Friday, December 27, 2013

DIGITAL DISASTER

struck on Christmas eve: my beloved iMac desktop computer decided it was time to leave me, after eight years of more or less blissful co-existence. With no warning, not even a goodbye note, he just went dark, kaputt, finito. With all my precious software programmes, files etc. (not lately backed up). I won't know the extent of the damage until I can take the carcass to the Apple gods' headquarters after New Year's day but until then I'm warily typing this on a laptop which may crash any minute.
So a hasty Happy New Year everyone and please wish me digital and analogue luck, in abundance.

Friday, December 20, 2013

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR

when all the shopping and wrapping, unwrapping, consuming and partying is contrasted, in less visible ways, by acts of kindness, generosity, helpfulness and good will towards those who have nothing to celebrate, those whose lives are a daily battle against hunger, cold, loneliness, fear, pain, prejudice, abuse, exclusion, oppression. 


So my Christmas image is a madonna and child but you can also read it as a spirit of compassion for the children and the old and all those of any age who are at this moment suffering, everywhere on this planet, even in privileged societies like ours. My hope is that there will come a time when universal compassion is the big name in lights and the most valued gift is the one of loving attention to those who have never received it. 


 

Thursday, December 12, 2013

FAME IN KENTISH TOWN

For the benefit of those who are not local, Kentish Town is the characterful North London neighbourhood where I live (to be precise, I'm on the border between it and Tufnell Park). We locals are blessed to have neighbourliness and character in abundance and one proof of this is the daily online and on-paper magazine, The Kentish Towner, edited by Stephen Emms and Tom Kihl. I'm especially delighted by it today because my exhibition is mentioned. They interviewed me last October here.

See, I can be a frequent blogger when it comes to boasting.




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Wednesday, December 11, 2013

INFREQUENT BLOGGER'S GUILT


Of all the forms of guilt, some of them perfectly legitimate, feeling guilty for not blogging often enough is possibly the most absurd. It demonstrates an inflated view of one's own importance and also, since the creation and upkeep of a blog is entirely self-determined, there are no rules dictating what the correct blogging frequency must be. Neverthless, guilt is what I feel and I am apologising, in a roundabout way, for a blogging blank of seventeen days. My excuse is having been otherwise engaged, busy with things which take priority over posting blogs and reading blogs. Of course everyone is always otherwise engaged yet it is such a joy when you, dear loyal readers, take the time to stop by here and leave some words, a signal that we are connecting, however briefly. Maybe my guilt is mainly a sense of neglecting friends, interrupting a cyber-flow of friendship. Perhaps that's an illusion or delusion but it's one worth nurturing. 


The private view at Café Rustique on December 1st was well attended and the small space cheefully filled, as you can see in the photo below, taken by the café owner on his phone. The low lighting and terra cotta coloured walls create an intimate ambiance which suits the pieces I'm showing but on normal working days, café customers are intently focused on their laptops and rarely look up at the walls. Still, I'm glad to see these works away from home.


 
Amidst the sadness at Mandela's departure, the thought struck me that he was one of three extraordinary men of our time who created tidal waves of positive transformation and inspiration which will not cease to transform and inspire future generations: Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi. Is it a coincidence that these three men were not white? Perhaps a coincidence, perhaps a signpost that the only colour which truly matters in human relations is the incandescent light of truth and compassion, radiating from the heart and the conscience.

 
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Sunday, November 24, 2013

A SMALL EXHIBITION

A SMALL EXHIBITION
of artworks
by Natalie d'Arbeloff
will be held from Monday 2nd to Friday 20th December 2013
at Café Rustique
142 Fortess Road, London NW5 2HP
(Tufnell Park Underground)

 
If you are in London you're very welcome at the Private View from 8 to 10pm on Sunday 1st December.
I've made a page here showing the seventeen works which will be exhibited. Photos of most of these paintings and box-constructions have already been seen on the Blaug at various times but since I'm clearing space on my walls it seemed the right moment to put them up for sale. 

* * * * * 

Below is a photo of where I slept, or rather didn't sleep, last night. The amorphous shape on the right is a pile of builders' gear covered with paint-spattered dust sheet. The reason I dragged a mattress to try and sleep there was because the noise noise noise noise NOISE NOISE coming from a party in a house next door was vibrating the walls of the bedroom and shattering my ear drums. It was no better on the floor of the living room and as the repetitious pounding and shouting went on and on until one, two, three, four in the morning I dialled the number for noise pollution and shaking with rage demanded that something be done to stop this torture. Calmly, wearily, having heard it all before, someone took down details and said they would try to investigate. Ages later the noise stopped but I don't know if it was because the noise-police arrived or if the partying yoofs finally got tired. 
I know what I sound like: grumpy oldie objecting to young people enjoying themselves. Damn right I object because ear-drum-shattering by imbecilic repetition of the same note banged endlessly on metal drums at top top top volume along with wowoowoowoo howling cannot by any stretch of imagination be classified as enjoyment unless those enjoying it have lost whatever soupçon of brain matter they ever had and it's unlikely they'll ever get it back because it's been mangled by the NOISE

Oh yes I'm ranting but maybe that's because I didn't sleep and also because torture-by-music actually is torture, as used on prisoners, for instance at Guantanamo. So how do innocent young party-goers get away with the music-torturing of innocent neighbours? That's what I want to know.

