A winter visit to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2020

 

Colour notes | paper relief prints| Christopher Le Brun PPRA

Be grateful for small things.
That is my new motto. As more and more is taken away from us due to Covid-19, it is the little things that matter.

My other half (OH) and I have been holed up together for a very long time, and a chance to make a trip to London to see the Summer exhibition at the Royal Academy was a rare treat.

Our tickets had been previously cancelled due to lockdown, so this trip was all the more anticipated by our culture starved selves.

So on a rainy December Monday we crept up to London on the quiet mid day train, walked the empty streets of Picadilly, and made our way around the exhibition in our masks.


The first work that caught my eye was a collage.

Untitled | collage with paper pins | Frida Orupabo

Frida Orupabo is a Nigerian-Norwegian; one of several invited black artists on show.
I had to do some research to fully understand what Frida was trying to convey. According to her website;
'Frida Orupabo is a sociologist and artist living and working in Oslo, Norway. Her work consists of digital and physical collages in various forms, which explore questions related to race, family relations, gender, sexuality, violence and identity.'

Heavy stuff for starters. Race and politics. I had been attracted to it as I was thinking about collage, and how so much can be said with a few pieces of paper reaaranged on a page.

OH had already disappeared off to view the galleries at his own pace. Conscious that 'lunchtime' was the most important item on his agenda I resolved to move at a reasonable pace, and stop only at those works that really caught my eye.

Socially distanced viewing at the Royal Academy Summer exhibition 2020

It was a treat to have so much room to view.  The galleries never felt crowded, and I felt completely safe.

The fact that the following day we were thrown into Tier 4 made me realise how lucky we were to have made the trip.

Legs | photographs | Hans Peter Feldmann

Legs caught my eye next. No frame; just some photos stuck to the wall.

As a conceptual artist Hans-Peter sells similar works for $20,000, so he is doing something right. Further research about him led me to another work of his that confirmed a dry sense of humour; something I cannot resist...

Hans -Peter Feldmann | Pictures of car radios taken while good music was playing | 2004

 

In 2010 he won  the Guggenheim Hugo Boss art prize. He celebrated by pinning the £100,000 prize onto the gallery walls as 100,000 $1 notes, raising questions about the value of art.

It was good to see paintings by Fred Cuming from the Rye area and Camber Sands.
His work is immediately identifiable to me after getting to know it in local Rye galleries. He  visited my studio on an open studio visit a few years ago, and is a truly charming gentleman who has a way with clouds.....

Paintings by Fred Cuming RA

I particularly enjoyed his painting of a February peasmarsh landscape, with its low wintry light.

February landscape, Peasmarsh | Fred Cuming RA

I also fell in love with a series of works by Cornelia Parker RA. These were a series of polymer gravure etchings based on the shadows of simple objects such as flowers and household objects, captured on light senstive paper.

Jug full of shadows | Cornelia parker RA | 2020

OH had 'done' the show in the blink of any eye.

His favourite was a work ' where you can see what it is.....'

I have no problem with that. It seems a lot of other visitors felt the same way,

Fuen Seow Cheen | LOST WONDERS OF THE SEA | Etching

There were a lot of dogs and portraits.

My favourite portraits were pencil drawings of cardboard faces by Russell Herron.

I had to get really close to see that thses were drawings and not cardboard collages. Sadly all sold.

Cardboard portrait 12 | Russell Herron

Cardboard portrait 11 | Russell Herron

I was also taken with a dog portrait by Ilona Arndt. He had so much more character than the standard labrador poses.

Hund NR 2 | Ilona Arndt

But lunch was beckoning.... there was too much to take in, as always.

Too much to take in at the RA Summer Exhibition

Different galleries had very different characters.

I enjoyed this quiet monochrome corner.

But if I had been allowed to take one work home it would have been a newspaper boat made of stone.

A playful sculpture.

A reminder of childhood days spent by the sea. Dreams of adventure.

I forgot to record who made it, so apologies for that.

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Looking at the Curator's selection I realise that there is so much work that I didn't even look at.

It is an overwhelming exhibition always.

But for one who had not looked at any new art for several months it was a welcome diversion, and a reminder that everyone has different taste.

Lunch was good!

lock down life.... part three.... playing at printmaking

We have survived more than 100 days.

OH ( my other half) and I. Together, like never before.

Day after day.

Meal after meal. Walk after walk. Episode after episode of Breaking Bad.

Waking when the birds wake us.

Sleeping when the day has been worked through, minute after minute, hour after hour.

We are still here. Still friends. 

Easing out of lockdown carefully.

OH itching to fly south to see sun and the Mediterranean. Cold beer and a pool.

Me itching to fly to Vancouver to see my children, but unwilling after all this time to spend two whole weeks in enforced isolation in a hotel room before being reunited. Not to mention travel insurance issues.

We have explored Kent.

Taken long walks in the countryside.

strawberry farm, kent

Seen apple and cherry orchards and soft fruit growing in huge greenhouses.

Who knew that strawberries no longer grow in the ground?

strawberrry farm

We found quiet corners away from the perambulating suburban crowds.

a quiet corner of Kent

And last week even found a pub selling real ale, to be consumed on a grassy field across the road.

Things are looking up.





So what has been achieved, artistically, in the last 4 weeks of lockdown?


Mostly very little, with a couple of forays into monoprint and chine colle.

 monoprinting in the garden

With the encouragement of Nick Archer's on-line art classes I tried making monoprints using oil paint, a roller, an acetate sheet and some A4 paper.


Paint is rolled onto acetate or glass, then marked by drawing in the paint, masking it with paper, or pressing on the reverse of the A4 paper once it is placed over the inky acetate sheet.

