RED SOCKS and RUBBER BANDS

POSTKARD PRACTITIONERS May 2011

We set out on a journey together in May 2011 and for some of us lots of challenges and changes have happened along the way.  What we all wanted to do was to keep our practice going and share it with others, to inspire and connect.  This blog posting will record a journey from a number of different people and perspectives over a six month period of sending postkards to each other

 

LINDA JANEJAMES

the everyday image, the discarded, something about the bird at the centre of everything

Why do we paint flowers?

Philosophy for Children (aged four and five)

WHY DO WE PAINT FLOWERS?

Exploring my work using digital flower drawings, astro turf, daffodils and a poetry and movement poem called - It's Spring, we explored one of the questions that the four year olds came up with - Why do we paint flowers?  The conversation was rich and exciting, little hands holding onto daffodils, minds thinking about what a flower is and why we draw them.  Full details to follow about some of their conversations.  I wanted to work with this very young age group as I am aware of their total fascination with flowers and animals and how as we get older we spend very little time questionning why we don't continue with that interest and curiosity.  I have recently visited the Marianne North Gallery in Kew a number of times, in awe of her lifetimes fascination with flowers and the environment.  A passion shining through her work that the Shirley Sherwood Gallery next door has a total failure to acknowledge with lifeless botanical drawings where there is little ability to tell one artist from another - an unemotional response to pure joy.  

A google search finds Germaine Greer talk about the subject.

Download Where have all the flowers gone

 

TANSY and I

A chance meeting, the beginning of a new journey.  As I mourn the loss of a dear friend who started to travel on a journey with me I meet Tansy.  We share an interest in collage and creative conversation.  We will be making collage postcards to begin a conversation and see where it goes - watch this space.  To start the journey I thought I would borrow poem from Kurt Schwitters to send us on our way.

Garbage Picking on Kaiserstrasse

"In Merz painting the box top, the playing card, the newspaper clipping become surfaces, string, brushstroke, and pencil stroke become line, wire netting becomes overpainting, pasted-on wax paper becomes varnish; cotton wool becomes plasticity."

The butcher throws out little more
than bone chips and odd ends of string
knotted in blackened gristle.

The print shop's bin is bulging, though,
with the primitive authority of the alphabet,
the naked cyan of colour discards,

while the tailor's and ah the dressmaker's shops
trail scraps of gleam and shimmer down the alley;
the milliner's barrel runs over with ribbon.

If you're going on from here, be sure
to bring a strong bag or basket;
next comes the tanner's, the machine shop
and, ah paradis, the dump
where all the cast-off dreams are thrown.

for shelby

because being a little bit crazy and having fun is worth celebrating
(and so is passing your entrance exams - well done)

dead squirrel

dead squirrel

i photographed a dead squirrel.  it seemed important at the time, it was as much about my experience of being in a park as jumping dogs and happy children.  an act of recognition of a life lived perhaps, of the end of a life, to be forgotten. dismissed through an unseemely death in a car park.  no one to care. except me perhaps.

i wanted the image to be a part of my exhibition but somehow I couldn't bring myself to show the photograph in all its fine detail, too harsh a reality, undignified maybe.  in its reality (whatever that is) it couldn't convey what I felt about it and yet it was in that reality that I made a response to it, felt strongly enough to get up close and take the photograph.

so, i played with the image for a while, filtering out the detail, in an attempt to give a sense of calm, peace, respect.  to create a space that would allow for a refelction of time past, of what might have been. of an end and yet a holding still of time lived.

the work now exists as a lightbox piece, the image cut up into numerous coloured squares, as if a fading, broken down TV image or perhaps building blocks with a potential to recreate a full, remade living squirrel.  is it coming, is it going.

the work has yet to be shown in the exhibition.  the act of deciding to exhibit it and the responses from people so far have rasied many questions about what art is for.  why i want to show this piece, why people feel uncomfortable with it.  i don't have answers other than I feel something, that seems at odds with most peoples responses.  this piece is important to me in discovering what it is  that I feel about the world.

if you want to see the work for yourself then go to 'for the diary' for details of my PARKsTALK show.  once the show is over I will post an image of the work and further comments on how the work was received.

on being an artist and what is art for (or not)

i have spent the last two weekends working with some fellow artists from the Hounslow area (London) practising and exploring creative mentoring (look at the creative mentoring photo album for some of the work).  we all come from diverse backgrounds and all have our own unique ways of trying to make it in the world as an artist and financing our practise, sharing our passions and giving something back to those who may not have access to the arts. creating a dialogue amongst fellow artists and those interested or without access to the arts has become an important part of my practise and I want this space to be a place for anyone to contribute to this dialogue by asking questions, sharing issues and concerns, finding ways to share successes and exploring what it means to be an artist today.