Hidden Spaces exhibition

Showing briefly (12-19 Jan) in the lower corridor of the Wilson Road building, Camberwell College of Art; curated by Danny Aldred. Participants: Danny Aldred, Janet Bradley, Stephen Cooper, Margaret Cooter, Egidija Ciricaite, Andrew Foster, Christa Harris, Charlotte Knox-Williams, Grayson Perry, Stewy, Natalie Yiaxi.

"Arterial"

Another twist and turn in the development of my "journey lines" project involves tracing from road maps - journeys along the streets that are the arteries of the city. Combined and reconfigured, the routes look like veins, or circulation diagrams of some strange body -- or else like outlines of strange, mythical animals.

To get something suitable for screen printing, I've been layering and photocopying the routes -and also tried taping the tracing paper together - but that simply didn't work for making the screen -

However the photocopied version worked well - in terms of making the screen. When it came to printing, the screen seemed to clog immediately - the second print was noticeably inferior. The textile printing room is very hot; yet on other days (with other screens) I could get half a dozen good prints before it started to clog. This time I had only the one screen to work with, so not much got done.
Washing out the screen after each print, I did manage to print parts of the deconstructed jacket -
Some of the pieces are missing, so there's not much point in sewing it together again.

In relation to this, consider the work of Canadian weaver Ruth Scheuing with men's suits.

Another bus journey

Wet day, 5pm, 171 bus to Waterloo.

Some close-ups -
looking like "journey lines"
and like the "road maps" I've been working on lately -

Found in books

If your shop needs shutters

This is along the Clerkenwell Road, EC1.

Studio in use

It's losing it's "new" look as projects start to happen. My two works in progress are the "road routes" at lower right, and the "un-written journal" drying after having salt water thrown at it. Thomas is responsible for the tree, which will be printed on t-shirts - it's amazing close up.

Gradually tools etc are finding their right place, near where they are used. The daylight lighting under the cupboards is literally brilliant, and even with the ironing board out the room feels so spacious.

Mourning pages

My many books full of regular journal-writing, three pages every morning, are mouldering and won't be read again. They are filled with angst and anxiety, idealism and ideas. Most are at least ten years old. I don't need them any more - their work was done in the writing of them.

Because the first aim of such writing is to clear the mind of its griefs, I have treated the pages with salt water that is meant to run down like tears, but often doesn't cooperate -

Then a pointy brush loaded with waterproof ink travels along each written line, obliterating it more or less -
Music is playing - I record what the pieces are. At the moment Radio 3 is taking 12 days to play every note Mozart wrote.

I've been spending half an hour in the morning, re-writing these pages. It's a good way to start the day, better than turning on the computer immediately! The treated pages, buckled by the water, are opening up the book -

You can't help reading a word or a phrase here and there. Often they are the same concerns, over and over again - back and forth on the same mental train-tracks.

Bus journey

... on a rainy day (obviously! - it was pelting down on the roof of the bus). Front seat, upstairs, photographing through the condensation.

Route maps

A development of the "journey lines" project. Because of motion sickness I can't draw on car journeys, just on the tube and (less comfortably) on the bus - so for car journeys, why not trace the routes on a map? I traced the journeys we make most often - from NW10 to N4; from NW10 to Ikea; to the V&A; to the Tate; to Kew Gardens. Some took more than one page - and spanned several pages of the A-Z -

Layering will yield some interesting patterns for screenprinting onto fabric -

First week back at college

... and a new form of "TravelWriting" - the empty centre -

Tuesday's seminar gave people a chance to get feedback on the work they'd done over the holiday, mostly for their major project. Some people explained their work, and some gave no explanation but asked for questions about it. An interesting day, and I found it very energizing to be "back at work". The class and tutors gave me several new leads and avenues to pursue - and by the next morning this had percolated into a subsidiary project with a whole new emphasis, more of which later.