Messy, unpredictable and mostly fun.

I soon had a large number of inky prints around me , and nowhere sensible to dry them.

It started to rain. The wind was blowing them around the garden.

So they ended up on the floor of my home studio.

Filling it completely.

monoprints drying on the floor

These being oil paint, they take a good week to dry.

More time than I could tolerate really. I had wanted to chop them up immediately and make little books with them.



I ended up with just a couple that I really liked.

The one below I called 'pointless'.

Because that was how I was feeling.

'pointless' monoprint

I would like to make a series of 'pointless' prints.

That really appeals to me now that I have given up work and am locked down, doing nothing of great use.


The following week's lesson was monoprint with chine colle.

Chine colle is a form of collage where fine paper is bonded to a print during the pressure process. In traditional printing the pressure of the print creates a seamless transition. For the purpose of this class, and in the absence of a press, we were to use glue and hand pressure.


Here is an example of a print with red tissue chine colle

I wanted to add some sea creatures and fossils to my prints.

I sourced some public domain images from the Harvard University, Ernst Mayr library archives

I printed these on thin paper and cut out some shapes, along with some birds from my own archive.

monoprint with chine colle

Mostly the fossil shapes disappeared into the ink, as in the image above.

The birds were a bit more successful when their wings didn't tear off as I tried to apply the glue.


I need a lot more practice, and a real printing press (of course....).



So I tried simple landscapes. Masking areas of the paper with torn newspaper.

just a monoprint

Later I cheated by adding a bird digitally.

monoprint with bird

Next I tried two crows chosen from my photographs from India. Crows seem to be everywhere that I go.

I dropped them into a scene as if landing on rocks.

the landing | monoprint

I was happier with this one, so printed it onto Kozo paper, mounted it onto a board, and coated it with beeswax.

The wax coat is a risky process involving  melted wax and a hotplate in an upstairs bedroom. I was VERY careful.

melting beeswax for wax encaustic overlay

baking tray waxing station

The final product is now waiting for a frame.

the landing | a waxed print

Lastly I went a bit experimental in Photoshop with another print.

This time I layered it digitally and added some colour.

It is no longer a real monoprint.

But as I am now 'an artist', I have decided that I can create work in the way that works best for me.

And if others enjoy it, then I won't feel quite so 'pointless'.

And that will be a good thing.

the dive | a layered monoprint

branching out with bits of wood - in which I try willow weaving

sheep and turnips at West Dean, Chichester

'Twas an autumn day when I headed west to West Dean College near Chichester, for an 'art break'.

Having spent the past three months unable to decide where to go and what to do with a week off (even nearly retired people need time off from whatever they normally do....), I hastily booked a course in small scale willow sculpture.

On a whim, you might say.

The whim that I wrote in my diary was that I fancied making a 'nest for words'.......

- a bookish flight of fancy....

I had forgotten that by the time I departed on my travels, and instead carried with me some random bits from the hedgerow and some stone pebbles that look like birds eggs.

I think I fancied myself as a sculptor.

I arrived late afternoon and just had time for a stroll in the gardens before classes began.

a line made by sheep

It was beautiful in the late autumn sun.


Apples and pears clung to the trees in the walled garden.

english apples

A feast of colourful gourds sat quietly in the greenhouse.

west dean gourds

The house was shrouded in plastic and scaffold. A new roof is happening.

west dean college and scaffolding

The gardens are a delight.

west dean garden

But I was here to work.

Hard work for fingers and thumbs.

learning the basics

Lengths of willow to be bent, twisted and cajoled into baskets, balls, wild animals and anything else that took our fancy.

It was not easy.


I kept reminding myself that I was here to get ideas and learn new skills, not to create a masterpiece.

Our tutor was the incredibly patient and perceptive Mary Butcher MBE.

She gently taught us a number of basic basketry techniques; random weave, scalloming and how to make twine from rush stems.

First we had to make a sphere by random weaving.

Each piece of willow had to be wrapped around a hammer handle in its entirety to make it more flexible.

For the first hour or so my sphere was a total mess, exploding from its orbit at every opportunity.

random weave at the stage where giving up seems a good option...

But with Mary's encouragement to keep going I eventually achieved a stable sphere.

What to do with it? 

I have no idea......  

willow sphere using random weave

Everyone's sphere had different characteristics.

My favourite this tight ball containing twigs and conkers.

autumnal willow container

After that we were encouraged to work on our own project.

Not so easy.

I made a sculpture with willow and grasses. Then ruined it by trimming the willow strands.

Into the bin it went.


Time for a nest. This required an open sphere.

loose ends to unravel. frustration station.

Add caption

The pebbles waited patiently.

Eventually they were rewarded with a soft mossy bed to lie in.

a nest for eggs

Time was running out. Others had made baskets with extraordinary neatness and patience.

in the basketry studio

I dabbled with another sculpture, made some twine, wrapped some rosemary with it

and then tied two twigs together with my newly acquired whipping skills.

I have to say that this gave me more pleasure than all of my other creations.

Keep it simple....

my twigs

I am never going to be a basket weaver,  I but might find a way to wrap stones and twigs just because I can......

and I did enjoy making my own twine.....

some of our creations.

I will leave you with some of Mary's beautiful work.

She really is a very good tutor.

Her positivity and patience allowed each individual to work in their own way. Nothing was deemed too difficult.

I was very lucky to experience a class with her.

'Bark weaving' by Mary Butcher

'willow scribble' by Mary Butcher

'when the boat comes in' by Mary Butcher

And next I am going to make a boat......