ART ''N' AB ART - Stains & Traces - A Salthouse Church Exhibition

 

When there is a exhibition that is shared between a number of artists, their artistic styles can be complementary or not. Sometimes there is too much variance in their differing approaches, its hard to discern any commonality in aesthetic or motivational approach. This exhibition Stains and Traces at Salthouse Church was rare, in that there was both individuality and a shared sense for a particular form of aesthetic exploration. There was a love for the qualities of textures, fabric, to overlay, to let them absorb paints and waxes, to roughen and fray, the quality of line and materials used was as important as the most conventional of landscape painters. Also how these can be used expressively to associate and conjure up a sense for the North Norfolk marshlands in particular

Mary Morris's works explore the textures of decay, how text and paper stains and distorts. there is something apocalyptic about her assemblages as if these strange artworks have been put together from found remnants of a lost culture. But almost as if lacking the knowledge to interpret them they are collected and displayed like artefacts in an archaeological museum often are. 

Annabel Faraday approaches her making of ceramic objects, as a form of reciprocity and produces in stoneware a version of the found objects texture. In the process exaggerating and heightening its surfaces and staining. So in this exhibition there are small pieces of ceramic made to resemble corrugated iron or boxes. The verisimilitude is only a part of the story here, for it is also about the artists closely observed eye for the significant detail to focus their skill, and your eye, upon.

  Denise Jones textile artworks utilise the fraying of fabrics, that almost unravel themselves across a piece. There is also the use of lines sewn across fabrics like drawn creases in the picture planes. The overlaying of textures and the autobiographical use of written text. 

 Carly Ralph's pieces explore repeated forms in blocks assembled like tiling. The fabrics often quite coarse and weather worn from found sources. To echo the movement of waves or the delamination of materials once they become damp. That process of change captured and hung on a wall.

 

Debbie Lyddon is probably the more locally well know of the artists exhibiting here. The hangings she produce show us very North Norfolk marshland landscapes but formed from stained and rusted canvases, pierced with rings or cut back to hanging threads. Evocatively poised in an exploration of how watery landscape can be expressed through the medium of ships canvas and boat chandlery. Her work has a strong sense of place and history.

As you can see just from these few pictures,there is a thematic overlap between them all. This gave the exhibition a coherence a lot of shared gallery shows lack. This was quite the best exhibition I've seen in Salthouse Church. I hope they all come back to do more in future years.

CARROT REVIEW 6/8

PHOTO ~ Shabby Sheringham ~ Door Knocker

The door knocker on the empty old shop I found last week. I love the way the cobwebs envelope it and that white wisp of a bird feather caught in its threads.

PHOTO ~ Shabby Sheringham - Empty Shop

This is the condition of the window in an empty shop in Wyndham St, Sheringham, that once upon a time used to mend watches and cut keys etc.

PHOTO ~ Shabby Sheringham ~ The Burlington Hotel

Though it only recently closed its doors, The Burlington Hotel has been a sad shadow of its former  grand self for years. Its window sills and bricks are seriously eroded and the pointing between them is so fast disappearing, that its a bit of a structural concern.

It has planning permission to be converted into flats, though the amount of making sound of the exterior structure might be off putting to investors. But then the only other options will be further deterioration until its condemned. I'm all for preserving buildings whenever possible, but I can't see what they are planning ever happening. I'd love to be proved wrong.



   

PHOTO ~ Shabby Sheringham ~ The Shannocks Hotel

PHOTO ~ Show us a sign.

PHOTO ~ Taken on The Boulevard, Sheringham.

2014 PROJECTS ~ Completed Commission

Inbetween al the other creative things I get drawn into doing for trhe Sangha, I've been working on this private commision for Lester Robinson since the exhibtion in October. I finally finished it and gave it to him yesterdays. My first satisfied patron. here's a photo of the completed thing.

