displayed appropriately above the mantel of the fireplace is a painting by C W Bampfylde, ‘An extensive Italian landscape’ created in 1765 its connection to the exhibition otherwise slightly tenuous until you enter the adjacent room. There, visitors discover a life size replica of the Victorian fountain on the terrace of the gardens below, the ‘outside, inside’ again a reoccurring theme (pictured below). The fountain’s top tiered basin becomes a plateau on which a miniaturised model landscape sits complete with cow, people, trees, assorted plants, a turret, water and boats. Typically I unintentionally navigated the exhibition in the ‘wrong’ order (if it is even possible to do such a thing) missing the Bamfylde painting entirely as I passed it via a different doorway so amusingly it took me a while [completely of my own fault] to realise that this scene was in fact a painstaking recreation of Bampfylde’s painting in the other room (eureka)! A delightful moment of realisation later and I take pleasure in comparing and analysing the two. It is a clever way of drawing attention to an otherwise fairly ‘brown’, typical old painting of the likes I’d never really (rightly or wrongly) give much time to and sentimentally reminds me of a ‘transcriptions’ project I did during college where we did a similar thing. Lowry’s version titled ‘Arcadia’ after the Arcadian style landscaping Bampflyde brought to Hestercombe is playful in its own challenge of modelling of Lowry’s landscape where the scale and time are much more under the artists control than that of Bampfylde’s larger feat of landscaping of the grounds themselves. Funnily the two are not that entirely different acts just on different scales and materials. Out of all the works in the exhibition it is probably one of the more joyous and accessible in its conceptuality although I still do not quite understand why it has been presented on its fountain pedestal as to being installed in situ, one of the houses alcoves/windows for example? Lowry is known for life-like interventions which challenge people’s perception in public environments and whilst the fountain in itself is interesting I personally feel it is a little superfluous to the model itself which doesn’t really need or benefit from it other than being a glorified plinth to view it on.

Patrick Lowry 'Arcadia' (2015), mixed media

If you were thinking, what this exhibition is missing so far is a great big lump of rock then Simon Hitchens provides the answer in the form of an impressively excavated 9ft tall chunk of limestone sourced from Westleigh quarry somewhat slightly arrogantly and confrontationally plonked in the middle of the lawn on the approach to the house; one side left natural the other (facing the house) painted white. I get the fact that the stone is the same as used to build the house and that in its raw state stone can be beautiful and sculptural, but with this piece it feels too ceremonially placed to fit-in and yet too natural and unfinished to really stand out. Hitchens does though often work with dualities so that comment may not be as dismissive as it first sounds with the works twin, inside the house in the form of a cast looking back on its originator from the view through the window it faces. Positive and negative are presented, figure and sarcophagus, man-made – natural etc. The affect is ghost-like as the title of the lawn work suggests and does raise interesting doubts on the origins of the boulder, seeing its trace in the cast we start to wonder if the stone on the lawn is in fact a fabrication by man or naturally mined from the earth. The problem for me is that the sculptural works don’t really do a lot for me, as I feel they are dealing with previously explored ideas in a medium that has possibly reached its limits of potential. The more successful work, in my view, is the video piece ‘Genesis’ where the relationship between man/nature, man/material works connects more readily with the viewer. The film depicts a mountainous landscape scene with a large boulder in the foreground which slowly appears as though to inhale and exhale in timing with the sound of the roaring wind. It made me think about how the wind, the rain naturally sculpts stone by slowly eroding it away as well as the bodily connection rocks can  have to human form in scale/mass, their texture and/or porous surface also sharing bodily-like associations. Maybe the piece on the lawn is saying similar things, but for reasons that may be quite subjective to my own opinion it is definitely not as engaging. 

Simon Hitchens 'Genesis' (2014), HD film, 12 minutes looped

 

Lastly, Laura Ellen Bacon presents ‘Occupied’ a willow woven installation of organic arching, curvaceous forms that appear to cocoon, attach and spread themselves along a wall and towards the windows in one of the rooms. It does indeed, ‘occupy’ the space both inviting the viewer to walk around it, in it and explore. There is a great marriage of craft, skill and artistry at work here, but for me it is disappointingly not as immersive given the opportunity of the space, as a previous commission of Bacon’s seen at Barrington Court last year.

