Inspired Carving
Nature, Sculptor Supreme
Garden Aesthetic
Relationships and Gestures
Gaps and Cracks
Edges and Folds
Angles
Textures
And the Outright Awe-inspiring
Saturday, 30 December 2017
Back from California
Some inspiration from a recent trip to California; an initial taster, as an overview of what's to follow:
Sunday, 29 October 2017
GMT
We've turned back the clocks today here in the UK (and I don't mean politically, although one does wonder ...); we are now back to Greenwich Mean Time.
Significant for me. On the one hand I much enjoy the extra hour I am granted on this particular Sunday morning as an added air of tranquility and serenity pervades me and my surroundings, on the other I have a strong sense that this signifies the end of my favourite seasonal time: the luminous early mornings of spring, the warm summer evenings, the early-autumn light.
Yet this year, despite that, I feel a great positivity about today. A turning point perhaps.
In the wake of the ArtParty@Hindleap (see the preceding posts) I have spent the summer and early autumn in the garden, digesting, pondering, finding inspiration, reflecting. At times wondering whether the next step will indeed emerge (see An In-Between Stage), at times swept away by an inspirational something, overwhelmed by a sense of urgency to get to my Shed and, well, just get making.
I have now reached a point where I feel I have come to the end of the further explorations and wonderings I wanted to acknowledge and do justice to since the Art Party - things there had been insufficient time for and things that emerged subsequently - my 'sculptural communing with the garden' ready to make way for some studio work.
I did, a month or so ago, feel the urge to add to the Coiled Cylinders (Coiled Cylinders), the new additions measuring between 35 and 40 cm in height and between 5 and 8 cm in diameter:
More of those to come, I feel. Many more, larger, and some smaller; a large grouping.
A couple of other things that inspire at this point:
These flowing gestures, in clay, white clay probably ...
Significant for me. On the one hand I much enjoy the extra hour I am granted on this particular Sunday morning as an added air of tranquility and serenity pervades me and my surroundings, on the other I have a strong sense that this signifies the end of my favourite seasonal time: the luminous early mornings of spring, the warm summer evenings, the early-autumn light.
Yet this year, despite that, I feel a great positivity about today. A turning point perhaps.
In the wake of the ArtParty@Hindleap (see the preceding posts) I have spent the summer and early autumn in the garden, digesting, pondering, finding inspiration, reflecting. At times wondering whether the next step will indeed emerge (see An In-Between Stage), at times swept away by an inspirational something, overwhelmed by a sense of urgency to get to my Shed and, well, just get making.
I have now reached a point where I feel I have come to the end of the further explorations and wonderings I wanted to acknowledge and do justice to since the Art Party - things there had been insufficient time for and things that emerged subsequently - my 'sculptural communing with the garden' ready to make way for some studio work.
I did, a month or so ago, feel the urge to add to the Coiled Cylinders (Coiled Cylinders), the new additions measuring between 35 and 40 cm in height and between 5 and 8 cm in diameter:
A couple of other things that inspire at this point:
Saturday, 15 July 2017
Another Sunny Morning ...
... with an enjoyable wander round the garden.
A delight - and, admittedly, a surprise - to see the magnolia buds already so well formed. They never fail to amaze, in so many ways.
And a photo opportunity with the posts, which are currently 'resting', having been the elements of three sculptures/installations at the Art Party.
I wanted to store them properly so as to slow down the deterioration from the rain and damp conditions in that space in the woodland so I began by just randomly leaning them upright against a tree (which is growing in the shadow of a magnificent Ash that is sadly slowly dying from Ash dieback, but that's for another blog post, probably). But then something took over and I found myself placing them in neat, tight rows - silently, they speak so loudly when placed upright, lined up next to each other, and here, the rows at different angles from each other. The different angles arose as I simply followed the line of the smaller branches radiating out from the larger ones. They also create fascinating inner spaces - as in the second image.
To be explored further, when the time is right ...
A delight - and, admittedly, a surprise - to see the magnolia buds already so well formed. They never fail to amaze, in so many ways.
And a photo opportunity with the posts, which are currently 'resting', having been the elements of three sculptures/installations at the Art Party.
I wanted to store them properly so as to slow down the deterioration from the rain and damp conditions in that space in the woodland so I began by just randomly leaning them upright against a tree (which is growing in the shadow of a magnificent Ash that is sadly slowly dying from Ash dieback, but that's for another blog post, probably). But then something took over and I found myself placing them in neat, tight rows - silently, they speak so loudly when placed upright, lined up next to each other, and here, the rows at different angles from each other. The different angles arose as I simply followed the line of the smaller branches radiating out from the larger ones. They also create fascinating inner spaces - as in the second image.