ARTICLE ~ Spiritual Art & Practice ~ 12 Summary Sentences

1    Art is not inherently spiritual.

2    The spiritual effect of art is dependent upon the eye and receptivity of the beholder.

3    Spiritual meaning or effects can sometimes be assigned artificially to art, by our culture.

4    Spiritual subjects or allegories don't automatically mean the art will have a spiritual effect.

5    Any art can be spiritually instructive, beneficial or uplifting, once we're open to it.

6   Spiritual effects come into art through an artist's use of colour, form and expression

7    Artist's become channels for spiritual influences to emerge through them.

8    The spiritual is drawn to art and artists that are sensitive to beauty

9    Spiritually uplifting art may not be beautiful in a traditional sense.

10   The spiritual effects that a work of art may have resist precise definition.

11   An artist cannot consciously create spiritual art.

12   An artist can consciously turn the making of art into a spiritual practice.

ARTICLE ~ Spiritual Art & Practice ~ Conclusion

Everything and nothing to do with me

The purpose in writing this series of articles has been to explore what the relationship between the spiritual and art may be. This has been a personal quest. Having set myself an intention to develop art as a practice, I wanted to be clearer in my own mind about the territory I'm entering. One personal concern was that in the rush for creative practice, my Buddhist practice could get sidelined. As in the past, I've have a tendency to 'drop the bucket in the race to find the next source of water.' So I've wanted to pin down what the potential areas for art as a spiritual practice may be. This has by its very nature drawn me into looking at the whole topic of 'the spiritual' in art, in perhaps more detail than I'd first envisaged. 

So it is a given that art can have a spiritual effect, and an artistic process can become a spiritual practice. At the same time both these can become Self serving conceits. They may give ones sense of Self and ones artwork a grander loftier air, and whilst appearing to be not about 'me and mine', in essence are. The spiritual can become a great and commodious cloak to hide all ones self centred motivations beneath. 

Praise and appreciation is good to receive, whether its for an exhibition, for a creative project I've instigated, or for the rituals and shrines I create. I'm acutely aware that the mental state or emotional mood I was in at the time of creating a shrine say, can often be far from exemplary. Certainly not exalted, inspired or uplifted with any spiritual connection. I've found praiseworthy results are frequently created in the teeth of egregious resentments, mostly about the creative task itself.  I don't find it easy to put this truculent negativity to sleep. 

If I'm lucky, engaging with a creative process will itself transform the conditions that caused the negative state to arise. That's not always possible, if creative frustration lies at the root of it. I find it  paradoxical that what maybe communicated through my art is not affected by this, or become a direct visual translation of that mental state.  Something the complete mirror opposite can often emerge in the finished piece. This is perhaps a reflection of how un-integrated I am in this area.  The negative effect is upon the internal process, and not upon the end product.

I do seem able to run creatively on auto-pilot, in the face of unfavourable conditions. The positive effect of a piece on others to inspire awe or emotionally move people, seems to happens regardless of this. I just paint the painting or do the shrine. What happens afterwards seems little or nothing to do with me. However unconscious, the creative process opens up areas of my psyche not exposed by anything else I do.  So is it something I do,  or is it something expressed through me, or is the effect of an artwork entirely in the eyes of the beholder?  Without an objective source as a stimulus for what people feel or sense about an artwork, it must be founded entirely on the subjective perceptual and internal emotional response of each viewer. The artist's self-expression can only be one element in the story. For the spirit of something emerges through an artist, emerges through the artwork and emerges through the attention of a person looking at it. The personal is also universal, and the universal is also personal. This seems to be present at every point in the artistic process and in the finished piece

Artistic ideas can be hard to realise and bring into being, there are difficult births.  At other times ideas almost paint themselves without obstacle or much deliberation.  Solutions can be unearthed slowly and deliberately or pop into ones head fully formed, without precognition or forethought. These ways creative ideas emerge are not unique to me, or to artists, its appears to be how they happen to all sorts of people in all walks of life and activity.  Ideas could be the simple snapping of brain synapses. Though not a random event, it can feel like that they come unbidden into awareness as though something is speaking through us.  Not all cognitive processes dealing with creating solutions appear to be conscious ones. Some brain functions may run quietly in the background. Though its possible to map how the brain functions and the rudiments of how it operates, we're not yet able to fully comprehend how it generates ideas or solutions to problems. It maybe everything to do with me, or not entirely.

