walking

Dunes National Park Zuid Kennemerland Noord Holland

It was a moment of breathing, open space is so precious. As we walked, in the far distance the chimneys of the Ijmuiden steel works billowed sky messages, planes sliced over the sky but we could hear the sea. The North Sea beach was crowded with people and happy dogs. Huge queues for the parking machines, many, many people buying chips in the only beach cafe- warm billows of fat frying. Back in the dunes the people dissipated and it felt roomy again.    

The land made me think of the Dutch 19th century painter Anton Mauve. He was very fond of sand hills and sheep all becoming a single entity. There were definitely sheep showing willing to pose for more paintings. The weather is crazily warm for the end of December.  

Sleeping sun lights vapour trails

We made it out of the park before it grew too dark and it returned to ownership of the sheep, horses and highland cattle who live there (to manage the dune landscape by keeping the grasses down).  

FIAC, Paris

Foire Internationale d'Art Contemporain, it was a lovely excuse to go to Paris. I was at Frieze Art Fair last week and this week I went to the FIAC. I had not been before but this year I decided to investigate Paris too. It is a treat to see really high-quality work. The art world is so multi-faceted, this seemed to be a window on wealth and window shoppers: there were those who were buying, those who were looking at them, those who were hoping to be looked at and even some who were there for the art. Sometimes I need to remind myself of the world outside my studio life. If the crowds felt too much or if it felt that some pieces were made primarily for the money then I could look upwards.

FIAC au Grand Palais

The ceiling

There was an upper floor with more galleries. Through a large entrance portal I was led up several flights of concrete stairs that felt more like a back fire escape and then I was through long corridors of small gallery booths, finally descending a staircase that revelled in its ostentation.

The sun was out and the day was so appealling. Waiting in the long queue in the sunned yellow dust surrounding the Grand Palais before the fair and seeing the blue glimpses of sky pouring from glazing made me long for outside. Two art fairs in eight days was quite enough for me. After a couple of hours I left to walk the streets of Paris back to the station and my onward journey. The streets smelt wonderful. Wafts of car fumes remind me of childhood experiences in the city. The big Haussmann designed streets split smaller ones and the light poured through the space while I crossed from deep shadows into further ones.  

Sun drops dancing on air

A friend wrote of the strangeness of the sounds that keep her awake in her new rural home and I wrote this to remind her of the city she has left.

This morning a sound appeared: the heavy, slicing noise of a police helicopter hovering overhead. The sound grew so big it vibrated from the walls of the courtyard, it filled the house so solidly that I couldn’t determine on which side the machine was, until I spotted it over the children’s playground. The cutting utterance it makes is so loud it is muted and ends in an absorbed thud. When it left the distant police siren was whimpering.

The double glazing is so solid that the rain dances as silent glazed sun drops in the air eddies. The sound of weather is better heard by the passing of cars and the firm hiss of wet road under tires. Airplanes are boring through the atmosphere above the cloud layer; the birds are flying low after their air space was dominated by the huge metal insect.

This is Sunday in the city. As the minutes pass the rain grows heavier and falls into neat lines. Normally I like to travel or simply to walk and feel the sky around me but today would better be spent indoors and cleaning the windows to watch the rain more clearly.     

growing a little too old...

universiteit van Amsterdam

Some of the university of Amsterdam buildings are being demolished. They were designed in the mid-sixties. The architect was Norbert J.J. Gawronski- a city council architect. The buildings were designed to fulfil a tight brief in their era, they must have been whole-heartedly modern when completed. There was a lovely neat box modernism about them, I liked the pattern of the curtain walling, there was a satisfying rhythm. Now they are being replaced for something of "this century" something more suitable and more contemporary.

This is beginning to become a little personal: this building style was modern for me, I grew up unsure if I truely liked this but I loved the idealism that surrounded architecture of this time. Yes there are far too many really bad examples of rectangular box, curtain-walled buildings around us however there are some good ones as well. Before too many are lost I would like to see them documented and ensure some remain. The sixties had style and it may still be neglected, let's recognise some of the good elements, be selective but remember not everything from this era is too old and too out of date!

...and still the sun shone

I had a day off in London to do exactly what I wanted. I love walking and learning through my feet. The walking scale gives such an intimate view of a place. I walked to Kensington Gardens and the Serpentine gallery. I wanted to see the Peter Zumthor pavillion and the gardens by Piet Oudolf.

 I walked back through Hyde park and took myself for a splendid lunch.

South Ealing Station

Later that afternoon en route to Heathrow I changed tube trains at South Ealing. It is the most gorgeous example of Art Deco. It embodies that zeal for the new, the excitement of the Modern Age and the passion for travel.

Wales is not always wet...

The sun has shone upon me for three days, it is as if I have brought it with me. I began on Tuesday leaving wet London behind me for a day trip to Wales. When I arrived the coast of north Wales was bleached by sunlight. The white and palest pastel houses of Llandudno smiled towards the blue sea. The winter winds and the salt air eat those facades, it is better not too look too closely.

from the beach at Llandudno

 Far from the palm-framed promenade on the faint horizon a wind farm reflects the light, the blades continually rotating like crazed stick men animations.

the promenade

I visited the Mostyn gallery, originally begun by Lady Mostyn in 1901 to exhibit the work of women artists and now expanded into a even lovelier space by Dominic Williams.I'd seen it on television but it was better in reality.

a Monday afternoon

Sometimes it only needs a very little journey to change how I view the city I live in. Today was one of those trips: two hours in an electric boat (powered by green energy), motoring around the canals of the inner city. It was the first day of full sun for so long. Literally the perspective changes, being suddenly so much lower down in the water.

view from the boat

 

 

 

It was a Monday afternoon, it felt deliciously naughty to take the afternoon off on a working day. 

Seeing the familiar from a different angle makes it look new. This was pioneering when built and the rivets are still magnificent. It is much beloved amongst film location hunters and it forms the backdrop to several war movies. It was mechanized a few years ago so that the bridge men no longer have to crank it open. It still clunks satisfactorily as it moves and bounces gently when the bridge lands back in place after opening. It doesn't matter how long I live here, it always cheers me to see bridges and boats working together like this and I'll wait patiently for the road to open again.

along the Amstel

 This is the city as created for the tourists: lovely wood bridges edged with a lace of lightbulbs.

Installing rocks

Installing Newfoundland Fissure 2010 Photo courtesy of Art Affairs Gallery

Summer has arrived in disguise; the greying clouds and bursting rain falls feel more autumnal than weather for July. Things are quieter now the Mapping the Art exhibition has been installed and opened in Amsterdam (it continues until the 27th of August at Art Affairs Gallery, Veemkade 354). It was my first show I had co-curated and I was priviledged to have the help of Antoinette de Stigter the gallerist with this. 

It was so easy to persuade me to take a few days off afterwards and I had a "busman's holiday" in Brittany. I returned to the rocks I drew early in the Coastlines Project. There is nothing like stunning pink granite to really cheer me up.   

Pink Granite Coast, Brittany

Rock structure

For the first time we drove from the Netherlands. It is a very long journey with challenging traffic en route. We went via the coast of the Somme Valley. It is an incredibly powerful landscape because of its recent history. We both have great-uncles who were here, mine returned to South Africa but two of his remained buried in France amongst other Australians and the very many others who were lost. This landscape of loss is so very beautiful it is almost bewildering. The soil is so productive and the earth folds in gentle hills before slipping towards the water. On the lip with the sea a medieval town remains: Joan of Arc was imprisoned here, William the Conquer left from this region. It is a place of remembering and we stopped.

On the road with dimming evening light

Flying sticks

Quietly recovering from the extraordinary experience of building a large installation sculpture in under two weeks. A few months ago I was approached to make a work for Natuurkunst Drenthe, I had put in an application the year before and due to funding problems it did not go through and suddenly this year the project was on. It turned out to be a really busy time for me: a group show opening in Padua, Italy, another group one in New York and this sculpture. (Prior to departure for Drenthe I spent several days packing artwork for shipping).

The theme was "borders" and the work was to be site specific using forest materials. It was a project jointly supported by Stadsbos Beheer in the forest of Schoonoord which enabled me to use the local materials and my thanks go to Stadsbos beheer particularly Bernard who helped me source wood. My work is called the "Flying Wall". It is the simplest form of border, the fence division. It recalls earlier wattle and daub architecture. I wanted to show both fixed rigid borders and the fluid nature of these borders, demarcation lines change.

Rear view of "Flying Wall" during installation, photograph: Jantje Tijmes

Early morning light on installation

 The piece is made using American Oak, a non-native species chosen originally for its ability to act as a filler in the woodland but now growing rampant and is regularly pruned back. The oak sticks are tied to rubber cord that gives the piece its flexibility and allows it to bow under the weight while maintaining the wall shape.

"Flying Wall" note ground cover of American Oak saplings

 

Detail and already intergrating into woodlands so much that spiders are starting to spin webs within it.

The tallest point (approximately 6 metres above ground) the fence continues around the trees

The exhibition will continue until the beginning of January 2012. I want to go back and see how it weathers in snow. It is intended to be on show for six months and the designed lifespan of this is approximately 2 years.

Thanks are due to many people and organisations, I'd particularly like to thank Natuurkunst Drenthe, my sponsor Derby Rubber Products Europe BV for the rubber tubing and tie cord, my first assistant Jantje Tijmes for helping tie many of the sticks and for her help when I had an accident during the construction. Thanks too Stephen Sheppard for his invaluable help chopping and preparing the sticks and installing the highest section of the piece also to Lucas and Gerda Tijmes who also helped in this project and Dick Lubbersen who brought a ladder and his help exactly when it was needed. Best wishes to my fellow artists on this project whose company made this project all the more interesting.

flying over orange rock

Watson's Bay, Sydney

What a way to spend a birthday- on a bay in Sydney harbour. Five nights in Sydney and the city felt like my own again. To return to a place you haven't visited in more than 20 years is an amazing experience. The distance isn't as far as before when bridged by the Internet. It remains a place that makes me look and analyze my own environment, all is so different, the trees, animals and birds most of all. It is wonderful to have the view broken by the flight of an ungainly cockatoo or to wake to kokaburras.

Like birds facing the onset of winter we flew back to Amsterdam. The plane flew for five hours over the interior of the country and for most of that I was glued to the window. The earth here is so piercingly beautiful. Ripples of hillocks wrinkled the ground and the earth changed in shades of orange and red ochres. The plane flew over the coastline and in the ocean there were stretch marks, -fissures in the plates. I wanted to stay.  

NSW 2

black Angus and Angus cross cattle

 

 

 The Balck Angus has a very straight back. They are gorgeous looking beasts. Our journey was punctuated by sightings of these and wallabies.

Roadside in Coff's Harbour

 After the Merino I insisted on finally visiting the Big Banana in Coff's Harbour (en route to Mullinbimby). I confess that it wasn't quite big enough for my imaginings. I was crazy for the roadside signage everywhere in NSW but Coff's Harbour has reached heights that many can only aspire to! Rarely was there the same letter font to be seen. It may seem odd but I loved the chaos and the contrast with stately trees and wild cockatoos and the kitsch touch of man.

The big prawn Ballina

Almost by accident we happened upon the Big (faded) Prawn in Ballina as we headed southwards.

A beach at Limeburner's Nature Reserve near Port Macquarrie

 So many delicious beaches so much surf. this was enroute to Port Macquarie where we stopped for a lunch of Balmain bugs. The prawn earlier must have sparked off a hunger for them.

Newcastle Harbour

The last night before returning to Syndey was spent in Newcastle. It is a huge coal shipping port. The industrial past is fading and the city is reinventing itself. It is a surpringly cheery place.

NSW

A real road trip. This is such a car country and an amazing chance to see the rural landscape as most people experience it. We were definitely off the tourist radar as we wandered into areas of mining. I had never experienced places where the major roads would shut to allow explosions and even as drivers passing we were expected to turn off our mobile 'phones.

We started heading South to Nowra then northwards via Golburn and the Big Merino. We stopped near Orange and followed that by a day trip to Parks to see the Dish- the telescope out there. (There was also a film starring Sam Neill of the same name). From there to Mudgee, a place with a gorgeous name from Wiradjuri language meaning either "Nest in the Hills" or "contented" both which suit the place. Then as we headed north we discovered the coal mines and the land was broken.

 

This is the sort of rural NSW I have lost my heart to. These are also the sort of landscapes that are proving so rich in natural resources. Fortunately this remains farmed.

the road near Dorrigo

 We drove for hours and kilometres. As the sun set and antracite dipped storm clouds hung stationary over our destination we headed to Bellingen via a mountain pass from Dorrigo. It looked so simple on the map... visibilty went down to less than 5 metres, there were oil spills on the road, rock slides and roadworks where earlier storms had washed half the road away. Ealier a car had spun out of control and fortunately come to rest at 90 degrees to the traffic rather than slipping towards the edge. We came across the police reassuring two dazed but healthy tourists.

Sydney

[This time the blogs are posted on my return. Much to my surprise internet connection in rural New South Wales is no where near as good as I had expected.]

Anzac Bridge Sydney

Bridges: Sydney has more of them than when I last lived here. The Anzac Bridge is a pair of leaping air pyramids. The whole city is now crossed by tunnel systems and bridges that make the traffic flow.

 

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Sydney Harbour Bridge II

 My first week was urban. Spent in the city staying in two different suburbs. I gave a lecture at the COFA (part of the University of New South Wales). That gave me a sense of connection to the arts environment here and a chance to share a little of my experiences.

Kuala Lumpur

The sun disk slid under a cloud, burning a trail to the horizon, stealing day with it. This is my second night in Kuala Lumpur and a strange place this is. I am in a hermetically sealed hotel with comfy beds, air-conditioning and a balcony out onto the 13^th floor view. We hover over the road, train track and station, this place feels like it is developing daily. I know I am in Malaysia because a big lit up sign on a building beyond tells me so. There is also a 11 storey high hoarding for Kentucky Fried Chicken. I suspect many places feel like this in the tourist centre, it feels so artificial. It is easy to say this at this distance. All the time I am thinking: there is someone who lives with stair windows obscured by a fried chicken advert, people walk behind the profile of a luscious chicken thigh.

On the superfast train from the airport we were rushing through palm oil plantations and gorgeous shacks with corrugated tin roofs. These are rapidly being replaced by high rise pagoda style blocks of flats and the personal expression is now relegated to the hanging of washing from windows. The ex-architect in me loved the low-rise buildings organically following the earth and crowning tree line. From the abstraction of a train view it seems beautiful. The palm oil trees flood the landscape and in the distance a mosque rose above it.  

Tomorrow I fly to Sydney.   

hopes of spring

The evenings are starting to lengthen and now at 6 pm it is still light enough for me to find the light switches to turn the lights on. It is definitely studio time, I just can't stop drawing and it is inspiring. Today the weather was so inviting and the sky so clear that I was compelled to walk to the other studio to work on a new piece I have been developing. Then I wandered through the streets of the old city en route to my other studio to work on a smaller intense tree drawing.

The sunshine tempts me into thinking it is spring. I am waiting for the birds to start nesting in the eaves of the house opposite me. They have chosen a spot next to the central heating chimney and they can manage two nests a year with a long spring and good summer. It is still quiet, so spring is a few weeks away. Cool, crisp days and palest blue skies that ascend endlessly over the city gives vertical space that the 17th & 18th century street pattern misses on the ground.

the year of the forest

Winter is a time for the studio and I am quietly working on more drawings. Newfoundland remains a constant inspiration and I am dreaming of returning. The Newfoundland rock fissure series continues. While I wait for my latest canvases to arrive- my treat to myself is to have someone else stretch my large canvases for me,- I am working on the beginnings of my xyloteque. It is a library of trees and for now it is my own personal trees: ones I have a history with. The latest are the the elegant but manipulated trees that line the canal outside the studio.

Winter tree, Amsterdam, detail of mixed media drawing 2011

This year was declared the Year of the Forest by the UN General Assembly. That is good with me, I am crazy about trees; trees and rocks are my simplest pleasures. I've been selected to make a sculptural piece in the Forest of Schoonoord, Drenthe (the far East of the Netherlands) in May it is an art-in-nature symposium followed by an exhibition. I am working with tree remains and there is a group of Staatsbosbeheer (forestry commission) rangers to help with installation, it is going to be a large piece and I am delighted to have people to help. 

This is also what winter in the studio is about, many applications, fund-raising, collating images and information before a summer of drawing. It is lovely when an unexpected offer like this comes in and even nicer to have been selected.

studio displacement syndrome

What happens after a residency? A residency is so intense that returning home afterwards can feel so strange. I often suffer from what I refer to as studio displacement syndrome. This time it was extremely brief as I was so excited by what I had seen and so driven to create more work that I couldn't stop. Plus I was lucky enough to have the use of a huge space as a temporary studio. Works that dwalf my normal working space looked comforatbly at ease in this context.

preparing canvases

Lobster Head Cove Triptych in progress. This was one of a series of line drawings painted on canvas using acrylic paint.

Lobster Head Cove Triptych completed during open studio

Green Point Triptych