Bargain Books for Desecration and Collage

 For next weeks 'Contemporary Collage' class at City Lit  we were asked to bring in a pre- existing book for  alteration/ desecration. While I have 'previous' in this activity( see here for my first foray), having had a clear out when we moved I  didn't have anything suitable . Time to visit the 2 excellent secondhand bookshops in Faversham - the 'Fleur-de lis' run by the Faversham Society  and Past Sentence  which is open on market days.  

In the latter, I bought  2 books  from the 'sailing' section. The copy of 'Dinghy Ownership Mainly For The Non-Racing Man ' dates from 1956 ( the author also wrote 'Dinghy Sailing For Boys - Or Girls')  and has nice thick paper ( an important consideration)  as well as lots of interesting illustrations and a few photos.  

I mainly bought 'The Merchant Service today' (1942 from the recreational library of RAF Mildenhall) for it's fold out copy of the admiralty chart of the North Kent coast section of the Thames Estuary although it too has nice thick paper.   

My final purchase from Past Sentence  was in the £1 basket outside the shop- remember the craze for paint effects in the 1980's ? This  book shows you how to do it and  has masses of photographs and illustrations  to  cut out and use - cheaper than a magazine!

In the 'Fleur' bookshop I obtained 2 further books  bought for their illustrations - a 'Souvenir Edition' of 1963 showing excerpts from issues of Encylopedia Britannica going back centuries and  the book below from 1981  which is filled with examples of patents including many bizarre ones that never caught on. 

All these delights together cost me the princely sum of £8.50!

Contemporary Collage Week 1 :Introduction and Cut and Paste

My head is still spinning with excitement from first session of ' Contemporary Collage and mixed media' at City Lit '  We spent the morning going through the packed programme for the next 10 weeks , illustrated with examples from a large variety of contemporary collage artists ( more in another post) then after a brief break  an overview of about 20  techniques . Phew!  Then the afternoon was spent diving into boxes of materials  , trying some of these out , allowing work to make itself.

As I don't usually buy magazines ( apart from the one that comes with the Saturday Guardian ) I spent most of my time with  copies of Vogue and World of Interiors  ( which I kidnapped and brought home ) seduced by the glossy paper and photography. I  started first  in my comfort zone, painting papers then cutting up strips of 'furnishing fabrics' and pasting them randomly including using the backs of the strips. 

I  then found a rather strange article  about 'Nana' making knitted  ensembles for 'Sasha' dolls  in the arts section (?!) with illustrations of  their 'on the beach 'outfits .  I started out simply with a couple of hats , cutting out circles, then tried some 'frottage' , rubbing pastels and graphite  on tracing paper  laid over the raised surface of the collage. 

 Having cut out various articles of knitted clothing, I got intrigued by the negative shapes  left behind ( reminders of cutting out paper dolls)  and produced this rather sinister looking collage 

Turning to ' Vogue' I cut out  some more  of the figures and used the remaining shapes to frame the central  photo of a  model. This has potential I think . 

The afternoon  ended too soon , I wish I'd taken a photo of the mess on the table and on the floor but was too busy snipping and glueing. We had a quick review of everyone's work  which was extremely diverse , I feel like I'm only scratching the surface of the possibilities 

At home in the studio, I'm looking at every bit of paper in a new light. When I opened the copy of Vogue ( which had already been cut into by previous students) I was intrigued by  juxtaposition of the  shapes on the page beneath with the overlying image. So I ripped out both pages and played around with  shifting the underlying layer and took photos ( combined below)  

 Playing with papers is addictive -  besides having several collages at different stages, we were encouraged to start a 'scrap book'  of all the bits we didn't use ( which in my case are all the figures I cut out as I  wanted the surroundings) . 

Our homework was to bring in an existing book for 'desecration' next week. I'm off to the secondhand bookshops in Faversham to see what I can find. 

Margo Selby : Pick by Pick at Rochester Art Gallery and Huguenot Museum

Yesterday I went  to a bleak and wet Rochester to see exhibition of work by  weaver and textile designer Margo Selby at Rochester Art Gallery and Huguenot Museum. She was running  a 'colour and stripe' workshop in the morning   which looked fun and giving a talk in the afternoon  which I went to with some friends. 

 The gallery was mainly  devoted to her more recent hand woven artworks  created using the  'Lampas' technique  initially developed and used by French Huguenot  weavers for decorative brocade fabrics. There were also cases showing her design work and samples.  

 Upstairs in the Huguenot Museum  her  commercial fabrics produced in industrial mills ( rugs,   furnishing and accessories etc ) were displayed.

