Reflecting on WHAAM!

What is it about this painting that I like?

I have talked about and taught this painting for years.

I have seen it in two Litchenstein retrospectives and visited it whenever it is on display at the Tate Modern.

I own badges, postcards and calendars with the image on.

I have stood in-front of Year 8 students and discussed the meanings in the image for over an hour.

I have copied it and reworked it in different media.

On one occasion I had a parent complain that I was teaching it at all!

Maybe it is the gentle poking fun at the art establishment that I read in this painting and the spin on serious world events like the Korean War.

Here is an interesting juxtaposition, Whaam! and Guernica.

Oh and happy 4th of July….

Creative Opportunities Day University of Plymouth

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I spent the day with a group of students working at the University of Plymouth. I dreamt up Creative Opportunities Day 5 or 6 years ago as a way of getting students to work along side lecturers and under graduates using professional standard facilities and processes. This year was particularly successful, I just love the old style wooden block type, the outcomes have a quality that is really unique. Apart from print the other workshops included photography, (old school photographic paper and wet chemicals), Fine Art, Drama, Building and Illustration. There will be an exhibition of students work at the end of June in the Scott Building, always a very high end event.

Back to College – Advanced Throwing a Pot

Back to college and throwing pots on Thursday evenings this term. When I sat down on a wonkying wheel and started throwing I realised how much I had learnt during the summer. The basics have improved significantly, centring and coning, I had a really good go at both making the teapot spouts. The wheel I used was very uncomfortable to sit on and rocked slightly because the floor was uneven. I will have to arrive in time to get onto my old friend from last term. The pots I sprayed with glaze are some of Jack’s out put from his week with us in the summer with one or two of my pieces. I used EC 167 matt white as a base layer and dusted EC 452 over them quite thinly. It will be very interesting to see how the iron content of the Tenmoku reacts with the white matt. Glad to be back being creative, going back to work sucks the energy out of me and make regular creativity much harder. I took in two large bowls for bisque firing, hope they come out next week as I can’t wait to try some of the glaze patterning I saw on Mark Griffiths’s work during the summer. Great fun!

Iron Man and Garageceramics at Plymouth College of Art Summer Show

 

I went to the Plymouth College of Art Summer Show last night. As always they have put on a spectacular show, there is so much time and energy gone into the exhibition. The standard of work this year is very high, the Applied Arts is very strong, some beautiful and very cleaver jewellery. I talked to a young illustrator called Patrick Heafield, I was really taken with the humour in his work, as you can see from the photo I bought a packet of badges. The Iron Man card idea is taken from a larger illustration which I would have bought, Patrick was a bit taken back when I said to him ‘how much’? The reply was ‘send me an email’, he obviously didn’t realise I was a punter who had cash burning holes in his pockets. Iron Man would go very nicely with ‘Dance till You’re Sick’ in the downstairs loo. Maybe I will get in touch. I was very pleased to see several of my colleagues who had taken up the offer to support the new young and creative in the South West. Photography was packed and some of the work was very good. I spoke the the previous owner of Tiny Man. Unfortunately I have lost his business card. We chatted the room was very noisy, I told him about garageceramics.com and Tiny Man’s new home but I doubt if he will remember.

Garageceramics has quite a nice spot and will get a lot of footfall, right next to the entry/exit to the canteen. Titled ‘Short Courses with Dan’ in a glass case, with a title card very carefully done. I wonder if anyone will be interested? I left business cards, you never know.

 

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Raku today Last one for a while

The large piece is a composite thrown piece made by Jack, I glazed and raku’ed it. I really like the red against the smoke. There are large cracks in the transparent glaze that work really well. The smaller pieces have blue glaze inside, its done something that I did not expect, the glaze is nit transparent and the blue is very dark and subdued. Very successful firing.

London April 2012

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We had a great time in London. One of the highlights was the Lucia Fraud at the National Portrait Gallery. I cannot remember ever being in a gallery with so many other people, it was packed! It was so busy that people frequently walked in front of you as you looked at the pictures. The space the work was hung in was quite small so this happened a lot. I was really glad that the ‘Benefits Supervisor Sleeping’ was in the exhibition, a really great painting and one of a series of four that were painted at about the same time ( I thought it was on its own). The other painting that really caught my eye was ‘Leigh Bowery (Seated). A very powerful image. On the audio guide everyone interviewed commented about how slowly Fraud worked. Getting close to the painting the brushwork is very direct and bold, full of texture and in parts the paint is built up to significant thickness and daubed on. I would have thought that such a direct way of working could have been a quick way of painting, like VG. There is a portrait of David Hockney which I really enjoyed as well. He is wearing glasses just like mine!

The tour around the Houses of Parliament was very interesting our guide was very amusing. Airport security to get in including a mug shot on your ID badge. We were taken through both the debating chambers, strictly no sitting, although I did stand right in front of the dispatch box the scene of so much action over the years.

I love visiting the Imperial War Museum, ‘Big Beautiful Doll’ in all its glory. We went to see the Don McCullan ‘Shaped by War’. I had seen many of the photographs before, a lot are in ‘Sleeping with Ghosts’. But in that setting hand printed by the man himself  they had a power and impact that was truly impressive. The most powerful image for me was the shell shocked marine grasping his gun.

We went out to Stratford  to see the Olympic stadium, the view from the third floor of John Lewis was very good but you don’t get a sense of how large the stadiums are. I had to see the Anish Kapoor, you can see it for miles.

The Design Museum had a Jasper Conran Habitat exhibition. Its really strange looking at chairs that your parent bought and you sat in as a kid. The paper bags that you took things home in and then threw away. How many of the wooden spoons in the kitchen draw came originally from Habitat? There was a very interesting outside show outside on the viewing balcony about  how people go to the toilet, to use their words ‘shit’. When you think about it very few people out of the worlds total population can afford the drinking water we use to flush away our business. There are some very cleaver ideas and a great section about how the people of Christchurch dealt with the issues caused by the drains of being broken after the earthquake. You have to see it yourself to really get the idea, displayed in blue shanty type huts.

I love the British Museum just walking into the place and looking up is a thrill. Jack and I went to see the head which I photographed very carefully. I touched on the audio trail from the BBC series about the ‘100 Objects’, I managed three. I was very taken with the bark shield that was carried by the first aboriginal that Captain Cook came across, it has a hole in the front of it. The label said it was a spear thrust hole. It looked suspiciously like a bullet hole to me. I will take a trip to the BM in September and use the 100 objects as an investigation trail. Ready made final Major Project.

 

Overall a great time and good to recharge ones cultural batteries.