Taking a Break

After the solo show at Octavia View I felt the need to take a bit of a break. It's surprising how much admin you can fall behind with when working 60-70 hour weeks, and after producing so many paintings I was in need of time out and reflection from creating new artwork.

Not that I haven't been busy, my new job was and continues to be challenging and I've been busy working on my Sketchbook for the 2013 Sketchbook Project. This is almost finished and it might actually be the biggest artwork I've ever made. It's a bit different from the rest of my work and not very deep with concept but I was going for challenging scale rather than challenging concept. Of course the point of the Sketchbook project is to do something different from your usual work but more on that another day.

Unfortunately some things did fall by the wayside. 2012's photographic project on Flickr started to suffer from a lack of time invested into it and the results became so erratic and samey (really how many photographs of flowers and plant from ground level up could I do) that I let it die an early death. I still think it has possibilities, it just needed a bit more thought and time on a daily basis which I couldn't offer. Saying that I've not been stinting the photography, I just had to go back to basics a little, experimenting and getting accustomed to my new camera. Finally after years of saving I bought myself a DSLR and it's a revelation as to what can be done. The level of control over the image is so much greater than compact cameras.

I've also been away on a couple of trips, first to the Isle of Wight in August and then to Dublin in October which gave me lots of practice and inspiration for new paintings. Below is a selection of photos from both. Finally I'm planning on starting a weekly blog entry on a project you might have heard about a few blog entries ago.

Isle of Wight

Dublin

Beautiful Fenland

Beautiful Fenland, My solo exhibition opens this Friday at 7pm at Octavia View, Wisbech.

I spent 5 days in the fens taking photographs and exploring in preparation for this exhibition. 

While my work does not depend on a particular place, I do feel that it is important for people to connect with my work through seeing places they are familiar with.

Octavia View can be found just off Somers Road opposite the entrance to the public car park.

The exhibition is open from the 3rd August to 6th September.

A Catalogue can now be purchased via Blurb. Click the link below.

Beautiful Fenland by Gemma Cumming | Make Your Own Book

Exhibition update: Mis-InFormation

On Friday night I went to the Private View of this years Fringe Arts Bath the visual arts side of the Bath Fringe.

This year the Fringe has over 30 exhibitions, performances and open studios over 6-7 venues around the city.

I have 3 paintings in an exhibition in the Old Pet Shop at Pigeon Park called Mis-InFormation.
Curated by Diana Ali and featuring over 25 artists from around the globe. More information can be found here: http://www.fringeartsbath.co.uk/mis-information/

Taking the concept of hidden truths, misquotations, rumour and gossip, artists are now being selected to exhibit their work which investigates this avenue. Art works selected will give the audience the chance to be allured, intrigued, enticed and be flirtatious with its appearance and reality. Artworks will explore ideas of being out of the loop, lying, pseudoscience, factoids and conspiracy theories.

It was an interesting evening with many people enjoying the exhibition and other exhibitions within the building. The building itself was left much in the state it had been found in, which lent it an industrial and temporary air. A bold choice by the curator although a tricky space to take photographs. 

 The exhibition is on until the 10th June. 


I also saw a fabulous sunset on my way home.

Changes

It's been a month of changes for me, part time and freelance work has been replaced with an actual full time role. I've been working on a project and finding time to continue with my paintings for my upcoming solo show.

As well as that I have got into 2 new exhibitions and been busy getting paintings to places for them as well as those already booked in.

Currently I have work in Art at the Ark's Spring Open, Basingstoke
http://artintheark.wordpress.com/

and a month long exhibition at Woodley Library.

http://wokingham.gov.uk/libraries/libraries/art/

Which I am very pleased about.

Exhibition at Woodley Library

Next up I have three paintings in Mis-In-Formation an exhibition curated by Diana Ali as part of 2012 Fringe Arts Bath. Last time I was part of the Fringe Arts Bath was in 2008 where I showed a Bath location specific for the Locus exhibition. It's really nice to see the Bath Fringe Arts expand over the years and there is more going on this year than any previous year.

