I've looked at my daughter's painting of a tree many times.  For a long time it sat on the kitchen table and we saw it daily.  It has the big plain features characteristic of children's art, a bold simplicity that modern masters like Matisse and Picasso found compelling and used as visual sources in their works.  I like my kid's painting.  Not just because she made it.  Certain works of hers I have already copied directly into paintings of mine, when they fit into the scheme of a painting.  She draws really well (though it's not obvious in this particular image) so I'm accustomed to using her ideas and of being "influenced" by her. 

But the similarity between these two paintings, hers of the tree and mine of the honey jar, didn't strike me until they just happened to be sitting in accidental proximity.  From across a room, the resemblance is especially evident.  The cradling branches of her tree become the wooden honey ladle balanced on the lid of the jar.  The trunk becomes the jar itself.  The dark shadow cast by the tree occupies the same area as the path of white flowers of the patterned cloth in my picture.  The green boughs are folds of jade cloth in mine.  And the litle cloud becomes the ribbed end of the dipper.

I cannot say for certain that my daughter's picture affected mine.  But influence is something like that -- a quiet affect of images remembered.  Lots of other influences, no doubt, also found their way into my little picture.  I have been looking at still life a lot lately and found many artists whose works I love that I've spent serious time enjoying -- a feast for the eyes.

The surest way to teach your visual sensibility is to just look.  Pick strong, beautiful paintings and just look at them.  A lot.  The understanding of how the best artists compose their pictures comes to one silently through long observation.  An ordering principle works its way into your mind through such a process of looking.  It is never a matter of rules.  A strong sense of how things fit together doesn't come through a conscious process of following instructions, but through a kind of visual osmosis that is the result of looking and staring.  The best instruction comes through the manifestation of your own longing when you see something and think, "Wow.  I wish I'd painted that."

and made it into this:

I think I still need to do another shoot with this as it still isn't quite right, but due to junk food costing a lot, and the effects it has had on my health to eat it each shoot, I don't think I will be doing it again for a little while.

Portfolio work for Un.titled, view a range of our work at www.un.titled.co.uk.

www.un.titled.co.uk

Three very different exhibition: Blue, a very Blimey exhibition, and Moya McKenna's a body of content, arranged for melody.

Masculinity is not well defined in western 21^st century culture compared to femininity. Masculinity is both feared and the subject for humor. There are no Departments of Masculinity Studies in any universities. Consider the number of exhibitions of all women artists to exhibitions of all men artists. Blue at Brunswick Arts is welcome change. Blue follows up on Brunswick Arts 2006 show of female artists - Pink. 

The theme of masculinity brought out some strong, aggressive, spectacular and funny works. I laughed when I saw Benjamin Webb’s ‘10 inches’, a tape measure in a phallic pose measuring ten inches; the best readymade I’ve seen this year. Webb’s hanging wax full body cast, ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ was not so funny. Alister Karl continues his wall drawing project with “Yellow Monster Truck Project #3”, the largest one yet. David Ramm has a very aggressive installation looking at challenging, fighting words. Dirtfish’s paintings are images of simple cartoon faces. His street art style translates well onto canvas with wonderfully distressed paintwork and tight cropping. Leon Hawker’s large looping collages are very intense, obsessive and beautiful creations – all very masculine qualities. James Wray’s series of photographs and installation takes an ironic look at hyper-masculinity. Wray’s masked wrestler is seen at home surrounded by 50s kitsch, a time when masculinity was better defined.

Ahoy me hearties there is ‘a very Blimey exhibition’ at 696. Pirates have an effervescent popularity (recently bubbling over with movies and merchandize) their free, anarchic spirit will always be attractive. ‘A very Blimey exhibition’ has illustrations from a number of artists for the piratical stories of Jo Spurling. Miss Blimey, a female pirate with eye patch and cutlass is the central character of the stories. There are excellent whimsical illustrations by a scurvy crew of artists: Jay Copp, Alan Kerr, Timba Smits, Martin Abel, HelloBard, Luke Feldman, Richard Adams and Jimmy Misanthrope. It is interesting to compare the styles and techniques of the different illustrators as they work on the same theme and characters. The exhibition is complete with t-shirts, magazines, badges and showbags.

Moya McKenna is exhibiting her contemporary still life painting at Neon Parc, There are no fruit nor flowers in these still life paintings but studio objects, a clutter of boxes and castes of arms. These are not precious nor over-worked still life paintings McKenna’s brushstrokes are strong and decisive. There are not many paintings in this exhibition, nor are they particularly large, but they all are of an equally high standard.

A simple arrangement of objects can have profound significance, as I endeavored to suggest in the previous post.  What then of the structure of the picture itself?  From a particular angle we are faced with all kinds of mysterious accidental spaces. These interstices are the famous "negative spaces" of art school.  Strange appellation, for these are some of the most riveting, jewel-like moments in a work of art -- equally they represent the most "signature" elements of an artist's style, for they are unconscious and very direct expressions of thought.  The artist's act of looking is spread out over time.  No one is aware of directing this kind of thought.  It isn't directed.  It's just one's mind noticing first this and afterwards that.

And of course the little spaces between things must be rendered if the objects are going to materialize as a picture.  But after that, there is no rule.  One could use one large mass of paint to represent a patch of cloth lying between two potatoes.  Or one could use three brushstrokes. Or one could use fifteen.  Or a hundred.  Or even a thousand very tiny, intimate brushstrokes.

