Concealed, Discovered, Revealed

I thought this might be a good point to share a few hands on images.

In the making of Calculus hundreds and thousands of decisions were wrestled and questioned in researching, collecting, sorting, selecting, organising, ordering, laying out, composing… The process is by its nature, a meditative and slow affair.

I found myself considering how each tiny found fragment of rock laid out in each single row, echoed the minute subtle nuances and individualities embedded in all the rows of all the fragments of woven cloth I’d encountered in the V&A stores. Each unique mark and decision of infinitesimal difference subscribing to the language of the whole.

Many thanks to all who assisted at every stage and to John Coombes for the following fab photographs taken in the studio…..

I have had a postcard printed of the piece. It will be for sale from the Taking Time tour venues.

Taking Time has moved on to its second venue at IC at the Dovecot, Edinburgh. Last Friday I travelled north for the opening. The solid mass, almost oversized, stone architecture and assertive sense of place as the train pulls into Edinburgh Waverley never fails to send a ripple of excitement. It was good to meet Amanda Game and the team at IC and to catch up with old friends. Thanks to all for looking after us so well.

And it’s always fascinating to see how the look and feel of an exhibition shifts and changes when hung with different eyes and in a new environment. In this gallery it looks excellent with many strong visual connections between the pieces, drawing you in to discover more…

Work by Ken Eastman & Dawn Youll on table, two pieces by Matthew Harris hanging freely and on the wall, Heidrun Schimmel’s hand stitched panels beyond and Calculus at the back.

Holding a stillness on the wall, a serene panel of carved letters in slate by Gary Breeze, in front, David Gates’ sculptural furniture pieces stand like a herd of poised gazelles with attitude. There are nineteen artists taking part in the exhibition, exploring a wide range of ideas connected to ideologies of the Slow movement.

Judith van den Boom & Gunter Wehmeyer – Gary Breeze – Neil Brownsword – Sonya Clark – Rebecca Earley – Ken Eastman & Dawn Youll – David Gates – Matthew Harris – Amy Houghton – Esther Knobel – Sue Lawty – Heidrun Schimmel – Paul Scott & Ann Linnemann – Elizabeth Turrell – Shane Waltener & Cheryl McChesney Jones.

Emma Crichton-Miller has written a review in the latest edition of Crafts magazine. You can read it online here. In her words: ‘ …(the exhibition) is by turns moving, impressive, gorgeous, curious, elusive and enchanting – and never less than though provoking. It complicates and enlivens the debate; indeed, at times it simply silences it, with beauty’.

More on Helen Carnac’s Making a Slow Revolution blog.

Had to get out.

Run. Unfit. Hard. Slow. Up.

Black ice.
Imagine the dance.
Clumsy skitter.

Low bright white light.

Muscles struggle.
Feet pound.
Heart beat.
Harsh breath.
Icy long fingered
Rasping cold deep inside

Rhythm.
Repetition.
High.
Vista.
Wide. White. Clean. Sharp.

Crystals. Crystal clear thoughts.

That was today.

These, a few days ago.

Cumbria, looking west.

Sun. Snow. Clear. White. Cold. Still. Love it.

Happy New Year one and all.

The first thing I did on discovering Google Earth (a few years ago) was to steer to the snaking, ridged vast expanses of a big hot arid desert – probably it was the Sahara.

The second thing I did was to soar over Antarctica. Wild.. remote.. harsh.. spare.. fascinating.. enthralling.. thrilling… ?

It was disappointing. Not the crevasse crazed crisp ice glacial terrain I’d hoped for - mostly a white fuzziness.

So, with isolation still in tact, it’s all the more exciting to see the continent’s first marker on the World Beach map.

Now we can witness but a transitory moment in time - the stark bright light and cold sea ice - through the eyes of someone actually standing on that land.

We contacted Susan, who made the piece and works in the US Antarctic Program, to find out a little more.

‘… Hut Point, a small peninsula that sticks out between the Ross Sea and Winter Quarters Bay. The station has been socked in with sea ice for about 10 years now… many folks are thinking that the ice will blow out this year, and potentially there will be open water in front of the station.’