Taking the concept of hidden truths, misquotations, rumour and gossip, artists are now being selected to exhibit their work which investigates this avenue. Art works selected will give the audience the chance to be allured, intrigued, enticed and be flirtatious with its appearance and reality. Artworks will explore ideas of being out of the loop, lying, pseudoscience, factoids and conspiracy theories.

http://www.fringeartsbath.co.uk/mis-information/

Plus here's a sneak preview of one of the works going up in Wisbech in the summer.

I was also invited to show my painting “Welcome to Bracknell” at last weekend Bracknell Forest Mayors Civic Reception.

It was a nice event with many local organisations, including local arts groups, Bracknell Camera Club and Janet Curley Cannon (who has produced many works about Bracknell) from ReOrsa there. I was asked to be part of the South Hill Park stand as my work “Welcome to Bracknell” was recently exhibited at South Hill Park. 

Me and my painting at South Hill Park's stall at Mayors Civic reception

 

Finally I have grand plans for some online projects/versions of already completed work.

Oh and there is a book to be finished...............

Postcards from beyond the edge

This work was partially inspired by an article I read about sending postcards from space. Soon after I got the brief for the next ReOrsa artists project, dealing with notions around boundaries and the breaking of them. The two seemed to coalesce instantly into the beginnings of this work.

Boundaries and Beyond flyer

Thinking about the nature of boundaries and what boundaries mean from a tourist or postcard perspective, I decided that not only did I want to send postcards from space, I also wanted it to seem perfectly normal. I had also recently re-watched a episode of Horizon called The Core which talked about the interior of the Earth and how it may be the last place we ever explore due to its phenomenally inhospitable conditions.

This sounded like a challenge to me so I decided to create a series of postcards that infer that the current limits of human exploration and some of the most inhospitable and remote areas of the world are perfectly normal holidaying destinations. Creating, photographing and using free to access images I have produced 60 postcards with images from all around the globe and beyond. Jungles, Deserts, Arctic regions, Space and under the earth are all represented as well a a few other areas.

Original test postcard

Additionally many of the images are not of the places they say they are. I wanted to take to the extreme the postcard tradition of showing places in the best possible light, often to the point that they no longer look like the place they depict. I won't spoil here which ones are fake, I will leave that for you to work out.

I've always been interested with perception and the power of suggestion to produce views and ideas that are not true. This is one of the reasons that postcards interest me so. The idea that one or a few perfect images of perfect places can represent a place really fascinates me. 

 

Intital mocked up postmark

To accentuate this power of suggestion, I took all 60 postcards and created a universe where these cards were sent from one person to another, arranged them into series of cards from individual holidays and gave them an entire timeline and false history. The cards were written in order according to my timeline and frequently contain references to previous holidays or past unknown events much as a 11 year association via postcards would do. I created a false publishing company and a QR code, that when scanned should take you to my website. Finally I created fake stamps that referenced the general locations of the cards and 60 individual postmarks.

Final work

From my 6 years working with postcards I seem to be mainly producing works that cannot be touched and are quite traditional from a fine art aspect; paintings, drawings and prints. For a medium that is first visual but also quite tactile this can be odd. I have recently started archiving my collection so I have had a lot more tactile relationship with them in recent months which may be impacting in the scope of my work.

I liked the idea of creating actual postcards and of forming this entire new world where a weekend in space is as normal as a weekend in the south of France. The idea of looking into a future where the infrastructure to allow postcards to be sent exists everywhere seems both utopian and disturbing. Being able to go anywhere that easily seems amazing but also the idea of every wild and natural place becoming as false and uniform as most other highly touristy place goes against everything I believe.

Example of one of the finished cards (text side)

At the end of the day there are not (quite yet) shuttles to hotels on the Moon, but I am interested to what level visitors believe what they are given. And I like that they have to rifle through the postcards. I'd want to see how many people feel the need to read from start to finish and how many pick up the first one they see. I had a great time making up this character writing the postcards, who is effectively me, but me writing from a position I could only imagine rather than experience.

As to the addressee, which I really agonised over, I decided that I would have to take inspiration from a fictional explorer. Hopefully before I said that most of you didn't work out which one immediately.

