Jack

Moonface and I paid our annual visit the RWA Autumn exhibition show on Sunday, and enjoyed it more than usual. There were several stand-outs, but one portrait caught my eye: something that looked remarkably like Rio's suave friend, Jack Willingham. I asked Moonface, who agreed that it could be him. Then we checked the catalogue: it was titled "Jack" .

So I sent Jack a message on facebook, and he replied yes. So that's his portrait above.

:o)

Surreal

I'm feeling glad to be ordinary.

Yesterday was a relaxed pleasant day which seemed to be just the right mix of activity & idleness.
We'd woken early and started to get on with things: Moonface gardening & me preparing some food for the evening. Together we heaved a hundredweight of sodden vegetation from the pond so that it could revert from being a swamp to a proper water-feature again.

As the weather was fine but the ground soaked and slippy from the previous days' rain we walked over Cotham to the Bristol Gallery to see an exhibition of prints, mainly Miro & Salvador Dali. I didn't think much of them as what was on offer seemed like pot-boiler work, the equivalent of a novelist's journalism. The Miros especially seemed as if the series of similar prints were dashed off in a short time to trade on the artist's name rather than having a considered artistic output in them. Both they and the Dalis looked pretty cursory to me.

On the other hand there was a small number of paintings at the rear of the gallery which did attract me. There were surrealist works by Dirk Larsen and Kevin O'Keefe (not Georgia) which were very appealing. The Larsen's combined "traditional" representational surrealism in oils with loose flaps of canvas obscuring the work below, each painting needing a good time to study.
O'Keefe paints big bright bold cartoons, intensely painted with flat colours. I didn't understand any of his work, but I'd like some.

And then we had lunch by the waterside before walking slowly home and whiling the late afternoon away in the sun or shade as we felt fit. I watched the Red Arrows' aerobatics from the roof, ate well, slept adequately while wondering if our house-guests were actually going to catch the right coach in the morning.

:0)

Arty-farty

We've looked at a fair bit of art over the last couple of weekends. Two Fridays ago Moonface and I went to some of the preview evenings at the N.Bristol Arts Trail, then several of the other open houses on the following day.

Last Saturday was unusual for us as we spent a very coupley day together in Bristol, much more so than normal: it was almost like being out on an extended date. After the usual Saturday morning shopping and chores we walked over Cotham to the RWA and spent a couple of hours in the Autumn exhibition. For some reason the show was almost empty but that gave us a better chance of browsing and looking so we took longer than usual. I also reckoned that the show was a real improvement upon last year, with many more pictures worth taking home. I should have taken my camera, but the weather wasn't conducive. Frighteningly, I really liked one small watercolour landscape of Wales and then found that it was painted by Prince Charles. There were others which I liked more, so my credibility isn't quite blown.

After the RWA we wandered down Park Street window shopping, then over to the Watershed for something to eat before the film.

Yes, a film. Moonface has been nagging / persuading me to see more cinema for years, but somehow I have never been enthusiastic. Dorota is also nagging / persuading me, so with two of them to one, I need to expand my cultural horizons.

"A Serious Man" wasn't the most fun film that I've seen, with some excruciatingly embarrassing moments in it and no resolution at all, but there was certainly lots to talk about on the way home so overall it was very worthwhile. But what was the importance of the strange separate story set in 19th Century Poland at the beginning?

:o)

Spring

Spring has arrived in the front garden. It's looking good, especially the celandines when the sun is shining.

:o)

Nine Tree Hill

I found this picture on Facebook, but cannot discover who took it.
From the position of the sun and the graffiti, it must have been taken within the last month or so at sunrise. It's just a lovely photo. As for the title, make of it what you will.


:o)

Snow sculpture

I wish I had the talent to sculp this one, a copy of Rodin's "Thinker".

Perhaps it should be retitled "The Drinker"



This one is more basic, but at least the girls think that it's fun!



The Downs were wonderful in white, as busy as I've seen them, good for scuffing along and rejoicing in the sunshine. Moonface & I went for a good long walk in the snow with Mary & Simon, ending at the new China exhibition at the museum.


:o)

More Snow Sculpture

What can you say?
Apart from "Gosh!"


:o)

Christmas Present

While I was pottering around today, Moonface hung my Christmas present from her on the back room wall.

It's the original of Bob Antell's picture of a little girl on the beach, a small pastel. Yes, it's representational, possibly sentimental, but I like the picture from the first time that I saw the prints. The girl is so self-possessed, so unaware, so natural and active that it's hard not to feel as she must have done at the time. Bob has captured her movement beautifully, the shadow, the blurred indistinct sea, the scuffs of sand at her feet.

And it's so British, to be playing alone on the sands not in a swimsuit or nude, but in a summer dress and woolly jumper. It's obviously not a warm day, but she's out there playing in solitude, oblivious to the world outside her body and mind.

Thank you, Moonface.
Thank you, Bob.

:o)

Stainless

(Balloon Dog, anodized stainless steel. Jeff Koons)

In the absence of a New Year newspaper, I re-read last Saturday's in more detail, and was struck by the story surrounding the Jeff Koons exhibition in the Chateau de Versailles.

Koons' sculpture is kitsch, but so gloriously so that it's hard to take offence at his work. However an art critic who also claims to be a direct descendant of Louis XIV, calling himself Prince Charles-Emmanuel de Bourbon-Parme, has decided that holding this exhibition of Koons' sculpture in his supposed ancestor's palace is demeaning, and so he is giving legal battle against this "mercenary" and "pornographic" offence against the also supposedly great name of his forefather.