‘Ross Island is a volcanic island, created by Mount Erebus, the southernmost active volcano in the world… I looked for more different shades of rock… my choices were pretty much black (with a little grey) and these orange rocks…’

Hut Point was so named by Scott’s Discovery expedition. They were the first to overwinter at McMurdo Sound and their hut still stands close by. The cross silhouetted against the sky was erected by them in1902 to commemorate George T Vince, the first man to lose his life on the continent.

Susan is a poet and has been writing about Antarctica since her first trip 10 years ago, She says… ’Somehow this landscape is very much a mirror to look inward, but at the same time, a place that forces me to see myself through a different lens.’ Read one of her poems: What Happens Here.

… Oh! And back on the World Beach site, we’ve just clipped 800 entries. Great.

It has been totally fascinating to witness senior textile conservator, Elizabeth-Anne Haldane’s meticulous conservation of this beautiful piece over the last year or so. In this short film she describes some of the processes involved. The images below give a little more detail.

In recent history, small remedial patches (some taken from the original tunic) had been stitched to the inside of the garment to cover holes in the cloth to ‘improve’ it’s appearance. All these, and any other wrongly pieced sections, were methodically unpicked by Elizabeth-Anne to allow the true condition of the garment to be seen. The numbered fragments were then carefully laid flat on acid free tissue paper, Rigorous detective work enabled the pieces to be replaced back into their correct original positions within the whole structure of the garment.

This Egyptian tunic was originally used to wrap a corpse in burial, the brown stains are the result of human decay.

Although the garment is recognised as being in remarkably good condition considering it’s age and use, much of the fabric is extremely fragile. It needed to be structurally supported before it could go onto public display. An extremely fine synthetic gauze, specifically dyed to match different parts of the garment, was laid above and below the weak sections. Where the two layers of gauze cross a worn hole (right) they are invisibly stitched together, so stabilising the area.

The tunic is dated to around the 8th century. During this period the tapestry sections which decorate the garment were woven separately and then stitched in place onto the base fabric. I want to know… did the same person weave the tapestry sections as the plain weave base cloth?

The fine supporting conservation gauze is attached to about half the area seen in the left hand image. Even though I was standing right over the piece, I could barely see which sections were covered and which not, they had to be pointed out. A close detail makes visible the fine gauze which is attached to the most delicate parts. Worn sections of weave and broken warp threads, leave the weft extremely vulnerable. Each thread is invisibly couched down to prevent further unravelling.

And here , three smiley faces…

The Egyptian weaver would have thought and walked every single inch of thread through their fingers when making this fine textile.

Well over a thousand years later, on this side of the world, the textile conservator is the only other person who can ever really know these fibres in such close detail. It is, a very intimate knowledge.

The opening to the public of the new Medieval and Renaissance Galleries is imminent! A suite of ten galleries will house a sumptuous array of nearly two thousand objects including this stunning Egyptian Tunic (detail above) in Gallery 8: Faiths and Empires 300-1250.

I have been invited to run a short tapestry course drawing inspiration from this piece and the other fabulous tapestries that are to be exhibited in the galleries. These include the fifteenth century Bear and the Boar Hunt tapestry, which you may remember, was extracted from the set of the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries hanging in room 94 at the V&A?

Also on display will be the recently conserved tapestry, The War of Troy. We are delighted that senior textile conservator, Frances Hartog, has offered to give an informal talk to course participants about the methods, techniques and materials used during the period as she describes the conservation of this medieval tapestry. To whet your appetite, this fascinating short film introduces the tapestry and the cleaning process.

I should emphasize that the aim of the course is not to reproduce likenesses of these ancient tapestries! It is to be inspired and informed by them, to use them as a catalyst for individual creative understanding. Over the three days, each participant will design and weave their own small tapestry.

Woven Tapestry: Medieval Inspiration
Wednesday 24 - Friday 26 February 2010
Art Studio, Sackler Centre
10.30-16.30

Suitable for both beginners and experienced
£180, no concessions (includes materials)

Bookings can be made from December 1st 2009

V&A booking line on 0207 942 2211.