Example of a finished card (image side)

Often the ReOrsa space is only accessible by looking in through the windows. I was highly aware of this when I was planning the work so I wanted my work to be at least partially readable through the windows. So far every time I have gone past the Gallery@49 windows I have seen at least one person trying to read my work. Additionally it seems every time I have gone past more and more of the postcards have escaped from their box. As well as a few originally scattered on the plinth they have seemed to explode exponentially with masses on the plinth and many now sitting on the nearby window ledge. It seems the postcards themselves want to take their own journey.

Boundaries and Beyond is on from 15^th - 31^st March at Gallery@49 in Bracknell Town Centre. It will be open 12 – 4 on the 31^st March and I will be there from 2 – 4 pm. 

 Check out the news: http://www.bracknellnews.co.uk/news/bracknell/articles/2012/03/19/58017-taking-art-to-the-town/ 

Installed work at ReOrsa Gallery@49

Links:

Horizon: The Core - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0148vph

Postcards from space - http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/usa/china/2011-12/02/content_14199778.htm

Underwater post box - http://rainbowstampclub.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/underwater-post-office-at-bahamas.html

ReOrsa and Gallery@49 - http://www.reorsa.org/Activities/activity6.html

Exhibition Update: While Things Were Good and Boundaries and Beyond

My exhibition at South Hill Park has been up for a few weeks now and I thought it was time for an update.

Paintings got finished thankfully, even if they were still a little tacky when they went up, I was able to unveil my newest works Reading and South Hill Park. Reading ended up being quite a labour of love, that lion took 4 days of intensive work to get done but I am very pleased by it. South Hill Park seems to have become a lot of peoples favourite but then again it is also a building that is close to all who visit it so that is no surprise.

The private view went well, I had lovely chats with the various Mayors, Deputy Mayors and other Bracknell Forest/Town Council dignitaries that came along. In fact I was so busy talking to people I didn't manage to get any photographs of the event. Many of my friends and artists I've previously exhibited with came along as well as the hilarious Jan Williams from the Caravan Gallery. Hearing that she was coming down had me in a bit of a tizzy, I'd never met her in person although we became contacts through Twitter and Facebook previously. I am a great admirer of her work and as you might expect it has great resonance with my interests within my own practice. Plus I got a bunch of new Caravan Gallery postcards to add to my collection.

On the subject of postcards, I had some made of 5 of the works in the show, including South Hill Park, Reading, Cowes - Isle of Wight, Windsor Castle and Welcome to Bracknell. At the moment these are available from the Bracknell Gallery at South Hill Park at £1 each. If you come on a Sunday afternoon (you will find me up there invigilating Ubiquitous Materials) I'll sign your postcard. After the exhibition ends I'll be looking into ways to sell these online. If you are desperate for a postcard though send me an email and I'll see what can be done.

The work has been really well received, one of the South Hill Park bar staff said to me the other day that she had never had as many comments and compliments about the work in that space than any previous exhibition.

Finally a note on Boundaries and Beyond, this is the ReOrsa Artists Project no. 6 and I will be exhibiting a new artwork. It's not painting but all my hints on Twitter and Facebook about photographs and stamps might give you an idea. It is a group exhibition in and around Gallery@49 in Bracknell town centre from 15th - 31st March. Opening night is oddly right in the middle of the run, 22nd March 5-8pm. More information here: ReOrsa

 

Sketchbook project 2012

For those of you that don't know, ArtHouse Co-Op in Brooklyn, New York has been doing a yearly sketchbook project, where for a relatively small fee (compared to the usual entry fee for UK exhibitions) they send you a A5ish sized sketchbook which you can alter almost anyway you like, a project title and will then exhibit the sketchbook around the USA and store it in the Brooklyn Art Library forever for people to look at.

For 2012 the project is also getting toured overseas, so my sketchbook should be available to view not only throughout the USA but back here in Blighty as well.