We habitually see ourselves as the brains in charge, the controlling agency in all we do. Yet so much of how human beings live is unconscious, it seems hard to sustain this view in all eventualities. Elements do appear as if they are nothing to do with me. We operate far more unknowingly than we're ever likely to know or admit.  Out of our desire to Self-aggrandize we blow our own trumpet far and wide. Buddhism would say that the conditions prompting any thing to arise into our awareness are multi-faceted and have a mutual complexity inbuilt into them. An example is given of a group of sticks propped up against each other for support that together make a stack.  It's never one stick alone that is the determining thing, not just me, not just them, not just events. not entirely Self or entirely Other, not everything nor nothing to do with me.  Whatever I do as an artist though undoubtedly playing its part, is unlikely to be the whole story in how people eventually respond to finished artwork.

ARTICLE ~ Spiritual Art & Practice ~ The Viewing Process

The content or experience of Art as spiritual.

From the viewers perspective, the specific aesthetic content or experience of a piece of art is what usually marks it out as being 'spiritual'.  Renaissance content consisted of scenes from biblical history, the miracles and martyrdom's of saints, and Greco-Roman classical myths.  This is what many people are referring to when they talk about the spiritual in art. These illustrative paintings of sacred people, stories or theology, may or may not evoke an uplifting response in the viewer, through this imitative expression.  Such content cannot be guaranteed to produce art that will spiritually touch us. It might just as easily produce an inert picture, with an equally inert emotional response. So whatever is there in a work of art that people respond to as being 'spiritual' is more about receptivity, than its representational form.

The way a painting's content is formed by the artist, its colours, shapes and relationships as they run across the canvas, may fleetingly capture a spiritual truth about human life and mortality. This could be as true of non-representational as representational painting, Because a sense for the spiritual emerges through this illustrative content, doesn't mean it intrinsically belongs to it.   

Pictures might also be alluding to concepts or analogies not immediately visible in the artwork. They are spiritual only if one knows how to read them.  This perception of art is a profoundly academic or literary interpretation of spirituality. Its a cognitive response, that may also have an emotive counterpart. But without that emotional response. the visual potency or vibrancy will never fully spiritually suffuse enough to inhabit it. The spiritual effect upon a viewer cannot be predestined by content or prescribed by art critics or even the artist themselves.  It's dependent on the subjective eyes and heart of the beholder.  

Art has spiritual meaning or qualities attributed to it.

From a Buddhist perspective, art that is too worldly or too other worldly in emphasis is bound to be flawed, because this is not how reality truly is. All art has at least the potential to be seen in a spiritual light, or be illuminating.  Spiritual meaning, value or spiritual benefit can always be assigned too it.. This was most likely not part of the artist's original intention, and probably better if it isn't. To be able to perceive for ourselves, we have to be receptive to it, to be able to abandon any prejudices or preferences we might hold, to be more flexible in our perceptions and hold less rigidly to fixed points of view. Whether we see spiritual qualities in art depends mostly on whether our views obscure or highlight them. 

Art is unlikely to be inherently spiritual

The word 'spiritual' is one of many value judgements placed upon art  It is often short hand for a particularly elevated feeling, a sense of something positive, insightful or divine, an other worldly dimension or sensitivity. The 'spiritual' may place itself in a finished artwork but this is only ascribed to it through the viewer's perceptions.  There is a viewpoint that only certain cultures, periods in art or types of content, have produced spiritual art.  This is untrue. This is largely based on cultural  or aesthetic assumptions of what has or has not spiritual value. Subjective aesthetic experiences often being presented as absolute objective ones. Its impossible to be completely definitive about the spiritual content or otherwise of art. It's probably safe to say, that if you can define it in great detail, then you're probably not talking about spiritual content at all. Its just too subjective an experience for that level of precision.

