Art: perspective in two forms

The day started with a visit to the Annely Juda Gallery to see the new David Hockney exhibition of photography and paintings.  I wasn't overly convinced by the paintings, like several reviewers, but the photography collages / combinations/ photographic drawings are really different and seemed to me, to be worth travelling to see.  The odd perspective changes encourage many looks at the same scene, and there is a game of " find the object" in identifying repeated instances of people and objects across the series of paintings and photographs.

Then on to the drawing course, where we were using enlargements and reductions of our drawings to cut out shapes from painted paper and then collage these in different formations.  Good fn, but I found it very difficult to settle on one arrangement.  Photography not helped by the strong shadows in the studio this afternoon.

I can see some of these being used in textile pieces in the future.

More Sussex experiences

My Sussex adventures continued last week, but I've been too pre-occupied with preparing lists for everyone's travel adventures this summer ( and with the tennis) to blog about them.  So a quick zoom about them.  First a visit to Architectural Plants near Horsham, which I had not visited for over 18 years.  It is even more amazing now, and is really worth visiting before they move to their new site near Pulborough, in 2016.  The vistas in the nursery are superb, and it is possible to wander for hours around the grounds.

Shapes and textures

Quirkiness ( spelling?)

Then to the Ditchling Museum of Arts and Craft, small, but beautiful and well worth a visit.  Some of the artists in that community had troubled and bizarre personal lives, but the museum focusses on the work they produced.  Lunch in the welcoming and interesting Mister Magnolia's fortified me for a walk on Ditchling Beacon, to see the large horizon and watch the swallows.  I got my sketchbook out to record being there - Kurt Jackson influences  coming through

Swallows

The next day, off to Sheffield Park Garden  to see huge trees and lakes.  The sequoia that exploded after being struck by lightning, is now just a stump, it must have been astonishing to see it immediately after it was struck.  Several trees in the gardens are succumbing to disease and are gradually being removed.  

I found the tag of one that had recently been chopped down ( my mind went back to the tree project and how to link that to identity tags of fallen soldiers)

Lots of feathers there as well

 And the last Morley session of the term on Tuesday, life drawing, daunting again, but I did manage to enjoy this session more.  It made me realise that I was missing my scalpel, so I calmed my nerves during Andy Murray's last match with the cutting board and some black card. ( The pencil lines were made while watching a match to see if anything interesting came out of the marks) - it didn't, hence the overlay with the paper cuts.

Younger son's end of term concert last night , always emotional as the 6th form leavers talk about their experiences in the music department.  Packing now as I am off to Australia tonight - trying to keep myself calm as the lists mount up.

I love my baby' cos she does good sculptures……………….

…….with apologies to " The Rezillos" ( still one of my all time favourite bands) but it is so appropriate for the sculptures I saw this week at the Cass Sculpture Foundation, by Ellis O"Connell.  Fantastic work, really organic shapes.  As they are made of carbon fibre and not steel or stone, they are warm to the touch, which is really surprising in work of this scale.

This was such a rewarding place to visit, and there were only about 6 other people there yesterday - admittedly, it was so cold that I couldn't eventually take any more photos as my hands were so stiff.  About 1.5h drive from London, and I took about 2h to view all the sculptures.  It was the culmination of a complete overload of art this week, that I will blog about later once I've absorbed it all.  This visit was combined with a trip to Petworth - art of complete contrast and incredible to think it was all owned by one family.

Journal quilts, February, Cumbernauld

We moved to a brand new, 3 bedroomed, terraced council house in a Scottish new town. My overriding memory is of the stark white of the houses with their black wooden cladding. This contrasted with small remains of beech woods, across the pavement from our house where we climbed and played adventure games.

 White sheeting, black cotton stitched into pintucks. Grey linen, machine embroidered with rayon threads, then trapunto stuffed. Machine embroidered ono the trapunto with the post code using the alphabet function on my sewing machine. I like how the lettering has become abstracted due to using the walking foot and moving the stitched line away from the linear alignment. The far left section is a transfer print of a map of Dalmuir, overlaid on the sheeting, with the extending threads representing the memories of one place influencing those of another. I had planned to add quilted circles to represent the bridges, underpasses and roundabouts of the new town design, intended to keep pedestrians removed from traffic and hence safe. I decided against that, as it made the design too busy. Perhaps I also omitted these as it reminded me that the town centre, devoid of pedestrians, was a soulless, draughty, grey, drab, frightening expanse of concrete.

Details of machine stitching and overlaid map

Detail of simulated beech tree surface

Unsubscribe - but not to life

My life just has too many strands at present. So, I've decided to hit the unsubscribe button for the many interesting lists to which I subscribe. They are still interesting, I just know that they will still be there if I go and seek them, rather than having the distractions pushed at me. Life feels simpler already.

No Morley this week, so lots of embroidery from the Karen Ruane course. No photos yet, as the camera seems to have run in to trouble.



As I have no photos, here is a reminder about the libel law reform bill, and why if you are in London on 9th November, you might see me there.