Berlin's memorial church

The bombed church (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedaechtniskirche) wasn't rebuilt - but two outbuildings were added. The larger, towering one has wonderful blue glass -Lots of different shapes and colours in the panes -
The building is also used for concerts -And in the original part, the mosaics (1905 or so) survive -

Whole lotta blogging goin' on

Warning: this post contains "recipes" - but not for delicious cakes (these were on display at KaDeWe posh department store) -Two things have made a HUGE difference to how easy it is to post to my blog. This has set me wondering what other time-saving, life-enhancing improvements might be possible....

The first breakthrough was discovering I could add my "gmail3" persona as a joint contributor to the blog, which had been linked to my "gmail1" address. Now I no longer had to sign out of email, sign in to the blog. This removed an important psychological barrier and made it possible to check email while blogging. (Sometimes it takes a long time to get a post ready!)

Then, a chance comment on using "save to web" led to a huge time saving for processing photos. The software with this new(ish) camera downloads the pix at 180dpi and 2500 pixels wide - way too big! It was taking a long sequence of actions to get from that format to the 72dpi version, and yet more clicks to navigate to the file where the processed pix are saved.

"Save to web" changes the size in one click, and then is already at the desired location for saving the file - how good is that!

And I've learned a sequence of keystrokes to apply routinely - first to adjust the colour (shift-control-B), then to apply unsharp mask (control-F is the stroke for "last filter used" so you only have to choose the option once on opening Photoshop, then can use the keystroke), and lastly the tricky combination of alt-control-shift-S to open Save to Web. It now takes just seconds to prepare each picture.

Of course sometimes the photo needs cropping - I do that on first opening it in Photoshop.

Files are saved to a monthly folder and given a short name plus number, so related files get loaded into the same blog post. But even more efficient is to rename them before processing, in the Gallery that the download software opens up.

In a further move to keep my photo files organised, if several "topics" are mixed up in one download, I rename groups of pix, then move them into the relevant folder elsewhere on the system. (Now the trick is to get an easy-to-use arrangement of files.)

Another trick is trying to keep to using just 5 photos per post - because that's the maximum uploadable at one time. Sometimes this can be useful, so that you're concise and keep on topic, but sometimes you do need more. Starting with the ones you want furthest down, then finally uploading the one you want at the top of the post - that will avoid a lot of rearranging.

On the blog, I'm finding that the labels in my list so far are neither detailed enough, nor consistent ... and to think I used to be an indexer, skilled in setting up categories and subcategories, and cross-referencing related terms... Some revision is needed: start with the current stuff, and tackle the old items when you have time, that's the theory.

To get back to the visual interest that is so important on a blog, the photo below is the outcome of a search for "file organisation" - Susan E. Evans is an artist who is "interested in the structure, collection, storage, organization, categorization, processing, retrieval, and cross listing and dissemination of information, images, knowledge and memory".Finally in this rather long post, a little reflection on the purpose of blogging. Some of you kind readers have left comments or sent messages that you're interested in what goes on in my art foundation course, and of course I'm pleased to know this - lately that's rather taken over from the textile element that the blog started out focusing on. I'm still trying to fit in some stitching, and to blog about it, but at the moment the art course is taking not just most of my time but also most of my energy, enthusiasm, and interest. So the blog is becoming an interactive notebook - a place to keep list of new-to-me artists, and links to their sites. Writing the posts is a way to make sure I look them up. (It's also a way to fulfil the record-keeping component of the course.)

"I know what I think when I hear myself talk" - or, see what I write. As long as the joys of research don't spill into the time that should be spent in the writing....

Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin

The decorative arts museum, my first drawing destination, is the emptiest msueum I've ever been in - empty of people, that is - I saw four visitors during the three hours I spent there. The exhibits are wonderful; I'd like to go back, sketchbook and camera in hand. (Many German museums allow photography, without flash.)Marvellous objects of amazing craftsmanship -
This unusual item is a game board with inlaid and engraved metal -
And this is the frame for a medieval purse, the kind you see dangling from men's belts in paintings of the time -
In the modern section, the jewellery included an amazing neck piece by Janna Syvanoja made of pages from a telephone book - the edges where the lettering showed give a very subtle effect, and as to how it was made - I just couldn't figure it out -
Do have a look at the other examples of her work on this website. She says - “The process of making my recycled paperjewellery pieces, involves a slow, “natural” technique. By curving each slice of paper around the steelwire, one by one, one after another, it is as if the piece grows into its shape by itself. This way the character of wood, paper's original material, is preserved in the piece - as is also the association to the whole organic world, the way it builds itself, being in constant change, traveling in time.

"Printed paper has also an additional reality, the information it contains. Now, one can only see separate words and letters, that have been transformed into graphical patterns on the surface of the piece. The previous content of the material referred to communication between people - message and expression. A piece of jewellery is worn for the same purpose.”