 Second site isn’t what you expect it to be and in doing so uses the element of surprise to its advantage showing its audiences contemporary and new perspectives on the house and gardens of which people who live in Taunton like myself, may have previously been all too familiar. The variety and inquisitive rebelliousness of artists exhibiting ensures there is much history and discovery unearthed in its use of wit and processes that range from storytelling to the sculptural. I’d love to have seen some more 'messy' work, by that I mean something more expressive possibly, as at times it runs the danger of being a bit emotionless, or a bit too cerebral; that saying in context to the abundant flamboyance of the gardens themselves maybe it doesn't need to be.

Second Site is on at Hestercombe Gallery until April 12^th 2015

http://www.hestercombe.com/whats-on/events-and-activities/183-second-site-gallery-exhibition/event_details

Tool Order/ Occupational Hazard!

Ah, the unexpected benefits of working in a bookstore! Whilst browsing various arts publishers’ catalogues for new and future releases I discovered a book titled, ‘Tools: Extending our reach’, the accompanying publication for the exhibition of the same name at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York. A fantastic find, as I have continued to collate various tool related research on the blog since finishing my degree (which, you guessed it, focused on tools as subject matter). Collectively I probably have already amassed quite a broad archive of tool related artists, exhibitions and their cultural, historical associations and am unsure if it has purpose other than as a growing resource for future use or for anyone else researching the same thing. Visually, at least, I do know that it fuels ideas for future drawings/ways of looking at tools themselves (but more on that later). In the unlikely event of being able to afford to go to the states to see the actual exhibition, the catalogue is pretty much the next best thing!  

The Cooper Hewitt is a design museum so as you can expect that there is much emphasis placed on the idea of ‘function informing form’ (and vice versa) with over 175 objects chosen for this exhibition that aims to represent a fraction of creations humans have ‘devised to engage with the world’. However the curators have been quite broad and questioning in their choices of defining ‘what a tool is’ describing them as ‘virtually anything that aids us in accomplishing a task’. This opens the enquiry to everything from the earliest known flint tools, to fishing hooks, spears, maps, telescopes, gloves, needles, clothes pegs, common modern hand tools; to artificial hearts, prosthetics, laptops and robotic bees*! Their modern day counterpoints; technology such as Smartphones contain many of the functions and applications of tools themselves but in a digital format/programme, which in turn is changing how we interact with the world; how we produce food, how we build and create, but also how we interact with each other (in both cases arguably not always to beneficial effect, indeed more technology has often led to creating of new problems that in turn need solving). Although there is an appreciation in this exhibition of looking at the old in order to inform the new, with the seemingly simplicity of a wooden abacus being as valued as its modern evolution of a calculator or a Marshall Islands stick navigation chart being the predecessor of the contour lines and routes of paper mapping. Sometimes the modern design is even trying to replicate the simplicity for purpose found in ancient objects such as a Neolithic hand axe being the inspiration for a similar shaped modern chef knife for chopping.

Hand axe from the Contemporary Flint Tool Design Series by Ami Drach (2011)

*The Robo Bee (2012); designed to have 'the capacity to artificially pollinate flowering crops, participate in search and rescue missions, act as environmental sensors or conduct covert surveillance.'

As the curators Cara McCarthy and Matilda McQuaid outline in the opening statement introducing this exhibition “[tools] are often equated with technology and engineering, but many acquire meaning through aesthetics, the economy of their design, the cultural significance of their materials...” In an attempt to create awareness of the breadth of how/why tools are made, the curators have divided them into seven categories: work, communicate, survive, measure, make, toolboxes and observe. From what I gather this virtually covers all aspects of life (medicine, food, shelter, clothing, communication, trade etc.) and if you take only one thing away with you from this exhibition it’s the understanding of just how vast the range, creativity and industriousness of tool production has been and continues to grow and evolve at incredible pace. Any ethical, philosophical, psychological or environmental judgements to be made on any of these objects or adversely the effects that they may/may not be having on us and our environment are largely left to the imagination of the viewer in favour for more dialogue on the design, aesthetics, engineering and functionality of the tools presented. This is where having more tool related work by artists as part of this exhibition would have perhaps prompted some of those debates and alternative ways of understanding the cultural, sociological, political and environmental applications of the tools and people who make/weld them. I am being unfairly ambitious in my expectations, but there has yet to be a tool exhibition that covers all aspects of both design, history and their implications on the world. Thankfully the inclusion of the Mexican artist, Damian Ortega’s ‘Controller of the Universe’** a suspended installation of hand tools in the form of an explosion [images found on link below], is at worst within this particular exhibition a dynamic, fun piece of marketing eye-candy but at its best suggests an alternative way of looking at tools, “they extend our body’s ability to do things and at the same time come between us and our direct experience of the action”.

