My daughter has lived in the South of France for more than 20 years now, and when I go to visit her, she always tries to arrange a special day out for me.
So, on a fine February morning, we set off from her village of Bar sur Loup, in the mountains above Nice, towards the village of St. Paul de Vence. This is a fortified medieval village surrounded by a high wall, and its little streets probably contain more artists per metre than anywhere I have been. Continue reading
When Annie and I set off to Paradise Island the sky was threatening. We had planned our trip to coincide with low tide. The Bounty Bars were packed, we were wearing our waterproof trousers and nothing was going to stop us.
Leaving the car at Ongar Hill out on the Terrington marshes we turned left along the sea wall. Depending on your point of view, there was either nothing to see or there was an amazing vista of salt marshes bisected by saltwater muddy creeks where the mouth of the river oozes into the Wash. The sky was huge and constantly changing, grey chasing blue. I had my trusty Lumix camera but had recently been on an iPhone photography afternoon and was interested to try out some new photography apps.
As we followed the path, part of the Peter Scott trail, we could see our island from a long way off as a small mound on the otherwise flat horizon. There are two islands. The first is some half a mile out from the sea wall and connected by a soil causeway. The second is visible nearly two miles out into the Wash near the bombing range. They were made in the mid-1970s when there were plans to build a sand wall across the Wash and turn it into a huge freshwater lake. These two trial banks were apparently made to test the theory. A friend had named the closer one Paradise Island as on Google satellite view it has the appearance of a pacific atoll!
It was about 4 miles walking to the island. The causeway turned out not to be the raised thoroughfare we had expected but a wet muddy path across the marsh, so hidden in the flat land that somehow we walked straight past the start of it and only spotted it sloping down the bank when we turned back. A line of white posts had distracted us — we imagined they marked the way but they just stretched in an enigmatic line far into the distance. There were wooden plank bridges across muddy creeks and we sloshed our way to the start of the rise, pausing to pick and eat some samphire growing along the way.
I enjoyed experimenting with the iPhone apps manipulating the pictures into instant “paintings”. The results give a different way of looking and inspiration for art works. Apps I used included VSCO, which has a focus and an exposure button, which you can split on the screen. If you push the exposure button to different areas it changes the appearance dramatically. VSCO also has some editing tools. Enlight app offers “artistic” editing tools that are fun to use. The Waterlogue app turns any photo into a facsimile of a watercolor.
We puffed our way up to the top of the Island and were rewarded with a view expanding in the distance to include the whole coast from the mouth of the Ouse along to Hunstanton, with visible landmarks such as the church at Snettisham. Behind us the flat fenland fields were a patchwork of browns and green. Immediately in front of us rocks were piled in a protective crescent halfway around the base of the island and the creeks formed intricate patterns through the mud flats.
Finding two handily placed rocks we sat down to rummage for our sandwiches and then the ceremonial Bounty bars. As we munched we contemplated the fact that we could see from our vantage point that the earth is flat and if we had the means to walk through the mud we could walk onwards and fall off the edge. The silence was profound. The few birds we could see also seemed lost in contemplation. The light changed every few minutes and again there was nothing and everything to see.
On the walk back under stormy skies we surprised a buzzard. Despite having the camera in one hand and the iPhone in the other I just took pleasure from the sight as it rose up in front of us from behind the bank and wheeled away. Walking along the top of the bank gave us great views of the contrast between the wild marshland on the seaward side and the acres of rich dark fenland soil ploughed on the landward side.
We made sure we went at low tide but I think it is only on the highest spring tides that the causeway is covered. The whole Peter Scott walk is about 10 miles from West Lynn to the lighthouse at Sutton Bridge. If you like huge landscapes where the only features are man-made sea defences, experimental islands and mud all overlain with huge skies then I can recommend a walk to Paradise Island.
Michele Summers
Piet Mondrian
Composition with red, black, yellow, blue and grey. 1921
Gemeentemuseum
The Hague:
• Home of King Willem Alexander and Queen Maxima.
• Residence Huis ten Bosch.
• Seat of the Cabinet of the Netherlands. (tweedekamer)
• International Court of Justice.
In mid-September I visited The Hague; the purpose of my visit “Discovering Mondrian” an exhibition at the Gemeentmuseum in the city. The Gemeentemuseum houses and owns the largest and best collection of Mondrian’s’ in the world.