The exhibition being installed, which has opened by now, is of glass -
My favourite object was the black box (bottom left) by Mechthild Poschlod, which I looked at so long and hard during the drawing that there was no need to photograph it:
Other contemporary makers I noted (for further research) are ceramicists Pompeo Pianezzola , Gerald Weigel, Kati Tuominen, and Antje Scharfe; jewellers Dorothea Pruhl, Christina Weisz, Hermann Junger; designer Aldo Rossi.

Berlin graffiti

Those are all rather jolly, in fact I took the photos because the shapes and colours appealed to me - but the next photo is entirely different - it's a chunk of the Berlin wall left standing in Potsdamer Platz, and people have seen fit to embellish it with chewing gum -
Here is a better view of this very piece of wall, in an earlier state.

You must not ...

And this (vandalised) sign indicates a nature zone and kids' playground - smoking and alcohol are forbidden, and it's a dog-free zone too!

Sculpture week 3

Project, theme to be decided next week: installations for the niches at the front of the City Lit building. Works will be on display for a couple of months.We look at, talk about, photograph, measure the space.
In the vitrines in the cafeteria area, this display of sewing items - rendered in coloured wire -
Back to class and our carving project. Only when I saw this photo did mine look like a sewing machine! I'm enlarging the holes -
Breakthrough!
At the end of the day, it's nearly finished - I'm thinking about whether the surface should be smooth or textured, painted or plain -

Tania Kovatz was mentioned as someone I should look up - indeed, her work is interesting and evocative. Her "tree" in the Natural History Museum is a vertical slice of a 200 year old oak tree, 17 metres from roots to branches - see it here. She's also compressed the White Cliffs of Dover into a domestic scale - see that here - "a landscape of longing, romance and something lost".

Next assignment, a relief plaque. Here's the method - making the plaque out of clay, turning that into a plaster mold, and then casting cement fondue into the mold. Clay plaque and plaster mold are destroyed in the process of making this unique item.
My object is based on this piece of modern jewellery seen in the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin
It might get as big as the large drawing, or I might use the model, just put it onto a slab (with a textured background). Using it as is would be tooooo much like copying. One important technical concern is that the ball at the top must go straight down to the background, not be undercut.

Awayday - Salisbury (August 08)

Snapped on the run, some photos selected at leisure. Very much at leisure - this how long ago was this day trip!

I love the arrows and touches of colour around this makeshift sign -Mysterious cobwebs -
Diagonals and disorder -
A jolly fisherman -
Symphony in black and white -
Scaffolding on the cathedral, again with touches of colour -
Plaque marking the centre of the tower (which at 404 feet is the tallest in England) -
A dark corner of the garden of Mompesson House -
Beaded with raindrops -
Back to London -

Ceramics, week 3

Bisque fired pieces from last week - the white clay suddenly looks white; the combination looks rather like streaky bacon at this stage -So much went on in the class, we were feeling overwhelmed - too many possibilities (again).

First - slabs. Using combinations of clays, in slices, and recombining those to get "an ikat effect" -
The pattern on the right is very thin - it stuck to the cardboard so the rest had to be cut off with a wire. You'll see the thin stuff again later.

One of the things you can do with slabs is to use stencils - you can just about see the circles of paper on the large piece of clay. It's been dabbed with black slip - leaving some raw clay showing between the sponge marks - and the paper will burn off during firing. The small pce of clay has been covered in slip, then scored through, resulting in sgrafito -
and then it was slapped down onto the clay on the cardboard, which had now dried and cracked. The slip grabbed the clay -
At this point you can add an underglaze colour, which will sit in the cracks.

Various ways of printing clay (with slip, ie a solution of coloured clay) - stamping with stamps cut from foam; silkscreening, with "ordinary" screens, or with scrim as here, which has had squiggles of pva glue applied and left to dry. You can "blot" the glue onto fabric, then sprinkle sand on - and use that for relief printing onto clay.
Here's the result of printing with the patterned scrim -
And here's some of the "blotted" pva - it came off the greaseproof paper but will burn away in firing. That slab was first relief-printed with a block, and now is getting various colours of slip painted on -
An exciting possibility is to screen print slip onto the inside of a cardboard box which has been opened out. You need to add Universal Medium to the slip. The box can then be re-closed and fired - it will burn away, leaving the printed slip/clay in the form of a hollow box.

Joining slabs - fewest joins are necessary when bending the slab round a tube (loosely wrapped with newspaper), cutting the overlaid edges at an angle, scoring the cut surfaces, adding slip, pressing together. Other slab joins use the same basic principle -
The straight edge is used to scrape and tidy the surface of the cylinder -
At the end of the day I felt I'd only just got started -
Homework is to go see the show that's just opened at the Estorick Collection - Italy's ceramic revival.