Working in an environment where I'm able to free the work from the plane and format of an 'a' sized piece of paper has helped shift some other givens, around which my work can orbit, if I'm not fully conscious.
I find myself becoming excited about drawing again, about discovery rather than moving toward a picture fixed in my head. One is not better than the other, but fully dismissing one for the other was capping a process.
Currently looking at cave painting and making efforts to understand more modern art movements. There's not alot of time for blogging, most reflection is made in the privacy of a small black notebook but will post more pictures soon.
St Abb's National Reserve
View from my office
Monday, 31 January 2011
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Monday, 6 September 2010
I have a small catalogue of original seascape and garden paintings available. If anyone would like a copy please email your address to me at sarah.riseborough@btinternet.com.
The process of putting a catalogue together took a while; getting the images together and the information and I am very pleased with the result- thank you Kevin and Denise at Printspot for your patience!
The aim of the catalogue is to have the paintings out there working for me while I am working at university. I don't envisage approaching galleries or creating opportunities for the representational art while I am concentrating on the abstract work.
I intend to update my flickr page with more of an archive of abstract work, beginning with the first pieces and the ensuing developments. This is a bit of personal archaeology for me. I have been looking through notebooks and sketchbooks, sorting out bits of scrapbook material and filtering old, half-realised ideas and half-painted canvases. I have thrown out so much stuff! I must make space!
The new pictures on the blog are a sample of the abstract paintings, the white and gold being a detail from a later development. The image 'Composition: Squares' is being posted for purely economic reasons this week as I have a number of these prints left for sale and hope to finance my academic year with their sale. i will post dimensions and details next time.
For now, i hoe the posts will settle into something a little more coherent and orderly. i have my dance class term to begin planning and a commission to finish so still feel a little pulled in different directions; still, my attention span is not astonishingly long...
The process of putting a catalogue together took a while; getting the images together and the information and I am very pleased with the result- thank you Kevin and Denise at Printspot for your patience!
The aim of the catalogue is to have the paintings out there working for me while I am working at university. I don't envisage approaching galleries or creating opportunities for the representational art while I am concentrating on the abstract work.
I intend to update my flickr page with more of an archive of abstract work, beginning with the first pieces and the ensuing developments. This is a bit of personal archaeology for me. I have been looking through notebooks and sketchbooks, sorting out bits of scrapbook material and filtering old, half-realised ideas and half-painted canvases. I have thrown out so much stuff! I must make space!
The new pictures on the blog are a sample of the abstract paintings, the white and gold being a detail from a later development. The image 'Composition: Squares' is being posted for purely economic reasons this week as I have a number of these prints left for sale and hope to finance my academic year with their sale. i will post dimensions and details next time.
For now, i hoe the posts will settle into something a little more coherent and orderly. i have my dance class term to begin planning and a commission to finish so still feel a little pulled in different directions; still, my attention span is not astonishingly long...
Thursday, 26 August 2010
Finally got confirmation tonight that I'm going to finish the fine art degree I started in 1994. That's a small part of the story.
I WILL finish that commission before I go back, don't worry.
I must pick the threads back up and make some decisions I didn't take the first time round.
Hopefully, there will by blog progress reports.
Contest is the issue, the abstract work lost its value in my eyes, as it appeared to serve a personal purpose and had limited success in finding an audience to respond to it. It floated in space, unconnected to the past or the present, so had no place in the future. The works, visually, appeared solid and ancient, but transient and formless. I could not pin down a lineage, trace the ancestry and mine the mythology. I will post a few, over time- a bit of a back catalogue alongside a few statements.
xxx
I WILL finish that commission before I go back, don't worry.
I must pick the threads back up and make some decisions I didn't take the first time round.
Hopefully, there will by blog progress reports.
