…. is that they compel you to tidy the place. Today’s party was to celebrate our house being 200 years old. So naturally the whole place had to be open for people to look around. Consequently, even the studio had to be presentable. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I now have … Read more
Yes: Jack Vetriano. Why not? For some reason I fell to thinking about his work yesterday. I’m puzzled as to why he is regarded so negatively among artists. I regret to say that I do wonder how much of this has to do with his financial success. I wouldn’t want to suggest that he is … Read more
Today’s post is going up earlier than usual, for an unfortunate reason. I have to go down to Machynlleth. Last month I submitted a piece to MoMa Wales for inclusion in an exhibition, and entrusted my entry to DHL. To my distress I discovered that the item had been wrecked in transit. What added to … Read more
Shortly before I left for Italy, on 3 July, a shared a few ideas in anticipation of the trip. Looking back over the three weeks since then I am surprised by how much has changed in my expectations about the project. I had already sketched a few images, and begun work on one group. I … Read more
I was struck by the fact that two local war memorials in villages I visited in Italy bore the word, “Presente” above the list of names of those who died. This is how Italian soldiers respond during roll call. It is so different from the characteristic British, “We will remember them”, and important for two … Read more
A good deal of my approach to my project, exploring my own visual responses to Italian experience in the First World War, was encouraged by Mark Thompson’s book The White War. He fixed in my mind, in his account of the war along the alpine frontier between Italy and Austria, pictures of a landscape either … Read more
Yes, I got back from my Italian trip today. I’m sorry to have been out of touch for the two weeks since I last posted, but internet connection in a small Friulian village is not exactly easy. Well: it might have been there, but my access to it was dictated by the availability of my … Read more
Tomorrow I leave for Italy on a journey that will last two weeks. I hope to be able to keep this blog going because I have recently acquired an iPad. A friend who was on a trip to this region with me last year pointed out this afternoon that WiFi access where we stayed was … Read more
Terry Wogan at one time used to refer to “my other listener” (perhaps he still does). Regardless of the fact that he had an audience of millions he liked to create in a humorous way the illusion that he shared the programme with a couple of friends. In a rather different spirit the Danish philosopher … Read more
Preparing for this Italian trip in interesting, but problematic. The purpose of it is to develop inspiration experienced earlier. I do wonder, however, if there is a danger in being too aware of that. Perhaps it is important to go into the field trying to have in mind as few preconceptions as possible. The purpose … Read more