Walker Evans 'Beauties of the Common Tool' 1955 Gelatin silver print 25 x 20.2cm.
"Ultimately, what Evans valued was the design, the construction that resulted from the maker's understanding of function, efficiency of form, and material." 

The highlight of the exhibition catalogue for me was discovering the photographic prints of everyday hand tools by American photographer Walker Evans [1903-1975] who produced the photographic essay 'Beauties of the Common Tool' in the 1955 issue of Fortune magazine. He described hardware stores as "offbeat museum shows" and I couldn't help but notice the connection that these images have to the printmaker Jim Dine's treatment of presenting tools in a state of static isolation (around the same time). The similarity is exciting if a little uncanny. Nonetheless it is very interesting to think that other artists were thinking/noticing and perhaps even responding indirectly to each others work/similar ideas around the same time. Whilst Dine's tools are imbued with an emotional intensity these have an analytical intensity to them in which every detail, their shape, patina and material are really prominent. In a way its as though they are more real than the tools themselves which is a concept worth more attention at another date.

The fact remains that tools are progressive and innovative objects, ‘designed to bring about change’ and as much as they are about creating they can also be about destroying which symbolically for me in my art, they share or act as a metaphor for a lot of the values I associate with art as a subject such as ideas of creativity/destruction, potentiality, alteration and disruption. In the same way tools as well as art have the means to expand our everyday limitations of experience/perception/interaction with the world. I have long speculated why I hold a fascination with drawing tools, but am beginning to think that the intensity invested in drawing these objects has always been an attempt to emphasise the reverence and importance I place not upon the tools but the tools as a symbol for art itself. That still doesn’t account for why I draw certain tools over others, I speculate that maybe I see similar qualities in the hand tools I choose to draw with qualities/traits I see in their owners or perhaps even myself. In that sense maybe they become more like portraits? I’m still undecided, but I'll enjoy finding out.

    **http://spannerintheworkz.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/controller-of-universe.html

-Damian Otrega ‘Controller of the Universe’

http://spannerintheworkz.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/points-of-interest-1.html

-For more tool related art, see Mao Tongquiang ‘Tools’

'Tools: Extending our reach' is on at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, New York until May 25th 2015 and if you can't see it then its well worth getting the catalogue!

http://www.cooperhewitt.org/events/opening-exhibitions/tools/

Let's play Hanafuda!

In the months leading up to the end of 2014 I discovered that Nintendo (yes, of Super Mario fame) used to manufacture playing cards known as Hanafuda at the end of the 19th century in Japan. Until then I had never even heard of Hanafuda cards and as it turns out, no one that I'd spoken to about it had ever come across it either...

In attempt to amend this I feel compelled to write a post about this very visually beautiful and well constructed game so that hopefully it will attract the worthy attention it deserves and be enjoyed by those yet to discover it!

  

Maple (October), Pine (January), Plum blossom (February)

For Christmas I was fortunate to be given a deck of the cards themselves and have since learnt that the game and deck for Hanafuda is one of Japan's oldest card games, originating in the ninth century and translates into English, as 'flower cards' (I am genuinely surprised that a game that has been around for so long remains so unheard of). The deck consisting of 48 individually illustrated cards is divided into 12 suits of 4 cards representing each month of the year and depict various flowers and animals. It is similar to the Portuguese Hombre deck which also consists of 48 individual cards. In the sixteenth century 'prior to the arrival of the first European traders, the Japanese used playing cards almost exclusively for recreation, but the gambling card games preferred by the Portuguese visitors quickly gained popularity among the natives' and saw the cards eventually banned for a time due to an increase in public gambling.  

Hanafuda card box

 Once you've learnt the deck (which believe me takes some getting used to) Hanafuda is also fun to play and can take between two and seven players depending on the variant of the game played. In Hawaii the game is incredibly popular and known more widely as 'Koi Koi'. 

"The object of virtually all Hanafuda games is to get more points than the other players. To do this players must capture and accumulate cards of the same suit or of a special combination by matching them based on their flower, or month."  