To be explored further, when the time is right ...
Thursday, 13 July 2017
On the Move
I have moved what I've come to refer to as my 'Oak Boys' into the woodland. Perhaps I should rename them my Wandering Boys or my Meandering Boys ...
Since they speak very differently placed in this location, no longer delineating the lie of the land as they did on the undulating lawn for the Art Party (ArtParty@Hindleap) but as if gently and quietly wandering about the woodland.
Since they speak very differently placed in this location, no longer delineating the lie of the land as they did on the undulating lawn for the Art Party (ArtParty@Hindleap) but as if gently and quietly wandering about the woodland.
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| Viewed from South to North |
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| Viewed from North to South |
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| Nature joining in the mutual conversation again |
Wednesday, 12 July 2017
The Conversation Continues
We had a LOT of rain last night, after a long dry - and gloriously sunny - spell. And Nature played her hand again over by the pond, raising the water level higher than I've ever seen it, and so continuing our mutual conversation around the disc:
Friday, 23 June 2017
An In-Between Stage
I find myself in an in-between stage, a kind of pralaya.
An important stage, the space where something vital happens: it's the pause where, as in music, the last sound has ended and, in the inner resounding silence, the new tone is being prepared. It's also like the night between two days, when we sleep and our spirit finds nourishment to replenish us for another day.
It's a time of surveying the newly learned so it may become our own. It's a time of assimilating and intensifying what is not yet truly our own, so that it may become so. And more still, that it may become something that might transcend my subjectiveness and extend to something more objective and universal, so that others may be touched and moved by it.
How long, such a transitional stage?
Here it follows the Art Party; last year it followed my Tonbridge School Art Residency.
How ever long; what ever time it needs. And not lose courage or trust while nothing tangible comes about.
Endings are impactful; transition can be painful at times. But this time of sifting, sorting and waiting, with patience and trust, brings about an intensification. When enough inner work has been done something renewed emerges out of the nurturing silence.
'The reward for patience is patience.'
I have come to find nothing negative in silence; it is an absence of sound, a positive absence. It is a positive, complete world in itself. It is pure, eternal. Nurturing. Finding it, returning to it is to reconnect with an eternal source to replenish myself from its mysterious well of creativity.
Much goes on in this silence, unseen, unperceived (temporarily). Much goes on in this in-between stage.
Some final images given to me just recently, taken on the second day of the Art Party by Jo Crowther, a photographer from Lewes, East Sussex, and friend of fellow-sculptor Caroline. Too glorious - masterly - not to log them here.
An important stage, the space where something vital happens: it's the pause where, as in music, the last sound has ended and, in the inner resounding silence, the new tone is being prepared. It's also like the night between two days, when we sleep and our spirit finds nourishment to replenish us for another day.
It's a time of surveying the newly learned so it may become our own. It's a time of assimilating and intensifying what is not yet truly our own, so that it may become so. And more still, that it may become something that might transcend my subjectiveness and extend to something more objective and universal, so that others may be touched and moved by it.
How long, such a transitional stage?
Here it follows the Art Party; last year it followed my Tonbridge School Art Residency.
How ever long; what ever time it needs. And not lose courage or trust while nothing tangible comes about.
Endings are impactful; transition can be painful at times. But this time of sifting, sorting and waiting, with patience and trust, brings about an intensification. When enough inner work has been done something renewed emerges out of the nurturing silence.
'The reward for patience is patience.'
I have come to find nothing negative in silence; it is an absence of sound, a positive absence. It is a positive, complete world in itself. It is pure, eternal. Nurturing. Finding it, returning to it is to reconnect with an eternal source to replenish myself from its mysterious well of creativity.
Much goes on in this silence, unseen, unperceived (temporarily). Much goes on in this in-between stage.
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Some final images given to me just recently, taken on the second day of the Art Party by Jo Crowther, a photographer from Lewes, East Sussex, and friend of fellow-sculptor Caroline. Too glorious - masterly - not to log them here.
Sunday, 4 June 2017
ArtParty@Hindleap - Sculptures and Installations Cont'd
In no particular order:
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I also opened my Shed to visitors
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I also opened my Shed to visitors
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THE END
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