Pragmatism and preconceptions

Resembling the stubbly rump of some ancient beast having crawled from the sea and into the marshes to die, spared from the swelling suburban tide only by its SSSI status, Bryn Euryn was not always thus. 

The brief was simple enough. Here’s a trig point, go, make work. Negotiating between pragmatism and preconceptions, on site, between the charms of the location and my latent intent for the work, Is proving, here at least, to be quite another matter.

Tempting were the domes, waves and arches of a peculiar valley near the summit, swathed, Dr Seuss-like, in traveller’s joy, storm light and, to my surprise, raspberries. Tempting too, the precipitous battered crags immediately over dark and brisling yews with the A55 snaking through the valley, and on towards the mountains, against the evening sun.

Nope. No footing here, too low there, too distant, too familiar, in the wind, in the way, where’s the sweep? How does it fit? What’s the point? Where’s the spot? 

With soliloquy approaching cacophony I stopped, at a crossroads, in the rain. A curious confluence of five paths intersecting at improbable angles. My interest is piqued. I can’t remember how long I stood there for, turning over compositions, aspects, and approaches to this scene before me. One path in particular appealed to me. The middle path, which, by some trick of the light appeared to be the focus of concentric circles, formed by the tangle of branches criss crossing this forgotten path, this hidden, hanging, valley. How could I resist.

Telling tales

Rhiwledyn, the little orme. I'm here for the Trig, but also to find out more about the local landscape. Curiosity often gets the better of me, and there's much to tempt the imagination here.

Clambering over the 3 ft thick rough-drystone walls of the summit complex, lapped at by waves of coarse grass and heath, suddenly, the wind stops dead. Natural shelter, at a strategic altitude, recognised, exploited and reinforced, by ancient men. Neolithic and bronze age artefacts found in the forbidding Rhiwledyn cave support such a view. The improbably high ferns agree too, a fact recognised since the hills themselves were named. Rhiwledyn; fern hill.

I could find no mention of an earthwork which I took to be the foundations of a roundhouse, well situated, and domestic in scale.

Of the three caves just beyond the enclosing walls, Letterbox Cave, sketched above, is most easily overlooked, in-spite of the fact that the escarpment to which it belongs dominates the aspect of the south-east approach with a beaming, crooked limestone smile, seen glowing in the morning sun.

My notes accompanying the sketch ran:
Enter on chest. Move stones blocking entrance. Mosquitoes for 3 metres (buzzing). Chimney at 5. Small chamber, kneeling. Sound of heart beating. Blue / green light when torch off, possibly after image. Bones. Digging in chamber, possibly rabbits. Red-ish ochre / umber, third tint. Micro-stalactites like the spines of small creatures. Carbonate bloom, luminous against glossy ochres. 2L plastic container. Impractical for domestic application. Private ritual function, presumably vision-quest.

The satellite imagery gives little indication of how vertiginous the slopes are, the approach to Printing Press Cave on short, wet grass, rolls away under foot, appearing impossibly spherical from above, before plunging into a scabious gorge, to the laughter of onlooking fulmars and gannets. Stories about this cave abound.

Reservations about the approach to printing press cave dissolve into disbelief when it comes to consider Rhiwledyn Cave on the sheer north face. Accessible only by the most dubious of paths; carved, it appears, not by sheep but shrews. Excavations of this cave have revealed the most finds of the three, it's forbidding position having presumably safeguarded the contents from casual vandalism. Contents which included "Some 518 bones, in addition to many hundreds of frog and toad bones [my italics], and more than 600 unidentifiable bone fragments... including bones belonging to at least four humans; a four year old, an eight year old, a nine year old and an adult." and a veritable shopping list of other species.

Ignoring my own advice to site one's self in the lee, I settled, after a week's sketching, on a standpoint overlooking this enigmatic enclosure, rather than in it. Looking towards the trig point, rather than from it, much could be made of this point by hands more capable than mine, I am sure. But for now, I'll keep on making choices, taking moments, thoughts and feelings, towards a months worth of marks on a board.


A prominent passage of WH Auden's In Praise of Limestone could have been artfully inserted a few points back.

They were right, my dear, all those voices were right,
And still are; this is not the sweet home that it looks,
Nor its peace the historical calm of a site
Where something was settled once and for all.

New rig

Mark 2 monopod easel plein air rig.
Light weight. Stable. Versatile.
Five point quick release guy lines.

larger base plate, and battened up.
Tested in winds of up to 30 mph.

Formidable

Not great deal to show for the day but an enhanced appreciation of the visscitudes of the location. Neither cave nor roundhouse remained untouched by today's wind.
The new improved rig held up after last week's catastrophic failure, which nearly saw my work disappear seaward. Alas, full safety harnesses remain out of scope for this project. Perhaps a telescopic mast to strap myself to would do?
New homemade fixative performed well in driving rain too. Little may have been gained, but at least no work was lost.