There are two basic games; 'Matching Flower' which is the easier of the two and 'Koi Koi' gambling aspect comes into play if players get a 'Yaku' (set of matching or point scoring cards) at which point they can choose to cash in the points total of their cards or they can declare 'Koi Koi' and continue playing for more points at the gamble of potentially allowing the other player to also gain a 'Yaku' and win the game.

The 48 cards of the Hanafuda deck. What cannot be seen in these photos is that the size and thickness of the cards are much smaller and thicker than our familiar deck of Westernised playing cards.

 And, yes of course to those who know me, I'll happily teach you!

For full rules and more detailed info on the game visit: http://www.hanafuda.com/

And if you fancy playing it yourself then click on the link at the top of that page to play online against the computer (although please note unless you read the rules it is a little hard to follow what is going on)

Unimportant somethings - A Drawing a Day 2014-2015

Happy 2015! You didn't think that I wouldn't complete my 'drawing a day' challenge for 2014 did you? I have to admit the challenge of working bigger and in colour for what was going to be my second year of completing 365 drawings, left me unsure if I was going to actually find enough time and have the discipline that was needed to complete such a task. What was I going to draw for each of those days?!

 

From whatever depths of madness, obsession and passion for drawing that drove me I managed to complete the year. Self congratulations aside it is useful for me to take this opportunity to reflect and evaluate on the experience. Similar to the year before I formed a love but also hesitant relationship with the daily commitment to drawing. Unlike no other medium I've found in art, I actually feel the 'need' to draw and if I haven't drawn something for a number of days I start to feel like something's amiss. Like an itch that needs scratching, perhaps it is the closest thing to some mild form of addiction. Yet despite this, I found it interesting how making time to do a drawing everyday; on your good days, bad days, holidays, when you're feeling unwell, days when you're just so busy; really offers a rare moments pause and reflection where the only thing that matters is your attention to the thing you're looking at/'what's on the page'. Days when you really feel too tired, stressed or just too busy to draw are the most challenging yet once you lose yourself into the process of looking I felt reminded of why I enjoy the concentration, focus and escapism it offers. In part a lot of this has something to do with the 'type' of drawing I do everyday which borders on something closer to illustration than the eye-opening skill-set of drawing/looking I explored during Fine Art. To confess I think I have always wandered the periphery of being more representational dare I say 'a closet illustrator' a 'repressed doodler or cartoonist'. This 'tight' way of drawing often, arguably not leaving much to the imagination; other than appearing as a purely self indulgent exercise has, I think testament in the choice of 'what' is drawn and intensity placed upon 'how' it is drawn. In this way, conceptually at least, it shares some threads within Fine Art practice. The purpose and where this project 'sits' within my practice bothers me slightly as it is less defined and I am less clear in its motives other than it 'was something I wanted and felt a compulsive need to do'. It is a question I will have to consider later in more detail. 

 

The drawings themselves should reflect some of these observations more accurately. It is an honest account of my drawing ability, some of which has improved  whilst other aspects, as you will see, still remain a challenge (wheels for example!).There are many bad drawings as there are many successful ones (and that's not necessarily about being subjective, some drawings are just bad drawings!), but all of them of course a learning experience. Some days are quite lazy others clearly have had more effort put into them, it would have been impossible to be in the same state of concentration everyday for a year. Life, events and your emotions won't allow for consistency. And that's not to say the days with a bad drawing were a 'bad' day and vice versa, I think it's probably a lot more subconscious than that and never at the front of my mind when I draw. I just draw. What I will say is that they definitely improve throughout the year as my confidence with using colour and experimenting with pencil instead of pen begin to creep in. I acknowledge that, but it isn't always evident just how much attention I pay in learning from my mistakes along the way as drawing everyday doesn't allow much time for reflection. However through the persistence of drawing you can't help but naturally improve slightly as you go. Albeit slowly, I did come to the conclusion that whether I work in black and white or colour is really dependant on 'what' I draw rather than pre-determining it from the offset. For future reference the qualities of the thing I'm drawing should determine the medium.

