oil on canvas, 120 x 150cms, 2014
I made this large painting late into the night last
Thursday, and felt knackered the next morning. It’s been a long term at work,
and, like all my colleagues, I’m in need of a break. I finished it last night,
refining and re-painting different parts.
(I feel like I am carrying my students work around inside my
head so much lately, fretting about what they are doing. Whereas, my vocational students work so
much more independently and dynamically, as they become much more immersed in
what should be an immersive subject. I
have never thought A level is any way to teach Art).
This is my first large oil painting this year, and with the
use of the yellow background, it feels like a shift of sorts. I wanted to take
a risk with the colour and see where it took me. I’m not sure where that is, if
anywhere, but I can recognise a distillation of lots of things I’ve been
looking at in painting this year. From
developing a small sketch in my sketchbook, I’ve had the painting in my head
for a few months now, with various colour ideas explored using the i-pad, and
lots of rumination about where to take it. It’s good to see it at last, and
looking at it today it looks quite surprising, and it's one of the boldest things I’ve done in some
time.
At a recent meeting with my fellow Indigo Octagon compadres,
Chris and Andy, we were discussing plans for a new publication, and I took
along some of my new collages. Discussing them with the others, it was
generally felt that more recent ones I’d made were too literal and fussy, so I
ended up cutting them up the other night to simplify them, which seemed to work
better. I enjoyed that. The new
publication looks like it could be good fun too. Both Chris and Andy had done
some terrific work recently, which made me think another exhibition would be a
good idea. It’s just where?
'Lost In The Dream', The War on Drugs
There are other things bubbling under the surface influenced
by my other reading and listening tastes. This week, and in the studio when I’m
working, I’ve been listening to The War On Drugs new album, which is really
enjoyable and, there’s that word again, immersive. There is some wonderful
guitar work in an album that proudly wears it’s influences on it’s sleeve. Speaking of guitars, Tom Morello’s wildly
inventive and wigged out guitar work brings something incredible to ‘High
Hopes’, the recent album by Bruce, which I’ve also loved in the last couple of
months. Some of the songs, such as 41 Shots (American Skin), and ‘The Wall’ are
as moving and powerful as anything he’s made in 40 years. The re-visited ‘The
Ghost of Tom Joad’, where Morello shines,is also bonkersly brilliant and just
ROCKS!! The record is a bit like living in an episode of The Wire at times (not
surprisingly Wire creator David Simon is a big Bruce fan too). Here’s a link to
a current documentary about the making of it (it’s also been great to see the
magnificent E Street Band inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall Fame sixteen years
after Bruce the other night) :
The magnificent E Street Band at the Induction ceremony into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame
Bruce and 'Miami' Steve Van Zandt
On a gentler note, I’m also
enjoying finally reading, amongst other things, Richard Mabey’s ‘The Unofficial Countryside’, the
1970’s book that is considered by many as the predecessor to the ‘Edgelands’
book. They seem very different things to me though, Mabey’s being more about the
nature found in urban places and is very conversational in its writing style.
Richard Mabey exploring 'The Unofficial Countryside' 1970's
I’ve been wanting to go out
walking and painting with someone who knows a lot about the nature and plant life I encounter in the off the track places I find myself attracted to working
in, and today at work I discussed this possibility with a Biology teacher,
Mick, who retired today, after being reliably informed this is a passion of
his. It will be good to hook up with some time soon and overturn a few stones….
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