Pages 6 and 7

There were a selection of topics to choose from, with my love of postcards and subverting the traditional postcard image I chose “It's Summer Where You Are”. I intentionally wanted it to be quite free flowing like a sketchbook should be, also like a journey and work with images and postcards that were from places I had travelled. I was tempted to use postcards I owned to present some kind of story from a fictional person on a journey but felt that it seemed a little forced for the idea of the sketchbook. It is after all meant to be an exploration of ideas as well as a body of work. There needs to be some experimentation. Additionally I'd tried previously to produce my painted postcards with reverses, this seemed like a good idea but in the end it just served to make my point about these paintings being postcards too bull headed. Of course there is always a exception to the rule as Greetings from the Mantelpiece showed.

Pages 8 and 9

In the end I dumped the writing idea completely leaving just a few examples on pages that were meant to be more about unformed ideas than actual semi finished work. Which in the end was just some musings on all the various ice cream trucks I had encountered on my travels over the last 5 years. The rest became a mix of small scale biro drawings, a few unusual or interesting photographs and printed on postcards.

Roughly the sketchbooks journey started with an exploration of places around the coast. I'd been to Southwold very recently on a summer holiday and as one that reminisced heavily from my childhood holidays with my parents it seemed an obvious place to start and spend some time/pages on. Moving on, the sketchbook visits Portsmouth (including Portchester), Cowes and from the boats of Cowes to the boats of Venice then through other foreign places including India and Tenerife. Returning back to London and following a route west towards my home, through Kew Gardens, Windsor and Virginia Water.

Pages 16 and 17

The inside back cover and front cover are the same image done using two different methods that both had heavy use in the sketchbook. This image of Brooklyn Bridge was taken by me when I visited New York in 2005 and is one of my favourite images from the trip. I wanted to include it as a homage to the sketchbooks final resting location and organisation that created the project. The original idea for the book was to have the book reflect the actual physical journey it would go on but I felt uncomfortable trying to reproduce images of places I had never been. Nor at that time did I know if I had postcards from each of these places. I still am unsure but thats a story for another day.

Pages 18 and 19

Many of the methods used you will recognise. The biro drawings I have been doing for a few years now. I was interested however if I could do them that small and in trying to push myself technically.

The photographs were chosen because of an inherent oddness or importance to the visit I made. For example on page 9 I have a photograph of a sunny Southwold with an obvious and somewhat ominous rainstorm on its way (No photoshop by me, this was real and I got very wet that day). On page 16 there is photograph of a pair of entertainers in Cowes week, dressed as sailors they arrived and created an utterly surreal air about the place. It was fantastic and really set the tone for the rest of the day.

Pages 20 and 21

The printed on postcards embraced a number of methods depending if I already had produced a plate for another purpose of that place. There is a postcard of Southwold beach huts that has on the reverse a print from my Southwold Beach Huts etching. There is a postcard from Tenerife that I have printed on using a solar plate of Tenerife and there are a number of postcards that I have used the polymer plate lithographic process on including Venice and the front cover showing Brooklyn Bridge.

The method of printing was fairly immaterial, polymer plate won out with the newest plates only because it was cheap, quick and very graphic. Mainly I was interested in the idea of printing imagery on the reverse rather than words. It seems subversive and can produce some aesthetically interesting combinations. While imagery, it still retains this contrast from the highly detailed photograph.

The tour starts in April in New York. http://www.arthousecoop.com/projects/sketchbookproject2012

Images are my actual sketchbook.

Pages 24 and 25

Into the East

Plans are afoot!

At some point last year I found out that Flatford Mill where Constable famously painted his Haywain was mostly unchanged since Constable's time. As an artist that cites Constable and the Romantics as influences in my work (the very notion of the idyllic landscape influencing tourist memorabilia, including postcards) I was intrigued by this. The idea that this kind of place remaining unchanged seemed not only wonderful in modern Britain, that to my mind is losing much of it's heritage but also fitting to the romantics idea of celebrating the English landscape.

I decided that I wanted to recreate the Haywain and produce the same view in my own style. How exactly this will look remains to be seen but I did decide to go visit Flatford mill and see for myself.

