tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21618761555934443552024-02-19T11:48:23.981+04:00Nature Strikes BackA blog about life in general and art in particularNature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.comBlogger181125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-80472942915579919712022-04-13T19:37:00.009+04:002022-04-13T22:41:55.205+04:00Unfinished Narrative - Zuzushii Arts Lab, Hastings<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I have often wandered past the Zuzushii Arts Lab on Hastings seafront and peered at the window displays, but it had never been
open when I was visiting. I am delighted to say that as of today I am no longer
a ‘Z’ virgin. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The gallery is the joint project of Fumico Azuma and Tim Can
and the current exhibition is called <i>Unfinished Narrative – An Exhibition of
Mixed Media Collage</i>. They set up the space about 3 years ago having ‘accidentally’
moved to Hastings from Berlin. This probably means that they have the Hastings
incomer category of AOFB (Accidentally Over From Berlin) all to themselves. Tim
is originally from London and Fumico from Tokyo, but they have lived in a lot
of different places over the years. Their story and all their creative work in art, music, film and photography can be discovered on the <a href="https://zuzushiiartlaboratory.com/about/" target="_blank">Zuzushii Arts Lab</a> website. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb-Y3YISPESga22N0eblsI6eEWCD1vnA7tLu-ivtbYjX4df8edhSbS6K9hWhZUZWRzl_Fl0GPoWC2Aa5a3gFubArsyVpn16yq84XHVCBxYoXGlnS-dcZKMoYohxZoEhjqyVaSTizp5IYdjwDmVZPR5t5W3JnDXclvdnqT05RCqh9s5S5rsuxfBuKrh3g/s824/unfinished.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="824" data-original-width="586" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb-Y3YISPESga22N0eblsI6eEWCD1vnA7tLu-ivtbYjX4df8edhSbS6K9hWhZUZWRzl_Fl0GPoWC2Aa5a3gFubArsyVpn16yq84XHVCBxYoXGlnS-dcZKMoYohxZoEhjqyVaSTizp5IYdjwDmVZPR5t5W3JnDXclvdnqT05RCqh9s5S5rsuxfBuKrh3g/s320/unfinished.jpg" width="228" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I always liked the <a href="https://zuzushiiartlaboratory.com/about/" target="_blank">Zuzushii Arts Lab</a> window displays. The seemingly random assortment of objects, incongruous
combinations of things and materials, plus the sometimes dark and almost creepy aesthetic, struck me as good, clean, almost 'anti-art' fun. So finally getting inside
what was never going to be an average gallery with dull, derivative and largely
predictable art was quite exciting. In fact it was a huge blast of things I like that
also reminded me of things I’d forgotten. So in homage to its very
welcome effect of blowing away the increasingly dusty cobwebs in my mind here are
some pics and a few more observations about 'Z'. We will start with 'Z' and the
unfortunate matter of recent history that now associates that letter with
Russian tanks. The Arts Lab have been 'Z' for a very long time
so Putin is the logo loser. As a response to these
events however, the Lab produced ‘Z’ badges in the colours
of the Ukrainian flag.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEtj-Y-7WnXlUkPDOzWMAZJ0-5KXiS148-1-XzsY8ucCUDEg_k80r27qIE2rS72qVXWZAASDFbL5j4zQoAPz1lvmXaAk2Ao4PkoQ1pLx0LmTTA4lMf_qXdaIvyMCK4-rN5X3KBAxQ2KtYjJtio-HEESY55NhSbXnjXU4PxBNrSyx2z08iUVaPqFekR9A/s598/Z1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><img border="0" data-original-height="376" data-original-width="598" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEtj-Y-7WnXlUkPDOzWMAZJ0-5KXiS148-1-XzsY8ucCUDEg_k80r27qIE2rS72qVXWZAASDFbL5j4zQoAPz1lvmXaAk2Ao4PkoQ1pLx0LmTTA4lMf_qXdaIvyMCK4-rN5X3KBAxQ2KtYjJtio-HEESY55NhSbXnjXU4PxBNrSyx2z08iUVaPqFekR9A/s320/Z1.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">This response is very much in keeping with the political thread
that runs through some of the work in the gallery. Fumico’s work in particular highlights
historical, political failures sometimes using images that became the consequential
icons of those failures. Contained in wooden boxes that seem almost like
Victorian curio cabinets, it is protest art in its purest form. A reminder that
the actors and the locations may change but the brutalities inherent in the assertion
of political power and dominance don’t. The human and environmental cost remain
collaterals.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD8PtZpCTSV5S0KYjC84dXVYMktMtrJKKz4sbTPoHO2QFdw0fINtGLzPOZovPyaxE4L6q2yPOg9sCkw7GqqKs_1yw-8p_aVWnNd2MZwSD_ltiNI391eaAWb4xEWCgkOGzE2_9TD9cCtQsFfvdkWxszg76_2f_i3vfud4PRbEGTG5T62UbYBVyctLVo0A/s473/F1b.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><img border="0" data-original-height="473" data-original-width="367" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD8PtZpCTSV5S0KYjC84dXVYMktMtrJKKz4sbTPoHO2QFdw0fINtGLzPOZovPyaxE4L6q2yPOg9sCkw7GqqKs_1yw-8p_aVWnNd2MZwSD_ltiNI391eaAWb4xEWCgkOGzE2_9TD9cCtQsFfvdkWxszg76_2f_i3vfud4PRbEGTG5T62UbYBVyctLVo0A/s320/F1b.jpg" width="248" /></span></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Fumico and Tim both work within the parameters of boxes and
installation, however, the majority of work in this particular show is by Tim
and also includes artist books and paintings with a focus on text. Whether
whole book pages, single words, cut up sentences or even seemingly random letters
he frames text to create whole worlds of possible meaning. It is both surreal
and oddly lucid at the same time, running another thread through the show about
the ambiguities of language, meaning and perception. Or perhaps how we find meaning
out of whatever’s there. Although the paintings have some textual connection their subtle and minimal palettes and lovely, understated textures are
quite a contrast to the amount of visual information in some of the cut
ups.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5arCEZQscN7vtxuyJZkfVadhcorNb9ChhTrdGEKPqPmLhRM-cxgsB7ibgiFl4Gd0oKXzbxiENjqP5x_s9nU1wspUK97lDsgxB2r57IcJkseqA7DLqBR0z11tpWmTDh_3YF1127X0C3566P-uJvmECyuJYkqEz7PxRwVfEGzpfZdsaP9LquHclGV8ejg/s514/Tim%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><img border="0" data-original-height="514" data-original-width="406" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5arCEZQscN7vtxuyJZkfVadhcorNb9ChhTrdGEKPqPmLhRM-cxgsB7ibgiFl4Gd0oKXzbxiENjqP5x_s9nU1wspUK97lDsgxB2r57IcJkseqA7DLqBR0z11tpWmTDh_3YF1127X0C3566P-uJvmECyuJYkqEz7PxRwVfEGzpfZdsaP9LquHclGV8ejg/s320/Tim%201.jpg" width="253" /></span></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The whole space and the impact of everything in it is great.
It seems like a whole integrated installation piece with a kind of punk sensibility
and an open, informal invitation to simultaneously think about what’s real and what's imagined. It's also as fun as it is serious. Sadly this show ends this weekend on Sunday April 17th. It has
been on since March 10th and I really wish I had got down there sooner. But… it’s
only Wednesday now so you’ve still got 4 days! </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSJBY0yO8iiYQEek40ArVT1LlCp1utn0GjRAaABtWeb3Jd6KnmGNjsmEzkqtSEtv9ujR6mhUALYdnQp6m11lhZ2DUqmrTE7XpLESQQfy7A8ZccKN9gIbfTqRyCAZvT_MqdZTOWv7AVCuFaENoj4bppuzaPAdxZPDWzTUavmrimlxHPtTlL6HWUeeXm9g/s1920/z2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><img border="0" data-original-height="864" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSJBY0yO8iiYQEek40ArVT1LlCp1utn0GjRAaABtWeb3Jd6KnmGNjsmEzkqtSEtv9ujR6mhUALYdnQp6m11lhZ2DUqmrTE7XpLESQQfy7A8ZccKN9gIbfTqRyCAZvT_MqdZTOWv7AVCuFaENoj4bppuzaPAdxZPDWzTUavmrimlxHPtTlL6HWUeeXm9g/w400-h180/z2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p>Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-39398093960754125442020-11-19T13:11:00.032+04:002020-11-29T16:58:20.837+04:00You Are Here @katmapped - Review <p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGaDMZioNoJnr7qOrX3H6e1webW1B9zxtE1GIdKQUli5naWkGaiPamunww32hPY4kFU6OylypkA1nlMF1a-_P2U6FD0SRrNfPBwqWOR229zbIg2vpZoU1ctfPAaiOVrjiWl5cVPEuFVZ1v/s150/you+are+here+image.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: helvetica;"><img border="0" data-original-height="150" data-original-width="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGaDMZioNoJnr7qOrX3H6e1webW1B9zxtE1GIdKQUli5naWkGaiPamunww32hPY4kFU6OylypkA1nlMF1a-_P2U6FD0SRrNfPBwqWOR229zbIg2vpZoU1ctfPAaiOVrjiWl5cVPEuFVZ1v/s16000/you+are+here+image.jpg" title="you are here @katmapped" /></span></a></div><p></p><p class="p1" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Part
I</span></b></p>
<p class="p1" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span class="s1">It’s a long time since I’ve reviewed an
exhibition. It’s an even longer time since I reviewed an exhibition in which I
have a piece of my own work. </span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="s1">However, I have never
reviewed an exhibition that I haven’t been in the physical presence of. This
changes everything - you can’t walk around the works, move close in, step back,
see them from across the room or from diff</span><span class="s2">erent angles.
You can’t directly perceive colours, textures, shapes and even smells. This makes
it much harder to have that physical and emotional response that can occur when
you are directly exposed to a work of art. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="p1" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="s2"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="p1" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span class="s2">There is also
the factor of that solid gallery environment itself - </span><span class="s1">the design and atmosphere
of it, the light and how the works are placed within it. None of that applies
here and the tool for leaning in and stepping back is a digital
zoom. This means that the key factor in the presentation of this
exhibition, and indeed any online exhibition, is the quality of the ‘gallery’
website, although the size and quality of the device you are viewing from is also
a factor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="p1" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="s1"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="p1" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Over the past few Covid months I have
looked at several online exhibitions and have become quite irritated by the way
in which many of them are presented. Those that try and replicate the gallery
experience are the worst. Your focus is inevitably taken up with often awkward
navigation through virtual rooms and corridors. This makes the experience more
like an estate agent's website, or a very dull game and just compounds the frustration of not being
in an actual gallery space. Some sites seem to scroll with a life of their own
and others try to jazz things up with unnecessary animation, either of the work
or parts of the site. Don’t get me started on inappropriate musical accompaniment.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="p4" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<div style="margin: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><span class="s3">So the first thing to say about this
exhibition is that the design of the website is really good. It is clean, with
a simple layout on a white background, absolute stillness and zero visual or
audio distraction from the large images that </span><span class="s3">stand out with crystal
clarity as a consequence. It is organised into loosely themed groups but all on
one page rather than breaking it up into separate gallery pages. This makes it
very easy to navigate and easy to dip in and out of because it’s all in the
same place. Furthermore, the information is kept to the delightful minimum of just
what needs to be said about the particular work. There is no superfluous text
or imagery and this enables instant immersion in the entire show. So that’s a
big thumbs up from the get go. </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">The exhibition also unfolds on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/katmapped/?hl=en" target="_blank">Instagram</a> over
the course of the month, putting the focus on just a few participating artists
each day.</span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span> </span></div>
<p class="p4" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="p4" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Given
the amount of work in the show - 50 artists in all – it is hard to make this review
comprehensive. However, I had a cunning plan. First, to go through and pick the
pieces that were highlights for me - tricky exercise given the outstanding
quality of the work and the fact that I really do like so much of it. Second,
to ask a few people to look at the site and send me a couple of lines about
works they particularly liked and why. So I am effectively crowdsourcing part of this
review!</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">This should enable
a wider appreciation of the show because people’s perceptions will be different so it is likely that they will choose different works. If everyone
chooses the same work then that’s just testament to the appeal of that
particular artist. So it works either way. Furthermore, all the comments I
receive will then form a kind of digital visitors’ book.</span></p>
<p class="p5" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: white; background: white;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="p5" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="s3"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I will begin with contextualising this
show using part of the press release:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="p5" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="s3"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="p5" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-family: helvetica;">YOU ARE HERE explores how the concept of maps and
mapping, internal and external, has informed living artists works and
thoughts. This online exhibition presents a stimulating and visually
striking grouping of works and spans drawing, video, sculpture, photography and
installation from artists around the world. </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The ‘You Are Here’ exhibition has been curated by
two practising artists: Kate Trafeli, working out of London, and James Stewart,
working out of Devon. The selections were chosen after evaluation by the
curators, working in tandem remotely, from 400 submissions received
in response to an open call request made by <u><a href="https://www.instagram.com/katmapped/?hl=en" target="_blank">@katmapped</a></u>. The works on show have
been selected by the curators on the basis of the strength of the work
presented combined with their relevance to the show’s theme. </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p>U</o:p></i><i>nprecedented times have changed how and where
artists work, show their art, and what they are creating in an uncharted
world. This online exhibition presents an avenue for artists and viewers to
collectively participate in the arts while many museums, galleries
and shows remain closed. This exhibition showcases living artists making
engaging works around the world — and which when viewed together are thematically
cohesive. Here, far flung geographies and lockdowns do not constrain us. </i></span></p></blockquote>
<p class="p5" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="s3"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="p5" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="s3"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The exhibition opens with the three artists who received the curators' choice awards: Henry Burnett, Jon Halls and Tahira Noreen.