 Her talk was interesting, outlining  her development as a  woven textile designer  from studying at Chelsea and RCA to the issues of scaling up  from hand woven samples when you only want 20m as opposed to minimum runs of  200m and learning how to market her products . Since moving to Whitstable in 2012, she's been focusing on her art practice, creating hand-woven works.  There were some questions asked about balancing art and commercial practice , she  acknowledged that she was lucky  to be able to do both ( while part wishing she hadn't used her name as the brand for her commercial work )

I couldn't resist  buying this scarf in her trademark 3 dimensional fabric in silk and lycra - I just loved the colours and the 'patchwork' design . I'm a bit poorly at the moment  (bland diet, no coffee, wine or chocolate!)  and didn't make it to my painting  class on Thursday so it cheered me up.  

Painting Studio Time 1

I was unable to get a place on this terms 'Contemporary Painting Studio'  class  at City Lit and in any case I'm  already doing a collage class starting 22nd.  However Lucinda put together a 2 week class in a free room to fill in the time before CPS started  and I was very happy to have the bonus of an additional couple of painting days.  There's 10 of us plus Lucinda who is  working on her own paintings rather than teaching  but as ever,  seeing what other people are doing and asking/receiving advice is invaluable.

I thought about bringing in the large painting I was working on before Xmas but without the big screens to pin it  on  I decided to return to the  preliminary sketches I'd made of  Iron Wharf  in

Week 1. I also brought in  a couple of the prepared newspaper collage backgrounds  to work on 

Focusing in on a detail of the awning I  used transparent glazes to build up colour so the textures were still  visible . It's not finished yet , I need to make further changes to the composition and to details such as the ropes . 

Lucinda had brought in some cardboard so I put together a quick newspaper collage background, painted it with gesso and carried out a quick painting sketch. Not sure about the 'frottage' of paint over the corrugations   but  it's given me ideas about how I might use that effect to best advantage.  

As I've now used most of my newspaper collaged  backgrounds , with access to large quantities of PVA , I used up 2 copies of the days Metro in preparing some more. 

 On our walk on Boxing Day along Faversham Creek at low tide , I took some photos of the sun on the mud(! ) and the boats  and will make a start  in tomorrow's class about developing these into paintings. 

Exhibition Catch-Up

Rachel Whiteread 

I've  been in hibernation over Xmas  and New Year.  Apart from going out for dinner on Xmas day and the visit of some friends on 28th ,  we've been taking advantage of being well stocked with provisions  and not had to venture out in the horrible weather. Just as well as I've been fighting off the lurgy, going to bed early, getting up late and watching daytime TV ( loved Paddington!)  

I've been stitching on the piece ' wind me in the sea ' I started last January  (it is now a very large loop) and thinking about what I intend to do as a daily(ish) project, gathering collage  materials together, reviewing what I got out of the art courses last year. 

While excavating my studio, I realised I hadn't got round to reporting on some of the exhibitions I'd  visited.  On 12th December, on the way to Upper Street to collect my quilt after it had been returned from its travels with Knit and Stitch shows , I finally made it to Tate Britain to see the Rachel Whiteread exhibition, a fascinating exploration of negative space given form and substance. I particularly liked the works on paper, seeing how she develops her ideas and the 'bookshelves' with the details of the page edges recorded during the casting process.  

While I was in the Tate , I had a quick whizz through the 'Impressionists in London' . While it was interesting from a historical point of view, most of the art wasn't to my taste  although it  was great to be reacqainted with some of the paintings from the 'Turner ,Whistler, Monet' exhibition . 13 years on and pre-blog it remains one of those memorable exhibitions that changed how I look at thing.

The surprise was at the end - a selection of vibrant  paintings by Andre Derain paying homage to Monet  choosing the same motifs . I'll definately go back to have a closer look , I remember being blown away by his paintings  at the Courtauld in 2006 

Andre Derain 'Barges on the Thames' 

Thames barges mean so much more to me now having lived in Brentford   and seeing them on the Thames  and now with 'Iron Wharf' for inspiration. I made quick notes in my sketchbook, I particularly liked  the use of primary colours  and how the mast/ sail changes from red against blue to blue against red . 

On 5 December, I combined  a ' Drawing Tuesday' visit to Tate Modern with seeing ' A Sense of Place  by View Seven at the Menier Gallery 

I particularly likes the work by Susie Koren  ( above)  and Claire Benn - I'd loved her work at FoQ in 2016  and  it looked even better in this venue . 

 Back at Tate Modern, I had  quick look round Ilya and Emilia Kabakov -' Not Everyone will be taken into the future'. Not an exhibition I would have paid to go into but  being a member of the Tate  means I try out  things outside my comfort zone 

The installations  were interesting and  thought provoking ( 'Labyrinth(my mothers album')  was quite haunting , with the collaged family photos  and  songs ) What I found most inspiring were the large scale paintings based on collage - gave me ideas about scaling up of marks etc 

This Friday, I'm making a return visit to the Scythians at the British Museum ( another exhibition I went to when I should have been drawing  at Kings Place...)

The size  and intricate workmanship of the gold belt buckles  are indeed jaw dropping  but it is the  fragile objects  including textiles  found in remarkable state of preservation in the permafrost that I'm looking forward to seeing again .