(Louis XIV, bust, stainless steel, Jeff Koons)

Apparently his greatest objection is to a bust of his royal forebearer sculpted from that "proletariat material", stainless steel. He's right, stainless is a proletariat metal, one that I regard as one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. Consider: before 1915, only gold held its lustre for any length of time. No-one poor could hold anything in their possession which was shiny and larger than jewellry. Silver tarnishes, and must have done so quickly in the sulphur-rich smoky indoors environment where open fires were the norm. Silver spoons were the prerogative of the rich, and had to be cared for and polished to prevent them from blackening both during and after use. And both silver and gold are soft metals which hold their shape badly and so are unsuitable for any engineering purposes; indeed they have few uses apart from as displays of wealth. [Yes, I know, they're important for electronics, but that wasn't the case before 1940]

Then, in the smoky centre of Sheffield, during the first world war, stainless steel, inox, rostfrei, was developed. That alloy of cheap iron with vanadium, chromium and sometimes manganese has given the world a new material for everyone's everyday use. It's made surgery safer, it's made cooking easier, it provides brightness and functionality into so much of our lives. And yet, because of its ubiquity, it's not appreciated as the great invention it truly is.

What else is as tough, as beautiful, as useful, as stainless steel?

Those master cutlers and metallurgists of Sheffield are among the most unappreciated men of the last hundred years, and that's a shame upon us all.

:o)


(Pink Panther, Jeff Koons.
I'm not sure about this, though. Perhaps it's too kitsch for even me)


:0)

Urban 2

En route to yesterday's exhibition of young shaven male bodies and testosterone-laden leaping, Moonface and I had a quiet appreciation of democratic and simple art.

Our stroll to the docks first took us past one of our local pubs, one that we have more-or-less given up on going to, as it's become too noisy and popular for us; we seem to prefer a quiet drink and a talk rather than the loud atmosphere which pervades so many locals now. But they are popular with people younger than us, so they must be doing something right. The one I'm thinking of, the Prince of Wales, used to be a "normal" pub, with nicotine- stained ceilings and sticky carpets when we were regulars. Now it's got slate floors, serves food, has piped music just too loud for us, and is full.

The exterior has been painted, too:



We strolled over Cotham, past the University and down Park Street, where Bob Antell and some other artists were showing their works at Bristol Guild. Bob was manning the stand, so we talked for some time while before looking at his an other works. As I wrote before, I do like his art for its simplicity and accessibility. The themes are mostly very domestic: allotments and beach holidays. I think that this makes them all the better for this local market, as his foreign scenes (India, the south of France) just aren't as relevant to his audience's lives. HIs nudes aren't bad, either.




We have sort-of promised ourselves that when Moonface receives her first salary cheque from her new job, we'll buy a print of his as a commemoration. We'll see how it goes.


:O)

Aveline's Hole

On the first "real" Sunday we have had for a while, with both Moonface and I at home, together with Tommo, we joined the UB-organised trip down Aveline's Hole, a cave in Mendip. It is (so we were told) the largest mesolithic cemetery site in Europe, the burial site of 70 dismembered bodies from 10,000 years ago.



Although we have driven through Burrington Combe en route to walking over the Mendips many times before, and even seen the entry to the cave, we had never stopped to look inside. Now that the cave has been emptied of sediments and detritus by archaeologists, it looks much like any other limestone cave, except for its strong downward slope which is many ways more reminiscent of a mine adit. However, toward to back of the cave where it takes an upward slope again, there is a gated grille. This was installed in 2004, after a small series of prehistoric art was discovered; it was that which we were there to see. To be honest, it didn't look much: just a series of faint hatchings on a smooth rockface at about head height. But it was only the second instance of cave art from that period found in Britain, so it's important. And sadly, the grille was put there to protect the scratches from vandalism.


(It doesn't look much, does it?)

The explanations and information given were wonderful, given by the discoverers of the drawings, and they pitched the tour perfectly but were able to expand and expound upon any questions we were able to throw at them, for as long as we wanted. Thank you, Linda Wilson. To summarise, the cave was the cemetery for a small hunting group of about 25-30 people over a period of around 120 years. At that time, the ice sheets had gone, and the coastline was similar to today's. They blocked the cave after each internment, and then stopped, leaving it blocked until 1795 when it was discovered by some rabbiters.

******************

We also had a short walk high on the hillside above the cave beforehand, making the most of a spell without rain. We ate sandwiches on a dry lime outcrop, with views across the Severn to Wales.


:O)

Bob Antell

Last Friday night, Moonface and I went to Bob & Sharon's anniversary party, which was a relaxed and conversational evening by the time we arrived. (Rather late, I'm afraid. Sorry, Bob.) We've known them for years and like them lots, although they are one of the couples whom we see only rarely. Bob used to be a graphic artist, and now also produces simple and pleasing pastels, some of which were on his walls.





The next day I called into a print and frame-maker's shop to buy a couple of greetings cards, and after choosing the one above I was surprised to find that it was one of Bob's. Then I looked around, to find that the shop's walls was displaying many of his A3 size prints . They're rather good: mainly showing very ordinary scenes of holidays or people working on allotments, plus a couple of nudes. We really ought to buy a print or picture from him.

St Andrew's Park. Sledging before School.


Have a look: His website gallery,

:o)