ARTICLE ~ Spiritual Art & Practice ~ The Artistic Process

The artistic process as a spiritual vehicle

Art emerges from an idea and the evolving process of its creation.  For an artist, a finished artwork may only be the conclusion of one line of inquiry, and not the end of the artistic investigation they've started. Each completed piece stimulates further questions during its creation. Form, content, and the particular effect an artist is trying to create in a piece, are the central issues in that process. Through the artist's choice of colours, mode of expression, its composition and style, the inhabiting spirit of an artwork is seeded via the artist.  This spirit will generally manifest its true nature once the artist has effectively 'left the room.' 

Alchemical ~ Nigredo ~ Albedo ~ Rubedo

Throughout art history qualities have been attributed to colours. They have been perceived as having magical propensities, as healing talismans, or in the case of alchemy indicate the current state of ones spiritual progress. These all attempted to bring religious, psychological or factual objectivity to the subjective and emotionally based experience of colour perception. These conceptual frameworks that surround the spiritual aesthetics of colour, have informed artists working methods. Artists as stylistically diverse as Mondrian and Kandinsky, found  inspiration from theosophical concepts about the archetypal references of specific colours and shapes, that were the foundation for their future very radical abstractions. 

Theosophic Colour States

Colours possess visual temperature, a vibrant energy and a capacity for shimmering movement or calming stillness. They are; light or dark; warm or cold; they recede or advance towards the viewer; seem to optically expand across a surface or contract inwards. It seems then quite natural for any artist to use colour as a visual echo of the human spirit and any desire to transcend their mortal limitations. Colour, in combination with form and expression, appear to be the essential core of what can turn an aesthetic into a spiritual experience. 

The outward expression of an artist's imagination, and the spiritual qualities an art work may communicate to the viewer, do not necessarily correspond in all particulars. Elements sneak in underneath the imaginative disguise put there by the artist. If receptive, an artist can be like a spiritualist medium, and become skilled in allowing disembodied entities to occupy and speak through them. If an artist can get themselves sufficiently out of the way that is. It is possible for the desire for Self-expression to be diverted into a vehicle for Other Power to express itself. Only via this type of subliminal channelling can an artistic process become an interface through which 'the spiritual' is given voice. The artist needs to be a blind instrument, otherwise this 'Other Powered Voice' will be drowned out by the artist's self-conscious awareness.  For one can never self-consciously imbue 'spiritual' qualities into art. Though there are many fake mediums around!

Kandinsky

There is another way in which 'the spiritual' can enter into the artistic process, and that is by turning that process itself into a spiritual endeavour.  Spiritual practice in art, is concerned with the artist's own creative and internal process. Whether the completed artwork is perceived as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, is, in this respect, a matter of little import. Spiritual practice is concerned with ones state of mind, the form of ones thoughts and emotions during the process of creation. 

As a practicing Buddhist, my aim is to be able to apply  the Buddha's teachings to what I do. This means usually being aware enough in the moment, to be able bring them to mind and apply them to specific instances in my life. The artistic process is no different from any other human activity. The Eight Worldly Winds are always at play in all forms of human creativity. The desire for Fame, Gain, Pleasure and Praise often being thwarted by Infamy, Loss, Pain and Blame. Our Self craves significance and wants to be appreciated and recognised, as being here, as being an 'artist'. These are universal difficulties, we all want to know that our life will matter and something will live on beyond our death. Whether its our biological or our artistic children, the impulse beneath it is much the same. We can place too much self- identity and self-love into an artwork that even the possibility of it not being liked, can feel as though we are standing nakedly prepared for the final fatal body blow. Nothing seems worse than dying unknown and unloved. 

Practically speaking spiritual practice is about being aware of these issues and to bring forth a more helpful perspective. Remembering that the conditions that form our life and art change all the time, so not allowing the momentary ups and downs in ones confidence, to undermine or intoxicate one's sense of purpose. To be more equanimous in the midst of creative achievements or failures.  Its more focused on the motivations going on beneath the artistic process, the conditions that might facilitate or impede the process, than a perfectly resolved idea and finished result. 