This led to wondering how many more of the scenes in Constable's paintings have remained basically recognisable to this day. I found an amazing little map on the internet based on ordnance survey that shows not only the area of Dedham Vale with close ups of the key locations but also recommended walks to explore Constable country but also the location of where Constable stood to paint his pictures.

At the same time there are plans afoot to go to the Cambridgeshire fens region. What the reason for picking that region is I will reveal later when things are more fixed. I am however compiling a list of tourist hotspots that I should visit.

Since both areas are relatively close to each other I decided to split a week in both locations. On the 15^th July I will be off to Ely and staying a few days in a B & B there, taking visits to the surrounding countryside and towns. Doing my usual thing of exploration, buying postcards and getting tourist imagery and photographing anything and everything. I will then be off to Constable country staying in a Travellodge for a couple of days and exploring Constable Country using my exciting new map.

Sound

So a little more about my sound art foray.

Before I start, I need to name the project. Please feel free to leave comments or tweet me with your ideas ( @noblueskies ). Currently running around my mind is some variation of Welcome to.... or Greetings from.... but all ideas are welcome. The individual tapes have names but they are pretty uninspiring and intentionally so, no need for the entire project to be like that.

So some background on what I learnt when creating the “Picture” side.
(If you've not read my previous post about this you may need to http://noblueskies.blogspot.com/2010/12/secrets.html)

I found that I was both extremely aware of every sound it was picking up and yet feeling very exposed and impotent. Not wanting to get any trace of myself on the recording meant I could say nothing, nor move and not be too near to the recording device just in case I made an inadvertent noise. I'm still not sure why I didn't want to get any of me on the tape, mostly I think it is for purely personal reasons as I can't stand to hear myself. But after listening to my first recording I realise that apparently this extends as far as occasional noises, not just speech. 

When I got to Virginia Water that first day I found it was very busy so I placed myself a little off the beaten track with my recorder on a stump and me on a nearby log. I wanted to avoid having anyone too near me, in case they tried to talk to me and I wanted to record the wide variety of noises not just people chatting. Unfortunately I seemed to become a little bit of an attraction for kids and dogs as I sat there watching the world go by. I got so irrationally pissed off that there was all this really loud close noise, but really it was exactly what I wanted and I was just responding to a loss of control that I hadn't foreseen.

However I then got caught up with this family that after messing about right near me, with their children almost crawling over me to stay on the logs (being unable to say anything as the tape was on). Then one of the adults starting shouting about the boy and that he was going to pee his pants, over and over. There's freaking out about loss of control and there's 10 mins of irrelevant and in my mind (rightly or wrongly) crude and overpowering conversation. At this point I stopped the tape and attempted to start from the beginning again, I'd been going for all of 15 mins.

However I decided that I would try to record while I walked around (not realising quite how much I would cringe listening to it back, hearing myself). I rationalised that as it was autumn hearing someone walk through the leaves would be appropriate. It probably was but not for this. Listening to it back I realised that while appropriate to the season it wasn't appropriate to a “picture” side of a postcard.

The picture is taken in one place, as such the recording should be a stretch of time in the same place, not moving through a number of pictures. So I resolved to return another day, relocate myself and record for the entire time, no matter what happened. In the end I picked a well known view (well worth a postcard) at Virginia Water Lake. There are still some things to work out but it was a lot better.

Pictures in this post were all taken that day. Though none are of where the recording took place I still felt that 1 it was a really nice day photo wise and I should show off and 2. you all deserve some visual relief when reading my writing. 

 

If you like my photography you might want to follow me on Flickr if you have an account.

http://www.flickr.com/noblueskies

Secrets

I think I have been really blessed, since leaving University I haven't experienced any long term artists blocks. I know that for many of my peers they find they find times of utter inability to produce new work. I've not really encountered that as yet. Maybe it is because the obsession with postcards is only becoming more pronounced just when I thought it would fizzle out. From just producing my paintings and the occasional drawing I have found myself producing more and more drawings recently, devising installations and finding ideas for secret projects that are potentially all  postcard related.

As many of you might have noticed on Twitter or Facebook I have been talking about secret plans again. This time last year when I was talking about secrets it was the elephant I was creating, this year I have currently 4 secret projects. I actually had to write them all down so I could remember them all!