I think all three are very well chosen. I particularly love the idea behind
Henry Burnett’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Last Map</i>. It works on
so many levels that assemble themselves into layers of thought as you gaze in
wonder at the sublime and delicate objects in front of you. </span></span><span class="s3" style="font-family: helvetica;">Tahira Noreen’s work are </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: helvetica;">other sublime pieces in
which the originality of the idea tells a complete story of time and humanity,
embodied in complex and beautiful wall sculptures. These work as exhibits
online because you can get a sense of the entirety of them and see them close
up. Jon Hall’s illustrated geographical story of London’s Green Belt,</span><span style="background-color: white; background: white; font-family: helvetica;"> </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; background: white;">Drawing a Modern Myth,</span></i><span class="s3" style="font-family: helvetica;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
</i></span><span class="s3" style="font-family: helvetica;">on
the other hand, really needs to be seen in a gallery. It is very hard to
appreciate what would be the impact of its scale in space, and to see its
remarkable detail.</span></p>
<p class="p4" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="p5" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVcr8vMPSNP9OgO0UY2-2FKnAPSGP7jw_20ultbBUO6xmWDveGAg3FwPygjvofVOgntPsUgxe98Sqm05IjSRyp5UdMeypIa14-Rzwj0L1_dZS-t2UnKStNW4RbV4JVCqnf-RR_2_a-9AyS/s640/124610843_427225202005703_3945332999749844681_n.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="clear: left; color: black; float: left; font-family: helvetica; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVcr8vMPSNP9OgO0UY2-2FKnAPSGP7jw_20ultbBUO6xmWDveGAg3FwPygjvofVOgntPsUgxe98Sqm05IjSRyp5UdMeypIa14-Rzwj0L1_dZS-t2UnKStNW4RbV4JVCqnf-RR_2_a-9AyS/w173-h173/124610843_427225202005703_3945332999749844681_n.jpg" width="173" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span class="s3">There is much in this exhibition that
is delicate and beautiful and this certainly applies to the work of
Rihanate Bigey who took the emerging artist award. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Houses: the map of the houses</i>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(deconstruction</i>), is a sculptural installation
of porcelain <span class="s3">and
plaster </span>engraved with traditional
African/Burkinabes houses amidst cut out spaces that could be doors or windows
or just aspects of disintegration.It communicates very poignantly the fragility
of <span class="s3">dwellings
that for whatever reason, can be easily destroyed or erased, and the consequent
dislocation and necessary reinterpretation of the notion of home itself. </span></span><p class="p5" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="s3"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span class="s3" style="background-color: transparent;">The next piece that strikes me strongly
is </span><i style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-size: initial;">Mountains</span></i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-size: initial;"> b</span><span class="s3" style="background-color: transparent;">y Monika Ruiz. I love the perspective in these works and the way in which the
contour lines overlay the aerial image. I particularly like the distorted
hexagons that seem to wrap and constrain the mountains like discarded plastic packaging. </span></span></p><div style="background-color: white; background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span class="s3" style="background-color: transparent;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span class="s3"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX9Wb3yywpgHye4AUtgC9s0HchwtSqAixgQKBUzALrf_-D0LgqLbvTcu4xqSyiV_5J7qPVCuN1NR_RrsljNZLtEJeyjyZaQwDvUp1-MkfbyeqvbAbG7uP8kR-a693eQyTsqZB0kRKvtwPV/s640/125833030_390749512276602_7458807400378436370_n.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX9Wb3yywpgHye4AUtgC9s0HchwtSqAixgQKBUzALrf_-D0LgqLbvTcu4xqSyiV_5J7qPVCuN1NR_RrsljNZLtEJeyjyZaQwDvUp1-MkfbyeqvbAbG7uP8kR-a693eQyTsqZB0kRKvtwPV/w200-h200/125833030_390749512276602_7458807400378436370_n.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Teresa Hunyadi’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Current</i> consists of a piece of birch wood carved with contours
representing the internal life of the tree as it absorbs water and grows.
Presenting a piece of wood in this way takes your perception of it, and by
extension the entire life of the tree, into a totally new place. Similarly
in Kate Lyons-Miller’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Earthfast</i> the viewer sees not just a piece of shaped ceramic, but the constantly reactive substance
of nature. The content in this work transcends the form, becoming simultaneously a macro and micro presentation of a geological landscape. It is sad not to be able to be in the elemental presence of these works.<br /> </span><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="p4" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: helvetica;">It is in the nature of the show’s theme
that many pieces feature grids, gridlines, underlying structures and patterns
and objects and things mapped or overlaid with other things. I particularly
like <i>A Sea </i>by Liz Griffith, in which she transforms a decaying wall into a map,
and </span><i style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; background: white;">Moscow XXI</span></i><span style="background-color: white; background: white; font-family: helvetica;">, </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: helvetica;">Keri Millers
superimposition of computer graphics onto a poster. </span></p>
<p class="p4" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></p>
<p class="p5" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="background-color: white; background: white;">I also like </span><span class="s3">Justin N. Kim’s piece in this show and
how it suggests, to me at least, another level of </span><span style="background-color: white; background: white;">relationship to the
theme. It may be called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Modern Age</i>
but it seems to map out the visual history of how it got there at the same time. I suppose it depends
how you define ’modern’ but there is something about this work that
encapsulates a longstanding and rich seam of American creative culture. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="p5" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="background-color: white; background: white;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span class="MsoHyperlink">Chloë Natalia</span>’s colourful and mesmerising
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Australia</i> is another piece that is very
hard to fully appreciate online. It has a depth to it that makes it frustrating
to see online only. Definitely a piece of work that you want to look at
sideways as well. <span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Henryk
Terpilowski</span></span>’s<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Fragile</i>
is a simple but quite profound idea, that at this point in time could easily be
extended and applied to an entire map of the world. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">There are several
textile works in this show all of them completely different and beautifully conceptualised
and expressed but the one I like most is <span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Karena Ryan</span></span>’s
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Great Hill of Queen Maeve</i>. I do love
the contrast in texture, depth and content between the two sections of this piece
but really I’m just a sucker for any harmonious use of the colour green. The gently overlapping shades in </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Lisa-Marie Price's</span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span><i style="font-family: helvetica;">Naturally Artificial</i><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> are another lovely display of green's diverse spectrum. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZoYkcsIRk5oK9bj_QGcQGHRE8_dzbCrZwNtz792CICY6GwTyJksJKxrrADT_z2axFWH4hmCOZq49f4awMGnpE4xNRPC3HKTY0aAD7uFx5dwyA36RAHE8NQSYGXI5vNKM0jwf0MvB1oqR6/s1023/rs%253Dw_1023%252Ccg_true%252Cm.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1023" data-original-width="1023" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZoYkcsIRk5oK9bj_QGcQGHRE8_dzbCrZwNtz792CICY6GwTyJksJKxrrADT_z2axFWH4hmCOZq49f4awMGnpE4xNRPC3HKTY0aAD7uFx5dwyA36RAHE8NQSYGXI5vNKM0jwf0MvB1oqR6/w134-h134/rs%253Dw_1023%252Ccg_true%252Cm.webp" width="134" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Scrolling down the show
and reaching <span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Mark
Clay</span></span>’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Crack in the
Record</i> took my breath away. It was like standing on a cliff and looking
down at a beach just before sunset when the light is low and picks up every
golden glint of water on sand. Absolutely zero connection to what the work is
actually about but thanks for that experience, which interestingly would
probably not have happened in an orthodox gallery environment.<br /><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<div style="background-color: white; background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>T</span>his is a necessarily whistle stop review and there is so much more to be said but a few concluding mentions - either for the
work or the idea or both - Russell Hughes, Chris Wilson, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="background-color: white; background: white;">Tracy Davidson</span></span>, Romina Cristi, John Cowen, Helen MacRitchie. </span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>T</span><o:p>h</o:p>ank you <a href="https://www.instagram.com/katmapped/?hl=en" target="_blank">@katmapped</a>, not
only for including me in this great show, but for inspiring me as a consequence to
put fingers to keyboard. </span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="color: #111111; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">You are Here </span></b><span style="color: #111111;">12 November – 12 December 2020 online at </span><u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="color: #666666; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: #666666;"><a href="http://www.katmapped.org" target="_blank">www.katmapped.org.</a></span></span></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="color: #666666; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></u></span></p><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="color: #666666; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.katmapped.org" target="_blank">Links to all participating artist websites are on the exhibition site.</a><br /></span></u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">All images courtesy of artists and
@katmapped </span></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><u style="background-color: white; font-family: helvetica;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></b></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><u style="background-color: white; font-family: helvetica;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Part II - </span></b><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Crowdsourced Review Book</span></b></u></p><div style="background-color: white; background: white; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: helvetica;"><b><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></b><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><b>COMMENTS BY:</b></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; background: white; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: helvetica;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><b> </b></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; background: white; text-align: left;"><b><a href="http://deiradiary.blogspot.com/" style="font-family: helvetica;" target="_blank">NEIL PARTRICK</a><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></b></div><div style="background-color: white; background: white; text-align: left;"><u><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Roni Ben Porat, <i>Flickering Street</i></span></u></div><div style="background-color: white; background: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">I like this work precisely
because, as the artist says, it’s ‘ready-made’. This work is testament to the
fact that art is everywhere, is in the eye and ear of the beholder, and can be
as much about atmosphere and attitude as fine lines. In its geographical
melding it also says something about a disparate city of difference where
sometimes paths don’t cross or aren’t appreciated or understood when they do,
other perhaps than by those who are, as the artist mentions, on the outside
(literally or otherwise).</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; background: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /><u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Liz Griffiths, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Sea<br /></i></span></u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">This is an absolutely
stunning and, it seems, a largely ‘as found’ wall. It’s beautiful. It looks
part moon shot, part map, and it’s in Peckham and Peckham’s quite near to
Penge, which is where I grew up.</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; background: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"><o:p><u>D</u></o:p></span><u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">aniel Felipe Polania <i>Title n#10<br /></i></span></u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">I understand from the
description that this work is one of several that the artist has done that
incorporate a painted depiction of what he’s photographed. It’s an inspiring
idea, especially when the ‘micro painting’ in this case is placed directly on
the depicted object.</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; background: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /><u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Liz Clifford, <i>Wheatham Hill - Byway 745, Observatory</i></span></u></span></div><div style="background-color: white; background: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Very zeitgeist. Artistic
recycling of the highest order that makes its own point very effectively and
looks great.</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; background: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /><u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Tahira Noreen, <i>Baradari and others<br /></i></span></u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">I don’t fully understand
how the artist has created these three ‘sculptures’ from cut-up hand-compressed
paper but the effect is wonderful and highly imaginative.</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; background: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; background: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b><a href="https://kategritton.crevado.com/" target="_blank">KATE GRITTON</a> </b></span><br /><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What a range of interpretations! These are the ones
that grabbed me:</span><br /><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><br /><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Last Map</span></u></i><u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by Henry Burnett<br /></span></u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A strong emotive piece that almost cries out 'Walk in my
shoes.' The delicate fabric and the fragile plant collected along the way tell
of the casual stroll as much as the epic journey.</span><br /><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><br /><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A Crack in
the Record</span></u></i><u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by Mark
Clay<br /></span></u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The artist's exploration of sound and silence is
intriguing. Pauses in speech or music are as important as the words or
the notes themselves. In visual art too, it is often the negative space
that completes the image.</span><br /><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><br /><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Everyday</span></u></i><u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> by Ruth Selig<br /></span></u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Eerily reminiscent of the brilliant blue skies of this
year's Spring and Summer during the long lockdown. The convoluted form is as of
one swimming in an uncharted sea.</span><br /><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="background-color: white; background: white; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><br /><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"><b><a href="https://thebigbelieve.bandcamp.com/?fbclid=IwAR2riyD7MEyvjMd0alb1KSxzQaXa7NkXoq8ZvnZsxQmU-t8nm-m9N1M-b4s" target="_blank">AMANDA BIG BELIEVE</a> </b></span><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Russia XXI</span></u></i><u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif"> by Meri Miller.<br /><o:p></o:p></span></u><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Having always
loved Russian Propaganda posters, this work jumped out to me even though that
is not what it is. The Russian alphabet always looks good in print,
whether you can read it or not & sometimes better if you can't. In
that way I see the whole poster as abstract. It works in the way the
artist has intended it but also, for me, I enjoy seeing it as electrical
charges fizzing out from a circuit board. It feels live. I love the limited colour
palette. Striking red & black. The veins of a city. The
white detail of the circuit board slightly muzzy & appearing as an aerial
view of streets & buildings.</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; background: white; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; background: white; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: helvetica;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>PETE SADLER</b></span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I don't remember seeing so many excellent
works in one exhibition, real or virtual. I would quite happily take them all
if I had the money and a long enough wall. However, two pieces caught my eye
and stayed with me. The first is <i>Millenium</i> which is a clever adaptation of the
world map, satirically exposing the folly of mankind's
determination to destroy itself whilst attempting to rocket its way to new
worlds on which to live and destroy in the neverending cycle of
stupidity. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: helvetica;">The second is</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: helvetica;"> </span><i style="color: #212121; font-family: helvetica;">Wheatham Hill </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: helvetica;">which is a topographical piece carved and cut from everyday materials representing a terraced landscape. There is a hint of Hepworth about this but without using the highly polished expensive media the latter indulges in. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: helvetica;">Two worthy pieces in excellent company. Well done all.</span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://medium.com/@timbennettgoodman" target="_blank"><b>TIM BENNETT-GOODMAN</b></a></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">In an exhibition as
eclectic and of such high calibre as this it's perhaps invidious to pick out
'favourites' but, looked at from where I am currently on the map (Tenerife in
the Canary Islands), the works that most speak to me are Mountains by Monika
Ruiz and Australia by Chloë Natalia. Both works are aesthetically pleasing, of
course, but also have, for me, profound emotional depth and political
resonances. I'm thinking particularly of the spiritual connection of
pre-colonial indigenous peoples - the Guanches of Tenerife and the Aboriginal
Australians - to their landscapes via their 'mental maps', and the calamitous
impact of European colonisers drawing their own lines in paper maps. I must
also give a shout-out to my friend Val Grove and her two Millennium pieces.
