Art Adventures

  Bela Kolarova ' Swatch of Snap Fasteners 11'

 Josef Albers 'Homage to the square:post autumn'

 Lygia Clark 'Red Matchboxes'

Klara Liden 'Untitled (Poster Painting)'

 My first week  since finishing work has mainly been spent sorting out finances and paperwork  with  visit of estate agent to value property and beginning to sort out my stuff for retreat next week at Rydal.  But yesterday was my first expedition up to town to visit art galleries during the working week ( first of many  I hope).  The current Whitechapel Gallery exhibition ' Adventures of the Black Square'   was  definitely worth the entrance  fee (alas,  I had to hand  in my staff pass which got me in free to  many exhibitions   when I left Kew).  Besides the familiar Mondrian and Albers ,more  powerful in reality than in print, there  was  much that resonated in terms of subject matter ( peeling posters of Klara Liden; crumbly walls and doors of Clay Ketter; David Batchelor's 'found' monochromes ) ; so many artists new to me( many of them women); such imaginative use of materials.  Textiles featured prominently - I'll be writing more about  that in a Ragged Cloth Café Blog post  including  Anni Albers; Rosemarie Trockel; Adrian Esparza; Sophie Taeuber-Arp.
As with the Emily Carr  exhibition I had to buy the catalogue straight away - I couldn't wait to have it posted!

 Besides the  biological recording  courses I'm doing to revive my rusty botanical skills , I've just booked for 2 courses at City  Lit  to  give my art-making  a kick start - ' develop your drawing'  and 'printmaking  on Mondays starting 20 April.

DO/DON'T Sketchbook?

 I know it's only advertising for cars, in a prime position for the M4 elevated section, but this clever statement at the end of my road, seen every day on the way to work certainly gets me thinking.
About the negatives bound up in positives (and vice versa). About how you never see 'to don't' lists but how often we work from them. About the things that hold you back.

 At a more prosaic level , I've been thinking about  how  to incorporate it into the next block of journal quilts based on text. I have lots of photos and bits of peeled posters from the  hoardings on the Great West Road - perhaps now is the time to think about using them.

 I've been preparing lots of colour catchers with inkaid to go through the printer - following up some of the ideas I included the 'Sketchbook Project' My pages have been digitised and I'm wondering whether to join in the Sketchbook  Project 2012 - it's coming to London after all. 

Peeling Posters on the Golden Mile

No, not Blackpool or other exotic places but the Great West Road in Brentford. Apparently.
While there has been a huge investment and development of the 'Great West Quarter'(below) the poor ex Alfa Laval building at the end of our road is swathed in green printed fabric depicting a jewel of Art Deco architecture pending acceptance of numerous proposals for its use. In the mean time the building is a huge poster site beside the M4.
On my journey home a few weeks ago I was struck by the juxtaposition of the peeling posters on the fence around the site perimeter with its flashy modern counterpart (particularly as it depicted Japan- "Fly Emirates to Tokyo")

There must have been layer upon layer of posters which someone had decided needed all to come off , leaving amazing textures and remnants of colour.
A week later a lot of it was gone but there still quite a few large flappy bits that didn't take too much tugging to peel off....
I now have a stash pending scanning, manipulation, incorporation into something, replicating in fabric. Who knows?!