Category: Kahn

Posted on

Everyone is an artist – Joseph Beuys

I am thinking about art a lot. My art & where it is going. Some key words that stick: iconic – see the Buildings category for example. I want more of the iconic stuff. I need the Christchurch Cathederal. And people, I like to do portraits of people I am reading about or watching on video. Hand is another word, and Line. I like to see my hand in the lines, & I like strong lines, I try to return to more painterly stuff but keep adding lines.

Iconis is one of a list of words I have all pointing in the same direction, Kahn might say Monumental, Jung, archetypal, Moreno psychodramatic. In fact Moreno described the Psychodrama method as: “Exploring truth by dramatic means.” Here I explore truth by the means of lines by my hand. I don’t care if that sounds grandiose! I make no claims though for how successful I am, or that I am there.

Here is another I have just done, I have done about six, not sure which one to post:

#469 Joseph Beuys
Larger Image.

This one best caught a look in his face that speaks to me.

I like the boldness & the social engagement. He had wacky ideas, everything is creative, everything is art. There is some truth in that, everything arises from a mysterious source. He seems to consciously make himself the work of art, by creating a persona. Now that is something I quite like, but it is not me. No pseudonyms, no new roles. I am tempted sometimes… I wonder if I could create an artist and do the art from that new role. But no, I just am who I am & that is OK. There are a couple of pictures here by Prince Charles though.

He was in the Fluxus movement as was Yoko Ono. I listened to her son Sean on a podcast the other day, and he spoke of how he was inspired by his mother – you don’t need to be an expert to do art, you can just go for it. He made a movie of his separation with his girlfriend, with her in it! I can see the links!

Wikipedia

Joseph Beuys Online Guide

Posted on

Bunker 1

#467 Bunker 1
Larger Image.

Kate & I have been on some great walks in the Port Hills of Christchurch lately. Above Lyttelton are some old concrete structures, I’ll call them bunkers. The were part of the defences against the Japanese who almost invaded New Zealand in WWII. They are quite beautiful sitting there on the hillside. The remind me of Lois Khan buildings (though I have only seen pix) – and I want to draw more of these buildings with minimalist strong lines. Basic stuff. One Khan image done a while back – Salk Interior.

The sketches are from the photos I took, and here are some more pix, to contextualise the sketches.

Continue reading “Bunker 1”

Posted on

Salk Interior

#327 Salk Interior
Click for larger image.

Here is the interior I spoke about in the last post. Salk said to Kahn – build a building Picasso would want to visit. That is inspiring. I want to find a style that suits my interest in these buildings, it is not to be photo realistic, nor just to have fodder for abstract shapes. (the next one did spring out of a layer from this one.)

But what is it. I’d like it to be fast too! Watch this space.

~

Purchase Print

~

Technorati tags:

Posted on

Forming, becoming & docking slowly into the landing site

Here is a quote from “Tarzan Presley” by Nigel Cox – enjoying it right now. Page 54:

Edgar Rice Burroughs once remarked, with reference to Tarzan, that a new thought was like rain – you can sense it’s on the way.

I’ve wondered about this. I think I know what he meant.
You grasp something, and your whole head lights up, it’s like your brain being born again. But then, if you reflect, you see that you had been aware of this possibility, this new arrangement of the facts of the world, and had cleared a space for it in your thinking. Like a mighty space craft, dewy from its long voyage across the dark, it docks slowly – shudders a little as it fits perfectly nto the landing site. As you study it you see that it’s been a long time oming.

I thought of of this project of course. The image of the spaceship fits. I like “long voyage across the dark”. It is taking me places and it is a big thing with its own momentum and monumentum!

The idea of “monumental” is strong in the writing & work of Louis Kahn, architect, whose book I was reading at the start of Thousand Sketches. I would love to see some of his buildings & may do so. I have been looking on the Net & sketching from a photo I did not take, breaking my rule. Monumental for Kahn means that it clearly speaks of what it is, a school is a worthy addition to the many schools that make up our notion of school, it is a strong statement in that conversation. These are my words to say how I think of monumental, but I think I get Kahn when he speaks.

My desire is that this project speaks like that in some way. My fear is that it does not. I would like it to slowly, but fully “dock”.

~

My quote from Cox also applies to any one sketch.

Technorati tags:

Posted on

Process

I am, after four months, still captured by this whirl of art enthusiasm. I have been watching videos on art & reading books. I look at galleries online and offline. I look at art blogs & websites. I am immersed and enjoying the process. I am catching up on a lifetime of not doing this. I was searching for a word, suppressing, avoiding doing this art thing? Not really. I think it was incubating, biding its time.

A long post reflecting on process follows.

Continue reading “Process”

Posted on

Sam 1

#141 Sam1

Three of these coming up. Initially I thought I should not put the three versions up. The reason for that – I had a sense of cheating, and also that I do not want to use up my “quota”. But I slept on it and a few new thoughts crept in and now I post all three with gusto.

They look remarkably different, the exploration of backgrounds here is something unique to the digital medium, this is something to develop and fully realise. And I feel as if the media is asking to be used in this way… in the way a “column asks for a beam” to quote Louis Kahn.

~

Technorati tags:

Posted on

The Thousand Sketches project is fully launched

Last Friday we had the launch of the project, the real life physical one with food & wine. Many people came along, and I am very pleased, thanks for your interest & enthusiasm!

It was quite amazing to see all those pictures up on the wall – and to think that only a couple of months ago there were none! If you have photos from the night – please send, I was too busy to take any! I have a bit of video from the ending, I’ll spliced that together:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl9nchATun0&w=425&h=350]

I was pleased how easily people valued the project as a whole and the way I am cooking up something. A common remark is: “I wonder what number 800, or 1000 will look like?”. One person said: “It’s a performance.” well observed, I do find my self unexpectedly on a stage. “It is not only how you are doing it, but what you are doing.” Right, very Louis Kahn. “At the end of alchemy is a miracle.” “Trust the impulse, return to the impulse.”

~

Tag:

Posted on

“Surrender to the flame”

My friend Eileen’s response to the story of my project. Thanks Eileen!

Right now the flame is a glow, re-kindling after days of intense focus on my psychotherapy work with the NZAP council.

I have some air-port sketches. (I posted them already)

What does this flame want? Ideas flood in about the whole rather than the sketches. I am sure that online auctions & the market, are integral, not just a business add on. It began with the “sponsored links” on the sketch pages. There a desire, but also a wish to suppress. My way out of that tension – as I have already mentioned here – is Hermes. The very same impulse to crate a hermetic vessel, brings with it the notion of gold and trade, as Hermes is the God of trade… that is how it is in cyberspace.

Art is investment, it is trade, Hermes the trickster has a hand in it.

Make something out of nothing.

I think auctions are right! It is “what it wants to be” it may be me that is holding back, it hard for me to embrace. There is also a learning curve to auctions – and it is a bit much right now.

Khan’s platonism again of course. Here is a quote on the nature of the nature of things.

Proudly powered by WordPress