Boats in front of the Hanger
Well, I cannot wait! Sean confirmed the rumors1 and more to the point confirmed our position at top of the list and as such we have a choice to make between the ground level unit or elevated. This is of course a question of access versus vantage point and I fall on the latter every time; I will gladly struggle and lug in order to enjoy a little detachment. If my experience of painting in the yard is precedent then if our studio were on ground level it would be in danger from the outset of becoming the 'common room'. To my reckoning a staircase will be deterrent enough, but look here, I am not seeking alienation but work is work and Ill have enough on my plate with the little ones tagging along like Tintorelli’s tormentors2.
Now, presuming we are in position to do so Sean will offer a 5% discount on rent if we pay in bulk. Can we stretch now for that long saving? In any event the wait is over! Access in two days or as soon as little Pete has connected the bastard to the mains.
In this atmosphere of anticipation I could do little other than prepare to move in at once and this has meant the whole day has been spent in the fishhold making ready. I only had time to push out one sheet view of the boats in front of the Admirals hanger3. It has something about it and it builds on what we have done already regards autonomous motive4 and the second skin approach5. Whether or not we can attach an anticapitalist dimension to this work is not yet clear to me. I see the logic but it still seems counter intuitive to me to think how this work could be political, be radical. That said when I go through the argument step by step and see all around the way the political reality is changing it makes it clear that something must change in our work also. I dare say it is time to confront these issues head on and we shall indeed pick up that gauntlet just as soon as this unit is really ours and the colour flows once more.6
With a smile,
John
1 Reffers to the possibility of new shipping containers arriving at the yard.
2 Tintorelli is the painter in Kafka's novel The Trial who is continuosly disturbed in his work by a group of young children.
3 A pithy moniker reflecting a common grievence among residents that a retired Royal Navy Admiral is given the best spot under the sheltered hanger for winter storage.
4 John uses 'motif' in the sense of a repeated theme or visual pattern rather than a 'subject'. Autonomous is used in the sense that the motif is not designed to represent nature accurately. These issues refer back to the post impressionist period and the origins of modernism and are encapsulated most famously in Cezanne's words as 'harmony in parrallel with nature'. John's stated aim is to redraft this problem and apply it to todays socio/political context so that the relationship between observed reality and an autonomous method of representing it becomes political. It is still not clear how John will attempt to do this.See also paragraph 3, line 7 of View of Mount Edgecombe from Chappeld Beech.
5 John's own phrase to describe a process of drawing commonly used by Van Gogh where by an initial pencil sketch is covered by a 'second skin' of ink.
6 John has been forced to focus on drawing for financial reasons.