A selection of drawings and designs from the weekend workshop at Birmingham Art Gallery… done by all ages - mostly at the younger end of the spectrum; from age 2 (!) to adult.

I’ll be in Birmingham this weekend running a drop in workshop for families as part of the Taking Time programme of events (see post below).

Each living thing has specific individual characteristics and qualities of form, colour and texture. Here, ash stalks.

We will be working with these and other natural found marks from fields, woods and heath to explore rhythm and pattern.

Everyone’s individual design will be photographed and printed before being dismantled - a free and non-precious attitude to drawing and design work. A gallery of ideas will gradually build up over the weekend. I hope to bring you some images.

The Waterhall Seminar Room, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery

Saturday 14 November from 11am
Sunday 15 November from 1pm

Calculus
2009
2 x 3 m
natural stone on gesso

(photo credit: John Coombes)

Calculus

“…To see a World in a Grain of Sand…” William Blake

I wanted to take something tiny & insignificant; very small stones unnoticed underfoot on a beach, out of context… and through repetition and scale of work, subject the viewer to be made small in their presence.

Each tiny insignificant speck of stone bears witness to the vastness of geological time. Time so immense it renders us, humankind, as the real speck; ourselves an insignificant blip in the earth’s history.

The original rock would have been formed and then subsequently broken down and eroded over millions of years. Each resultant gravelly mark of stone has been rumbled and rolled, tossed and turned, pounded and shoved relentlessly in and out on tides twice a day, every day for years… until now… halted on the verge of becoming sand.

Calculus:

- the study of change in the same way that geometry is the study of shape and algebra is the study of equations

- a branch of mathematics originally based on the summation of infinitesimal differences.

- a particular method / system / logic of calculation or reasoning

- Latin for small stone

* * * * * *

Since working on the Order installation at the V&A a few years ago, I have been harbouring ideas to make more large stone drawings and have finally had the opportunity to do it.

Calculus is a 2 x 3 m work using tiny stones (some not much bigger than sand). I have been developing and making the piece over the last five months for the exhibition Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution.

The exhibition, curated by artist Helen Carnac brings together nineteen international artists, makers and designers whose creative practice explores and connects to the philosophies of the slow movement. Helen is running a blog and website: Making a Slow Revolution

The exhibition is currently at the Waterhall, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery until 4th January, after which a UK tour is planned to June 2011.

The words above are from the catalogue and outline the thinking behind the work.

The artists of Northeast Arnhem Land are famous for the quality of their fine bark paintings. In my search to find images on the Yirrkala.com website I kept being drawn to the hauntingly beautiful work of Gulumbu Yunupingu.

Her painting is actually atypical in that the compositions lack any figurative element and I think it is perhaps in this abstract quality, where the mind is untethered, where the resonance lies for me. Subtle shifting undulations encourage the eye to wander silently over the whole surface, evoking feelings of memory… of an otherness.

In all the articles and statements I have read about Gulumbu Yunupingu, she always talks of her father’s influence on her thinking and vision; of how he used to sing to her just after dusk as they looked up at the night sky together, and how he used to lead her young mind through the constellations and ancestral stories.

I learn that in the construction of her paintings Gulumbu Yunupingu continues to think about these profound spiritual connections “… the universe, all around, about every tribe, every colour. In every corner of the world people can look up and see the stars…” and how the stars are a link to all people everywhere.

I imagine to experience these exquisite works fist hand would be a deep, contemplative experience. And in thinking about them I am again becoming lost in notions of time, scale, distance, our place in the world; of things being the same and all being different…

Ganyu is the Yolngu word for stars.

The works left to right are:
1. Garak (the universe) 2008, natural ochres on bark, 223 x 67 cm
2. Ganyu (stars) 2009, natural ochres on bark, 112.5 x 67 cm
3. Ganyu (stars) 2009, natural ochres on bark, 96 x 53 cm

The Alcaston Gallery in Victoria (from where these images came) specializes in Contemporary Aboriginal Art. They have shown Gulumbu Yunupingu’s work on a number of occasions and very recently hosted a highly successful major solo exhibition. The gallery holds a stock of paintings on both bark and larrakiti (memorial poles).

www.alcastongallery.com.au