Vidyavajra ~ A State of Alarm 

I've found that I need to take notice of how I hold the reins of artistic control, getting the balance right between holding them too tightly or too loosely. The qualities and tendencies of my mental and emotional state can stifle or encourage the creative process. It's helpful if I can cultivate abiding in the present moment whilst I work on a piece. To not allow reflections on past or present errors in artistic judgement or anxiety about the future creative direction of a piece, to turn into obstacles. These can then hang around perfuming my mind, and distract me from my sense of purpose.  I make a practice of turning errors into hidden intentions, to not see them as mistakes at all. but as a change in the evolving conditions that will form the final piece. 

I see one aspect of relaxing the reins of artistic control, as allowing the artwork to speak to me. It will show me what needs to comes next, only when the moment for it has arrived, and not before! Whenever I try to pre-empt or enforce control over the evolutionary direction of an artwork, then the artistic process grinds to a halt in doubt or prevarication. At worst the artwork spins off kilter into muddy incoherence. The habits, doubts and superficiality I may have about the artistic process, have to be constantly countered by creativity and clarity within the process, and remaining committed to it whatever happens. 

For me, the process of artistic creation is an ongoing debate between these aspects of my Self and subtler aspects of Other Power. The path of artistic self-expression will eventually reach a turning point and become a way to 'go beyond' self-expression. Not by renouncing all forms of self-expression or by abandoning the making of art, but by gradually transforming the Self-reinforcing underpinning that is beneath the artistic process. I grapple with these sorts of issues by externalising them, giving them a tangible form through a creative medium. Integrating the results of my exploration and struggles, which will hopefully strengthen the foundations of the path that ultimately leads towards resolving or transforming them.     

FEATURE 117 ~ Frank Stella

A bit of an old rave from the grave, but early Frank Stella had a huge influence on me while at Art College.  I'm just rediscovering the delights of his early work. The later work appeared to me to be a rather contrived volte face, if not reaction to the power and success of his love of squares and colour contrasts indicating depth. They positively fizz off the canvas, such is his evident delight in exploring all the possibilities. I get the same life affirming feeling from Bridget Riley's colour work too.

REVIEW - Bridget Riley - Kettles Yard

Bridget Riley's early Op Art became one of the visual touchstone of the swinging 60's. Her visual experiments have continued since then with the introduction of vibrant bands of colour. The result, though carefully structured and prepared for, is never sterile, it has warmth. Riley seems not at all concerned with putting her heart or the psychological mess of her mind on the canvas. No shock values or the messiness of self-expression here. What her paintings possess is an abundant sense of enjoyment with what she is doing with colour, shape, pattern and form. That said, her paintings do communicate something of her personality, a certain steadiness and balance, an unfussy unpretentious clarity.

Looked at closely, her paintings are never super pristine. The edges are not ultra sharp, the surfaces she paints on are rough watercolour paper or coarse linen, which mitigates against perfectly clean execution. This paint surface, however, does benefit by bringing greater depth and a richer softness to the colour quality. That said, Riley's paintings shimmer, and resist the eye settling on any particular area. Your gaze is kept constantly moving, engaging with being visually scintillated. Reproductions can never quite capture the immediate effect of her painting upon your perception. Her work is ripped off constantly, she's always been accessible and her ideas are readily adopted by popular commercial media, via wrapping papers, cards or wallpaper designs. They have to tame her though, by toning down the colour contrasts and oscillating quality that she revels in.

Other painters like Freud or Bacon might grab the headlines, for what they tell us about the grisly end of the human condition. However,Riley creates huge masterly work that celebrates another aspect of being human, our capacity to express and enjoy our exuberance. This is joyful painting, one that is optically experimental, but also uplifting and affirmative. It also possesses a truth and universality that can be undervalued in the pursuit of, and wallowing in, the oppressive shadows.

PICTURE - Just in case you should want to come

PICTURE - Gay Pride 2008

This just makes me feel so envious of these two puff poodles.

PICTURE - Just incase you wondered what he looks like

Here's a picture of my partner David, taken on our holiday in Sheringham. I think he looks rather fine in this one. But then I would say that wouldn't I?

PICTURE - of a Kshitigarbha Statue

This was one of the most beautiful artifacts in the Sainsbury Centre Collection at the UEA, Norwich. A gorgeous figure of Jizo Bosatsu / Kshitigarbha made from wood, metal and glass beads.