Contest is the issue, the abstract work lost its value in my eyes, as it appeared to serve a personal purpose and had limited success in finding an audience to respond to it. It floated in space, unconnected to the past or the present, so had no place in the future. The works, visually, appeared solid and ancient, but transient and formless. I could not pin down a lineage, trace the ancestry and mine the mythology. I will post a few, over time- a bit of a back catalogue alongside a few statements.
xxx
Monday, 2 August 2010
Purely by accident, I found a wonderful place called Jupiterartland. It is just outside of Edinburgh and sparely signed. Well worth a visit!
Having driven through super gates we wound our way cautiously through the grounds of an elegant house, getting a look at a few of the specially commissioned sculptures. We passed a little collection of furry animals, some lovely planting, then into the visitors centre, where I confirmed our booking and was presented with a map. Among the superb, mature trees a path was laid out which took us from artwork to artwork; each one, I believe, site specific. There is, among the beautiful trees, a fabulous collection of sculpture from an array of artists; Andy Goldsworthy among them.
I was amazed; everyone was happy! The youngest climbed (trees, not art- forbidden, naturally!) our eldest was inspired to make a photographic journal and my other half, too, happily meandered along, just happy to see what came next, in our path.
Not only a wonderland of art, but low-key, light on retail, done with heart and soul in abundance. I gather a couple, patron of the arts have just opened their grounds to the public to explore on certain days of the week. I thank them, what a treat! And, good coffee, too!
Anyone in Alnwick on Wednesday, by-the-way, please drop by the market square to see our tribes dancing together at noon, and again at 3pm.
Having driven through super gates we wound our way cautiously through the grounds of an elegant house, getting a look at a few of the specially commissioned sculptures. We passed a little collection of furry animals, some lovely planting, then into the visitors centre, where I confirmed our booking and was presented with a map. Among the superb, mature trees a path was laid out which took us from artwork to artwork; each one, I believe, site specific. There is, among the beautiful trees, a fabulous collection of sculpture from an array of artists; Andy Goldsworthy among them.
I was amazed; everyone was happy! The youngest climbed (trees, not art- forbidden, naturally!) our eldest was inspired to make a photographic journal and my other half, too, happily meandered along, just happy to see what came next, in our path.
Not only a wonderland of art, but low-key, light on retail, done with heart and soul in abundance. I gather a couple, patron of the arts have just opened their grounds to the public to explore on certain days of the week. I thank them, what a treat! And, good coffee, too!
Anyone in Alnwick on Wednesday, by-the-way, please drop by the market square to see our tribes dancing together at noon, and again at 3pm.
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
Half the year gone; a heap of good intentions with it; still,a brief review of activities and I'm making a new list: Expend less energy on unimportant things; worry less; speak my mind more; ask more questions...
I have prised myself away from a neurotic surge of house-cleaning,begun in anticipation of weekend visitors; their imminent arrival has woken the dozing inner-critic (the one that wears marigolds and knows how to iron). I know if I listened, I would have the luxury of casting a casual hand about me, as I say 'Welcome', graciously; some cushion-placing and gleaming floorboards framing my illusion of domesticity and contentment; I may even have baked a cake- but, darn it, can we not leave the critics chatting in the front room, dismayed at the black marks on the wall behind the coal shovel, and we can frolic on the heath? Go paint-balling? Paint our toenails...?
It's been a grand couple of months; I've assisted in some of the organisation at a festival, organised burlesque workshops and a cabaret, taught classes, painted some, written less, but, after all that, I'm back at the Co-op, chewing my lip over the guilt of the purchase of a bottle of radioactive-green, kill everything, shine everything product, to de-gunk the entire house, and wondering when I'll fit in that essential 'big shop' this week. Sarah doesn't need this head, Sarah needs 'let's build a shrine in the garden' 'let's go out and walk in the hills', 'I know the picture I have to paint...'
Where is this head? Did I leave it in the green room at The Maltings? At St Abb's Head on the longest day? At the illustrator's exhibition at The gymnasium Gallery? If anyone does find it, will they please return it, it has much, much more fun than this one does...
