finalised minatures

Witth the minatures finalised comes the problem of mounting and exhibiting in the best possible way. I have tried to bevel the edges however the outcome was a disaster leaving me with little choice other than to trim the edges straight, though the trimming was less than a quarter of a millimetre on all sides the scale of the images meant that this was a substantial amount to lose, even trying to square the pieces off was a challenge in itself, once again down to the simple fact that each piece is tiny, the smallest being less than 2cm square, however alls well that ends well as they say.

Still the wrestle with the boards that they will be mounted on continues, having now established dimensions that I am happy with with regard to the overall size, 13 x 10cm, I am grappling with the content; with the original boards being divided equally in half there was insufficient content to express the whole point of the exhibition, that being to highlite the taking over and pushing into the history books the Kendal of old by way of modernism through corporate colours and logos making the high street little more than a copy of every other town in the country.

I have now further divided one half of the board allowing for a full 50% of the board to be committed in support of the old, the ancient and the man made over computer generated plasticised and clinical corporate colours under which the old town lies.

Time now in Weeks

There comes a point when in preparation for an exhibition that the time remaining changes from Months Away to a conscious change into Weeks Away, that time has now come and decisions have to be made toward the actual content of the Exhibition.

That time is now, with the decision of what to start working on now made it is time to start preparing the canvases and exhibits.

The show on this occasion is about the old town and the slow but sure take over of modernity, while the tourist related committees and groups, such as the Town Council and Civic Society struggle to promote the town as of being of historic interest, new hoardings asking those who visit to 'explore Kendal', Hundreds of thousands of pounds spent on renovation and rebuilding of the towns infrastructure such as pavements, lighting and seating in historic mode, there are those who work equally hard to bring Kendal into the 21st Century with modernity, shop signage of advertising and marketing.

The work that I will be producing for the show will allign the two , the amalgamation of the old with the new, each piece a snapshot of an entire shop front in colour .

Visitors to this historically advertised Town sadly will not be met with an old town but with a high street that is not that different from the High Street that they have escaped from, to find the Olde Grey Town as it is affectionally known they must look above the hoardings and advertising for there they will find the original (on manny occasions) woodwork, carvings and designs, chimneys and tiles, gutterings and paintwork, here is the towns history though seldom seem by many.

16 weeks to go

The work will be on 3/4 inch plywood pieces, each cut individually at a size that has, in itself, been a bit of a journey with many macquettes cut and painted to find the size that fits the purpose, each mounted with a canvas support, primed with gesso and then divided into fields of colour.

In Minature

There is something about 'minature', that is absolutely magical, I dont know what the psycho/sociologists would have to say about the draw to tiny things. To me perhaps it, in someways, epitomises the attention to detail by its creator; In retrospect I started the trail of minatures some years ago when moving into yet 'another' residence in my nomadic life and finding on the doorstep a single piece of mail that was not a long and outstanding bill due by the escaping last resident, an assumption made following the paper trail from an initial and polite request for first payment all the way through to summons for arrest, however, my fascination was immediately captured and fixed a point in time from which my near future was in my mind

This piece of of mail was to me of more importance than the rest of the mail and its associations, (but by the Grace of God go I) . It was a catologue, The Dolls House Emporium, absolutely filled with the tiniest and perfect pieces of furniture, of people and lights, everything was in scale and in order, whilst the sufferer of an Institutionalised mind, an OCD borne of Military Service I could only imagine that this was probably the first time since leaving the Forces that my orderly and ordered mind felt satisfied and not in some small way.

Since that moment I have concentrated in a great part of my life to 'the smaller detail, be it a photograph of one tiny and practically invisible piece of beauty somewhere in the rubbish such as this tiny Jewel, (a minature globe around 7mm dia fantastic), It was found in the debris that builds up alongthe pavements edge, a broken heart, there is always a broken heart somewhere, a hidden aspect of rusting metal, tiny people, even there is artwork in the yellow lines, yet all this gets passed by as people race around in their hectic lives and filled minds, it is all about what isn't seen but always there.

While spending much of the day pondering over my published commitment to my September Exhibition I returned to the studio this evening to find on my desktop yet another unsolicited request from some unknown person to 'join this network', however, such is my curiosity that I followed the links and was quickly rewarded with a link [back] to, The Dolls House Emporium

{ http://www.dollshouse.com/dhe/dolls-houses.aspx } how could I not take this on board and rapidly readdress my journey since that first serendipitous present, even their website ticks most of my boxes.

Now, as I finish this BLOG I feel content in my exhibition Theme, with provinance my worry now becomes a little piece of personal satisfaction, a direction , In the same way that my collection of heart stones has marked my path this also is a marker, a marker not only for where I am at this moment in time, such as the heart stones, but now with a specific link to an earlier point in time, and therefore a significant part of my spiritual and artistic journey.

Exhibition in a case!

Whereas my personal works are getting larger (my latest work measuring 55 x 33 inches entitled 'shimmer') the works for my up and coming exhibition in September have gone in completely the opposite direction.

I had this fascinating idea to be able to carry an entire exhibition in a single suitcase, the works therefore have to be smaller, much smaller, so many times I have walked backwards and forwards between studio and exhibition space that it is time to start to take life easy.

There was much too'ing and fro'ing while deciding on the exhibition theme, with the exhibition being local I wanted to keep the theme local; setting off on my normal explorations around the town I was now seeking a direction and purpose to my wanderings other than personal satisfaction, therein however I found a problem.

The town is huge historically with a building of significance at every turn, if this was not enough the current situation is one of growth with new projects springing up everywhere, millions of pounds of development funding pouring in, the Canal Project and the reopening and redevelopment of the Lancaster Canal Head, The K Village Project, housing developments and new Tourist developments, where to begin.

I will be working for this exhibition in small to minature works, the actual size of each piece was a problem though after several trials and odd looking bits of work around the studio I settled on pieces around the 3" x 5" area. I shall be cutting 3/4" ply into plates then covering with canvas and prime with Gesso. Each canvas will be divided into halves with a colour on each of the two sections.

Upon each of around 20 - 30 canvas works I shall be mounting some minatures, colour abstractions taken from the surrounding countryside, each minature (around 1 - 1 1/2 cm), while the main colour fields, (the background) will be taken from within the town itself the minatures will be in a bid to find a balance of contrast between the rural and the urban, at least that is the plan.

all that is left to do now is the work, the cutting of the boards, the securing and priming of the canvas', the hardest part of all, where to place the minatures within each of the works though I am sure that once the colour and texture is in place there will be a natural resting place for each of the rural abstracts; all this and still 5 months to go.