I've long admired her work and would love to see her update these maps in light
of current global events.</span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: helvetica;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: helvetica;"><b>EVELYN REISINGER</b></span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><u><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Henny Burnett, </span><i style="font-family: helvetica;">Last Map</i></u></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I really like this
quasi-footwear, which looks like a set of an ancient culture’s shoes. The
patterns and colours look delicate, and you can imagine yourself wandering
through the villages and their surroundings.</span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><u>Lisa-Marie Price, <i>Naturally Artificial</i></u></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The colours and patterns in this are beautiful. The fact that the pattern looks
abstract but is based on real mapped landscapes is intriguing.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><a href="https://www.lauracecil.org/" target="_blank">LAURA CECIL</a> </b></span></div></div>
<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span id="x_x_OutlookSignature"></span></span><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The two pieces that caught my eye, as well as much of the remainder
of my being, are:<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p><u>Ria Bauwens <i>Z.T.</i></u> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">seems evocative of a dreary, by-gone industrial era and forbidding with its unpeopled landscapes, fractured and frozen. The urban and
the open land, photographic moments, present a fleeting surface over a
geological rainbow resting in unfathomable time below.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><o:p> <br /></o:p><u>Martha
Oatway’s <i>Standing Stones Walking Maps</i></u> make me want to walk around and
experience them as real objects; quite an embodied response. Uneven shapes defy
any sense of tidiness or symmetry and the earth colours feel deep and
connecting, like stories of our human collective experience. I think of
songlines and dream times, journeys, shields and arms raised, maybe dance or
something more sinister. This is exciting and has an otherness that feels
slightly dangerous.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: helvetica;"><b>TERESA PERSIGHETTI</b></span></div><u style="background-color: white; font-family: helvetica;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif">Tahira Noreen, <i>Touchdown</i></span></u><br /><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Vivid, lively, engaging. Simultaneously delicate and strong. I know I’m not ‘supposed' to look for images in abstract art, but I enjoyed the impression of flight, foliage, filigree and fish. Touch of the Vorticists about her work. </span><br /><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /><u>Tracy Davison, <i>When is Daddy Coming Home? </i></u><br />This piece had an emotional impact on me that I feel uncomfortable about, because of its elements of rather sentimental Victorian melodrama: the snowy innocence of a beautifully-made small child's dress, on its little wooden domestic clothes hanger, with its stark and jarring decoration of a very harsh prison, plus embroidery reminiscent of chains or barbed wire. But it tugged at my heart strings! <br /><br /><u>Chloe Natalia,<i> Australia </i></u></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I enjoyed the organic quality of this piece, with its sunny bright colours, reminiscent of coral, or of tropical flowers. The folds and pleats are fascinating to follow, and I am always impressed by flat images that look so thoroughly three-dimensional. I wanted to grab hold of the whole country and fold it into another shape entirely, before it collapsed in on itself into that orange chasm in the middle.</span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><a href="https://necessaryanimals.bandcamp.com/album/necessary-animals" target="_blank">KEITH RODWAY</a> </b></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><u style="font-family: helvetica;">Nerissa Cargill Thompson,<i> </i></u><u style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>Milkshake Series:
Broken Britain & Political Weapon </i></u></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">For me, litter is a finger
on the pulse of mass consumption; yet we consume not just physical
artifacts like drink cans and milkshake cartons, but ideas and opinions
too. In the same way that we often eat food from a box or packet rather than
cooking it from scratch, we also import ideas and mainstream media
narratives ready-cooked, with little regard for or awareness of the
ingredients, a fact that politicians are keenly aware of - hence the
weaponizing of discourse through the use of barely-concealed or crudely
constructed fictions and dissimulations. For me, this work speaks to the
decay of intellectual rigour in public discourse, the consequent
erosion of trust in political and social institutions, and the discarding
of ideas and opinions as they are displaced by the latest
media-generated fad . <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></p>
<p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><u>Daniel
Felipe Polania, <i>Title n#10</i></u><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I have always liked work
that celebrates the mundane, and particularly the no-frills, matter-of-fact
aesthetic of objects such as this - a traffic barrier on what appears to
be an industrial estate. The implied implacability - lent added power
by the low-angle of the original photograph - and the refusal of design
elegance, is offset by the blue sky, the light and space suggesting optimism
and freedom from cares contrasting with the utilitarian brutality of the
barrier. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: helvetica;"><b><a href="http://www.helloengland.co.uk/interview.html" target="_blank">JOHN CHISHOLM</a></b></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><u>Monika Ruiz, <o:p></o:p><i style="background-color: white;">Mountains,from Borders without Limits</i></u><span style="background-color: white;"><u> </u><br /></span>Lines on maps usually denote man-made borders,
encountered when passing from one territory to the next. The contour lines in
Monika Ruiz-B’s work remind us of the natural borders, extreme terrain that
people pass through to escape the ravages of their homeland. ‘Borders without
Limits’ does not attempt to prettify the landscapes, but rather draw our
attention to each hard square mile of a traveller’s journey on foot. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><u><br /><span style="background-color: white;">Mark Clay, </span></u><i style="background-color: white;"><u>A Crack In The Record </u><br /></i>There’s a beautiful warm light caught in this
image. The copper ink drawing allows for ambiguity and interpretation by the
viewer - the work is indeed reminiscent of rings on a fallen tree, <span style="background: white;">grooves on a melting vinyl record, or</span> plough
lines in a sunlit field.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/38404588@N05/" target="_blank">TIM VINE </a></b> <u1:p> </u1:p></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i style="font-family: helvetica;">Touchdown</i><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> and <i>Promised Land</i> by Tahira
Noreen are probably my favourites, find the shapes, form and
texture very pleasing on the eye, not to mention the colours....also quite like
the idea behind the images, namely a way off following her
husbands journey and his safe return to her ..a tad cubist which is always
appealing to me. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><u1:p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Zones</i> by Ronald Gonzales appeals because
it very much reminds me of my friend Jolyon's work with found objects
..simplicity and solidity, very appealing ....recycling into art ..perfect. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Day in Day out 4</i> by Bethe Bronson very much appeals to the
photographer in me. The work involved in creating such an image via a pinhole
camera reminds me of the time and effort required to creating
a photograph back in the pre- digital, pre photoshop days ......end
result is very pleasing on the eye. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Standing stones-walking map</i> by Martha Oatway.
Lovely idea and very beautiful and delicate looking ..kinda reminds me of
animals skins/hides or dyed fabrics stretched out to dry in the sun.....
perhaps a Native American encampment or an African tribal
village. </p></u1:p></span></div></div>
Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-9559825558517109822020-11-10T16:56:00.002+04:002020-11-10T16:56:57.543+04:00A very temporary installation <p style="text-align: center;"><b> Autumn 2020</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVsISGQZaCGlP6FTg6LM-03uhyaw_ZGbwqPkrPVoD8n42lhZchY4NPGgH9xeGS3bPNubnOsYwKSzby-zTdT8WX-UkdZe2yBtmVz9QeaU0gP2HzV2ZisdEqHoWljk5zNh2t46H3sNnDuCHn/s2048/autumn2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1152" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVsISGQZaCGlP6FTg6LM-03uhyaw_ZGbwqPkrPVoD8n42lhZchY4NPGgH9xeGS3bPNubnOsYwKSzby-zTdT8WX-UkdZe2yBtmVz9QeaU0gP2HzV2ZisdEqHoWljk5zNh2t46H3sNnDuCHn/s320/autumn2.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTM9UOEyI-7gEOSjEEbi8oqtBedN1A_fm11ZJjBKyrTDx0oB1AphgvEjxyciLBV5F7vYWumtIPsd-BlmvorDDu45M21uFBCo8FWq92rKwYryhIgT6VKCSoPJW4_9NGmmCiREpIPp4A5Uaa/s453/web7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="432" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTM9UOEyI-7gEOSjEEbi8oqtBedN1A_fm11ZJjBKyrTDx0oB1AphgvEjxyciLBV5F7vYWumtIPsd-BlmvorDDu45M21uFBCo8FWq92rKwYryhIgT6VKCSoPJW4_9NGmmCiREpIPp4A5Uaa/s320/web7.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigFxoZ12Q4vUuU5VgGbpNLplbL9dMWt0Wwh14ZtaiZfjch67TzZJq7Zigw5ZOeYWT5nmepJSn64E74reNa4AQYvZ0xuAe6S-1oXTxA780tnRfOU1jSpx5yYTOqKdX9e0xjYCZd7XBwTR8o/s1237/web8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="664" data-original-width="1237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigFxoZ12Q4vUuU5VgGbpNLplbL9dMWt0Wwh14ZtaiZfjch67TzZJq7Zigw5ZOeYWT5nmepJSn64E74reNa4AQYvZ0xuAe6S-1oXTxA780tnRfOU1jSpx5yYTOqKdX9e0xjYCZd7XBwTR8o/s320/web8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /></p>Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-81027226613515511652020-05-13T14:04:00.003+04:002020-11-10T16:58:53.718+04:00Lockdown letter to a friend... <div>
Dear you know who you are</div>
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<div>
THANK YOU!!!! Got your little package of delight this morning. Really cheered me up.</div>
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After good start with this whole situation (see post below) I have pretty much crashed into total gloom and apathy over the past week. Sick of gardening, cooking, and cleaning and can no longer even get off the starting blocks of anything creative. Spending a lot of time in bed watching stuff on Netflix and Iplayer.</div>
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Have been a few other things in the mix as always, including another episode of the long running, sibling-suicide PTSD drama, ‘I'm a sensitive, loving human, Get me the Fuck out of Here’. It’s like Netflix, only in your head and you have no idea you’re watching until about half way through the episode. This was a particularly harrowing episode called 'Missing in Spain', but I have not actually revisited this one before so am tentatively concluding it’s the last of the series. All the others are now repeats so I can generally switch them off as soon as I hear the opening tune.</div>
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<div>
It's not all shit tho... my birthday was actually great. We had a really nice day and night involving a takeaway from the pub and dancing in the vinyl room til about 1.00am. I think we concluded that Fear of Music by Talking Heads is the greatest album of all time. Mind you, on another occasion I think the conclusion was Tattoo You. Anyway I can't remember the last time we were up that late and we were very pleased with ourselves.</div>
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<br /></div>
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However, as much as I love my husband I am desperate to see and talk to another human being. Video chats and phone calls are now becoming more depressing than not having them. I just want to get on a train to an urban environment and hug random passers-by at this point.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Being so close to the station is also now frustrating. I hear that lonesome whistle blow .... and I think of Evangeline and how I’ll see her in my dreams. And how I see K** and M** and Z** and S** and P** and D** and L** and T** and J** and other friends in my dreams too. Then I hear another train a-coming, it’s rolling round the bend and I ain’t seen a human since I don’t know when. If they freed me from this self isolation, if that railroad car was mine I know I’d take it on a lot further down the line. Then I could go shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die. Maybe not. Flights to Reno probably won’t be available for a while.</div>
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<div>
See I'm raving... song lyrics are increasingly replacing what used to be coherent internal dialogue. Maybe the best way to read it is as a scene-setting script for a new, dark comedy.... </div>
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I love your new painting by the way. Really has an impact. Will look forward to seeing it and you in the flesh. I may get on a train soon. I could sit outside your house and talk to you through the window.</div>
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Really THANK YOU for prompting this communication.</div>
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See you soon.</div>
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Lots of love </div>
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Xxxx</div>
Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-69611307476298597592020-04-23T13:01:00.004+04:002020-05-15T15:28:48.494+04:00Coronavirus/Covid 19 and the Crowhurst Art Garden<div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); background-color: white; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-line;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am kind of enjoying Covid 19. In fact I feel better than I usually do. C</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">risis? Excellent - I know exactly how to behave in one of those. No choice? Excellent - I know exactly what to do without a choice. O</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">fficial sanction for doing nothing has removed my normally intense anxiety about not having enough to do while feeling I really should be doing something which, combined, render me incapable of doing anything anyway! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <br />So this period has given me pressure and anxiety free time in which I am getting things done. Creative things. I am particularly pleased to have two new additions to the Crowhurst Art Garden. <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="theme-text-font-body1" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This garden is a project created on a small piece of land adjacent to my house. It <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); background-color: initial; letter-spacing: 0px;">was started in 2017 with 'Bonehinge' which was a pillar of stone, topped with a bone and a rusty hinge, all of which we found when we were digging over the space. These finds and the fun of putting them together gave us the initial idea for the garden. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="theme-text-font-body1" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); background-color: initial; letter-spacing: 0px;">A call went out to friends and we then received the generous donations of <em style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Mantis</em></span> by<em style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); background-color: initial; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </em><em style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); background-color: initial; letter-spacing: 0px;"></em><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); color: #117823;"><u style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a class="wz-link" data-attached-link="{"type":"Web","url":"http://www.stolen-image.com/","title":"http://www.stolen-image.com/"}" href="http://www.stolen-image.com/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">Martin Adams</a></u></span> and <em style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Julie</em> by <span style="color: #0f740d; letter-spacing: 0px;"><u style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a class="wz-link" data-attached-link="{"type":"Web","url":"http://www.estherneslen.co.uk/","title":"http://www.estherneslen.co.uk/"}" href="http://www.estherneslen.co.uk/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">Esther Neslen</a></u></span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); background-color: initial; letter-spacing: 0px;">. <i>Mantis</i> began as golden plywood in 2017 but </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">underwent a metamorphosis to forest green in 2019. </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Beautiful Julie is weathering wonderfully, displaying various mottled shades of moss and algae in the winter and then returning, more or less, to her original colour in the summer. </span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn6uLKXe9jDNM1lyCR1oBWAw2ITkrHMw-YK1ggl7TWORG_8vyh2VU6w1H0IRoIWsKq28Czdu_rzB3aya7Lmn0x9prKEwubnWemi5tAGy6JBnQ-vYdWHk9hksYPWTxZXElyotgTvYDn-u1T/s1600/juliegoing+green.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn6uLKXe9jDNM1lyCR1oBWAw2ITkrHMw-YK1ggl7TWORG_8vyh2VU6w1H0IRoIWsKq28Czdu_rzB3aya7Lmn0x9prKEwubnWemi5tAGy6JBnQ-vYdWHk9hksYPWTxZXElyotgTvYDn-u1T/s320/juliegoing+green.jpg" width="320" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7_AJLfGHlYgg4d2e_xtWs82nfJqXYhSmr2Nle9L_iX7FruP6f0Jk8Jt-XlnOpQWvBZqdjYnEfS2K8M9JZx2HT07pWvb8Qlb8BFBvZaNjMEIRln8_RRUfa7S6oUWRiGDqRWhFVCXBrdnr0/s1600/julie1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1041" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7_AJLfGHlYgg4d2e_xtWs82nfJqXYhSmr2Nle9L_iX7FruP6f0Jk8Jt-XlnOpQWvBZqdjYnEfS2K8M9JZx2HT07pWvb8Qlb8BFBvZaNjMEIRln8_RRUfa7S6oUWRiGDqRWhFVCXBrdnr0/s320/julie1.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px; white-space: pre-line;">The next addition was in 2018. Three cast iron radiators removed from the house during a new boiler installation were given an entirely new life as <em style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Sheepish</em></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px; white-space: pre-line;">. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In March 2019 we received <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); color: #158a51;"><u style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a class="wz-link" data-attached-link="{"type":"Web","url":"https://www.flickr.com/photos/jdsculpture","title":"https://www.flickr.com/photos/jdsculpture"}" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jdsculpture" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">Jolyon Dupuy</a>'s</u></span> <em style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Duchamp's Step- Ladder</em>. Not only does the wheel spin but it also has its <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); color: #127e3f;"><u style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a class="wz-link" data-attached-link="{"type":"Web","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1NI8KF2CRU","title":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1NI8KF2CRU"}" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1NI8KF2CRU" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">own original music video</a></u></span> put together by Jolyon and Peter Schofield. Thanks to <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); color: #146927;"><u style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a class="wz-link" data-attached-link="{"type":"Web","url":"https://www.flickr.com/photos/38404588@N05/","title":"https://www.flickr.com/photos/38404588@N05/"}" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/38404588@N05/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">Tim Vine</a></u></span> for photos of this. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now here we are in April 2020 and I happy to present 'Flying Fish' and 'Still Life'. In the course of doing the 2019 <span style="color: #1b8e34;"><u style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a class="wz-link internal-link" data-attached-link="{"type":"Pages","url":"id1549103594137","title":"CROWHENGE"}" href="https://www.naturestrikesback.com/crowhenge" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">Crowhenge project</a>, </u></span> I met 92 year old master carver Ian Gordon. As well as contributing the carved title piece to the Crowhenge Project, he also gave me this piece of found wood which has now become 'Flying Fish'. The shape is just as he found it so all I did was sand and oil it and give it some eyes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="theme-text-font-body1" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">'Still Life' consists of an empty picture frame suspended </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">between two trees on thin wire. This gives the illusion that the frame is floating in space. What you see through the frame changes as you walk around the garden and will also change throughout the seasons. I found the frame dumped in the street in Hastings several years ago so am delighted to have finally transformed it into a less random public artwork.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px; white-space: pre-line;">(Lucky photo taken just as sun started filtering through trees). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px; white-space: pre-line;">(Guest Photo from <a href="https://www.lauracecil.org/" target="_blank">Laura Cecil</a>)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I guess it's ironic that in this weird, pandemic period I have been busier than usual and it's not just the garden. I was also </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">part of a team that set up a Coronavirus Support Group to match volunteers with people needing help.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 17px; white-space: normal;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; white-space: normal;">The community response here has been great, so I’m very happy that the time I’ve had to work on the garden means it can now be open to visitors. I am </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: normal;">leaving the gate permanently open so no one will have to touch it and am sure visitor numbers in a village make it unlikely I will need social distancing queue markers! I may put a note on</span><span style="white-space: normal;"> </span><span style="white-space: normal;">the gate asking people not to fall over, break their legs and sue me though because I don’t have public liability insurance.</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Despite my normal moaning about how much I miss London (I still do), </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I know it is a privilege to be living in a place like this at a time like this We can go for walks without seeing anyone else and should the tanks eventually roll onto the lanes of Crowhurst we can jog round our garden and subsist on dandelion leaves and wild garlic. We also have a veg patch. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is also beautiful to see nature in its eternal cycle, regardless as always, of human affairs. The weather is wonderful, the birds are singing, trees are coming into blossom and leaf and there is a riotous abundance of spring flowers and colours. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am very grateful that this didn’t all kick off in November. So... thanks for that universe! </span></div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-18925575890714554082019-10-24T16:50:00.005+04:002020-07-29T21:55:44.994+04:00The breakfast ritual <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">I've just started a creative writing course. In lesson one we learned about free writing which basically means you just keep writing without stopping to think. Interesting exercise that ended with a paragraph about how much my hand was starting to hurt after 5 minutes of non stop scribble. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">The ho</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">mework was to write 1000 words on the subject of 'Rituals'. It had to be started using the free writing method and then edited down. Mine edited down to a paltry 500 words but here it is anyway. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rituals</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Apart from weddings, christenings
and funerals, I don't do rituals except breakfast. I'm lucky - my partner gets
up much earlier than me so I wake up and smell the coffee every day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">I get up, go downstairs, slice
the bread and put it in the toaster. I pour the coffee into the same mug. Then
I butter the toast and spread marmite on one piece and marmalade on the
other. I go to the kitchen window where I sit on a stool, sipping and munching
and staring out into the garden. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Every day I see some, or all of the
following: goldfinches, chaffinches, nuthatches, woodpeckers, blackbirds, robins.