As a devotee of Mondrian’s oeuvre and a fascination in his unique journey from being a very competent landscape painter to the very modern abstract art for which he is better known today. Continue reading
Greyfriars Art Space first began in February 2008, when Jill North, with a group of B.A. Fine Art students, based at the College of West Anglia, decided that there was no affordable space in Kings Lynn for emerging young artists to show their work. Jill was able to purchase the property at 43 St James Street, and together with friends transformed it into the attractive small gallery we know today.
Greyfriars Art Space is an artist-led – a not-for-profit association of members which aims to provide professional exhibition opportunities plus affordable studio workshop spaces. A modest membership fee of £20 per annum ( £10 for students ) helps to support the Gallery’s running costs. The day-to-day management is carried out on a voluntary basis by the Committee, co-ordinated by Kathy Cossins, who earlier this year received one of the Mayor’s Voluntary Service Awards.
With the demise of the Arts Centre galleries, the role of Greyfriars as an affordable artist-run exhibiting space is even more crucial now than it first started. GAS has been a supportive artistic community for many exciting artists working in a whole range of media which includes 3D, painting, printmaking, photography and textiles.
It is now almost ten years since Greyfriars began, and throughout this time Jill has very generously allowed the gallery to be used rent-free. However, it has now become necessary for her to sell the property within the next year. Greyfriars are urgently seeking sources of funding to enable the Committee to purchase the property. Members who can, have been asked to pledge £300 towards this, so that GAS can continue to develop its role in the artistic life of Kings Lynn and West Norfolk. Anyone able to help in this way, or with any fundraising ideas please contact Greyfriars Art Space at 43 St James St, King’s Lynn PE30 5BZ, via the website at greyfriarsartspace.com, email greyfriarsart@gmail.com or phone 0751 714 7444.
Anne Roberts
Colin with Ivan Potter radio operator and air gunner on Wellingtons.
60ft Wellington Bomber Aircraft Mural
Saturday 30th September 2017 at 1500hrs. The day The Wellington Wall Mural was unveiled.
On Friday morning 29th September, Forces TV arrived to film and interview the owners of The Wellington pub at Feltwell, Mr Mrs Samuels and also the artist Colin Mason from the Arts Lounge Gallery in Swaffham. The interview and film of the mural went out on Forces TV News on Saturday 30th September and Monday 1st October.
The Government has just launched a new consultation on sales of ivory in the UK, which will run until 29 December.
Many highly respected galleries feel totally in favour of a ban on the movement and trading of ivory dating from the last 30 years, but believe that anything made partly or wholly from ivory over 30 years ago should be granted immunity provided it has the requisite CITES permit.
Anyone with an interest in this area should respond to the government request for feedback on the trade of ivory.
The consultation document can be found at https://consult.defra.gov.uk/international/banning-uk-sales-of-ivory
Dear Members of West Norfolk Artists Association
On behalf of the patients, their families and carers who benefit from our services, I would like to thank you for your very kind donation of the artwork which was selected at your Summer Exhibition. Continue reading
What shall I paint ? is a question I fairly frequently ask myself. I know that I want to avoid repeating myself too slavishly because my work would soon feel like a pastiche of itself or show me that I am stuck. Which of course I often am. I seem to be searching as I paint as well as responding. Conscious intention mingles with the experience revealing itself. For some time now I have been taking photographs of my paintings and drawings as they evolve. For me the actual journey is as important as the final stage. Continue reading
A Line in Norfolk, 2016
Photography: Peter Huggins
108 steps is what it took me to walk the length of A Line in Norfolk by Richard Long. Walking the line is reminiscent of Long’s ground breaking work of 1967, A Line Made by Walking. Now, 50 years later, I was walking a line parallel to a work made specifically for this exhibition. A measured line made of local Norfolk Carrstone connecting the house entrance to Full Moon Circle, a piece created in 2003 for the Houghton Sculpture Garden.
Late afternoon on a sunny day, the contrast between the shiny flat surfaces and the darker linear edges of the slate carefully placed within the circle were heightened. My slow movement around Full Moon Circle caused the sunlight to flow over the surface, taking up the edges, creating shadow, the surface shifting and shimmering, truly like a full moon. Richard Long says of the piece, “In Full Moon Circle slates were placed flat to reflect the weather and the season. When a high sun moves around the sky on a summer day the circle looks white and brilliant, yet it becomes dark and shiny in the rain, and in actual moonlight it appears very different again.”