 

In terms of what I draw and why, that will probably remain a mystery without going into a running commentary on each drawing as ideas from one often lead to ideas for the other. At times it is possibly a little more disturbing than last year, I didn't hold back but in doing so found the times when I was drawing from a real object (as opposed to an imaginary thing) the finished drawing had a lot more integrity, intensity and were on-the-whole more enjoyable to do. If it was my intention to reveal something of 'myself' in the work then the drawings which have these qualities and are based-on real objects with real histories or connections stand out as, in my opinion as the more successful drawings. I prefer working this way and it is something I will certainly consider for future drawing projects.

 

A lot of the time what I draw each day works on an association basis, for example, you can be painting the smooth metallic sheen/surface/rendering on a wind-up bird toy and it can remind you of something similar you've seen and then you choose to draw that the next day, or the shape of it reminds you of something or the thing itself recalls a conversation you've had, a place you've been or purely something straight from your imagination or something ready-to-hand at home. To anyone else looking, it certainly will appear at most times incredibly random.  A lot of the images this year are also from pop culture, music/cd album covers, films, video games, other art works from Rembrandt to Grey's anatomy. Other things are unusual curios that my family have bought or collected. There are plenty of animals which have been useful in helping me to 'soften' my quality of line and explore more organic/subtle forms, but if hand-on-heart I still prefer drawing objects and yes, tools! If you ask me, I'd probably have a story to tell about most of the images. 

 

The completed stack of six A6 sketchbooks for the year 2014-2015.

 

As per last year's 'drawing a day' project it was never my intention that whilst drawing something each day, that I may actually end up completing the year and secondly that I might not choose to show it online a second time. I'm still not quite sure about putting it in the public domain, but feel that a certain degree of closure or an end to this project needs to be told and for that reason,

 

 I am pleased to show here, the completed 'Drawing a Day' project 2014-2015!

 

Enjoy!

(Note - you can either watch the flickr slideshow here or if it doesn't work on your phone/tablet then please click on the link below)


Watch the slideshow and/or click on the link here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/113459200@N03/sets/72157649815526320/

 



Created with flickr slideshow.

Thank you for reading and taking the time to look. Please do leave a comment below and/or email me at natalieparsley@yahoo.co.uk 

 

Where does that leave me now?...

 

Do you really need to ask? I do still have an A5 sketchbook waiting to be filled... so  of course I am going to do something similar again!!

 

Only this time I'm going to do one drawing a week, 52 in total and make them bigger more considered and worked. Allow myself more time to think and revise what I'm doing. I can't promise it will be any looser, experimental, safer, riskier, weirder or more wonderful than the last, but we'll just have to wait and see.

 



Coming soon...

Two years ago I embarked on a 'drawing a day' challenge. I completed one year and for reasons probably against my better judgement decided to do the same thing again for 2014, only bigger, in colour and hopefully 'better' than the previous...

 

 For a reminder of how things were progressing at the half way point in 2014 and for more details on the project as a whole then please read my previous blog post,

 

http://spannerintheworkz.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/drawn-out.html

 

Did I finish it this year?

 

Watch this space. Visit Spanner in the Workz this Sunday 11th January to find out!

 

 

 

Click on the following link to view last year's 'Drawing a Day'

https://www.flickr.com/photos/113459200@N03/sets/72157639406395385/

 



Radical! -Egon Schiele at the Courtauld

Given the influence his work has had on drawing and the depiction of the human form it is hard to imagine the Austrian artist, Egon Schiele [1890-1918] was only twenty-eight when he died of Spanish flu. Seeing the first museum exhibition of his work shown in the UK for twenty years at the Courtauld in London you get a seldom seen sense of just how prolific Schiele was (there are 38 works in total), an insight into why his work was so significantly controversial for its time and why it is still relevant and influential today.

Ironically, myself also soon approaching the ripe old age of twenty-eight (and sincerely hoping not to be struck down with a case of Spanish flu!) it seemed like the opportune time to be inspired by some Schiele in person.

'Crouching woman with green headscarf' (1914) Gouache and pencil, 47 x 31cm.

Schiele’s drawings are punchy, nude full body portraits of women, himself and his lovers, family, cohorts are often depicted in uncomfortable awkward poses, limbs/hands often exaggerated or contorted at unusual angles, the backgrounds bare so as to make sure the subject receives full attention. They are explicit ‘everything’ is literally on show and in some cases, pornographic or as one commentator explained, “Erotic representations without erotic content.” (if you can comprehend such a thing, then this is actually quite an accurate way of putting it, I think!) Conversely, perhaps, in the expressive way in which they are drawn they also hold at times a tender anxiety that wavers between being confrontational, sensual and vulnerable all at the same time. Their daring controversy was not lost at the time they were produced with Schiele actually being imprisoned on ‘public morality grounds’. He was radically ahead of his time and there is a lot that we could discuss and in fact most of what is written about Schiele deals with this debate of the eroticism and perceived opinions of explicitness and censorship in art and modern visual history...blah, blah, blah...

