Today I decided to look for artistic inspiration at the Cable Factory, a multifunctional cultural centre. There is a sales exhibition of graphic art and sculptures, an annual event. There is a similar event for painters earlier in the year. I prefer this one. Much of what is in the painters’ event disappoints me. Much of what’s in the printmakers’ and sculptors’ event delights me. It’s a nice walking distance away and I fortified myself with coffee and cake at the local gas station. The people who run the place are celebrating their eighth year here. Good chocolate cake, actually. There was some interesting stencilling on the way. That pancake pan was the most delightful sculpture. It's a old Skeppshult pan with bronze pancakes by Mika Heinonen, called Kesäilta, Summer Evening. 1300 euro, in case you're interested. Was I inspired? Yep. Ideas are churning in my head.
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The Japanese have a philosophy of treating breakage and repair as part of the history of an object. They have a fancy way of going about this using golden joinery. I bought a small 14 ml pot of gold paint used for model airplanes and such to bring out the history of two objects. I used cheepo brushes bought from a stationary’s. The cup was my father’s breakfast cup, the pattern on the side long ago faided. With the cracks it can no longer hold liquids so I use it to hold nuts and other titbits next to my TV chair. The green thing is the top of a piece of ceramic pot also good for holding goodies next to my TV chair. The paint is practically water soluble. However, I would recommend using tight rubber gloves to avoid golden fingers and fingernails. The headache? I've just had Office Home & Business 2013 installed on my computer and it no longer has Office Picture Manager. I've spent at least an hour trying to figure out how to pack photos. Looks like I have to figure out how to archive my photos all over... Actually, this is a refreshing headache, similar to the one when drawing on the right side of the brain although, probably, this is on the other side of the brain.
Recently I heard bits of a short interview with a man who went to 365 art exhibitions last year. He had been to some 200 exhibitions in the previous two years or so and thought he could easily do one a day. That’s quite an achievement! From what I heard I assume he lived somewhere closer to the center of Helsinki where all the galleries are. I live in a city that doesn’t even feel like a city, it’s more like a collection of villages. There’s no real centre and there really aren’t that many galleries around. The ones there are, are scattered around. What a load of excuses :-) There is a museum of modern art and I'm complaining.
Many years ago I spent a week in Tuscany, painting watercolours with friends. My colour palette consisted of the colours recommended by il Professore the previous year. I struggled with them but didn’t understand why.
One of the colours was olive green. I hadn’t brought an extra pan of olive green with me, so when I ran out of olive I had no green. You get green by mixing yellow and blue, right? So I thought. Well, it depends on the yellow and the blue you have. The yellow I had was Cadmium Yellow Deep which, I can tell you, is a very warm yellow, practically orange. Orange and French Ultramarine do not make a nice green. Orange and Indigo do not make a nice green either. It’s 5C today. Not unusual for the first of May, but compared to the 17C to 20C just ten days ago it seems an awful lot colder. And it’s been rainy. The buds on that rowan tree outside the window are growing as I type. Anyway, what does one do on a cold and rainy day in the country? I decided to do something with my hands. Draw or paint. I went for my art things and in my sketch book there was this pencil drawing I did two summers ago. We were growing cherry tomatoes in flower pots and got lots and lots of them and oh! did they taste sweet. That was the first summer we grew them and encouraged by our success we decided to grow them again last summer. This time, however, the mice or shrew or both found them and thought they tasted pretty sweet as well, I bet. Last summer wasn’t such a success. I’ve often noticed that a sketch is a lot better than the ”proper” version I later decide to make. When I sketch I don’t take myself so seriously, I’m more relaxed. So if I make a sketch on the back of a lottery ticket and it turns out nicely I’m annoyed at the quality of the paper. Luckily, the paper in this sketch book is acid free and actually archival quality, so my art work will last for generations. I took out my coloured pencils and this is how the drawing turned out. |
AuthorI'm Piisa and I will be sharing with you my thoughts on this and that, maybe even on whatever. Archives
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