Japanese Elegance
Afternoon, one of Hiroshi Yoshida's Dai-oban 1926 Sailing Boats Series prints Today I had cause to search online for Japanese woodcuts, an artform I have always admired. I particularly love the texture this ancient form of printing creates, and it’s something I often try to emulate digitally in my own illustrations. Of course the Japanese aesthetic is also very elegant and spare. The lines are eloquent; the colour palette often limited which adds to the quiet austerity of the images. Here is a little collection of prints I admired.
Click images for links.
Seated Cat by Kiyoshi Saito, 1955
Woodcut by Koich, (early twentieth century?)
Print from One Hundred Flowers series by Kono Bairei, 1880s
Rapid sketches made in the Asian Art Museum, by Teesta Rongbuk
Variations of a Dream
I assembled this random poem earlier this week and was very pleased with the combination of word scraps. However, I found it a more difficult proposition when it came to creating the image. There were plenty of magical phrases to inspire – purple words, roses and violets, magic carpets, dream weavers – but it was difficult to encapsulate the dreamy feeling of the poem visually without distracting from the actual word collage.
Fairly early on I decided to use a page from an antique copy of The Arabian Nights that I have. The texture created by the foxed tissue insert was interesting, but I still didn’t quite like it.
Who but Scheherezade was the greatest dream weaver of all?
Then I had a eureka moment. Of course! Who but Scheherezade was the greatest dream weaver of all? The stories she told the Sultan every night caused him to fall in love with her – and, incidentally, saved her head from the chopping block. (Let’s not deconstruct this scenario too much or the illusion of romance will be quite evaporated.)
I removed the veil (so to speak) and revealed the etching in all its glory. It is the only illustration in the book, and it is singularly apt to illustrate my poem. I like the cultural weight this iconic book brings to my poem – they tie so well together, a bit like the vintage Mills & Boon page coupled with my poem on brides in the previous story.
Scroll down to see the other variations.
Version 1: the image was actually advertising bathroom fittings! I had to tear around a bathroom cabinet. Just not romantic enough.
Version 2: the first incarnation of the page from The Arabian Nights – I wanted to show some of the image, but it didn't quite fit with the cut paper words – the flow was interrupted
Version 3: Perhaps a vintage postcard of roses and violets combined with my handwriting? Too messy.
Version 4: Or a simple oil pastel background with my handwriting etched into it? Too simple and unsatisfying, I felt.
A Word Jigsaw
I was tickled to combine a poem about brides with a US Vogue fashion image and the frontispiece from a 1930s Mills & Boon romance novel.
I’ve been busy lately writing random poems – if writing is the correct word. It’s been more like assembling word jigsaws: my table is strewn with thousands of snippets and phrases that tumble together into little poems.
When I first started creating these poems, I would close my eyes and take whatever words came out of the tin. My rule was to use every single piece in the poem. This time, for a change, I decided to be less restrictive. Sometimes I pull a random clump out of the mess, and occasionally I sift through for phrases that catch my eye, discarding those that don’t work with the overall thread. I guess you could call them somewhat random poems.
I’ve also gone back and redesigned many of my old poems with new vintage backgrounds. You can check them out in the new Random Poetry gallery.
Gregory Crewdson – In A Lonely Place
Untitled, by Gregory Crewdson, from the series Beneath the Roses, 2006Last week I went to view an exhibition at the Centre of Contemporary Photography: Gregory Crewdson’s In a Lonely Place (which ended today).
His images are cinematic mise-en-scenes, disquieting, and uneasy. They have been labelled ‘hyperreal’ – which is by definition ‘involving or characterised by particularly realistic graphic representation’. This is true, but this cold term does not capture the essence of Crewdson’s photographs.
There is the sense that beyond the camera lens all is still and silent. No bird calls, no leaf drops. There is a glass between us and this other world. We are silent observers and the people in these bell jars are unmoving, forever trapped. There is something sinister about to happen, and I found myself searching for clues, trying to glimpse a hint of an intruder somewhere (a bit like Deckard in Bladerunner enlarging that photograph to the nth degree).
I particularly loved the snowy street scene (top) – there is so much detail to fascinate, and the enormous scale of the photographs allows one to become utterly immersed in the landscape. Of this image he says:
“For that picture, we waited till there was a huge snowstorm. Then we worked with the town to close down the main street, which hadn't been ploughed for 24 hours. There was even a lamp post we had the city remove.” [Herald Sun]
Untitled, by Gregory Crewdson, from the series Beneath the Roses, 2005Crewdson, as you would expect, works with a large crew to achieve these images. He first drives around looking for suitable locations, and as he develops the narrative, members of a regular work team – which include directors of photography and art, and a line producer – sign on for the shoot which may take up to five weeks.
Although his inspirations include David Lynch, as well as other photographers such as Diane Arbus and (very evidently) painter Edward Hopper, Crewdson is not interested in progressing to making films himself. He tends to think in single images, and calls himself a reluctant photographer. Like the chef who does not like to cook at home, he must compel himself to take snapshots of his children. But his ‘movie snapshots’ certainly do compel his audience.
See many more images at Art Blart (scroll down).
Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper, 1942
Doodling Doodles
Ice Ice Baby Arm Two, Tim Moore, 2011
Tim Moore hard at workTim Moore loves to embroider. And he has a very cheeky sense of humour. After completing a Bachelor of Three Dimensional Design at Brighton University, he had a brief foray in jewellery design (which made him unhappy) and then a stint graphic design. It was his love of doodling however that lead to embroidery. Forgetting his sketchpad and pens, on a long-haul flight he took to the sick bag with a sewing kit, and the rest is history.
He has an eye for the absurd, taking his inspiration from a stock of hunting, fishing and nudist magazines that tickle his fancy. His canvas of choice: vintage Sicilian or Irish linen, and he uses silk or metallic thread.
What’s the point of that?, Tim Moore, 2007
On the piss with Steve Davis, Tim Moore, 2007
Bande eccellenti del cavallo del hero, Tim Moore, 2008
‘They all come under the ridiculing eye of Moore, who likes to rub it in with his own love for puns with titles such as the Made up Fish series, which depicts fish with cosmetically enhanced eyes and lips. In the same vein, the Sew Natural series plays on the medium of sewing and the irony of sewing nudes on the very fabrics they shun. Hanging out at Lake Flacid (2010) depicts a pyramid of formation water skiers with their penises dangling from their trousers in happy but flaccid dashes of pale pink – there is variation between the penis sizes with the largest belonging to the flag waving top-rung skier.
Moore’s latest body of work, Ice Ice Baby Arm, depicts ice-skaters in compromising poses oblivious to the penises which dangle from the male’s tights. In Ice Ice Baby Arm 2 (2011) the penis, at first glace, charmingly appears to be part of the female skater’s hat. … There is also something of the utopian childhood joy associated with Moore’s depictions; after all, these are not the threatening phalluses of aggression, but playful sausage-rolls of insouciance.’ [From Tim Moore, by Gillian Serisier, Artist Profile Issue 15, 1 June 2011]
He says of his work, “I’m a dick doodler. It’s whimsy and fun. There might be some deep-rooted thing, but I don’t know. Maybe I should go and speak to someone. I just think whimsical dick drawings and dick doodles are generally fairly funny,” says Moore.
They are funny – after the first innocent perusal one blinks, then giggles. Visit Helen Gory Galerie for more.
Ice Ice Baby Arm Four, Tim Moore, 2011
A Tri Dangle, Tim Moore, 2011