One topic that came up was electronic books -- we all seemed to have opinions about them, but only one person had ever used one! He brought it in next day; "can you read in the dark" we asked - no, it's not that kind of screen, but it does have its own little light -

The lecture on Wednesday afternoon was by Vong Phaophanit, whose neon tubes have found their way into all sorts of places. Fascinating - see his work here. Encountering Neon Rice Field in 1993, and What Falls to the Ground just last year, were big art experiences for me.

The library discovery of the week was the "x hours in the Pacific Ocean" drawings of Nottingham artist Peter Matthews. While teaching in Mexico he stapled paper to a board, which floated in the water; clutching waterproof pens, he stood in the water beside the board and drew for 2, 4, 7, even 11 hours -
He's drawing the experience of being in the ocean ... how do you draw the sea?
(Don't try this off UK shores, or at this time of year.)

Small adventures, small books

With the new year cards finally sent (in the form of a pdf to be folded into a book), I used the same template to make a similar book, documenting a trip into the country at the weekend. To read the words, click on the photo to enlarge it -

The photos are taken out of the car window, with the camera set to maximum zoom - this usually gives a blurry effect, and works best when the sun is both low in the sky and behind clouds.

Here are instructions for making this type of book from a plain sheet of paper. The instructions are also on my website.

Start with an A4 or A3 piece of paper.

Fold the sheet of paper in half lengthwise.

Open it up and fold it in half crosswise, face up. This is the centre (short) fold.

Bring the top edge to the folded edge and fold).

Turn the paper over and bring the top edge to the folded edge; fold. These last two folds are the "outside" folds.

Now you need to make a “hole” in the middle of the paper. It will run along the lengthwise fold (the first fold you made).

To do this, cut from the centre fold, along the lengthwise fold, to each of the outside folds. It’s easiest to do this when the paper is folded along the centre (short) fold.

Refold along the lengthwise fold – which now has a hole in the centre. You will see that you’ve made an empty cylinder in the middle of the paper.

Make the cylinder into a star shape by bringing the uncut folded edges of the lengthwise fold together till they meet.

Now flatten the star shape – lay it down on the table and firmly crease all the edges, then pick up the nicely flattened little book and fold it over at the centre crease – voila!

(If you're a visual learner, there's a short video that shows how to make this type of book at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmPZlFBR6I8 -- same folds, but in a different order.)

Ink experiments

These potential book covers are based on my "journey lines" - written in wax from a candle and a white crayon - then inked over with quink, chinese ink, coloured ink (first from an unwashed brush) and then more chinese ink in the bottom row. The "misty landscape" effect is accidental and involves a wet tissue.

Best of all is the paper used underneath - the blue streaks are from spots of water on the quink.

Thinking about large cameras

"Larger cameras produce better photos" - myth, generalisation, or true?

Manufacturers of large [digital] cameras would like us to believe that good photos need expensive gear -- and ever more pixels.

People who can't be bothered to figure out how their camera works would like to think that "a better camera" will magically solve this problem. Maybe it will - having invested the money, they might do the work to learn how to use some of the camera's many features.

Those who have inherited a basic camera from someone who got frustrated with its limitations, and are similarly frustrated or simply befuddled, might be justified in thinking a "larger" camera - or even something slightly newer - would be easier to use, freeing them up to take "better" photos. They're probably right!

People with large cameras sometimes buy them because they already know how to use a "small" camera to get a technically good shot - and they're aware of how the extra features will help them get a technically better shot.

Some people stick to small cameras because, literally, of the size - even cameras that fit into a pocket now have many advanced features.

Is there any hope for people with "small" - basic, or older - cameras?

Yes, if we know how to use them:

- If we realise that digital means you can take lots of pictures, and at leisure can delete all but the good ones. (Get a big memory card.)

- If we get acquainted with the camera's features - start with trying out the automatic programs on the same subject, to see how they change things, then decide which one you'll usually use. (For me, it's the one with the most automatic functions, including anti-shake. I want to be able to concentrate on composition; the rest can be changed during photo editing on the computer.)