The spaces between things, as well as the pictorial spaces that are things, are the fabric of the image.  They are meaning ordered into shapes, lines, tones, colors.  They have as much reality as the notes in music.  They are utterly abstract.  And into them, all meaning is poured.

You can see these flags belonging to the Giant Hypermart at the Tampines Retail Park.

Taken On : 5 Oct 2007

That much accounts for the subject generally.  But the particular arrangement of objects, the cabbage in the center, the potatoes clumped around it like chicks around a mother hen -- that specific ensemble has meaning -- it really does! -- but I was not aware of creating it.  Yet it is the very core of what the painting is about.

As I say, I always had something in common with interior designers.  When you are arranging things -- perhaps quite unconsciously -- all toward the purpose of discovering meaning, whether it is self-knowledge or knowledge about a whole society -- that is certainly a very noble branch of design generally and even of interior design in the finest sense, understood as relating to the decoration of the soul.

Here is the final version of my part of the project on Russia. I hope to be able to publish here the team's final report, which includes an analysis of competing hypotheses on Russian Reorganization of the Civilian Nuclear Energy Sector, a cost benefit analysis of Russia - Ukraine energy security relations, and a social network analysis of Dmitry Medvedev's Leadership Network. However, I'm waiting for the permission of the other team members and the instructor to do so.

A brief evaluation of the effectiveness of the technique in relation to the topic

Using situation assessment to analyze Russia’s foreign policy toward the Balkans has as both its principal advantage and disadvantage the flexibility and resulting breadth of scope it offers. On the positive side, this flexibility functions to fill deficiencies in more formalized methodologies, where restriction of sub-methods and limitations of scope can result in an exaggerated focus on the particular details, failing to detect an over-arching pattern or structure. On the negative side, the potentially limitless options this method offers to the analyst can result in either oversimplification through generalization, or a lack of focus altogether. One way to avoid losing the string would be to commission situation assessments not of individual analysts but of an inter-disciplinary team. I believe this would only add to the potential multi-faceted direction this method is open to, while at the same time, keep the more wild fancies on a leash of peer review.

The elements I chose to include in this situation assessment, which in retrospect were best suited to the topic were the various IR theories on power and regionalism. In this spirit, I would advocate the use of open source analyses by various think tanks, especially if the analyst is not an area specialist. The potential pitfall of arriving at politicized information could be safeguarded against by a thorough source reliability check, which would take an infinitely shorter time than self-education of the analyst on a broad theme under the duress of a deadline.

Finally, the informal, descriptive nature of a situation assessment is conducive to writing in a narrative style, which is less prone to jargon and offers the analyst the opportunity to engage and “talk” to his/her client/decision-maker as the analysis unfolds. Not only does this make the reading experience of a person tired of reading report after report with uninspiring technical and/or management, or worse, bureaucratic language, but has the potential to establish good rapport between the two sides, minimize misunderstandings hidden in vague and ambiguous language, and add a dialogue-element to the analyst’s otherwise rather lonely job.

Lemon and Two Slices Work In Progress

Things have been going slowly as of late.

I've been preparing to enter a juried exhibit and its been gnawing at me because finances are rather tight right now. This is an early work in progress shot of one of the paintings I'm planning on entering. I've got some frames for the paintings I'm entering and have them installed but I'm still working to a higher level of finish than as of late. It's somewhat odd working with the paintings in the frames, but I can see advantages to this as long as care is taken. For one it allows one to work out the actual composition that will be visible rather than what you envision will be.

I did something to my back, causing me plenty of anguish and limiting my ability to stand for any length of time. Of course I typically paint standing, and while I could always sit in a chair it just doesn't feel right and thus limits my progress further.

I've been experimenting further with my turpentine, stand oil, and Canadian balsam mixture. It seems to me like the medium I've been missing. Having never previously used resins I now understand why people are attracted to them albeit their drawbacks. They just add a wonderful drag and look to the paint that I have not otherwise been able to produce. Thus my kit has expanded again.

A bottom up view of the distinct yellow colored lifeguard post at the East Coast Park.

Taken On : 4 Oct 2007

Buko trees and a slash cross of two Filipino swords, the Ginunting. On the streets, Makati.

There were lots more of this emblem scattered around the area. It blends with the color of the structure, I didn't think it was graffiti. Is it? It looks so official-looking, like it was painted on by a member of a fierce competitive tribe from our history!

On the side note, there was a time when I was fascinated with Filipino weapons because of a Tugegarrao field trip from school. We made this brochure featuring what I'm talking about. We visited a "panday" (a swordsmith) who was apparently credited for making Jericho Rosales' Panday telenovela swords. He was one of the remaining swordsmiths in the the country as my professor said. He's still there, and he's able to support his family because he takes commissions for creating swords commercial purposes.

I think it doesn't sound as bad as it seems, going commercial from time to time. If "selling out" by going commercial like this means supporting a family and being one of those remaining cultural artifact experts, why not? I just hope though that these people point info-seekers to more concrete resources later, like to the better history books for more information. As for the word-of-mouth, oral storytelling, and swordsmithing show-and-tell experience, he's good enough.

Going back to the sword graffiti: see how well it worked on me? ^_~ I remembered Philippine history because of it!

I had a lot of fun taking these pictures and making this video. This is a hobby for me, and it makes me very happy.

Copyright © 2008 by Preston Surface. All Rights Reserved.