Another term completed, exactly half way through my journey!

Time to pause and stop the production for the Christmas break in theory, however I know that I've still got the itch to scratch for the next four weeks whilst not at the University!  So, perhaps the best thing for me to do right now is to reflect on the first term of my second year.

We started off the year with a project that I thoroughly enjoyed, especially as my previous study of the Huddersfield Railway station, back in December the previous year, came in handy! I was able to devote almost 12 weeks thinking about the station and St Georges square in particular in a different way than my first encounter.  Whilst the first four weeks or so were spent looking and recording other landmarks and sites (and sights!) of Huddersfield.

The work that I'd done during the Summer recess, which was almost totally focussed on improving my drawing skills, had paid off (despite the fact that I stopped for about a month or so near the end of the vacation to deal with my dear late brother's untimely death.  It affected my sense of purpose, but in time, the act of sketching and drawing has restored much of this).


So, the outcome of this first project, which was labelled as a "Drawing Project", fitted nicely with the preparation over the previous year.  The specific outcome too, was a complete departure from the sort of ideas (and way of thinking) that I would have projected a few years ago - before I had decided to return to full time further education.  I would have likely gone for an "easy" context, just as I had with the representation of the station facade some 10 months earlier.

My final piece for Year 2 Project 1, is such an abstraction from the original scene, it takes some effort to connect the images together, but once the viewer does, I hope (and I find this is an emerging signature in my work), that it brings an affectionate smile to the faces of the spectator.  This is the affect that I find I'm now striving for, in all my final pieces.  I want to court a particular type of light, yet quirky humour, not too dissimilar to that of Grayson Perry, but perhaps not so eccentric.

Constellations of Draco;

"This is a reference to St Georges Square, Huddersfield.  St George, being the patron saint of England destroyed the common foe of the people, (as described in myths throughout the western world), - represented as The Dragon (Latin, Draco).
One of tToday's 'common foes of the people' comes in a different form when standing on St Georges Square. That is, what you find under-foot as small approx 2cm black discs, in abundance, which is discarded chewing gum.  The observation of black dots on a light background, laid out in a rectilinear grid reminded me of the way that astronomers map stars, indeed, one being the star constellation of "Draco" itself, found in the northern skies. The highest star of the Draco constellation, Thuban (α Draconis) was the northern pole star from 3942 BC, when it moved farther north than Theta Boötis, until 1793 BC. The Egyptian Pyramids were designed to have one side facing north, with an entrance passage designed so that Thuban would be visible at night. (Staal, Julius D.W. (1988). Pages 239 & 240, The New Patterns in the Sky. McDonald and Woodward Publishing, Ohio, US).I find this little fact amusing too, as Hudderfield can be likened to a northern pole, a rising star, when St Georges Square was originally built by the Victorians...  Anyway, the mapping of the northern stars, to guide the weary traveller and in effect, warn the weary travellers going to or from Hudderfield Rail Station, of the common foe, (in this case, treading on a sticky piece of chewing gum).

I love to continually make these little connections in my art.  I am drawing verbally, through ideologies and through detailed research, as well as the physical act of drawing, here with one of the simplest agents of art, through pencil and paper."

So on to the next Project, No.2.  which again, I felt that was wonderful serendipity!  Maybe it's because I'm so engaged in what I have been doing that I'm not aware that I may be doing the right thing anyway!...  My interest in all things artistic had lead me to visit some of the works of one of my favourite contemporary artists, that being Grayson Perry, and his Tapestries at Temple Newsam House just outside Leeds.  I went there with my wife some two or three weeks before the announcement of Project 2, which would be initiated by the study of those same works I had looked at earlier!...  I suppose this may simply be convergent thinking but I was delighted that I could engage in a study that I was so interested in anyway.

My own sub-intentions from the start of this second project (whilst not necessarily forming the project brief), was for me to start to study, and in some ways emulate the learning methods of the older fine art academies or ateliers of Europe, where students progressed through studies and copies the Old Masters' works (in a way similar, perhaps to the time prior to the 1960s and 70's Coldstream reports (by William Coldstream et al, which I've since learned, formed a major turning point on the way 'art' was taught in the United Kingdom).  I feel that because my love of the classics and post Renaissance art needs to be satisfied, then this must form part of my learning experience.  By following this connection, I hope to keep the vigour and zeal of my enthusiasm for all art, fresh, and open minded by all means, but with a grounded foundation of technical skill to be built upon.

I started with those thoughts of copying the great masters, and in particular, I considered Johannes Vermeer, 1632 - 1675) as a suitable candidate.  One of his most famous paintings, Girl with a Pearl Earring, (1665) struck me as a very "high class" painting.  The deconstruction of it, by contemporising it with a symbol of present day culture, was to replace the earing with a "spacer" style earing; - a very fashionable adornment of today's youth.  Coupling that with a title that hints at the current vogue of exaggeration (sometimes referred to 'larging' or 'bigging' something up), i called the piece "Girl with the Mother of Pearl Earing"... A mildly humorous yet obvious play on the fact that such spacer earrings could be made from Mother of Pearl, but also a contemporary reference to suggest the model has the "biggest of all" pearl earrings, in a rather common and hence lower class taxonomy.

In an ironic twist therefore, my deconstruction of the culturally high class and tasteful painting has become a 'lower' class symbolism of contemporary culture, and hints at a image of 'bad' taste, if viewed by an upper class viewer.   This was my first pass output from the brief.

I also explored other Vermeer paintings through sketches.  One of which shown here is a sketch of Girl with a Letter by an Open Window, (1657).

Working on, again with the Great Masters in mind coupled with my desire to copy their classical styles, I looked at another favourite artist of the High Class of the renaissance, that being the portrait painter of Henry the 8th no less; Hans Holbein (The younger), (c1497-1543).  One of the most famous paintings to represent Class, Culture and Taste is the portrait "Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve, The Ambassadors", (1533).  I looked at ways of contemporising this painting, through the transposition of the original subjects with some of today's 'cultural' ambassadors.  After some research and consideration of popularity, I decided to use the current celebrity icons of Angelina Jolie and David Beckham, both also being official "cultural ambassadors" to the United Nations.

Initially I explored a new location, based on the Holbein painting, thinking about where one would likely find such celebrities.  I made a few sketches of the duo in front of a Land Roveer at a Polo meeting, but then I decided to use Holbeins original backing curtains, with the trappings and symbolism of contemporary life on a coffee table, rather than the two tier shelves that Holbein had.

 (there is also a satirical hint that whilst De Dinteville and De Selve were highly educated in science, music and the arts, the two new celebrities "lack something on the top shelf", hence its omission).

Once engaged in this concept piece, I realised that I had been staring all the time at an almost timeless allegory of Class, Culture and Taste, that being the actual curtains depicted in each of the Great Master's paintings, but also which still hold the same symbolic power today.  So this is where my focus will be over the final few weeks of the project as a final piece...