However unlike the elephant none of my secret projects this year are dependant on an outside company so, if I wanted I could just reveal all. However for many of them they are in early stages.

But I promised to reveal one this week on Twitter, and I stick by my promises. So here's a few hints about them, in reverse order:

Secret project 4 is printmaking based. Currently nothing really at a finished state. Still many in the way of assumptions about materials and processes to get what I want. So not a lot to show but if things continue to go well there will be something to talk about in a few weeks.

Secret project 3 is photo based and very undefined. What it's relationship is to postcards is unclear right now. It probably won't get looked at further till some of the others are established or finished. Also since I currently have a photo project on the go this may be a long time secret.

Secret project 2 is a collaborative piece and online. It will only get going if I actually get on with some work for it a quit being a freeloader.

Today however it is Secret Project 1 that I will reveal.

I wanted to spend a bit more time on this project before I revealed what it was all about, however I think that I will not be able to do any more work on it until the spring/summer so I will talk about it now.

Secret Project 1 is a foray into the world of sound art. This is an area I know very little about, but it is also a project that has been planned for about a year and thought about probably for longer. It is also a project that will not easily be described here on the blog as it is very lo-tech and intentionally not image based. Some of you may have heard me talk about it previously but it's been a while and I now have a better understanding of what it is and why I am doing it.

Most simply it can be described as sound based postcards on cassette tapes. It came about one day while I was thinking about the Internet and the digital revolution, realising that like many things cassette tapes were going the way of the dinosaur and that saddened me. I can of course see the need for things to progress (as many of you may know I embrace and love new technology) but the first music I ever bought was on cassette and I continued to buy cassette tapes well into the 90's when CD's were at their height. I am also a fan of owning a hard copy of things. While technology like MP3 and the Kindle are great, there is no substitute for owning an actual CD, DVD or book. There is just something psychologically right about being able to touch your possessions rather than see them in a digital and disembodied form on your computer.

The digital conversion of letters and postcards is also progressing. Letters certainly are being replaced more and more with email. Even postcards have their e-counterpart. With social networking these days you need only update your twitter and facebook statuses with an image taken then and there on your iPhone and uploaded with a message. It's quite a bit easier and faster than buying a card and stamp for all your friends and family and writing a message 100 times. I hope this doesn't kill the postcard, it seems so impersonal compared to the postcard (which is if you think about it a fairly impersonal or at least open way of communication anyway) and as I said it's really nice to own a physical thing.

Finally the physical similarities between postcards and cassette tapes were not lost on me. In fact this was probably one of the prime reasons I started thinking about tapes as a medium. Both have two sides, and while postcards have a clearly defined picture and reverse there was no reason that the definition couldn't be enforced by me on the tapes.

It was really hard to find blank cassette tapes! But the other month at the tail end of the autumn after 6 months or so of aborted attempts I finally made it out and recorded the “picture” side of the postcassette. Then I had to go back the next week to rerecord. (The whole recording really requires its own blog post, to explore the event and give more depth to the project so that will have to wait for another day). While out I made notes about what the message side should read and then later when I got home recorded the message side using an open source text to speech editor. I did not want my voice on the recording and wanted something with as mechanical a sound as I could. I am still interested in subverting postcards you know! What better way than keeping the two sided quality but removing the easy visual clues and personal nature. Now if people want to imagine being at this place they have to use the text, speech and sounds and try to guess what that place looks like.

Unfortunately it does also mean that this an image light entry. Just the one below of the first cassette in, I hope, many.

Portsmouth 9th May 2009

NB (9th August 2009) Impressive fail with the blogging recently. Not because I haven't been writing but in fact because the idea of trying to condense and rewrite my verbose ramblings has left me cold.

It's been quite some time since I went to Portsmouth. Initially I wasn't going to blog as it wasn't an intended trip. However I realised after reviewing the photos that I had been on occasion in that special frame of mind that is perpetual when on an premeditated trip. Seems it has become quite natural to drop in and out of this frame of mind when seeing potential for photos, so much so that apparently I don't notice I have done so.