I have prised myself away from a neurotic surge of house-cleaning,begun in anticipation of weekend visitors; their imminent arrival has woken the dozing inner-critic (the one that wears marigolds and knows how to iron). I know if I listened, I would have the luxury of casting a casual hand about me, as I say 'Welcome', graciously; some cushion-placing and gleaming floorboards framing my illusion of domesticity and contentment; I may even have baked a cake- but, darn it, can we not leave the critics chatting in the front room, dismayed at the black marks on the wall behind the coal shovel, and we can frolic on the heath? Go paint-balling? Paint our toenails...?
It's been a grand couple of months; I've assisted in some of the organisation at a festival, organised burlesque workshops and a cabaret, taught classes, painted some, written less, but, after all that, I'm back at the Co-op, chewing my lip over the guilt of the purchase of a bottle of radioactive-green, kill everything, shine everything product, to de-gunk the entire house, and wondering when I'll fit in that essential 'big shop' this week. Sarah doesn't need this head, Sarah needs 'let's build a shrine in the garden' 'let's go out and walk in the hills', 'I know the picture I have to paint...'
Where is this head? Did I leave it in the green room at The Maltings? At St Abb's Head on the longest day? At the illustrator's exhibition at The gymnasium Gallery? If anyone does find it, will they please return it, it has much, much more fun than this one does...
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
Because I've been working with Seahouses Development Trust on Seahouses Festival, I took the opportunity to do a bit of research on the theme of 'migration', this year's festival theme:
Migration Art was also known as 'Barbarian Art' as it was the art of the Continental Germanic peoples who moved West after the Roman retreat, and the Hun advance through Asia- between 300 and 900AD. Imagine a peoples, living under different tribal names (Visigoth, Angles, etc)and making separate journeys across Europe, whose culture of portable, functional art was its common feature. Their art was wearable, utilatarian, beautifully wrought and often became grave goods. Personal art, not at all monumental; its funtion to serve in the afterlife, rather than left behind to ensure immortality among the still-living. It encompasses different styles, being influenced through travel and trade. This kind of art was a huge influence on the makers of Christian books and documents (in the UK, for example), and their places of worship, either by design or subconsciously, and The Lindisfarne Gospels is an example; (use of gold, some of the complex patterning, and use of animal imagery).
I'm picking the Lindisfarne Gospels, because of the close proximation of Lindisfarne to Seahouses, before I paddle off to Egypt. Peoples migrate, and make pilgrammage. Egypt was dominated both, by Rome, then Greece, and at that time Christianity was blossoming there, too.
St Menas' shrine was a huge and popular complex of 3 churches, that drew pilgrims from all over the world. St Menas' flasks, which carreis blessed water, or earth, have been discoved all over Europe and are identifiable by their distintive design, impressed on the flask. This tradition of holy tokens was common, and, no doubt a source of funding from which to build greater monuments and better facilities, for the legions who were committed to these spiritual journeys. From Canterbury, and other English Catherdrals, one could purchase items made of tin, perhaps as a mark of one's efforts, or taking blessings and protections on a perilous journey? These tokens bore the images of saints, were copied, and recopied, the original portrait being subverted to the power of the iconic image and its underlying message of faith.
In Egypt, under the influence of invading forces, the tradition, at least on one area, Fayoud, the burial traditions had evolved so portaits of the dead- realistic, detailed images in wax or tempera on wood were bound into the mummy wrappings, to appear as if the person were peering from the shroud. These images we discovered, and rediscovered various European explorers, and eventually considered valuable, collectors prizes and shipped off to the wealthy to display in their fashionable homes. A shipment of antiquities, aquired by The Baron of Manouti for a German collector was lost in the North Sea in 1820 (approx)- an area of water called 'The Cemetary' by mariners, I have heard.