Blue, coal, great and long tailed tits. Sometimes a thrush, a bullfinch, a
goldcrest. Wood Pigeons, ring-collared doves, magpies, jackdaws and the inevitable
squirrels. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">I also see fifty shades of green
emerging from the grey silence of winter. Then watch fifty more, dappled in
breezy sunlight, become part of the falling spectrum of autumn rain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">I see
human rituals mirrored from that window - a constant stream of marriages,
births and deaths. Some of the deaths natural, some accidental or unexplained
and the occasional cold-blooded murder. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">I’ve
read that crows and other birds hold roadside funerals for their fallen
comrades. Sometimes, when a crow is killed by a passing car, a murder of
fellow crows will descend and walk circles around the dead bird for 15 to 20
minutes. The crow’s close relative, the magpie, holds similar services and
has even been seen placing tufts of grass alongside the departed. Is this
a ritual or is it only humans to which that word applies? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">As for the marriages, there may not
be a formal ceremony with invited guests but birds pairing off can be preceded
by violent competition, acrobatic aerial courtship and virtuoso musical
performances. Then comes the explosion of chicks from early spring to late
summer often accompanied by behaviours that look a lot like love. I often wonder
if that first trip to the bird feeder with the parents is an avian coming of
age ritual. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">My experience of the human rituals
is that they provide families and friends with regular opportunities to remind
themselves and each other that they are part of something larger. There is a collective
unity in celebrating together, grieving together and marking time. Recognising
change and its impact, not only on yourself but on those who are a fixed part
of your life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Having managed to remain a romantic,
I like the wedding ritual but the births are obligations I could do without.
Funerals, on the other hand are getting much more interesting as I get older. Partly
because I am no longer just a spectator but often have some role in proceedings
and funerals have changed. They are now equally as likely to be celebrations of
a life, as a mourning of a death. It is still as painful whatever you call
it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Marriages have also changed and can
have counterpoint divorce rituals now, although I am not sure that the guests
at the first party will all be attending the second. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">My breakfast ritual won’t change.
Not for a while at least. I will still wake up and smell the coffee. I will
still look out of the window, fixed in the present and be reminded that the
cycle of nature is eternal, that birds never waste time and that squirrels
are fucking geniuses. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-91545802337340252372019-10-03T13:35:00.001+04:002019-10-04T14:03:01.219+04:00Coastal Currents 2019 - 'Dance Movies' at the Kino - Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">I like
cinema. I like dance. I like music. So the three for the price of one ‘Dance
Movies' at the Kino-Teatr as part of this year's Coastal Currents, was an
absolute must. It not only motivated me to leave the house, but it also made me want to write a review.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">The event was split into two
halves. The first half contained three, very different short films in which
performance was either the main, or integral, part of a wider visual and
narrative composition.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">The first film <i>I Am Weather</i> (Rebecca
Marshall/Nichola Bruce/Clare Whistler) was a triptych projection filmed at the
Library of Water in Stykkishulmur, Iceland. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">The triple screens alternated
between close-ups of fast moving water or spray, and dancer Clare Whistler
viewed through a lighthouse lens. It appeared as if it had been filmed
in an empty room in a tall glass building with a distant view of an urban
skyline. The remarkable effect was to capture the
dancer in a way that distorted her body, elongated her limbs and finally made
her physically disappear altogether as if melting into the floor. The water sequences, that seemed different each time, provided an
intense soundscape. It was a wonderful combination of the free flowing and the
confined in a meditative union of shades of grey and elemental hydro-sonics.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">The second
film <i>Klipperty Klopp 2</i> (Andrew Kotting/Yumino Seki) was also a
split-screen and shades of grey affair. Funnily enough the last thing I
reviewed was Kotting’s <a href="https://naturestrikesback.blogspot.com/2018/07/review-lek-and-dogs-electric-palace.html" target="_blank">‘Lek and the Dogs’</a> so it was very interesting to see
this much earlier and now reinvented work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">On
the left screen was Kotting’s original 1984 film of a man energetically running
round a field in Gloucestershire pretending to be a horse. On the right this
had been re-created with dancer Yumino Seki, more of whom later. The two films
mirrored each other although the original was filmed almost completely in the rural
environment, whereas Yumino Seki’s re-enactment also brought in some urban grit.
This included segments in which she was quite brilliantly placed in front of a
wall with the legible graffiti reading 'Take your poo…'. Given the slapstick
speed of the characters and the original narration about the funny/crazy man
and his horse, there was definitely humour. However, the tension between the
absurdly humorous and the reality of two people running in marked, repetitive
and seemingly futile patterns while negotiating relationships with their
accumulated detritus, was also quite uncomfortable at times. The whole thing ended
close to home with Yumino Seki on Hastings beach, barely able to hang on to her
wildly flapping metaphor in the fierce wind. I so wanted her to just let it go.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Film three was <i>Experiments
with a Danse Macabre</i> (Nichola Bruce/Patricia Langa/Daniel Hay-Gordon).
Another film that dealt with confinement, Patricia Langa danced out the tension
of being within ever decreasing walls, amidst a world of projected images. From
a painterly perspective this film was lovely to watch. The layering of images,
colour, texture, dark and light and movement made the film an ever changing and
beautiful visual spectacle. The subject of death, or the ability of the dancer
protagonist to inflict it at great personal cost, was told in the manner of a
fairy tale. I accepted the artistic license in the telling of the tale and the
beautiful package it came in, right until the last clichéd line: “we are all
equal in death”, at which I sighed, possibly audibly. I'm afraid we are as
equal in death as we are in life and that is not very equal at all.<br />
<br />
The second half was just brilliant. <i>Exspira Machina/Kwaidan AI </i>was
a combination of live music, dance and film. Afrit Nebula provided the music,
Yumino Seki the dance and Mark French the visuals. The description of the
pieces as ‘a ghost in the machine trapped by a scanner, unable to escape her
own memory’ doesn’t come even remotely close to communicating the astounding amount
of stuff that was going on here.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br />
</span></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Musically it was a multi-layered fusion of jazz, rock, world, sacred,
experimental - in fact there are all sorts of genres you could try and define
this trio with but really, really good is probably best. There was a lot to it,
both instrumentally and vocally, and it was very tight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">
The visuals in this part of the evening ranged from a kind of ambient, spectrum
loop to a mesmerising film of industrial machinery. A Victorian pumping station
(I think) working a continuous and massive, rhythmic sequence of power and
painted ironwork. Hard to believe this was normal less than a century ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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From the left Yumino Seki appeared slowly and silently and the combination of
music, visuals and live dance completely took over. The interplay between the
three was superb. At first it was hard to know what to focus on but after a
while there was a kind of emotional and sensual absorption into the whole. It
was a wonderful experience.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">On
a personal note, I spent most of the 80s living in Japan and it was magic to
see a butoh trained dancer for the first time in about 30 years. In Hastings! </span></div>
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<br /><u>The Artists</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><b>Film Makers </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Nichola
Bruce - <a href="https://www.nicholabruce.com/projects-in-development/">https://www.nicholabruce.com/projects-in-development/</a></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Rebecca
Marshall - <a href="http://rebeccaemarshall.com/filmmaker/">http://rebeccaemarshall.com/filmmaker/</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Andrew Kotting -<a href="http://www.andrewkotting.com/" target="_blank"> http://www.andrewkotting.com/</a></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Mark French - <a href="http://shootonsite.org/index.php/mark-french">http://shootonsite.org/index.php/mark-french</a></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Dancers & Choreography </b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Yumino Seki - <a href="https://yuminoseki.webs.com/">https://yuminoseki.webs.com/</a></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Clare Whistler - </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="http://www.clarewhistler.co.uk/">http://www.clarewhistler.co.uk/</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Daniel Hay Gordon </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">- <a href="https://www.danielhay-gordon.com/">https://www.danielhay-gordon.com/</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Patricia Langa <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Musicians </span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Afrit Nebula - h</span><a href="http://www.afritnebula.com/" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">ttp://www.afritnebula.com/</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><b>Venue and Host</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Kino Teatr - </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="https://www.kino-teatr.co.uk/">kino-teatr.co.uk</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Coastal Currents - </span><a href="http://coastalcurrents.org.uk/" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://coastalcurrents.org.uk/</a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Images</b></span><br />
<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Images for 'I am Weather' and 'Klipperty Klopp' found in public domain. (Was unable to find an image for 'Experiments towards a Danse Macabre' (or a website link for Patricia Langa). </span></span><br />
<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Images of Afrit Nebula and Yumino Seki courtesy of Neil Partrick.</span></span></div>
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Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-45591252324028286842019-08-29T21:19:00.001+04:002019-09-18T12:57:45.127+04:00Shit Happens<div dir="ltr">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As was apparent from my last post, living in a village does not make me the happiest bunny in the world. Ironic really given how many bunnies there are around here. Yes the house is beautiful, the garden is beautiful, there's a separate annexe, a summer house, a garage, a drive, two garden sheds, a vegetable garden and a hexagonal greenhouse. There is an extra piece of land where I've started a small sculpture garden. This is just across a path to the station where I can easily get on a train back to my beloved. (I.E. London). So what am I complaining about?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">From the outside it looks idyllic. Factor in that old chestnut of British, or is it more English, cultural aspiration and it looks like I've really made it. I have the detached house in the countryside and in the kitchen I even have that marker of contemporary, middle classness - an Aga. I'm a success. I'm a pleb made good. I can now wander off into the rural sunset content in my coloured wellies. I can drop all that complex baggage of background, class and family trauma. If it isn't visible to anybody else why draw attention to it?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Aye... there's the rub. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">People from poor backgrounds, especially women who escape their still rigidly predictable class trajectory, become very good listeners and quick and comprehensive learners. They ask questions in order not to have to answer them. They learn how to blend in by not drawing attention to themselves. They move with stealth, make sure they are good at whatever job needs to be done to keep them moving, and are usually easy going and fun at parties. Strategically, that last one helps a lot. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Having negotiated an adult understanding of the pain of being perceived negatively in formative years, and having learned how to swallow that anger, means they are not generally judgemental themselves. They are fluid and discreet and very few people get to know them very well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The first legacy of a poor background comes when you realise how much knowledge you have not been exposed to and thus your ability to communicate is severely curtailed. You cannot talk confidently about what you know because that will expose you and you know from experience that your reality is best kept obscure. The second legacy, of an often chronic lack of confidence begins here. It is compounded as you move through life and find that your view of how things are is so different from your majority, middle class counterparts that you believe you must surely be wrong. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So here I am in the countryside looking like a success story and feeling utterly miserable. For the first time in decades I am revisiting some of those class insecurities. I am back in the vicinity of my birth - a place I never wanted to return to. I am not here because of a considered decision about being tired of my international city life or wanting to signal my achievements with that detached house in the country. I am here because my brother took his own life and then, somewhere in the profound, emotional chaos that followed, I lost mine. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am here. Isolated. Bored. Anxious. However, I seem to function and from the outside it seems as if I've blended in here too but I feel nothing. I do nothing. I cannot get any traction. Everything moves slowly and often does not move at all. Three decades of international urban life - my life and all that contributes to the person I think I am - is irrelevant. It's as if the life between leaving and returning to the same geographical space never happened. I feel like a stranger to myself in a compensatory property. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It would of course be easier with children and grandchildren. Being childless is particularly tough in a village where conversation, connection and belonging revolve so much around family life. Tried blending in with a dog for a while but that was disastrous. Rescue dog + rescue human was never going to work in this case.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm increasingly concluding that I'm just not cut out for life in a village. In a city you can be anybody, or nobody, just like everybody else. There are beautiful strangers and the strangest beauties. Numerous, spontaneous and random moments of humaness. There is movement and colour, life and surprises. Most of all there are possibilities and there are people like me. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I will never be tired of London but I am often tired of life these days. Will someone please buy me a flat in a London postcode. Any postcode will do! I'm not fussy. </span><br />
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Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-50236566921225898092019-08-28T13:54:00.001+04:002020-02-09T14:35:34.899+04:00Crowhenge - A Community Art Project <span style="font-family: inherit;">It is an unavoidable fact that I am a bit morose living in a village after 3 decades of international city life, however</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">, the drive to convince myself otherwise has at least resulted in a project. So ladies and gentlemen I give you.... CROWHENGE! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The project began as an adjunct to the Crowhurst Neighbourhood Plan (NP) a community strategy which emerged over the past 3 years to give the village influence in how local housing development quotas are managed. In an earlier attempt to convince myself I belong, I volunteered to build and manage the substantial NP website. In the lead up to what was a very successful NP referendum, I was asked to submit ideas for an art project to represent the village and reflect the community ethos that had underpinned the NP. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This was the basic proposal: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Crowhurst sits in an area of outstanding natural beauty in which trees
are one of the dominant features of the landscape. 'Crowhenge' will use local
woods to create a 7-piece structure linked to key elements of village life: Community, Environment,
Heritage, Youth, Business, Farming and Sanctuary. <span style="background-color: transparent;">All community groups, businesses and organisations in the village can then contribute something that represents them. </span></i></span></blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEgtiCzYhS0NLgyqzvEpKl5hc_D30sAOH9a94ozl_rr0RnsgkAQXQaipW966rMQkce7vrGFyIPTkHaBHr99cA-fGgMPjEVEeNefSEZm66VedABgdPRL_JWqlzbBrgGaaK09qm2MmH__8kO/s1600/Henge+picture+1+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="844" data-original-width="1600" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEgtiCzYhS0NLgyqzvEpKl5hc_D30sAOH9a94ozl_rr0RnsgkAQXQaipW966rMQkce7vrGFyIPTkHaBHr99cA-fGgMPjEVEeNefSEZm66VedABgdPRL_JWqlzbBrgGaaK09qm2MmH__8kO/s320/Henge+picture+1+copy.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; text-decoration-line: none;">One of the woodland trusts in the village <a href="https://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves-and-events/reserves-a-z/fore-wood/">RSPB Forewood</a></span> generously donated the wood for
the project. I had <span style="color: #333333; text-align: center;">Oak, Sycamore, Silver Birch and Hornbeam.</span> Stage one was trimming, shaping and sanding. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIvcxuMcxkoUI_Ge4aY1ZETiqx3bP2jSJKelylNppkZFHMEeLsanKTgrV02nyYFKo1mXkp78O402SwdgV94lk716E_IM-oLOq4HlmQdffNC_fDBsI6463Zyrv_8oI7topv9I3VAehivw3f/s1600/wood+henge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="871" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIvcxuMcxkoUI_Ge4aY1ZETiqx3bP2jSJKelylNppkZFHMEeLsanKTgrV02nyYFKo1mXkp78O402SwdgV94lk716E_IM-oLOq4HlmQdffNC_fDBsI6463Zyrv_8oI7topv9I3VAehivw3f/s200/wood+henge.jpg" width="181" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtSsjDYaHbRTZFlbFP19XWrqNoHZKKks-P1ukICpF1azLA582_MiewbePs3kxrHy9n0QD_WUcsEBDWb95fM9mHdd_dXb4P0kML23DTuaXcpNtjRZIjuXBS-u92q6tb15FGmr94KEjIdmeG/s1600/Henge+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="765" data-original-width="960" height="159" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtSsjDYaHbRTZFlbFP19XWrqNoHZKKks-P1ukICpF1azLA582_MiewbePs3kxrHy9n0QD_WUcsEBDWb95fM9mHdd_dXb4P0kML23DTuaXcpNtjRZIjuXBS-u92q6tb15FGmr94KEjIdmeG/s200/Henge+2.jpg" width="200" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The project began in March and was installed in July. It is ongoing in the sense that people can still add things to it at any time. It is the first time I have done a project of this nature from concept through to completion on my own. It was tough but I am pleased with how it turned out in the end. It was also great to meet people like the 92 year old master carver in the village who created the title sign and to work with the school and various other youth groups in the village. Working with kids is great. They have none of those adult insecurities about 'art' so you don't have to constantly reassure and cajole them into getting involved and then (often) have to do it yourself anyway. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Full details of the project and how it unfolded are on the <a href="http://www.naturestrikesback/crowhenge" style="background-color: transparent;" target="_blank">website </a>and the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/crowhenge/" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">Crowhenge Facebook </a>page so will just post some project images here. </span></div>
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Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-1579604255717725482018-07-02T15:57:00.002+04:002019-09-17T19:37:42.006+04:00Review - Lek and the Dogs, Electric Palace Hastings <br />
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I saw <a href="https://homemcr.org/film/lek-and-the-dogs/" target="_blank">Lek and the Dogs</a> at the <a href="https://www.electricpalacecinema.com/" target="_blank">Electric Palace Cinema</a> in Hastings
on Friday evening. It is based on the true story of Ivan Mishukov, <span style="font-family: sans-serif;">who left his abusive home at four and lived with street dogs for two years before being picked up and put into children's homes. His transition into adulthood seemed to work for a while but he was unable to sustain it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">The</span> film was quite an experience. A friend of mine, who had seen it
in London, asked me on Facebook what my review of the film was. My immediate reply was: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>“Great apart from a tad too much not entirely convincing crying from
Lek, and the tiresome, smugly dogmatic (no pun intended) philosophising. The
film would have been much more effective by cutting out that guy entirely....
that's my review! :)</i></div>
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As a pithy and amusing comment it works but the film bugged
me and kept bugging me. So I looked at the published reviews to see if any of
them reflected what my own reaction had been. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I found a lot of reviews. All of them stuck to pretty much
the same format but not always in the same order: a plot synopsis, varying
degrees of sycophancy and a focus on cinematic form and reference, literary and
philosophical influences and assessing where the body of work fits in director Andrew
Kötting’s
oeuvre. There was a fair range of opinion on these things and not everybody
enjoyed the experience. The BBC’s film critic <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jun/10/lek-and-the-dogs-review-andrew-kotting" target="_blank">Mark Kermode</a> obviously did. This
film is right up his street. He was going to find several avenues of
pleasure in this movie and he did. So far, so predictable. To be fair, however, he did also say (as did
others) that what people took from this film would be entirely personal. That is
absolutely the case but then again is that not the case with any film or work of art? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
There seemed to be very little about the actual content -
the emotional content I mean - and surely it is the story and the trauma and how those emotions are conveyed that is the point here. Introducing the film at the Electric Palace, Andrew
Kötting
said that he wanted people to feel these things. That is commendable enough but
it makes an assumption that the audience are strangers to such feelings and the
director is therefore providing a service to allow them to understand trauma at
a safe distance. Often it seemed as if the
director was ‘bludgeoning’ his audience (a word used in more than one review) to
emote, and to feel pain. In that respect the film is very much of its time.
Public displays of trauma: parents of murdered children, victims of violence, abuse,
terror - trauma as spectacle seems to be a news requirement these days.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Mainstream film reviewers are obviously not keeping up although a couple of the reviews mentioned the word ‘emotional’. The
problem was that none of them really communicated any and what I wanted to know was how the film made them feel and what they thought of the subject.<span style="font-family: sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Perhaps it is in the nature of ‘educated’ reviewers
to not go there. They retain that vague sense of contempt for public expression of
emotion but it’s fine if it’s either fiction, or cinematised ‘truth’
that can be glossed over in an analysis of the form in which it is presented. The
reality of the story effectively becomes secondary to the package in which it comes. </div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I could not access the pay to read reviews but the available
quotes suggested they were much the same content-wise, if more critical of the
film overall. The most succinct and effective review was probably Eye for Film’s,
<a href="https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/lek-and-the-dogs-2017-film-review-by-amber-wilkinson" target="_blank">Amber Wilkinson</a> who avoided the verbiage and managed to tell you everything you
needed to know without actually losing sight of Lek - the film’s subject.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
What I found most strange and disturbing is what appears to
be the complete disconnect between telling and reviewing a tale of childhood
trauma, without understanding just how triggering that can be for audience
members who have suffered childhood trauma. The director joked that walkouts had
previously occurred perhaps because people thought they were coming to see Show
Dogs or Isle of Dogs. The muted ripple of laughter in the room was muted I
suspect because half of this audience didn’t have a clue what either of these
films were. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
I am sure that some of the walkouts have been because the rawness of it has been too overwhelming for those
who don’t have the luxury of understanding trauma at a distance. In fact I am
not sure it is possible to understand trauma at a distance.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
The audio-visual noise may be another reason people
walk out. It was phenomenally loud, intense and often distorted. For people who
do not find peace at the centre listening to industrial noisecore, I can see
why the soundtrack could present not only emotional challenges, but physical, aural discomfort as well. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The difficult thing for me to take in this film, however, was the philosophising
drone that effectively concluded you’re fucked. Your trauma will inform your
actions in endless repetitive cycles and there’s no escape. Such a message is potentially
devastating. People who have been traumatised are painfully aware that it is
still informing their actions. They have been forced to understand it and
forced to find ways to alleviate that cycle in order to survive both
emotionally and physically. The glibness of this single, simplistic, philosophical
overdub, threatened to reduce a complex and quite remarkable piece of cinema to
a smug, undergraduate observation. Because of this I couldn’t help feeling that Lek/Ivan had actually
been a bit dissed by having his story and his trauma used to conveniently park a
philosophy that does neither Lek, nor actually the film, justice.