- If we know how to turn off the flash, especially when shooting through glass or taking things at a distance. (Digital cameras work well in less light than film.)

As for ever-more pixels, this is a whole 'nother can of worms... Yes, a picture taken on a 5 megapixel camera will be better - sharper, clearer - than one taken on a 1 megapixel camera. But - you really only need 3 or 4 megapixels to make a good quality 6 x 4 inch or 7 x 5 inch print (300 dpi resolution) or a huge on-screen image (72 dpi resolution). If you crop your photos, or if you use lots of zoom, you'll need more megapixels, but basically I think we've been brainwashed into over-kill mode.

This camera from 1934 really did take better pictures - it held plates up to 50 inches square and was used to make nautical and airway charts.

And this camera, some 70 years later, was not only "wearable" (at the expense of optical zoom) but had an astonishingly large screen for the time. At 3.2 megapixels, it took pictures accepted for print publication. When I saw that its successor (almost as small, and with "proper" zoom) had anti-shake, an upgrade was imminent -

Wine

Some people find talking about wine "pretentious" - a fruity nose and a vanilla finish, anyone? Flavours and aromas are hard to describe - and often go unnoticed. For raising the awareness (and enjoyment), having a checklist helps - this one surfaced in the studio purge.
When you next drink a glass of white wine - does it smell/taste like grapefruit, grassy, herbaceous, asparagus, cut grass, pine needles, mushrooms, forest floor [hope not], pear, peach, granny smith apples, melons, citrus, oak, lemons, lime juice, bananas, pineapples, butterscotch, honeysuckle, slate/minerals, musty, wet cardboard...

And for your glass of red - blackcurrant, tea leaf, blackberry, cassis, cedar, cherry, cigar box, eucalyptus, mint, oak, peppermint, tobacco, vanilla, liquorice, pepper, plum, raspberry, chocolate, leather, barnyard {ahem}, raisin, violet, spice.

Seeing sad signs

Queen's Park, London (above) and Clifton Hampden, Oxfordshire (below) -
Many years ago we were marooned in Clifton Hampden when the narrowboat's engine went wrong. It took a couple of days to get the right gasket, but it was summer and the livin' was easy. On a winter's day, passing through, it's a different story....

"Secret room" book

We were talking about book structures over breakfast and I showed Tony how the "ox-plow" structure, folded up, can make a book with a nice space in the middle -

"A space for a panorama?" Well, let's try it out ... So off we went to the park and clambered into the locked bandstand. (It was New Year's Day; do the park police work on holidays?)
Back home, Tony made a template, A3 size - here are the photos of the view from the bandstand on the "outside" pages -
The "room" inside waits for the panorama taken from the centre -
The paper is thick and springy - even the folded cover doesn't keep it from jumping out when you pick it up -
Keeping the inside "room" a secret will depend on using thinner paper - of a quality that allows photo printing on both sides.

I'm planning (someday...) to try this with photos of the four walls of a room inside, and details of objects in the room on the outside pages.

Hooking of the rug sort

Making hooked rugs is a great way of recycling fabric. This one (about 90cm wide) is made of strips cut from old t-shirts, on a hessian backing.

One of my early hooked rugs was made of strips of yellow and orange wool, and was a sun based on an old woodcut - yellow and orange for the rays, and some black for his face. Very jolly, but no longer in my possession.

Perhaps it will reappear in another version... London now has a rug hooking group, and we'll be meeting, monthly on a Saturday afternoon, in central London. If you live nearby and would like to join us, have a look at the blog - http://hooked-in-london.blogspot.com - or contact me for more details.

Misty morning

Seeing the mist as we drove through Regent's Park the other morning, we had to stop and take some photos.The air was warming up, but the lake was still covered in ice - hence the condensation known as mist. The birds did have clear water for swimming along -
and for gathering to be fed -
Just about everyone walking in the park had a dog with them. Or a camera.