A TALE OF TWO INTERIORS

INTERIOR II
richard hamilton 1964


my friend alan..

had arranged with his art teacher..

for me to go along with them..

on their outing to london in 1969

we were off to see the magritte retrospective at the tate..

whilst there we came across..

the most exiting painting I have ever seen..

I was 17 so maybe not surprising..

when you get to see them in the flesh..

so to speak..





yes it's that room again..

we are back in harlem..

or somewhere the same..

this time the girl is a film star..

patricia knight..

and the room has had a make over..

but the tv is still there..


at 17..

it's the superb technical skill of richard hamilton..

that has blown the mind..

the chair seat is actually stainless steel and plastic..

the stem is a halftone screen print stuck on..

patricia is from a still that had been..

thrown into a waste bin..


EAST 100TH STREET




bruce davidson 1966

a single figure..

a window instead of an archway..

got the tv though..

compare and contrast these two interiors..

can you see why I was entranced?

love that clock and that fan..

fans really get to me as well..


SOMETIME LATER ALAN WROTE THIS


in charles stuart's paintings..

people are always drawn in boldly..

they are central to the pictures he shows us..

but always they are caught in the mists of paint..

trapped between patterns of brushmarks and scrubbed washes..


AND THIS


we can trace the memories of comic books..

half-remembered images from magazines..

the history of the painter's gesture..

the solitary immobile figure is captured frozen in a moment..

we pick up the clues and continue the story..

alan smith june 1979

VENETIAN BLIND

yo!.. kraven the hunter... innit!

steve ditko..

the greatest spidey artist ever..

gave me this..

venetian blinds and their shadows..

on the right is cap in the shadows of the blind..


here are some recent blinds..



blind leading the blind?

or..

teepees on the big horn riverside?



toto watching squirrels..



suburban safari..

toto nodding off..

moonbeams..

eclipse..

HOME FROM THE SEA

virginia stuart..

loves to be beside the seaside..

her's is a marine life..

a sun bather and beach comber..

artist and sculptor..

she brings home the fruits..

of time and the weather..

sweet molly malone

she sells sea shells


CREATE AND SURVIVE


virginia has created her own medium..

her own version of papier mache..

which is derived from her ceramic work..

she prefers the paper medium to clay..

even though it's new and surprising..

for collectors..

home from the sea

top view

yes that is a ring around a shell..

and yes..

suspended stones from the shingle beach..

and silk thread..

all the works are..

original and unique..



https://pixels.com/profiles/virginia-stuart/collections/sea+pieces

IN CAMERA WITH THE MISFITS

yo!.. all in the mind... innit!

something other today..

our sourdough bakery is closed..

so no wholemeal sourdough bread..

for a week..

lock me down and beat me up....


IN MY MIND I STILL NEED A PLACE TO GO


in palookaville..

there is an 'art' gallery..

they do not show paintings much..

so what's new?

anyway..

I am standing just inside the door to one of the gallery spaces..

it is pitch black dark..

they have created this box room thing..

to prevent light entering into an exhibition of some sort..


    WHEN THE DOOR OPENS


so in effect I am inside a camera..

like a camera obscura..

sort of..


I have my compact camera on a very slow shutter speed..

when door (aperture) opens..

ok..

so you get the idea..

and I'm happy enough..

for a while..


BEYOND THE OUTSIDER


in the dark I am invisible..

and beyond the life around me..

I can observe but I am not involved..

I don't belong..

I am alone..


SOMEWHERE IN MY MIND THERE IS A PAINTING BOX

And somewhere in my mind there is a painting box
I have every color there, it's true
Just lately when I look inside my painting box
I seem to pick the colors of you

I wear my body like a caravan
Gipsy rover in a magic land..

we are in my head..

this is an interior view..

imagination and memory..

a love affair with fantasy..

an imitation of life..

happy birthday mr. president..

IT'S CURTAINS FOR PETER

yo!.. naval gazin... innit!

THE SIMPLE MURDER OF ART

this is a painting from..

figures in a souk..

but really it's also from..

EAST 100TH STREET

yes it fits with the souk..

but the single figure reminds us..

of the little girl in the bruce davidson photo..

and so today we are going to..

investigate a mystery..


MEAN STREETS


In everything that can be called art..

there is a quality of redemption.
It may be pure tragedy,
if it is high tragedy,
and it may be pity and irony,
and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man.

But down these mean streets..
a man must go who is not himself mean,
who is neither tarnished nor afraid.

1979

evidence from the sketchbook..

you can see top left a simple drawing..

of a take on the bruce davidson photo..

and other ideas I had based upon the..

window, cutains, blinds..

there is a tv also..

and that is important too..

so..

the paintings..




this is our ian modelling..

yes it is a real old glory..

yes it is a funcioning roller blind..

interactive innit!




yes it is the silver surfer..

and the tv image is from..

philip jones griffiths

and the little boy behind the curtain..

is our paul..

the blue tarp. is real and so are the red ropes..





the yellow rose of texas..

draws a curtain across the ever creeping mission..

so that was in 1979..

I wrote this at the time..


KING ELVIS HAS SURELY COME

no child can see..

without the object being obscured by the image..

the tv and the radio and the movies..

have drawn a curtain over the world..

that no x-ray specs can see through..

and a mythology has grown..

that is stronger and makes more money for someone..

than all the gods of asgarde or olympus..

the greeks (ancient0..

had no 70mm dreams..

to rival the panavision..

of the youngest of our sons..

the vikings never had a god as powerful..

as the one that gets 60 minutes..

of tv time on sunday..

circe has not the special effects of..

 the bbc, itv, nbc and metro-goldwin meyer..

nor did any visionary of the past..

see as far as superman..

nor did any plagues of egypt..

pour as many plagues on man's imagination..

as the six o'clock news..



