A Walk in the Woods…

Yesterday’s constitutional around ‘our’ local woods brought a most intriguing encounter of the fictional kind, as the photo sequence below is intended to illustrate.

Taking a route up a wooden ‘staircase’ to a viewpoint, I noticed from a few steps below what appeared to be a page of paper and, upon reaching the site, stopped and stooped to inspect further, to confirm that indeed it was, more specifically printed matter, a leaf that had become unbound from a book . Continuing the ascent, rounding a corner in the stairway and then gaining the top steps, turning again to view the summit of grass and moss and trees, and in the midst of the tangle of branches and twigs of a bare bush, the sight of what was obviously a book, very likely the substance of the volume from which the just-encountered pages had become unbound, one assumed. Approaching up the rise of the hill, to the viewing area and the immediate location of the bush, closer inspection was possible. As can be observed from the photographic evidence, the book was of standard paperback format, its spine cracked and, lodged within the branches of the bush, the text open at page 305, the beginning of Chapter Fifteen, ‘The Lion’s Den’. Flurries of wind at this elevated point regularly blew this leaf over to reveal the following two pages of print, facilitating a little further glimpse into this lion’s den, before fluttering back down to rest, momentarily.

Curiosity of course dictated the disturbance of the book from its perch in order to discover more, precisely what its title and author were at least, thus revealed to be ‘Fallen’ by the hitherto unknown-to-me Lauren Ka..(te, as it proved to be in totality), the surname truncated by the physical fact of the bottom right corner of the cover having been torn off in addition to its missing pages. Such a title might fancifully complicate the mystery of who might have left the book in such a place and why – was it intimating that the object had indeed fallen, from the sky, from what- or wherever, to land in the midst of the bush, perhaps..?

Whatever the circumstances, they could be mulled over during the continuation of the walk. The book replaced within the bush, I set off to descend the wooden steps only soon to be distracted again, by the sight of another unbound page, near the top of the stairway, more of the story unfolding…

(A) Painting-in-Progress

Following the ‘purposeful play’ indulged in yesterday afternoon (see the previous ‘All White Now…’ post) and the at-handness of one of a pair of already-stained smaller canvases, a decision was taken to proceed with the simple and familiar composition pictured below, as at least underpainted in Payne’s Grey acrylic before the natural light faded and work was thus brought to a close.

All White Now…

Newly-remodelled white pears, as previously posted, and new white ‘Billy’ bookcases as a ‘studio’ storage solution suggested that both could be combined, in Edmund de Waal-inspired configurations with a view to providing suitable compositions for a new batch of ‘white’ still life paintings. A few examples, with subtle variations, in placement, viewpoints. etc…

 

Re-Make/Re-Model

Whilst the old painting practice might be in recess at the moment, enjoying what has been a little period of hibernation from shortly before Christmas and since the turn of the new year, thoughts have turned to its resumption & the taking-up of brushes once more, & indeed certain actions have taken place recently to facilitate such, with the photographic evidence below.

What we observe here are five of the model pears, which have served as the physical subject matter for the recent batch of painting productivity (& rather handily, for the purposes of illustration, pictured together as #1 & #14 in the series), subsequently having undergone a process of re-modelling, with air-drying clay applied to alter the original form in the interests of creating something more suitable, more like the shape of the other three objects (e.g. as subjected to the usual scrutiny & representation in #6 & #15) from which I’ve also been working since the summer. Another immersion in whitewash & they were done.

It proved a most satisfying hands-on experience to re-shape the pears, to have that very specific contact with them, deepening the connection with one’s source material, & the results, with their obvious evidence of manu-facture, as sculpted objects, subtly yet significantly re-made, with a range of surface detail – not least a rudimentary faceting, finger- & thumb-marks suggesting an analogy to brushstrokes – that wasn’t previously present, are quite pleasing to the eye too.

Now to compose them upon a horizontal plane & get down to the process of active observation…

 

Cultured Football

A happy new year indeed with the sight, observed whilst tuning-in to the BBC’s ‘Final Score’ yesterday afternoon, of the mighty and magnificent Jonathan Meades, whose marvellously idiosyncratic, fiercely intelligent, erudite, opinionated and witty television films, often based on explorations of architectural idioms but expanding to cover a dizzying range of cultural aspects of peoples and places, are the stuff of hero-worship in the parish of TOoT, turning his hand (or more likely foot, under such circumstances) to a spot of goal-scoring during the day’s football fixtures. Ah, the delight of inhabiting alternative universes where such occurrences do actually happen…

Mr Meades, of course, did touch upon the subject of football, and a discerning selection of the small-town names of the Scottish game that exist in the general public consciousness for but a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon when they appear amongst the soccer scores/results lists, during his 2009 series ‘Off Kilter’, so the association is not too fanciful a one to make, perhaps.