A Wandering Eye

 Picture this......

All pictures are in the past. Even what you think you saw just now, for example Anthony Michael Gordon's 55th minute goal against Argentina happened fractionally before you could experience it, with the light travelling through your lenses to your retina then crowding down your optic nerve to be processed by your brain.....  Nothing is what you think you saw.

And so it is with art.....  Hockney has gone the same way that T S Eliot took.  Words and pictures still with us, but the light has gone.....

I am in London again, roaming the interstices of  life and love, wandering partially for the sake of it, partially because to stay still is also an illusion.....

Although I think I prefer my rustication [sic] in far flung Norfolk there is a vibrant stimulus in the hectic miasma that is London.  Almost an aversion therapy......

So I prowl about, a camera, or an iPhone, at the ready, snapping images that later may help me remember where I have been or what I saw. Pictures which, along with the estimated 5 billion to 5.3 billion photos that human beings currently take every day worldwide, will mean less than nothing to no one. 

This figure equates to over 61,400 photos snapped every single second, resulting in roughly 50 petabytes of new image data captured daily, which average leads to more than 2 trillion photos taken annually across the globe, of which around 90% are now captured using smartphones, leaving conventional cameras and film to account for less than 10% of daily images.

So, there we aren't.  Here I am.  

Yes, here I am.  Competing with the rest of the world, remembering that the essence of competition is that there are always losers.......

But.....  WTF?  Other people breathe. That doesn't mean I shouldn't.

And, as Hiromix says:

Though what she doesn't say is that every image, whether it is a painting or a photograph or (perhaps) a sculpture, is a selfie.....  It's not a new thing.  The first artist ever was expressing something of his or her self.  The last artist ever will still be trying to say something that emanates from the self.....

Here is David Hockney telling us about his house in France, wanting us to appreciate his life, possibly subconsciously wanting us to share his life, without - obviously - intruding......

And here is Andy Warhol vicariously extending his world to tantalise us with fame and luxury:

And here is Christo wrapping the desirable away so we can only dream of what lies beneath:

While Bob Dylan entices us to follow his lines into the distant imagination of an evanescent world:

Of course, you cry, [Who are you to patronise?  Ed] there are images that involve no artistry, such as those of the Camera Obscura..........

But this device is only designed to monitor or assist imagery. It doesn't happen by itself.....

So what about nature?  The circle of life?  Why are flowers so attractive?

Aren't they just saying, Come, look at me?  Come, smell me?

Come on, come on, come on, come on

Now, touch me, babe

Can't you see that I am not afraid?

What was that promise that you made?

Why won't you tell me what she said?

What was that promise that you made?

Touch Me

The Doors

Anyway, this, by a circuitous route, brings me to Kew Gardens, a somewhat pricey outskirt of the metropolis.  Here, where foxes and badgers rule supreme and hedgehogs are no longer happy residents, a series of sinuous sculptures punctuates the park, courtesy of the late Henry Spencer Moore (not knighted, by the way, in 1951).....

Having recently visited Barbara Hepworth in St Ives, (and having previously written about Henry Moore at Perry Green in https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2013/05/feeling-henry-moore-ish.html) I am shy of opining about the abstract.  There is something grand, something liberating, however, about being next to a substantial three-dimensional art work in an open, natural environment.  

As Moore wished, the work expresses itself from all angles.  You wander around it and it presents differing ideas/thoughts/possibilities as the lights changes as the shapes interact.....

As Moore himself said, in Unit One, edited by Herbert Read in 1934, All art is an abstraction to some degree (in sculpture the material alone forces one away from pure representation and towards abstraction).....

Or, as he wrote in The Listener in 1937, Each particular carving I make takes on in my mind a human or occasionally animal character and personality, and this personality controls its design and formal qualities, and makes me satisfied or dissatisfied with the work as it develops......

Makes me satisfied or dissatisfied...... Art as an expression of satisfaction. Art is an expression of the self.  Not to deny anattā - the Buddhist concept that there is no permanent, unchanging, soul or 'self' but that there is a flowing collection of consciousness, sensation and perception that allows a more sensitive and imaginative connection with the world.....

That may be a hazy view of the life outside the window.....

But a two-dimensional swimming pool is just as elusive......

I must wrap my car......

But I will let Raye say her piece:

And I don′t really like my body

But knowing it′s my only body

I should probably call somebody

I should really show you how I'm feeling inside

Matter fact, I′m glad you called me

I been hiding, I been high and I been sleeping hungry

Body Dysmorphia 

Rachel Agatha Keen, Michael Harris Sabath

Now I'm gonna love you

Till the heavens stop the rain

I'm gonna love you

Till the stars fall from the sky

For you and I

Touch Me

South by South-West (Part 2)

Light and Shade in St Ives (again)

I don't think I could tire of this view.  It is from one of the rooms of Podn Olva, where I stayed in 2023, and where I stayed again this year.....