However, I am seeing this film as a standalone piece. In the context of the
trilogy perhaps there is a wider angle. At least the humour kicked in as
the (cruelly) paraphrased drone continued … yer’ all
gonna die, the planet’s gonna die. No shit Sherlock! <o:p></o:p></div>
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We live in an age of anxiety, dystopia and fear masked by increasingly
absurd levels of pretence that we are all unique and heroic individuals who can
make a difference. We are simultaneously more empathetic and quicker to shut
down. We are all one of Lek’s crowd on the street desperate
for recognition. With no certainty about what we are supposed to be recognised
for, or who is supposed to be doing the recognising, we are constantly recalibrating our identities just to feel comfortable. Going underground is not an option we have.</div>
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<br /></div>
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It is an exhausting time in
which to live. The film communicates this, at times in a profoundly beautiful way
but it is the beauty of Lek himself that you should be taking home with you. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF3_JQza7tDE7cddVSLtR9wIOrl9C5q3RHIj7-KFc5g5nvOLFPlTo-asWP-ryYRumglg6bL6bvcJsDvpsBr7rVJ6zUZ4On7ln7EWmdX0Jz1Z9ozBYxZutsl5ZEDXBy4NpJ_wiEKn9Qth4N/s1600/404650-lek-and-the-dogs-0-230-0-345-crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="345" data-original-width="230" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF3_JQza7tDE7cddVSLtR9wIOrl9C5q3RHIj7-KFc5g5nvOLFPlTo-asWP-ryYRumglg6bL6bvcJsDvpsBr7rVJ6zUZ4On7ln7EWmdX0Jz1Z9ozBYxZutsl5ZEDXBy4NpJ_wiEKn9Qth4N/s320/404650-lek-and-the-dogs-0-230-0-345-crop.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Links:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/interviews/lek-and-the-dogs-andrew-kotting" target="_blank">BFI Interview with Andrew Kotting</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.shu.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/staff-profiles/hattie-naylor" target="_blank">Hattie Naylor</a><br />
First dramatisation of Ivan Mishukov's story, which formed the foundation of this film, was Hattie Naylor's play '<a href="http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/ivandogs-rev" target="_blank">Ivan and the Dogs'. </a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://collectif12.org/portfolio/xavier-tchili/" target="_blank">Xavier Tchili </a><br />
<div>
Actor - Lek (hard to find info and this is out of date but has some biographical content).<br />
<br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/lekandthedogs?lang=en" target="_blank">Lek and the Dogs twitter feed</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lek_and_the_dogs/" target="_blank">'Rotten Tomatoes' review list</a><br />
<br /></div>
Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-44325840462200941872018-06-12T03:18:00.002+04:002018-11-09T13:47:14.834+04:00And finally. . <div dir="ltr">
This is the front lawn of our motel in Havelock. There are two US military facilities in this town and just up the road is a newer and snazzier fighter jet also presented as a public artwork. You see a lot of this. In 2009 we stayed in a <a href="https://naturestrikesback.blogspot.com/2009/11/ut-awe.html?m=0" target="_blank">tiny town motel</a> in Utah that was opposite a recreation ground with a 20 foot missile standing on a plinth. Bit like North Korea.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRS4nOzXL2FGwA-uCoxr6lekRciprnDJDmMDdIRuyqlqCP05yL86g5QbT-wJLpRyZTyYjH38V9gs2nobupWJwLqWnaVf4VrXHmXoygxvrrUTyXmlOE9Y5ui31-v0B9StX6sCN1DmeoTlYq/s1600/20180607_200438.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRS4nOzXL2FGwA-uCoxr6lekRciprnDJDmMDdIRuyqlqCP05yL86g5QbT-wJLpRyZTyYjH38V9gs2nobupWJwLqWnaVf4VrXHmXoygxvrrUTyXmlOE9Y5ui31-v0B9StX6sCN1DmeoTlYq/s640/20180607_200438.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
There's no escaping just how huge a domestic deal the US military is. Expressions of support are evident everywhere. On T-shirts, baseball caps, bumper stickers, billboards, radio and TV ads and in lots of named memorial highways.<br />
<br />
Since the advent of Trump's caricature presidency, coverage of the US has become all about him which inevitably ends up negatively caricaturing the whole nation and its people as well. This a shame because the people aren't the president. I like Americans. I love the fact that I get a chorus of good mornings and big smiles when I walk into a diner for breakfast in the morning feeling like shit after a shit night's sleep. That huge shot of positive has rescued me several times on this trip and I really appreciate it. </div>
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It is inevitable that I am comparing how I am now to the person I was on the last road trip in 2009. It has not been a comfortable reflection on time and getting older but a realisation (for both of us) of the impact of events over the past 5 years on our mental health and on our relationship. Just to recap that includes the suicide of two, close family members, a reactive relocation to a tiny village after more than three decades of a life and career in international cities and finally, caring for my mother until her death 3 months ago. That's quite a lot of stuff and there's actually more in the backstories..... but that'll do for now!<br />
<br />
Anyway, the upshot is a cycle of mutually reinforcing anxiety that at times, makes us each feel we are constantly under attack from the other. It's exhausting and can turn even the simplest decisions into a minefield. The most crushing part is that being aware of it doesn't actually help that much. Still we have managed to get to the final day of the trip without killing each other and the serendipity of finding a vacant room in Smithfield, Virginia with a balcony and this view has been pretty amazing. Especially sitting here last night watching the lightning show that preceded a tropical southern downpour.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjrB_xmuZArdV5_dU47LLTv9ws9OUc6S1yZGcTfjlt-WLznQT0weLmqOET-ezavferTrCKUh2dGQJt3DBEfx-wnCh8HcPgsfVobFGdIoSFr9rYX992BI-d8NZ5AR9DxuUf42DQEiR6bUYm/s1600/20180611_075412.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="900" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjrB_xmuZArdV5_dU47LLTv9ws9OUc6S1yZGcTfjlt-WLznQT0weLmqOET-ezavferTrCKUh2dGQJt3DBEfx-wnCh8HcPgsfVobFGdIoSFr9rYX992BI-d8NZ5AR9DxuUf42DQEiR6bUYm/s640/20180611_075412.jpg" width="360" /></a></div>
<br />
The original plan for this trip was to go North to the lakes and mountains of the Adirondacks in upstate New York. Despite the occasionally unbearable heat, humidity and mosquitoes, I am very happy that we had a last minute shift and decided to come South. That laid back, positive and hospitable southern vibe has been very calmimg when the tension has been as high as the humidity. Saturday was particularly good. We ended up in the 'original Washington' - a North Carolina coastal town - on their festival night. This meant we spent the evening in a waterfront park listening to a great band called <a href="https://theembersband.net/" target="_blank">the Embers</a> and watching what seemed like the entire town, country line-dancing to pretty much anything the band played. This was a lot of fun and hugely enjoyable to unexpectedly be part of such a local experience.<br />
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However, before I get too carried away on the US feelgood factor that I appreciate so much, I have to acknowledge that it can go a little over the top. Not from the generosity and openess of the people but certainly from motel publicity executives. Having to look at this every time I sat on the toilet in the Hampton Inn, knowing there was a fighter jet parked on the front lawn, did make me consider random acts of violence....<br />
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Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-58014259972580640702018-06-08T02:32:00.000+04:002018-06-08T04:51:53.822+04:00Nowhere.. middle of..<div dir="ltr">
It's not really the middle of nowhere but this tiny strip of land off the North Carolina coast has the Atlantic pretty much on both sides. A lot of it is national wildlife reserve and there are coastal forests in the mix as well. Here's a slightly blurry map.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivVmqf8wN9hNxE2ecHT7Snc-qPhjGYQmprpjnr6Ds69bLl8LVKIlMZp5I8Z7rax8WTZogfNxP0tHIzxVejte0RTYdoi4fM4clo9KQF3kl0K05WeZ63K-Cpm7PiRWEGypg6OshYfK54ii5m/s1600/20180607_092840-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="945" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivVmqf8wN9hNxE2ecHT7Snc-qPhjGYQmprpjnr6Ds69bLl8LVKIlMZp5I8Z7rax8WTZogfNxP0tHIzxVejte0RTYdoi4fM4clo9KQF3kl0K05WeZ63K-Cpm7PiRWEGypg6OshYfK54ii5m/s640/20180607_092840-1.jpg" width="377" /></a></div>
<span style="text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: center;">We spent 3 nights in</span><span style="text-align: center;"> Avon at a classic, old motel that looked a bit shabby on the outside but was clean, comfortable and pretty much right on the beach. Swimming in the Atlantic can be quite challenging. People surf here so the waves can be pretty fierce but it's a really exhilarating way to start the day and the only thing I would ever consider doing before coffee. </span></div>
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Great walk around Pea Island Wildlife Reserve lake. Not much there ....<br />
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... apart from birds, turtles and otters.</div>
<br />
We left Avon and headed down the strip then took 2 seperate ferries back onto the mainland. The ferry rides were great. Three hours looking at this ...<br />
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... and an occasional pelican.<br />
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Since then it's been pretty much this.....<br />
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This..<br />
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Lots of these...<br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">And the pretty awesome experience of watching the comings and goings of an osprey's nest in my new favourite place which i</span><span style="text-align: center;">s the <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/nfsnc/recreation/natureviewing/recarea/?recid=48466&actid=63" target="_blank">Croatan National Forest.</a></span><br />
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Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-65872210407100998582018-06-04T03:37:00.000+04:002018-06-04T14:39:42.664+04:00Tappahannock, Suffolk and Dismal Elizabeth Drove out of Washington to Tappahannock via lunch and a bookshop in Fredericksburg. Then via a vinyl store to Suffolk where we got an unusually good view for a roadside motel.<br />
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Up and out to the Great Dismal Swamp for a hike which was supposed to be 4 miles to the huge mid-swamp Drummond Lake and then 4 miles back. But.... we only managed 2.5 miles and had to turn around. The heat and humidity were just too much. Our previous experience of this southern climate was Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas in July 2002. This was much tougher than that even tho North Carolina is further north and we are only just into June so it's a bit crazy. However...... the walk we did manage was pretty amazing.<br />
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The air was buzzing with swampy bird and insect sounds and there were basking turtles, jumping frogs, zebra swallowtails and other really big butterflies all around.<br />
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So the Great Dismal Swamp was anything but dismal ... unlike that night's motel in Elizabeth City which was totally shit. Still, it's never dull with bikers next door, a posse of drunks stumbling back at around 1.00am and then a massive girl-boy fight kicking off in the car park at 3.30am. Thank god for earplugs.<br />
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Here's a couple of typical US town pics taken near the motel. It wasn't all dismal - the IHOP restaurant breakfast was awesome.<br />
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Like road trips we've done before, we're avoiding big highways so you get to see backroads, small towns and interesting garden design.<br />
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In the rural areas of North Carolina you see mile upon mile of crop fields framed by swamp-edge forests and isolated farmhouses under vast skies. <br />
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You rarely see any people but you see a lot of buzzards!Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-35643433557767745182018-06-02T00:26:00.000+04:002018-06-02T02:18:19.852+04:00On the road again... <span style="font-family: sans-serif;">We have the rental car. We have the US roadmap. We have almost 3 weeks and are on the road again. This is our first proper holiday since June 2013. We can hardly believe it. I can also hardly believe I'm blogging about it but what the hell. Blogging about the 2 month trip from NYC to San Francisco back in 2009 was one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif;">We kicked off in Washington DC but that involved a bit of work so holiday really started yesterday. DC was interesting though. Instead of staying in a downtown hotel we had a great airbnb apartment in a district called Bloomingdale. You get such a different impression of a city when you stay in a residential area. A friend raised his eyebrows when we said where we were staying. His impression was that the neighbourhood wasn't exactly salubrious. If that was the case then things have changed. There are signs of gentrification which makes it really </span><span style="font-family: sans-serif;">interesting because it means that the atmosphere can change massively in a few blocks. But </span><span style="font-family: sans-serif;">a lot of the houses look like they were always mighty fine with beautiful gardens and porches and balconies.</span><br />
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As always the most interesting street art and street life are in the parts that have longstanding communities and there is a strong sense of things having developed with them rather than forcing the kind of displacement that has happened so much in London. The Shaw-Howard university area is buzzing with confidence and life. Have to say I winced at housing development slogan 'A Life Supreme' tho.</div>
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Downtown I spent a day at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. The garden is wonderful - even the trees seemed sculptural - and the <a href="https://hirshhorn.si.edu/exhibitions-events/" target="_blank">range of exhibitions</a> as well as some of the permanent collections were excellent.<br />
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I enjoyed <a href="https://hirshhorn.si.edu/explore/barbara-kruger-beliefdoubt/" target="_blank">Barbara Kruger'</a>s, Belief + Doubt room but <a href="https://hirshhorn.si.edu/exhibitions/message-new-media-works/" target="_blank">The Message: New Media Works</a> featuring film and video by Camille Henrot, C.T. Jasper, Joanna Malinowska, Frances Stark, Hito Steyerl, and Arthur Jafa was brilliant. Diverse, engaging and at times profoundly moving. Can't remember the last time I came out of an art museum so totally buzzing. Mind you... I don't get out much these days.<br />
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Next stop the Great Dismal Swamp. Hope it lives up to its name.</div>
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Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-68360194162071711272018-05-11T12:46:00.000+04:002018-05-11T12:46:58.044+04:00Festival 15 - Colden Drystone<div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Don't forget the performance and film screening of Colden Drystone’s ‘Believing in Time Travel (Moors)’ 2014 at the Forum o</span><b><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">n </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">Saturday May 12th from 18.30 to 21.15.</span> </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 2014 during a residency with Cambridge University Colden Drystone undertook a trip back to the landscape of his childhood in West Yorkshire. Over a period of 24 hours he documented the journey from a small cottage on the edges of Oxenhope up onto the moors and eventually to the mythical setting of ‘Wuthering Heights’ – a dilapidated farm house on the very tops of a wild moor where it is said Emily Brontë took inspiration for her famous novel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Colden spent the night filming and writing under the moonlight and witnessing the rising sun at dawn before heading back to Cambridge to edit the footage and compose a piece that he will be performing this evening alongside the original film.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Profound, funny and at times even absurd ‘Believing in Time Travel (Moors)’ is a heartfelt homage to landscape and childhood and a tribute to the creative force of the imagination that is encouraged and nurtured in the wild places of both.</span></div>
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<u><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Interview- Colden Drystone</span></b></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br />Can you tell us something about your work in this show and something about how your work has developed over the years.</b><br /><br />My work 'Significant Other' is an abstract gold painting that uses gold pigment, greys and whites and the natural light to create a surface that is constantly reimagining itself. In this respect it is about light, space and time. In one way or another all my current work is concerned with these three fundamentals of living but with a specific interest in the role creativity has in helping us experience them better. <br /><br /><b>What you find most enjoyable and/or difficult about the process of creating art?</b><br /><br />The joy comes from the doing. Making something happen is unquestionably a life affirming thing. This can be anything; from covering an entire building in clay to drawing a pencil line 4cm long. The most difficult thing is always in making something that can keep that sense of excitement and originality within it, making it something worth sharing with the world.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
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<br /><b>What would you like to see the Hastings Arts Forum do in the future?</b><br /><br />More live art would be good and a hands on engagement with the studio process for artists working in the area - can the space reflect the liveliness of the artists experience, not just the finished works?<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixZeO962U2Y3d7x5mgOcGgr4TCpxSoQJFQRCmoWVC8ho2CsG-MtI2VlnKrwMpx-tJZ3NF4dFzn6Dg3m5Ig_pjRgGK3NST6ClTwUgY3fcnNf7_hrrMf7Ym9EU2_7AS7F4Wrb8nPd2HOOTQO/s1600/Black+Star+1.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixZeO962U2Y3d7x5mgOcGgr4TCpxSoQJFQRCmoWVC8ho2CsG-MtI2VlnKrwMpx-tJZ3NF4dFzn6Dg3m5Ig_pjRgGK3NST6ClTwUgY3fcnNf7_hrrMf7Ym9EU2_7AS7F4Wrb8nPd2HOOTQO/s320/Black+Star+1.jpg" /></a></div>
<br /><a href="http://www.hannahbarry.com/#gallery-grid-86">hannahbarry.com</a><br /><a href="http://coldendrystone.tumblr.com/">coldendrystone.tumblr.com</a></span></div>
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Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-720641901613181452018-05-10T18:14:00.002+04:002018-05-10T21:35:08.683+04:00Festival 15 - Rachel Glittenberg<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I’m Not Afraid, I Was Born To Do This</span></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">(oil on canvas, 90 x 90cm 2018).</span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Can you tell us something about your work in this show and something about how your work has developed over the years. </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Using a mix of my imagination, life drawing and photographic references, I borrow elements from history and folklore to explore aspects of the human condition; love, death, sad</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ness, happiness, relationships, and more specifically, how it feels to be a woman in the 21st Century. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>What you find most enjoyable and/or difficult about the process of creating art? </b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I find so many enjoyable aspects to painting. Being in the flow and waiting for the next piece of the jigsaw to be revealed. My paintings are created in stages and I am never quite sure where I am going to be led next. I also love it when I surprise myself with what appears and I can see my work changing. The challenge of trying something out of my comfort zone, that I wouldn’t normally do. I </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">love</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> the research process and being exposed to new ideas, people, places, things. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The feeling I get when the paint is flowing and it feels like I can’t do a thing wrong. Anything I paint will turn out fine and ideas are abundant. The difficult part is the opposite</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> of all that. Work doesn’t flow, I get stuck for ideas and can</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">’t seem to get going. It’s at times like that when I will take a break from painting and do some chores, take a walk or look at other artists who’s work I admire, to start filling that creative well back up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Introspection, oil on canvas</span></div>