Highlights from a month on location

A month into production of the Trig point series, one panel in hand. Here's a selection of observations encountered on site or en route, which it would be difficult to deduce from the panel itself.

-The satisfaction of pulling blackthorn hedge trimmings from kevlar reinforced tyres.

-The pleasure of greeting a summit breeze after an undulating ascent through a windless valley, pierced only by the morning sun.

-The poignancy of evening birdsong after a long day of wind and rain.

-To learn from the trees, the nature of the prevailing wind, and site yourself in the lee.

-Not to underestimate the value of a foreground subject, when the mist comes rolling in.

And a handful of questions, similarly situated.

-What Frequency would you find at the centre of the rainbow, were it not occluded by the shadow of your head?

-Do cows look at the sky? 

-How would a treasure hunter, habituated to the optimistic beep of a metal detector, regard lost edges in a picture?

-Is humour an intrinsic property?

-What is the shape of the surface generated by the perpendicular viewing of a gnomic projection at sight size?

We'll See.

Ideal materials

I love kit. The smell of new pencil case is one of my most cherished, indelibly associated with the approach of September, still summer nights ripe with anticipation, and the limitless but often short-lived potential heralded by the new school year.

The aisles are full with pop up display stands, overflowing with seasonal stationery, there appears to be no limit to the availability of materials from an ever increasing number of online suppliers, and few, indeed, are the things that could resist the invitation of a resourceful artist, to serve as his or her materials. 

With so much on offer, what are the criteria by which materials are selected? And what light does this shed on the work? Here, and in no particular order, are the factors which have influenced the selection of materials for the series I am currently working on. The headings remain fairly stable, but the values will tend to shift, as new issues are brought into consideration.  The whole is listed for insight, with potential for inspiration.

Versatility / Limitations:

How many ways can I think of to use this material? How can its limitations be exploited?

Stability / Volatility:

Are the colours fugitive? What stresses will the the picture be subject to? Are the materials chemically compatible? Or antagonistic? 

Familiarity / Novelty:

Are these materials already known, trusted and loved? Or do they open up new avenues?

Availability / Rarity: 

Do I have them to hand? are they easily procured? or only as the result of a lengthy quest?

Practicality, Applicability:

Given this size, and these working conditions, is this material it workable? Laboured or elegant? A battle or a blessing? 

Price, Value:

What are the factors governing it's market value? Can I disentangle intrinsic from extrinsic value? Would this material be extravagant or miserly, or somewhere in-between?

Associative significance, personal, cultural & potential:

What do these materials mean to me? Where and how and by whom have they been used before? What associations do they call to mind? And what significance are they still capable of conferring?

Ethical / political significance:

Does this material bear any hidden costs? What is its provenance? Is it sustainably resourced? Does this matter or could it in some way add to the work?

Subject relevance:

What relationship does this material have with the subject of the work? What quality in one suggested the other? Is the resemblance superficial? Self referential?, a pun, a rhyme? Or the common ground of a firm friendship?

Issues raised by this list of considerations will be taken up in the next post. 

Roughly concerned with method and materials. 

Roughly.

Why bother?

Those are dangerous, words with which to open any venture, artistic or otherwise. Dangerous but necessary, as without an underscoring of doubt, what ground does certainty stand to gain? 

In asking fundamental questions, in this first post, I'm trying to establish the both the validity and trajectory of this blog. Why inflict more words upon the world? What do I hope to achieve with this blog? and What might you stand to gain from reading it? 

As an artist, I value critical reflection, openness, and above all, insight.  

I struggle with words. The endless eddies of possible linguistic permutations offer a fearsome prospect, but what seas were charted from land alone? 

I appreciate the clarity and economy of thought gained by attempts to communicate, much as you can't explain what you haven't understood (Feynman), it's through attempting to explain that we can better understand.

In the Early 20th Century, the Slade bore, austerely, as it's motto, 'Drawing is the explanation of form.' Among the many other things that drawing is or can be, It's an invitation to understanding, a restless, searching understanding, and an invitation that's hard to refuse.

Words offer the potential to pinpoint specific things, which in a picture might not be wholly apparent, questions wrestled with in the making of a picture can be brought to light: What's the significance of this material? What relevance does it have to its subject? What determines the size of the picture?, What qualities, if any, were actively being pursued?

More than a thousand words, a picture is worth a thousand choices. Many are often implicit and insulated from consideration having been enshrined in a working method inherited wholesale, or assembled intuitively over a lifetimes worth of experience. 

It's just such choices; the questions encountered in the production of pictures which this blog hopes to reveal. In an attempt to make the daily internal narrative a little more accountable, in pursuit of clarity, to seize on ideas and events as they occur, and to contribute and communicate, with countless curious others. Such then are the aims of this blog at the outset. I might put the odd picture up too.