So a quick bit of background. I went to Portsmouth with my parents to see my sister and celebrate my fathers birthday. After a little time there we went down to the waterfront to go to a pub they all like and have a bit of a walk. Now the last time I was in Portsmouth was a year previously or there about for my sisters graduation ceremony. While they were in the ceremony (which I wasn't able to attend due to space restrictions) I had the opportunity to explore Portsmouth and I walked a bloody long way around most of central Portsmouth However there was one bit of beach I wasn't able to access, although I did walk along the sea wall above it. This time the beach was open to all and we took a walk along the beach and up along the sea wall.

While on the beach I got some photographs of things I rarely have the opportunity to see including large ferries coming in to port and a gunship of some description. Remembering the ocean liner paintings of Malcolm Morley I found this all very inspirational. The other aspect to this trip was the addition of a ready source of people which I could utilise. Granted I would rather get people in natural poses but I did have the ability to use the already natural antics of my family and use them to my own advantage with the common cry of “stay there please”. I say common cry because often enough I need not say it, for my father has already done so. Usually I actively dissuade my friends and family from joining me as I know how frustrating it can be for both parties. But hey I'll take what I can get, it's just a matter of priorities something I may touch on in future blogs.

I also got a good photo of a ice cream van.

19th March 2009

Strange how spring and sunshine makes places look and feel different. Got the impression today on the train that these spaces I saw from the window were great arid bright and very flat. Something I seem to have missed through the winter months. I know this journey, it is one I have taken many a time. It has before seem so close and enclosed, homely and at times a little stifling.

Is this because spring seems to have so suddenly and so strongly arrived or is it some psychological after effect of going on location twice in a week and falling into that associated mindset. Will, after this period of almost summer weather makes way for more usual spring weather, it remain?

No postcards here nor any photos, I know this feeling is not one that can be captured through photography, certainly not from a train. Maybe I should have tried however.

Windsor - 15th March 2009

It's a funny thing but more often than not I haven't investigated places in my local area, instead going to places like London. Now while London is, as I have said before, a very important urban centre especially with regards to my work. I kinda feel however like I might have been missing a trick in not doing these places close by. I think the reason for this is because they are close by, I feel like I know them or at least think that I do. What I have realised is that actually I really have no clue and on top of this there is a particular mind set I feel I have to go through or get into, if that makes any sense.

So what is so special about Windsor? Well to answer that I shall quote a friend on msn I talked to the morning after the trip. Unfortunately I cannot quote it verbatim as I shut the window (I have the setting to save the conversation switched off, saving space ftw).
“Can't say I know much about Windsor other than:

1. The Castle

2. Legoland
3. Legoland has a scale model of the castle at point 1”

Apparently point 3 was made up, and after Internet based searching I can neither prove nor disprove it (would anyone like to pay for me to visit Legoland to find out :P).

What I am groping for here is the point that Windsor is very much based around the castle. 90% of the postcards I have found depicting Windsor are of the castle, however this is understandable for just how a dominant and important structure it is. (It is important to note as fully half of the postcards in Windsor do not actually depict the castle but instead are images of the royal family)

Wikipedia says:

Windsor Castle, in Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, is the largest inhabited castle in the world and, dating back to the time of William the Conqueror, is the oldest in continuous occupation

In fact I found the full wiki article very engaging and interesting and encourage you all to read it as I will be doing once I finish this first draft.

The castle was based of a motte and bailey type structure and has expanded over the years. Due to this and possibly a natural hill as well (It certainly seemed that way while in town but I couldn't find anything to quote and prove it so) the Castle overlooks the town of Windsor. In fact it is so dominant that I found it a hard task to not inadvertently photograph it. Add in that it is the favoured weekend retreat of Her Majesty and you have a tourist paradise.