Back to the early hundreds BC,where I meant to land, before I was drawn to the beatiful portraits of Fayoud (which can be seen in Museums, across the world) Coptic Art, from Egypt was another great influence making its way across Europe: its distincive patterns on fabric, illuminated scripts were portable, and it can be said, these distinctive patterns are evident in the lindifarne Gospels, and others like it. The style survives through Christian church decoration, portraits of saints and other religious art. Modern coptic art, and icon painting still flourishes, and the images produced today may be from the original images made, nearly 2000 years ago.
So, my own cultural migration may not be entirely faithful- as happens with the retelling of tales; it was forged on accidental discoveries, then the force of desire to see what was over the next horizon. It only was meant as an acknowlegement to the process behind a piece of work, whether mass-produced, or unique, and i am interesteed to hear anyone's additions, corrections, comments to the blog.
Migration Art was also known as 'Barbarian Art' as it was the art of the Continental Germanic peoples who moved West after the Roman retreat, and the Hun advance through Asia- between 300 and 900AD. Imagine a peoples, living under different tribal names (Visigoth, Angles, etc)and making separate journeys across Europe, whose culture of portable, functional art was its common feature. Their art was wearable, utilatarian, beautifully wrought and often became grave goods. Personal art, not at all monumental; its funtion to serve in the afterlife, rather than left behind to ensure immortality among the still-living. It encompasses different styles, being influenced through travel and trade. This kind of art was a huge influence on the makers of Christian books and documents (in the UK, for example), and their places of worship, either by design or subconsciously, and The Lindisfarne Gospels is an example; (use of gold, some of the complex patterning, and use of animal imagery).
I'm picking the Lindisfarne Gospels, because of the close proximation of Lindisfarne to Seahouses, before I paddle off to Egypt. Peoples migrate, and make pilgrammage. Egypt was dominated both, by Rome, then Greece, and at that time Christianity was blossoming there, too.
St Menas' shrine was a huge and popular complex of 3 churches, that drew pilgrims from all over the world. St Menas' flasks, which carreis blessed water, or earth, have been discoved all over Europe and are identifiable by their distintive design, impressed on the flask. This tradition of holy tokens was common, and, no doubt a source of funding from which to build greater monuments and better facilities, for the legions who were committed to these spiritual journeys. From Canterbury, and other English Catherdrals, one could purchase items made of tin, perhaps as a mark of one's efforts, or taking blessings and protections on a perilous journey? These tokens bore the images of saints, were copied, and recopied, the original portrait being subverted to the power of the iconic image and its underlying message of faith.
In Egypt, under the influence of invading forces, the tradition, at least on one area, Fayoud, the burial traditions had evolved so portaits of the dead- realistic, detailed images in wax or tempera on wood were bound into the mummy wrappings, to appear as if the person were peering from the shroud. These images we discovered, and rediscovered various European explorers, and eventually considered valuable, collectors prizes and shipped off to the wealthy to display in their fashionable homes. A shipment of antiquities, aquired by The Baron of Manouti for a German collector was lost in the North Sea in 1820 (approx)- an area of water called 'The Cemetary' by mariners, I have heard.
Back to the early hundreds BC,where I meant to land, before I was drawn to the beatiful portraits of Fayoud (which can be seen in Museums, across the world) Coptic Art, from Egypt was another great influence making its way across Europe: its distincive patterns on fabric, illuminated scripts were portable, and it can be said, these distinctive patterns are evident in the lindifarne Gospels, and others like it. The style survives through Christian church decoration, portraits of saints and other religious art. Modern coptic art, and icon painting still flourishes, and the images produced today may be from the original images made, nearly 2000 years ago.
So, my own cultural migration may not be entirely faithful- as happens with the retelling of tales; it was forged on accidental discoveries, then the force of desire to see what was over the next horizon. It only was meant as an acknowlegement to the process behind a piece of work, whether mass-produced, or unique, and i am interesteed to hear anyone's additions, corrections, comments to the blog.
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