Walking through the extensive grounds, it seems the pieces are deliberately connected through the use of the archetypical line, circle, cross and spiral used by Long throughout his career. A spiral is found within the circular form of Wilderness Dreaming and again in White Deer Circle where Long used massive tree stumps dug up around the estate. ‘Sea Henge’ immediately comes to mind connecting Long to something primordial whether intentional or not.
North South East West, 2016
Photography: Peter Huggins
Another circle is found in North South East West in the Stone Hall. Here we find within a circle of flint a Cornish slate cross that is found again in Houghton Cross located in the walled garden. In both crosses, the slate, rather than lain flat on the round, projects upwards toward the sky.
It is strange seeing North South East West indoors in an environment also made of stone but one elaborate in its design, with carvings from floor to stuccoed ceiling. It seems contrived and pompous next to the natural shapes of the stones within a circle that the organic softness of the flint and the hard roughness of the slate share.
The White Water Falls in the colonnades are as true to their name as Full Moon Circle. These mud drawings are executed with extreme concentration. Long likens the action to that of a musician playing a live concert. There is only one chance to get it right. For him, in the end it is purely chance that determines the results once the bucket of mud is thrown. The white on black is at times bold and forceful and at other times intricately beautiful.
Richard Long March 2017
Photography: Peter Huggins
In the South Wing Gallery I realize how extensively Richard Long has walked in his lifetime and how integral walking is to his life and art. Large scale photographs document walks and works created on the way either by placing rocks in a circle or a line; sometimes throwing them to create marks on the landscape. Each work created is relevant to the location.
Seeing the photos and reading the words also impress through the idea of the experience of walking done. This is not just a casual walk on the beach or 108 steps. It’s an involvement with the elements and essence of the place. A winter walk in England, Tibet or Antarctica contrasting with the heat of Mexico, the Sahara or South Africa as extremes of the spectrum.
The text works are a concise and aesthetic observation of detail withevery word conjuring an image, vivid, alive.
The second gallery located in the house surprises with smaller wall works. Found pieces of wood are utilized in the shape found, perhaps cut at one time or another, sometimes worn, aged, irregular, or with rust stains where a steel band used to be. These works make a welcome contrast and show another aspect of Long’s work. There is something ritualistic and primal about the methodical daubing with mud on these pieces.
White Deer Circle, 2017
Photography: Peter Huggins
The exhibition is rounded off with display cases presenting catalogues, documentation and other publications by and about Richard Long giving an extensive documentation of his career.
Esther Boehm
The exhibition runs until 26 October 2017.
For opening times and more information visit the Houghton Hall website.
Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) is an artist who has been a motivational figure for me since I studied Fine Arts. What he did was ground breaking. It was inspirational. Now, having been lucky enough to have seen his retrospective at the Tate Modern, I see that his work was far more extensive and far reaching than I remember. What is striking is the curiosity, imagination and variety of his endless experiments — his sense of humour — his outlook on life and art.
Detail from Rauschenberg statement on Joseph Albers, undated. Courtesy Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
Having studied under Josef Albers at the avante garde Black Mountain College in North Carolina, Rauschenberg was exposed to the full range of diciplines and the expectation to explore them. He found Albers criticism “excruciating and devastating” but also considered him the most important teacher he ever had. This grounding seems a vital contribution to Rauschenberg seeing everything and trying everything. This is evident considering his white paintings, black paintings, red paintings, tire tread impressions, images recorded on light sensitve blueprint paper, transfer drawings, constructions using everyday materials, silk screen printing etc. etc.
Meeting John Cage and Merce Cunnungham at Black Mountain led to Rauschenberg doing the set and costume design when the Merce Cunningham Dance Company began in 1953. Through this work he become a player in performances as well. The innovative and aesthetic Pelican (1963) with Rauschenberg on roller skates donning a parachute or the experiment in propulsion using himself and two large rubber tires as seen in Map Room II confirm his creative interdiciplinary versatility. Collaboration remained an integral aspect throughout Rauschenberg’s career.
While set designing with Merce Cunningham, Rauschenberg also created combines. Combines, are neither sculpture nor painting, but rather works which incorporate aspect of both in constructed works. An early combine, collaboration and pivotal work was Short Circuit (1955).