Pednolva, St Ives by John Anthony Park ROI (1878-1962)

Christopher (Kit) Wood stayed in the little wooden bungalow (which then had no hot water or toilet) here in the grounds of the Pedn Olva House Hotel, in the autumn of 1926. He was inspired by the light and colour.  

Here is a view of the rocky point from the harbour:

Pednolver, St Ives by Arthur Hayward (1889-1962)

And here is a view of the harbour itself:

St Ives by Alfred Cochrane (c1871-1947)

All of which go to show that St Ives has been popular with artists for quite some time, and that the stardom that arrived with Barbara Hepworth in 1939 was really part of a continuum, which eventually led to the creation of Tate St Ives in June 1993, designed, with echoes of the former gasworks on the site, by architects Eldred Evans and David Shalev.  The gallery was then enlarged by cutting into the cliffs by Jamie Fobert Architects in 2017.

Tate St Ives is a wonderful gallery, catching the light from the sea across Porthmeor Beach, and hosting works by local artists that include Alfred Wallis, Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth.

And it was Barbara Hepworth who drew me here in March 2023 as the gallery was holding a major exhibition of her work then.  (For more about that please see:

 https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2023/03/a-brief-trip-to-st-ives-cornwall.html)

Stringed Figure (Curlew) Version II 1956, edition 1959, By Barbara Hepworth

I really like her work, and though the above example may be called Curlew, I see in it the curls and colours of waves, and also the head of a great fish.....

Trewyn Studio, now known as the Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, is almost as if Hepworth is still there.  Her studio has overalls hanging on the door,

And some of her tools are laid out as if she was about to start work....

Whatever her pieces are named, and whatever they are made of, I cannot help but feel the effect of the sea on them, the patient, timeless wear that creates smooth rocks and pebbles, but also the way that caves are formed, the way the incessant washing of the ocean sculpts forms where it meets the land.....

Hepworth's is a garden of earthly delights. A place to while away a sunny day in the shade of some glorious tree, musing on the turning of the world, the pull of the moon and sun, and the swish of the nearby sea.

Then, halfway between Trewyn and the Tate we find a tiny cottage, marked with a humble plaque.

This was the home of Alfred Wallis, who moved here with his wife in 1912, when he was 67.  Three years later Susan died, and Alfred took up painting, with household paints and bits of cardboard.  He painted from memory, scenes from his maritime experience as a young man. 

P.Z. 11 by Alfred Wallis c 1928

He never had tuition but his talent was recognised by Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood when they chanced by on a day trip to St Ives in 1928.

The Blue Ship, c1934, by Alfred Wallis (1855-1952)

There is a similarity in Alfred's story to that of John Craske (see, if you will,

 https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2026/04/life-and-death-and-love-and-loss-on.html)

but, with respect to St Ives, it was his influence on Christopher Wood that was most significant.  As Sebastian Faulks describes in The Fatal Englishman, Wallis's work persuaded Wood to narrow his range of colour..... [and] what he really offered him was a renewed childlike directness.....

Cornish Fishermen, The Quay, St Ives, 1928 by Christopher Wood (1901-1930)

Christopher Wood died in Salisbury in 1930; Alfred Wallis lasted until 1952, and is buried in Barnoon Cemetery, overlooking Porthmeor Bay.  His grave is covered in ceramics by another artist who took up residence in St Ives, the potter Bernard Leach (1887-1979)....

St Ives is an enchanting place. Despite the changes brought about over the years by motor transport and the influx of tourists (like me) it still lives and breathes as a real place rather than as some kind of artificial Disneyworld.  The ever-changing Atlantic that ebbs and flows in and out of the harbour and over the sand and the rocks, the abundance of wildflowers on the island and along the coast, and the way the light rises and falls, shimmers and blurs, sparkles and fades - these all contribute to the magical appeal....  If I were an artist I would never cease to paint it from sunrise to dusk, through rain and mist and blazing cloudless heat.

Yes, if I could I would probably try and paint something like this, from a room in Pedn Olva:

Setting Sun Across The Bay, Albert Julius Olsson (1844-1942)

The town of St Ives has long been an artistic hub, attracting artists since the time of J M W Turner. They were attracted to Cornwall because of the beauty of the landscape and the quality of natural light. From the 1940s a circle of artists working in modern styles grew around St Ives. They contributed to international debates and developments in painting, sculpture and architecture, becoming pioneers of modern art. From this small Cornish fishing town, artists changed the international landscape of art, and of homes, towns and cities through their influence on subsequent generations of artists, designers, architects and makers. (From the Tate St Ives website).

I will go again.....

*****

South by Southwest [Shome mishtake?  Ed]
but it's all about the sculpture.....

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Dedicated to Eva Marie Sainte (who will be 102 on July 4th) and to my travelling companion

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