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<span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">(220 x 140cms, 2018.)</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What would you like to see the Hastings Arts Forum do in the future? </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It would be great to see the HAF have more workshops and talks. I have really enjoyed those happening around Festival 15. And possibly partnering up with other visual arts venues, developing an ever widening audience. How about having artists in residence? I think that would be fabulous way of supporting local artists and bring in a new perspective.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.rachelglittenberg.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Rachel Glittenberg Website </span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Instagram <a href="https://www.instagram.com/rachelglittenbergartist/" target="_blank">Rachel Glittenberg Artist</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://hastingsonlinetimes.co.uk/arts-culture/arts-news/meet-rachel-glittenberg-artist" target="_blank">For a great review of Rachel's work, see Erica Smith in the Hastings Online Times</a></span><br />
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Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-38338624837440352082018-05-08T15:19:00.003+04:002018-05-08T15:21:30.678+04:00FESTIVAL 15 - Andrzej Jackowski <br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>The Work </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The work of <a href="http://www.purdyhicks.com/display.php?aID=1#6">Andrzej Jackowski</a> (born 1947, North Wales) is largely autobiographical, based on his early childhood memories, recollections of a family history in Poland and the feeling of alienation and enclosure that these experiences roused. Using powerful, insistent images from his past he explores ideas of human memory and psyche, both on a personal and more collective level.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Time of the Dream - 7, which features in this show, came out of a <a href="https://www.artsy.net/artwork/andrzej-jackowski-time-of-the-dream-1">Paupers Press </a><a href="https://www.artsy.net/artwork/andrzej-jackowski-time-of-the-dream-1">commission</a> to produce a book of 52 lithographs - one a week for a year. A sense of this project is in the following quote: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"..a place of life and death,of disembodiment and sex; a place of things breaking up and being put together again. It is a subconscious land which distils the essence of the self."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Rachel Campbell-Johnston</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKl6zy1siKvfUJ-Mib1rB3bFwuIxH_dXLFDT9UEBDu7yt16C-pHQ-v9GxyrOInIhBe17QoOvDAM2kWdPAOrZ7XEMUZF1scAehIRIaQnHL1bSAU4yZalDjfrnvVqLiY-Rop6P7lO1z2Ubit/s1600/Andrzej+Jackowski+Drawing+33+from+The+Voyage+Series+2011%252C+Mi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKl6zy1siKvfUJ-Mib1rB3bFwuIxH_dXLFDT9UEBDu7yt16C-pHQ-v9GxyrOInIhBe17QoOvDAM2kWdPAOrZ7XEMUZF1scAehIRIaQnHL1bSAU4yZalDjfrnvVqLiY-Rop6P7lO1z2Ubit/s320/Andrzej+Jackowski+Drawing+33+from+The+Voyage+Series+2011%252C+Mi.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Process</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Seamus Heaney wrote that for him,writing a poem;
"was like dropping a bucket down a well of yourself", most of the
time you bring up air, but with patience,trust and hard work you eventually fill
the bucket with water. This process (for writing poems or making images) is
difficult but when you finally bring up a bucket of water rather then air;
there is a feeling that you have come up with something intriguing,haunting;
there is some clarity and occasionally great joy.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">More</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For more </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">see the two videos below. </span></div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92aMJz141kQ" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dreams of Here (12mins)</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is an excerpt from Andrzej Jackowski's video commentary for the exhibition <i>Dreams of Here</i>, shown at the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery in 2012. It was a collective exhibition in collaboration with <a href="https://naturestrikesback.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/festival-15-tom-hammick.html" target="_blank">Tom Hammick</a> and Julian Bell.</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtZffqc99Ds" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Andrzej Jackowski’s professorial inaugural lecture at the University of Brighton (2003).</span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBQ_q_XmXnAGH54kpCxYktoc7usHwgVDILDLNCjqyuPxUgpdrw7eewQH2QV3R-IcRfz6xao_y9X1OvWIZl5e6kpkhlPwl4KyC74gdZnBf0HhpKrYyas1hAdwzwznEIJrc6Koo1OVkWM9ST/s1600/Andrzej+Jackowski+058.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="567" data-original-width="756" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBQ_q_XmXnAGH54kpCxYktoc7usHwgVDILDLNCjqyuPxUgpdrw7eewQH2QV3R-IcRfz6xao_y9X1OvWIZl5e6kpkhlPwl4KyC74gdZnBf0HhpKrYyas1hAdwzwznEIJrc6Koo1OVkWM9ST/s320/Andrzej+Jackowski+058.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.purdyhicks.com/display.php?aID=1#2" target="_blank">Andrzej Jackowski at the Purdy Hicks Gallery</a></span></o:p></div>
Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-65462012776542164622018-05-06T11:43:00.001+04:002018-05-06T11:48:47.762+04:00Festival 15 - Tom Hammick<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Painting is a messy, seat of your pants and nebulous kind of thing.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Tom Hammick</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Violetta and Alfredo's Retreat, 2015, Oil on linen ©Tom Hammick </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Courtesy of Flowers Gallery London and New York </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">all rights reserved Bridgeman Images 2018</span></div>
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<b style="color: #26282a; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Can you tell us
something about your work in this show and something about how your work has
developed over the years.</b></div>
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Waiting
for Time was painted fast, in one night. When the paintings are this quick, and
they work, they are just the best, and the way they click together makes the
hell of painting worthwhile. It's a miracle when this happens. And the
advantages of resolving something so lickety spit is a sort of freshness, despite
painting wet on wet, that never happens when a painting takes forever over many
revisits in the studio.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I like
the way the figures in this painting, while marooned away from the banalities
of everyday life are so wrapped up in themselves, despite their shared island
paradise, that they don't seem they need each other at all. Or perhaps she
needs him less that he needs her as she reads her Neruda and he tries
ineffectually to gather supper?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My work
has slowly become more painterly over the years. I hope my paintings are less
prescriptive, where imagery and titles have become more open ended. This
way they have more chance of conjuring up individual aspects of what it is like
to be human, and any personal narratives they might touch on are completed
by the viewer. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAWcqXJl-6ysk0gPFSHNtMfeoawk5jLKyxqip4NWRkyxb4zMa8hxxp4vNUiq5H5JVDamCkwZLP6IukE0P6iqzBRWtV1b-xWfkdQ0Po3GWuOxsFppdR2snBs6QYOmna-kw0BUh-kttZhqEQ/s1600/Tom+Hammick%252C+Fallout%252C+2014%252C+Oil+on+canvas%252C+%25C2%25A9Tom+Hammick%252C+Courtesy+of+Flowers+Gallery+London+and+New+York%252C+all+rights+reserved+Bridgeman+Images+2018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="1075" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAWcqXJl-6ysk0gPFSHNtMfeoawk5jLKyxqip4NWRkyxb4zMa8hxxp4vNUiq5H5JVDamCkwZLP6IukE0P6iqzBRWtV1b-xWfkdQ0Po3GWuOxsFppdR2snBs6QYOmna-kw0BUh-kttZhqEQ/s400/Tom+Hammick%252C+Fallout%252C+2014%252C+Oil+on+canvas%252C+%25C2%25A9Tom+Hammick%252C+Courtesy+of+Flowers+Gallery+London+and+New+York%252C+all+rights+reserved+Bridgeman+Images+2018.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Fallout, 2014, Oil on canvas ©Tom Hammick </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Courtesy of Flowers Gallery London and New York</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">all rights reserved Bridgeman Images 2018</span></div>
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<b style="color: #26282a; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">What you find most enjoyable
and/or difficult about the process of creating art?</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a
big question. How long have you got?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am
free (sort of) to use my imagination and roam around in my paintings and
prints. What bliss that can be. It's a sort of visual equivalent for me of
writing a poem. When it works. But it never really works, and the lag and gap
between what I see in my imagination and what I end up making is cavernous. But
when you get to the point where the painting tells you what to do- that is
exciting too. You can end up, if you trust it, in a place where the painting is
an equivalent of the intended and imagined image which I am trying to
make and to resolve and explore. But painting is a messy, seat of your pants
and nebulous kind of thing. Nothing much makes sense, and when you think you
have grasped it it slips away. And much of the time you are responding to
an intuition and a feeling so primordial, it's too far from the light of the
everyday. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #26282a;"><b>What would you like to
see the Hastings Arts Forum do in the future?</b><u5:p></u5:p></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #26282a;"><u5:p>Celebrate seriously
good painting and drawing and sculpture and film and music. And leave 'issue
based' work and 'anthropological art making' to other drier institutions. </u5:p></span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #26282a;"><u5:p><br /></u5:p></span></span>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Smoke II, 2014, Oil on canvas, ©Tom Hammick<br />Courtesy of Flowers Gallery London and New York<br />all rights reserved Bridgeman Images 2018</span></div>
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<span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><u5:p><br /></u5:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #26282a; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><u5:p>More about Tom and his work </u5:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://www.tomhammick.com/">www.tomhammick.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://www.hammickeditions.com/">www.hammickeditions.com</a></span></div>
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Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-47274908083279632142018-05-05T10:12:00.000+04:002018-05-05T10:12:03.000+04:00Festival 15 - Robin Holtom<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>This show is a game changer for the Forum.</b></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Robin Holtom</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After gaining a Diploma in Art & Design at Chelsea School of Art in 1966, Robin Holtom went to The Royal College of Art and gained an MA in Film and Television. His painting teachers included Patrick Caulfield, John Hoyland and Ken Kiff. Robin then worked for ten years as an Art Therapist in London and was a Council Member of the British Association of Art Therapists. Whilst there, Robin edited their journal called 'Inscape' for two years. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1980 Robin moved to Wales and concentrated on painting and sculpture while running residential courses in Wales, Italy and Spain. In 1999 he was elected Associate of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. In 2000 he moved to Hastings where he founded the </span>SoCo<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Arts Group and was a trustee of the Hastings Arts Forum for three years.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Robin is presently a Board Member of Hastings Creative Ltd, a non profit company whose purpose is to transform a convent in St. Leonard's-on-sea into a School for the Arts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the three curators of the Festival 15 show (with </span><a href="https://naturestrikesback.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/charlotte-snook-festival-15-curator-and.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Charlotte Snook</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and </span><a href="https://naturestrikesback.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/festival-15-matthew-burrows.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Matthew Burrows)</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, Robin Holtom gives us a quick precis of his involvement with HAF and how the Festival 15 show came together. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been involved with the Arts Forum as a member and
trustee for nearly 15 years before which I was chair of </span><a href="http://www.soco.org.uk/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">SoCo</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. This show is a
game changer for the Forum. Matthew and Charlotte were rigorous in their selection
and hanging and it was an eye opener for me how such different artists could be
shown together in such a way that they all look their best. The less is more
mantra that is often spoken at Forum shows but not so often practised, has been
demonstrated with conviction by this show. Also the fact that so many
distinguished artists are willing to show here testifies to the regard the
organisation is held in. A voluntary organisation that has been going for 15
years without any government arts funding is almost unique and is a model other
towns envy. It depends of course on the generosity of volunteers some of whom
devote hundreds of hours a year to the project. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think there is an opportunity to build on this show with
more carefully curated shows.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.robinholtomart.com/" target="_blank">ROBIN HOLTOM WEBSITE</a></span></div>
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Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-50230956890226332222018-05-04T12:28:00.000+04:002018-05-04T13:19:13.892+04:00Festival 15 - Alan Rankle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />Our next featured artist is <a href="http://www.alanrankle.co.uk/" target="_blank">Alan Rankle</a>. Here he talks about his art, insects, travel, Norman Road and the shared experiences of dogs and art restorers.... </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; text-align: center;">Hudson Spring (2017)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> oils on canvas 40x40cm </span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Can you tell us something about your work in this show and something about how your work has developed over the years? </b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The painting featured in the exhibition Untitled Painting XXVI (Bodiam) 2018 is from a series called Mothland. An evolving theme of these paintings came from my thinking about how various creatures experience the world in quite different ways. For example bats are flitting in the evening landscape focused on sonar. Moths are tuned in to the particular sound frequencies of predators and navigate by the light of the moon. Dragonflies and mayflies live their lives in the air and also underwater and then on the surface membrane of the water. As for your dog…. as well as seeing things only in blue and yellow your dog can hear many sounds you can’t and is of course seeing ultra violet light also…. itself the means by which an expert art restorer can spot a great painting from a fake. </span><br />
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What do you find most enjoyable and/or difficult about the process of creating art? </b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Since I’m interested in landscape painting the work begins with walking and catching ideas. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I like to talk with writers and some artists I’m close to about the way painting can be a catalyst for noticing symmetries and relationships between all kinds of phenomena. As Shih Tao put it: ‘… in terms of penetration and development, painting is the greatest guiding form in the world.’ </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I don’t find it difficult, except maybe knowing when a painting is complete so I tend to ask someone and as Oska Lappin once said: ‘Well you could just <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uqBTzfcIk4" target="_blank">walk away Renee</a> or keep going and cross that line into genius…’ </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Fairlight from the Watermeadows V (2018) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">oils on canvas 91x76cm </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b><br /><b>You travel a lot with your work, would you like to tell us about your recent projects? </b><br />Two projects I’ve worked on recently are an exhibition curated by<a href="http://www.degrandi.com/" target="_blank"> Claudia De Grandi </a>and myself for the <a href="http://www.fabbricadelvapore.org/wps/portal/luogo/fabbricavapore" target="_blank">Fabbrica del Vapore</a> arts centre in Milan which we called <a href="https://www.tramandomilano.it/axis-london-milano-intervista-ad-alan-rankle-e-claudia-de-grandi/" target="_blank">Axis: London Milano</a> and designs for six suites of rooms at the <a href="https://hoteldesigns.net/industry-news/lowry-hotel-manchester-wins-best-bedroom-award-at-chs-awards/" target="_blank">Lowry hotel in Manchester</a> in collaboration with <a href="http://rebeccayoussefi.com/" target="_blank">Rebecca Youssefi</a>, the architect <a href="http://www.afkstudios.com/people/associate-directors/veronica-givone" target="_blank">Veronica Givone and AFK Studios</a>. <br /><br /><br /><b>You’ve been based in St. Leonard on Sea for a number of years and have seen a burgeoning art scene evolving. Do you feel an affinity with the other artists who live here? </b><br />Well a few of them interest me a great deal and we’ve worked together on various projects over the years. The exhibition in Milan featured some artists who’re based here on the coast: <a href="http://rebeccayoussefi.com/" target="_blank">Rebecca Youssefi</a>, <a href="http://oskalappin.co.uk/" target="_blank">Oska Lappin</a>, <a href="http://charlottesnook.net/" target="_blank">Charlotte Snook</a>, <a href="http://thecatstreetgallery.com/artist/MatthewRadford/biography/" target="_blank">Matthew Radford</a>, <a href="http://www.overlap.co.uk/" target="_blank">Overlap</a>, <a href="http://www.kirstenreynolds.co.uk/" target="_blank">Kirsten Reynolds</a>, <a href="http://www.walterhugoandzoniel.com/" target="_blank">Walter and Zoniel</a> along with others who have connections to the town like <a href="http://jakeanddinoschapman.com/" target="_blank">Jake and Dinos Chapman</a>, <a href="https://catroissetter.co.uk/" target="_blank">Cat Roissetter</a> and <a href="http://www.newton-art.com/" target="_blank">Stephen Newton</a>. <br /><br />It seems quite special to be able to just walk down Norman Road to the <a href="https://www.kino-teatr.co.uk/" target="_blank">Russian Cafe</a> and meet up with artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers... what to say…. <i>Bonjour Monsieur Torriset</i>! <br /><br /><br /><b>What would you like to see the Hastings Arts Forum do in the future? </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I think inviting curators to bring art from other places would be a good idea. Maybe you could link up more with the local museums and do joint ventures. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Fairlight from the Watermeadows IV (Goya) 2018 </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">oils on canvas 100cm x 80cm </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.alanrankle.co.uk/" target="_blank">ALAN RANKLE WEBSITE</a></b></span></div>