“Rauschenberg was invited to participate in the Fourth Annual Painting and Sculpture Show at the Stable Gallery; some artists he wanted included were not. So Bob made a Combine – he called it Short Circuit – which incorporated works by the refusés: Jasper Johns and Bob’s former wife, Susan Weil.”
– Leo Steinberg, quoted in Encounters with Rauschenberg (1997)
Combines are ingenious in their use of everyday objects such as neckties, umbrellas, alarm clocks, fans and anything else that captured his interest. It is the was they are put together in unlikely combinations that makes them special. Perhaps the most famous work, Monogram (1955-59) “combines oil, paper, fabric, printed paper, printed reproductions, metal, wood, rubber shoe heel, and tennis ball on canvas with oil and rubber tire on Angora goat on wood platform mounted on four casters.” A favourite of mine is Gift for Apollo (1959) with a bucket chained to a wheeled object. The green necktie is a lovely touch.
For the performance Oracle (1965), in collaboration with engineer Billy Klüver, Rauschenberg produced a group of movable objects exploring human movement interacting with these objects. 9 Evenings: Theater and Engineering (1966) followed. Its success led to the project ‘Experiments in Art and Technology’ (E.A.T.) a non-profit foundation promoting interaction between artists, engineers and industry. Further experiments with technology led to Mud Muse (1968-71), an ambitious feat of engineering in which the natural springs and geysers of Yellowstone National Park were his inspiration.
This was the time of American involvement in the space race. Technological advancement was progressive and exciting. Rauschenberg was asked to create a drawing for Moon Museum (1969), a microchip with artworks by 6 prominent artists of the time which would be sent to the moon. He was even invited to attend the launch of Apollo 11 — an exhilarating experience.
Parallel to this euphoria, was also disillusionment. The assasinations of Teddy Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the war in Viet Nam — the fight for Civil Rights at home contributed to Rauschenberg leaving New York and establishing his studio on Captiva Island, Florida. The 70s saw the Hoarfrost Series of sovent transfers and the Jammer Series using coloured silks found in his travels to India. It is undoubtedly this sequence of events that prompted Ruschenberg to reach out to humanity, in his way, as an artist.
“The Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Interchange was an expression of Rauschenberg’s commitment to human rights and freedom of artistic expression. Through the R.O.C.I. project Rauschenberg travelled widely, often visiting places where artistic experimentation had been suppressed. He showed his own artwork, while exploring local art-making, aiming to spark conversations and create mutual understanding through creative processes.” (From Rules of Rauschenberg. Text by Kirstie Beaven & Lily Bonesso.) The R.O.C.I. went from 1984 to 1990. In this time Rauschenberg travelled to the 10 countries Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, China, Tibet, Japan, Cuba, the USSR, Malaysia and Germany. The project ended at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.
Glacial Decoy (1979)
Another work also presented in China in connection with the R.O.C.I. is Glacial Decoy (1979) a dance theatrical collaboration with choreographer Trisha Brown. The backdrop, a cycling projection on four larger-than-life screens of Rauschenberg’s black and white photos of Fort Myers, Florida.
In 1985 Rauschenberg travelled to his home state Texas. The oil crisis left behind metal signs, oil cans and other metal objects from which he created the Glut Series. It is especially the white piece Balcone Glut (Neapolitan) (1985) that makes an impression on me.
The Mirthday Man (1997)
Late works by Rauschenberg focus on photography and the technology of ink-jet printing. Thanks to a team of assistants he was able to produce large scale images, many referring back to or using motifs from the past as seen with the x-ray image of himself in Mirthday Man (1997) made on his 72nd birthday.
Even after 2 strokes, Rauschenberg went on, with the help of friends, to produce works from his vast achive of images. He continued looking and living until 2008.
In conclusion, a very fitting statement at the end of the retrospective exhibition: “… Throughout his collaborative, generous and experimental approach to art-making, he anticipated the social, networked and media-driven culture of today.”
For anyone who missed the retrospective at the Tate Modern but would still like to see it, it will start in May at the MoMA in New York City. If that is too far away, here are a couple of links giving indepth info on the artist:
http://www.tate.org.uk/rules-of-rauschenberg/
http://www.rauschenbergfoundation.org/artist
Esther Boehm
Artwork © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation