Never mind what happened to November – it is nearly a month since my last post in October and there are still remnants from then. Being busy at half the pace of days of yore is much of the explanation for the gap, with exhibitions to the fore.
First, two oddballs: ‘Shaman at the burial mounds’ is one of my recent paintings which I have already illustrated (post of 26 September, 2018). Crude and visually dramatic, it affords viewers the chance to react to it strongly, ‘yuk’ or ‘wow’. I was myself puzzled as to where it had come from – and suddenly there was part of the answer, hiding in plain view. One of the books lying around the house is a book called ‘A Musical Eye. The visual world of Britten and Pears’ (ed. J. Legrove, Boydell, 2013). Its outside front cover, with its brightly-coloured arches, would appear to be a sub-conscious model for my garish barrows.
The illustration is of University of South Carolina Cloister 1919 by Joself Scharl.
And now for something completely different: here is the view west along Piccadilly, Green Park on the left, at 12.46 pm on October 20 when there was a huge ‘march’ (even the police agreed c 700,000) in favour of a ‘people’s vote’ on the terms of the UK’s leaving the EU.
Soon after this, the ‘march’ became stationary because people were packed so closely nobody could move. Personally, I did not get past the Ritz so I patiently extracted myself from the press and seized the opportunity to look inside the Annenberg Courtyard at Burlington House. There was a large art structure, indeed what appeared to be a complete house:
It is not a complete house but it is indeed an artwork called ‘Transitional Object (PsychoBarn)’ by Cornelia Parker. The information board alongside it tells you all you need to know – and, rather unnecessarily I thought, how to feel about it:
Personally, I did not find it at all ‘unsettling’ and thought the scaffolding behind and holding up the facade was if anything more ‘artistic’ and enigmatic:
I’ve got something on a barn in my next blog.