However I don't think this dominance is a bad thing. It is a good looking building and around it has grown the town, so happily there are plenty of older buildings. Now I pride myself on being able to find interest and beauty in any place I visit but it is made much easier in places with a little history behind them. Maybe the buildings just have that little bit of individualism that sets them out from each other, maybe I just find them more aesthetically pleasing than masses of glass, steel and concrete. Possibly it is nothing more than while trying to act as a tourist to these places I get wrapped up in the atmosphere and advertising of these older places and my notions of holidays in Britain. Anyway I really struggle when faced with ,what I see as faceless, shopping malls and city centres and frequently find myself attracted to churches and occasionally pubs.

Actually I think that the major thing for me is that I want myself and by extension the people who look at my images to be able to say of yes that is London or wherever, without me having to put text on the image to that effect even though I generally will anyway. I realise that this is a little irrational and that I have many an examples of a postcard that is of some cottage in a tiny little village somewhere which would have made no sense to me if it wasn't for the text.

Anyway Windsor is in that regard a joy to photograph and of the almost 300 photographs I took I am sure that I will find many many potential paintings, drawings and images from them. And every one will stand a good chance of having the castle in them.

Seriously, go down to the river and turn around, there is the Castle.
Walk to Eton, the Castle peeks over the rooftops.
Wander the depths of the Great Park and there is the Castle on the horizon.

In fact I actually started my day in the Great Park and the further away I walked from town the more of the Castle I could see, mainly becuase I was going up a hill in the park. It reminded me of the time years and years ago (I think almost 20 but I can't be sure) when visiting Windsor with my father we parked in a nondescript multistory car park at what felt like miles from the castle. Even so we were able to see and photograph the castle with even my rubbishy compact camera which I found very exciting. Which proves that some things never really change. Unfortunately the photograph I took I seem to have since lost.

I did however find this unrelated and previously forgotten about photograph. It was taken about the same time as the Windsor ones on my first visit to Alton Towers.

I took it because (and I remember this very clearly unlike the rest of the trip) I liked the way the crazy dark sky looked so strange in contrast to the bright shiny sunlit Windmill.

Well wouldn't you know.

Thoughts on Blogging

You know there is a whole world of difference between thinking about writing something and actually sitting down to do it. I do not feel entirely comfortable writing (it is something I haven't really practised in the few years since finishing University) and I am aware that my turn of phrase can be fairly unique, maybe even over convoluted and needlessly verbose. I am also aware that I tend to ramble and that my use of punctuation less than perfect. Never the less I will endeavour and hope you all don't get too confused.

While walking around Windsor I started thinking about the nature of Blogs (and by extension Facebook and Twitter). From this came thoughts about writing as part of my practice. (Actually now as I write this I am not sure which came first. Each seems to feed the other). That the events and feelings I get when I visit a place to photograph would add interest to the images and paintings I finally create, a little insight into the creative process if you will. I also feel that this will extend, even if only slight, into times when I travel for other reasons as any kind of travel sparks this very individual and unique thought process in me.

However before I could get to deeper thoughts on my work or of Windsor this string of thought led, while wandering across a bridge of all places, to a discourse on my stance on these online diary entries. This is something I have thought about many a time but never felt the need to write about. And you know I'm not going to write about it now. I did write a long entry about how I see other peoples blogs but I fear that I am generalising and so these thoughts will remain unfinished. Maybe one day, but maybe that is a thought for a different kind of blog, one not devoted to my practice. I would say one that assails you all with my opinions but how would that differ from this one. ;)

As I said I plan to Blog about very specific events. I have always sucked at keeping any kind of diary or journal so I will write about times where I have gone to a place, travelled etc. (no, they are not the same thing) and not about everything else in my life. These are big events that I will be returning to many times over a period of days and weeks as I sift through and play with the imagery. Hopefully these events will work like an ongoing project diary. Don't expect it to be updated often. Weeks and or even months may pass in between events and then, in a gloriously sunny week like the previous few I might be going all over the country and bombard you with multiple entries. That being said if it takes me this long to write and refine the entries....

In fact I find it very hard to articulate these thoughts in writing. While in Windsor, when I was thinking about these things, I knew the shape and form of what I wanted to say and although it remains like an itch I cannot scratch while I write this and try to write the next entry about Windsor it just refuses to come out.

I worry now that all my thoughts about Windsor have become lost and fuzzy so I shall go now and battle with Windsor.