'Sneering Woman (Gertrude Schiele)' (1910) Gouache, watercolour and charcoal with white highlighting, 45 x 31.4cm.

BUT we're not interested in any of that are we? For the purposes of this blog post I'm personally focusing on the 'drawing' and not the subject matter of Schiele’s work really in any way. In truth I went to the Schiele exhibition because I was fascinated to see how they ‘worked’, how they looked as drawings. If I need continue in my own art, I do my utmost to avoid people directly all together! I just don’t find people that interesting (in the art sense). If there are ‘people’ or traces of them in my work they are present more metaphorically with tools or mark making or other referential symbolism. In essence it may be difficult to separate the drawing from the thing it is depicting or derived from as in the case of representational drawing like Schiele’s but just how much do the two influence each if at all is something I am curious to find out.

'Nude self portrait in grey with open mouth' (1910) Gouache and black chalk, 43.8 x 30cm.

What I did find is that Schiele’s figures and representation of the human form are very ‘sculptural’; his self portraits are very angular, his nude female forms very heavily outlined, very ‘solid’ looking. Again, I think this is why I admired them as drawings because they were delivered very confidently, there are no rubbed out lines, all the workings are on show, layered and add to the sense of personality/character in the drawings (particularly in his self portraits). Although they never have the impression of being overworked and there is an immediate confidence and ferventness to capturing these people, these characters, these forms down on paper.  Perhaps like handwriting even whilst the artist himself isn’t ‘present’ within the work, in the sense of being depicted you are always aware of his presence as the hand/the eyes the thinking person looking behind the work. In a slightly feminist way,ahead of its time these drawings have been analysed now as not having the gaze of the male voyeur but of, and I quote, ‘a man who genuinely loves women’. Make of this what you will but for those sorts of reasons they do feel refreshingly honest, real, raw (delete as appropriate) as they are quite unflattering really, a lot of them but inadvertently become quite 'beautiful' in their honesty because of their unabashed, fleshy, bony, hairy, patchy coloured, blemished human openness. A quality in part echoed by the artists choice of using a brown paper surface to draw on the material a more disposable, immediate and everyday one than the preciousness of white paper or canvas surface.

'Fighter' (1913) Gouache and pencil, 48.8 x 32.2cm.

With Schiele’s nudes there is a sense sometimes that the figures are merely a container, an outline in which to house and hang his mark making, stains, colour within (see above). An observation that recalls a similarity with the work of Jim Dine who would almost be a complete abstract expressionist for it not his use of motifs such as hearts, tools, plants or birds that aside from their symbolic qualities he sees them acting as formalistic devices in his words, ‘something to hang the paint on’. I don’t pay this connection of Dine to Schiele too much heed but other than the fact that it helps draw attention to just how diverse the variety of mark making approaches Schiele used in his drawings that perhaps are more easily overlooked in favour of the subject matter.

Needless to say it was an exciting exhibition. Schiele's drawings are as radical today as they were then, just in a different sense of the word that highlights them not for their difference, for their 'controversy' as they did then but for their ability to still hold your attention and be intently surprising. It was an intense, thoughtful and crucially for me, unsettling enough exhibition to make me think about my own drawing habits/techniques so as not to become lazy. 

 In a Spanish flu free scenario it would be intriguing to know what Schiele may have carried on to create next.... though one thing is for certain, his work assures he will never be forgotten.

What are you waiting for?!

Egon Schiele: The Radical Nude is still on at the Courtauld until January 18th!

http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/gallery/exhibitions/2014/Schiele/index.shtml

Images plundered from:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/10/egon-schiele-graphic-virtuoso-vienna-nudes

http://www.artfund.org/what-to-see/exhibitions/2014/10/23/egon-schiele-the-radical-nude-exhibition

http://blog.artsper.com/events/egon-schiele-the-radical-nude-at-the-courtauld-gallery/

http://www.dailyartfixx.com/2013/06/12/egon-schiele-1890-1918-2/