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Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-50427113455984277742018-04-29T15:50:00.000+04:002018-04-29T18:03:53.408+04:00Festival 15 - Jean Davey Winter<br />
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Jean Davey Winter: About the work:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">A fascination with travel and the concept of the
journey provide me with an ongoing source of inspiration.<b> </b>Over the years
this has included a microlight flight over the volcanic island of Lanzarote; a <a href="https://naturestrikesback.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/four-states-four-minds-american-journey.html" target="_blank">road trip through New Mexico, Arizona and Utah</a> and more recently a visit to the
island of Cuba, the starting point for this new work.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Cuba has an
extraordinary culture, a dense web of associations and contrasts which conjure
up words like: seductive, poetic, alchemy and magic. There is a constant
awareness that this vibrancy, colour and energy combine and conflict with
reminders of a darker past. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Many diverse elements from these experiences are
now coming together as the work continues to develop: glimpses of colours and
textures and the fragmented memories of travel. It is intentionally ambiguous,
hopefully to allow sufficient space for the viewer to bring their own
interpretations to it. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Working practice:</span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Coming from a textile background I enjoy the
freedom of working with mixed media. The opportunity to build up surfaces, to
combine this with collage plus the fluid qualities and mark making potential of
paint; I love the feeling of anticipation – that anything can happen, as a new
piece begins.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What I find most difficult is the ‘letting go’,
that moment of realisation that some of the bits you have become most attached
to have to be sacrificed if there’s any chance of making the painting work –
that’s the hard part….<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Future hopes for Hastings Arts Forum:</span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Hastings Arts Forum has been transformed over the
ten years since I first exhibited there. There have been major structural
improvements to the gallery itself and the whole ethos and ambition of the
Forum has become very much more ambitious and professional.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Whilst maintaining it’s commitment to the community
I hope it will also continue to thrive and develop with the emphasis on curated
shows, both group and solo, and maybe create a series of major annual
exhibitions following on from the precedent set by Festival 15.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">More about Jean and her work can be seen on her website</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://jeandaveywinter.co.uk/about/" target="_blank">Jean Davey Winter</a></span></div>
Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-89272717134990394222018-04-28T11:17:00.001+04:002018-04-28T11:22:38.443+04:00Festival 15 - Matthew Burrows <div style="text-align: center;">
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<i>'Painting is not born out of intelligence but the fine balance between confidence and surrender.' </i></div>
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Matthew Burrows </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Wall (2017) </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Oil on board 152.5 x 124.5cm </span><br />
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<b>1. Can you tell us something about your work in this show and something about how your work has developed over the years. </b></div>
I am fortunate enough to live and work in the rolling hills of East Sussex, my studio, on the site of an old wind mill, is firmly perched on a ridge between valleys. Despite the beautiful views and clear vistas, my relationship to place is not one of description or nostalgia, but one of dwelling and ritual. It is a process of mythologizing, of drawing meaning from the particularities of the environment, of realising its wilderness and ours. <br />
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I’ve always considered myself a painter of people and places, and yet, it's rare to find these fully articulated anywhere in my work. In one sense this is about the problem of metaphor - a picture of a landscape is not the meaning of a landscape and can easily lead to trite illustration. My painting ‘Oasis’, on show at HAF, is a painting of absence, it depicts a structure in a barren landscape that could be an alter or building, a means of display or container of sorts. Beyond the suggestion of a ground and horizon there are few clues to construct a narrative, instead one is left with the density of pigment and colour, the movement of mark and tension across its hard yet porous surface. The title suggests hope in the harshness of the desert, it is the mystic’s landscape of solitude and temptation, a paradise of emptiness and rage, a country of madness and silence.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Single and Divided (2017) </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Oil on board 122 x 94cm</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>2. What you find most enjoyable and/or difficult about the process of creating art? </b></div>
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The most enjoyable part of making art is that it asks so much of you, it asks everything, no stone left unturned. Of course, that’s what makes it difficult too. It’s a hard task master, mostly it leaves you frustrated and despondent, months can go by with little or no joy. But there’s something compelling and surprising in its mystery that keeps you moving on. <br />
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<b>3. What would you like to see the Hastings Arts Forum do in the future? </b><br />
HAF plays a significant part in the artistic fabric of Hastings, it gives a sense of place and purpose to artists who live and move to Hastings. Moving forward it would be really exciting to see HAF look again at how it shows work, perhaps taking a more creative approach to the design, layout and structure of the walls etc. It maybe a step too far but an open competition to ask for design solutions to this may create some refreshing and surprising outcomes. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Eclipse II (2016) </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Oil on board 77.5 x 59.5cm</span></div>
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More about Matthew and his work can be seen on his website </div>
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<a href="http://www.matthewburrows.org/home" target="_blank">Matthew Burrows Website</a></div>
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Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-37889049006977380362018-04-24T19:46:00.001+04:002018-04-25T19:23:27.825+04:00Charlotte Snook - Festival 15, curator and artist<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.charlottesnook.net/" target="_blank">Charlotte
Snook</a> has been living and working in St Leonards since 2001. She studied
at Hornsey College of Art and the Royal College of Art, where she got her MA in
Painting. She taught Foundation courses across the Midlands before
working as a Senior Lecturer in Foundation Studies at Central Saint
Martins (2002 to 2009). From 2011 to 2014 she was Chair of <a href="http://soco.org.uk/" target="_blank">SoCo Artists</a> and she
and <a href="http://www.soco.org.uk/index.php?q=gallery&g2_itemId=1708" target="_blank">Mary Hooper</a> coordinated the Art in Empty Shops project
in 2012. This was a collaboration with Hastings Council and Dyer and Hobbis Estate Agents
to provide large scale prints of artists’ work in empty shop windows in St
Leonards. Her most recent project was at the Jerwood gallery. She talks about her work in a short and lovely video linked
here: <a href="https://vimeo.com/256551914" target="_blank">To be
Continued: Artists in Hastings</a></span><br>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Q. How did you become involved with Hastings Arts forum and curating Festival 15? <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="yiv4821269219msonormal" style="margin-bottom: .1pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: .1pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As
an artist living in St Leonards you can hardly avoid being Involved with HAF,
through taking part in exhibitions yourself or supporting friends and fellow
artists in their shows. Openings are a great way to meet other artists and do
some networking. It’s a very welcoming place. I’ve observed the fluctuations in
HAF’s fortunes over the years and am delighted at its current success. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
offered to help with the </span>curation<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Q. You are one busy artist! Can you balance time working with others and time you need to work for
yourself?</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’ve
always found it complementary, whether working with students or fellow
practitioners on projects and exhibitions but time management skills are often
needed!</span></div>
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<i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Q. Why did you become an artist?
Were & are there particular artists who inspired you? </i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For
as long as I can remember I wanted to be an artist and go to Art School.
Finding Van Gogh at an early age was a revelation. There have been so many
artists who have influenced/inspired me at different times over the years but
constant companions are Goya, Tiepolo and the English satirists, eg Gillray,
Hogarth. </span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Q. In the video you talk about how your work has developed. Can you say a little more
about your work at the present time?</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
have a great studio five minutes from where I live. It’s functional and very
cold in winter, but there are no distractions. It’s always a joy to be there
even if the work is not going well. </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
paintings I make are small, although to me the size of the picture plane
doesn’t matter; I still grapple with the composition, the colour, the quality
of the marks, the fluidity of the painted surface, just as if I were working on
a much larger scale. There is often narrative, a sequence of the same subject
approached in different ways through both drawing and painting. I shamelessly
borrow from other artists, Velasquez, Joseph Wright of Derby, Crivelli and others
more obscure and when I do I feel part a continuous fellowship of painters
through time.</span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Q. What would you like to see at the
Hastings Arts Forum in the future?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
would like to see Festival 15 become an annual event. So
next year Festival 16 might be an exhibition showcasing Sculpture or
Photography, for example.</span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://charlottesnook.net/" target="_blank">Charlotte's Website</a> is </span></o:p><a href="http://charlottesnook.net/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Charlottesnook.net </a></div>
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Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-22375095299543680802018-03-16T13:38:00.000+04:002018-03-16T13:38:19.440+04:00FESTIVAL 15 - Celebrating 15 years of the Hastings Arts Forum<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">
<span class="s5"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Hastings Arts
Forum (HAF) was </span></span><span class="s1">founded in 2003 by a group of artists
and art enthusiasts with a shared commitment to support the visual arts in Hastings and St Leonards and to raise the profile of visual culture in the area. </span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="s1">The Forum is now a registered
charity and runs two adjoining gallery spaces on the sea front.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> It is independent of any public funding and is almost totally reliant on its
many committed and experienced volunteers. This makes it a space that is </span></span>unique in Britain. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="s1">The gallery </span><span class="s7">offers
</span><span class="s1">professional artists the opportunity to exhibit at reasonable prices and gives all artist members and its volunteers the chance to show their work in annual shows. It develops exhibition programmes and has </span><span class="s7">recently</span><span class="s1"> launched a new initiative called 'Rising Talent' where new and emerging artists can show their work in a professional gallery for the first
time at no cost.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">This year HAF i</span></span><span class="s1"><span lang="EN-US">s celebrating its 15 year anniversary by holding an exhibition and </span></span><span class="s1"><span lang="EN-US">a seri</span></span><span class="s2"><span lang="EN-US">es</span></span><span class="s1"><span lang="EN-US"> of events and talks </span></span>that will showcase the extraordinary quality and range of artists connected with Hastings and St Leonards. Co<span class="s1"><span lang="EN-US">llectively entitled '</span></span>Festival 15', in<span class="s1"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="s1"><span lang="EN-US">vitations to </span></span><span class="s3"><span lang="EN-US">exhibit</span></span><span class="s1"><span lang="EN-US"> have been sent to </span></span><span class="s3"><span lang="EN-US">a number of </span></span><span class="s1"><span lang="EN-US">artists whose work has helped build the reputation of Hastings and St Leonards as a centre of artistic excellence. T</span></span></span></span>he exhibition will open on May 2<sup>nd</sup> and the festival will last for two weeks. </span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"><span lang="EN-US">The aim of the festival is to bring attention to
the excellence of art on offer in the area.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></span><span class="s1"><span lang="EN-US">We will be contacting </span></span><span class="s5"><span lang="EN-US">other local galleries and arts organisations to </span></span><span class="s3"><span lang="EN-US">make sure </span></span><span class="s5"><span lang="EN-US">that this opportunity to gain recognition is all
encompassing.</span></span><span class="s1"><span lang="EN-US"> The exhibition at
the Forum’s gallery will bring together the work of these highly-regarded
artists’ work in one place and </span></span><span class="s7"><span lang="EN-US">shine
</span></span><span class="s1"><span lang="EN-US">a light on the richness of the
arts scene in Hastings and St Leonards.
We are very grateful to Matthew Burrows, Robin Holtom and Charlotte
Snook who are curating the exhibition.</span></span></span></blockquote>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lesley Barker, chair of the Forum’s exhibition committee.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"><span lang="EN-US">Interviews with participating artists will appear here on the blog in the run up to the festival </span></span> so more soon! You can also check in via:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"><span lang="EN-US">WEBSITE: </span></span><a href="http://www.hastingsartsforum.co.uk/" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="s9"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">www.hastingsartsforum.co.uk</span></span></span></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">TWITTER <a href="https://twitter.com/hastingsarts?lang=en" target="_blank">@hastingsarts</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="s1"><span lang="EN-US">FACEBOOK </span></span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/hastingsartsforum/">www.facebook.com/hastingsartsforum/</a></span></span></span></div>
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Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161876155593444355.post-67345615085421678462017-08-06T14:28:00.001+04:002017-08-06T14:38:36.788+04:00Rising Talent - Ellie Saliba<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Final interview on the final day of the show! Ellie Saliba... have to admit I really, really like her cool, creepy clown </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">girl</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">s.... :) </span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Please tell us something about yourself and your art?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am still a learner artist, I just finished my first college course and am going onto a foundation art course at my college (Sussex Coast), and
hopefully from there I will continue into University and go on from there. As
art is a big passion of mine I don't think I will give it up. With my art I am
still exploring different styles and techniques that I like experimenting with
and finding my own personal style. I mostly do photography and illustration as
I like the mixed media of the two. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Which other artists do you like or find particularly interesting?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One artist I find interesting is definitely Cindy Sherman and her different takes
on her photography, like her clown persona series, definitely a big influence
to me and my work as it identifies different aspects and hidden personalities in a single person. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I
also find Van Gogh's meaning interesting and a inspiration to artists. As a man
who didn't have much, the city thought he was a mad man and he was incredibly
depressed, yet he managed to create such beautiful pieces full of light and
choice of bright, eye catching colours. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Though
he is a fashion designer, the late Alexander McQueen, has always been an
influence to me since I was a little girl walking past his London Fashion
House. I was interested in the bold and dramatic art of the clothing he designed and
displayed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Why is making art important to you?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Art is important to me because I feel like it's a self therapy, I feel
free and powerful when I have my pencil in my hand. But sometimes I have a
concept or a vision and I like to make it come true with the help of a pencil
and paint. It's a way of expressing who I am, especially if it is a very
personal piece like my 'Clown' series.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What would help you to develop your art further in the future?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Well.... going into a new art course with new tutors, new inspiration. And when I hopefully go to a university, I can learn the traits of the art world and hopefully that would be a world I can soon be part of. I just need to find my own individual style that is personal to me and make my mark. </span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-align: start;">Rising Talent at the Hastings Arts Forum</b></div>
<b style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-align: start;">July 25th - August 6th</b><br />
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Nature Strikes Backhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14835165200051989756noreply@blogger.com0