CURTAINS CARPETS AND FIGURES IN A SOUK

work in progress 2018 ish..

and who the fuck is peter anyway?

FIGURES IN A SOUK 2

yo!.. rembrandt, turner, rothko... innit!





where the square came from..

I cannot say..

nor were the blue stripes figures..

until they just were..

this is the earliest example of the style..

it has all developed from here..

the souk idea is from the first one I showed you last time..

the figures just emerged..



this is how you paint..

by not looking..

until you look back..




this is the first version of the figures..

see what I mean..

got to be casablanca..

got painted over though..

more than once..

figuresinasouk.com

FIGURES IN A SOUK

yo!.. mature style... innit!


how long did it take you to paint this picture?


A LIFETIME OF LEARNING


the first 'figures in a souk' was painted in 2014..





they just evolved out of a session of starts..

you know nine blank canvases..

splash on the colours..

sit back and see what you have..

at first you think they are great..

so you leave them alone..

then later you get tired of most..

if not all of them..

so you go at them again..




I used to paint large canvases..

60 inches high x 96 inches wide..

now I prefer to paint small..

whereas before it was all about images..

now it's all about painting..

the big brush is bigger..

the smaller the canvas..

it's about marks..

and..

gesture..

and..

surface..

and..

colour..

so nine red ones..

six yellow ones..

later colour greys..

so six years of 'figures in a souk'..

sixty six years to paint this painting..

figuresinasouk.com

I MUST GO DOWN TO THE SEA AGAIN

THE LONELY SEA AND THE SKY

I must go down to the sea again..

the lonely sea and the sky..

I've left my shoes and socks there..

I'm seeing if they're dry..


I have always loved the sea, coast, boats, beach..

you can see it in the paintings..


and here at the beach..

IMAGINED ST IVES

ST IVES CORNWALL

Although they did not see themselves as part of a group or school,

the term St Ives School is often used to refer to the artists..

associated with the fishing town of St Ives in West Cornwall,

which became a centre for modern and abstract developments..

in British art from the 1940s to the 1960s

imagined st ives

West Cornwall’s special quality of light has drawn painters to St Ives since the beginning of the nineteenth century. However the extension of the Great Western Railway to West Cornwall in 1877, which eased access to the remote town, made St Ives even more appealing as a destination for artists.

In 1928 the artists Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood visited St Ives where they met naïve artist Alfred Wallis, whose painting was to have a profound impact on Nicholson, confirming the modern direction of his work. In 1939 at the outbreak of the Second World War, Nicholson and his then wife the sculptor Dame Barbara Hepworth, both by then fully fledged abstract artists, settled near St Ives, where they were soon joined by the Russian constructivist sculptor Naum Gabo. After the war St Ives became a centre for modern and abstract developments in British art led by Hepworth and Nicholson (Gabo departed in 1946).

From about 1950 a group of younger artists gathered in St Ives and it is with this group, together with Hepworth and Nicholson (until his departure in 1958), that the term St Ives School is particularly associated. As well as a shared interested in abstraction, the St Ives artists were also inspired by the landscape of West Cornwall and used its shapes, forms and colours as a source for much of their work. The principal figures of the St Ives School include Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Paul Feiler, Sir Terry Frost, Patrick Heron, Roger Hilton, Peter Lanyon, Karl Weschke and Bryan Wynter, together with the pioneer modern potter, Bernard Leach.

The heyday of the St Ives School was in the 1950s and 1960s but in 1993, Tate St Ives, a striking purpose-built new gallery in a remarkable situation on Porthmeor Beach in St Ives, was opened. It exhibits the Tate collection of St Ives School art and related types of art, and has given the town a whole new lease of artistic life.

TALES FROM THE SKETCHBOOK : POCAHONTAS

yo!.. love this song... innit!

click the pic to see more..

They massacred the buffalo
Kitty corner from the bank
The taxis run across my feet
And my eyes have turned to blanks
In my little box at the top of the stairs
With my Indian rug and a pipe to share



I wish a was a trapper
I would give thousand pelts
To sleep with Pocahontas
And find out how she felt
In the mornin' on the fields of green
In the homeland we've never seen



And maybe Marlon Brando
Will be there by the fire

We'll sit and talk of Hollywood
And the good things there for hire

And the Astrodome and the first tepee
Marlon Brando, Pocahontas and me

Marlon Brando..

Pocahontas and me

Pocahontas

If there is any such thing as a pop art pop song..

I think pocahontas is it..


happy hunting..

PICTURE LINKS TODAY

yo!.. links only today... innit!

click on a pic to view link

THE SHOCK OF THE WAVE

yo!.. tsunami... innit!

On March 11, 2011,

a magnitude-9 earthquake shook northeastern Japan,

unleashing a savage tsunami.

The effects of the great earthquake were felt around the world,

from Norway's fjords to Antarctica's ice sheet.

Tsunami debris has continued to wash up on North American beaches years later.

AFTER THE SHOCK THE WAVE

AFTER THE WAVE THE SHOCK

see the cardboard stuff here


A MOUNTAIN OF CARDBOARD, PLASTIC AND CARS

see the paintings here