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Tuesday, November 12, 2013

DISCOMFORT ZONE

Walls and woodwork in twenty years of wear and tear from me and the weather inside and outside this flat have accumulated signs of stress which needed to be dealt with but since there's never going to be a right time to attend to it, I thought: why not now? In times past I would have tackled it all myself but since I've been told I'm ageing, I've taken the soft option and called in the workers. Soft option my foot. I deliberately forgot the fact that I'd have to move everything - every single thing - all the pictures, books, records, hundreds of things out of the way, off the shelves and off the walls and off the tops of cupboards covered in ancient dust. I've declared my attic studio out of bounds but my study is where I've piled high many of the innumerable books. Here's a shot of one corner - on the top right are my desk and computer, where I huddle as I type this.







old shower curtain dust-sheet 
 
But you know what? There's something liberating about this disruption of my comfort zone. The clutter is a different kind of clutter from my usual one, which is passive. This clutter challenges me to act, to get rid of stuff, to clean up and make space. I've chosen to have all the walls painted white and the flat is looking bigger already. And letting the workmen in at 7:45 every morning forces me to change my night owl routine. Who knew there were so many early morning hours every day? Who knew that if you get up at 6:30 you're starving hungry by eleven o'clock? And who knew you can get so much more done in daylight than you can in the middle of the night? 

Do I hear scoffing from all you early risers?


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Monday, November 11, 2013

CREATIVELY AGEING IN DEAUVILLE




 
Given enough time to get to know each other, the four of us would probably have had a useful and even inspirational conversation. But if you read face and body language in the photomontage below, you can get a pretty good idea of how the session actually developed. Ludmila Ulitskaya is the only one who looks at ease, perhaps because she spoke no English. Her Russian translator mumbled so softly that I could barely hear a word so I don't know what Ludmila thought but she had a sympathetic face. David Galenson held forth longer than anyone else in a manner that seemed defensive but perhaps that's because I didn't agree with most of his approach to the subject and perhaps that's because I'm deeply involved in, and perhaps also defensive, about the process of creation, while he is deeply involved in the theory he has painstakingly constructed about it. Pamela Ryckman had done her homework assiduously and tried her best to orchestrate the session but it was no easy task. It was more like a set of monologues than a discussion but if I look disgruntled perhaps that's because I was disappointed by the many empty chairs in the room - only about fifteen people in the audience.

But perhaps that's because many talks on different topics were scheduled at the same time on each day of the Forum and therefore people tended to graze buffet-style, wandering in and out of rooms to sample what was on offer. Understandable perhaps, but not exactly conducive to depth and concentration. That's a lot of perhapses ...Quisas quisas quisas: remember that old Latin American song?



I had written notes to prepare for the session but, as often happens on such occasions, I ended up improvising. It all seems far away already but since we're still on the subject, herewith my notes:


I've been invited here because I'm creative and I'm ageing. But I'm not going to say how old I am because a number, when associated with age, instantly brings up stereotypes which I want to avoid. If you've been a committed artist all your life you never reach retiring age - you just keep on working, trying to do better - or as Beckett said: fail again, fail better.

For me, creativity is a metaphorical room I have to enter in order to switch on the state of creativity: the state in which I can make objects that can be called artworks. I don't mean that I must perform some arcane ritual before picking up a brush or other tool, but there is a definite difference between this state and the ordinary state in which I do the shopping, cleaning, socialising, internet surfing etc. The creativity involved in writing is different: I can think of sentences to write while doing the dishes or sitting in a noisy café. But to fully engage in a process which will eventually end up as physical artworks, in whatever medium, demands a deliberate decision to enter and stay as long as possible in a space where anything other than the work at hand is excluded. I can't explain what neurons in my brain need to be activated but I do know that it is like tuning to a specific radio station and that I need complete silence in order to connect. 


One thing that ageing has done is to make me more aware that I have to choose to enter that state. It doesn't happen automatically just because I call myself an artist. I can decide to step into that room and make stuff (which may or may not be art) and keep on making more of it until my dying day, if health and energy permit. Or I can sit back and let age creep up while I'm surfing the internet, playing with my digital gadgets, watching TV, shopping and so on until suddenly I realise: hey, I'm old! I've got one foot in the grave and the other one is wobbling! 


But in my creative space I've got loads of time ahead because the child in me is still able to make discoveries and perhaps produce the best work I've ever done. It is still possible, as many artists have proved, that you can be an innovator, a rule-breaker, even when you're chronologically old. Creativity is about breaking or bending the rules and ageing doesn't necessarily kill one's inner rebel. Some will disagree, asserting that the brain ages and that's that. Well, even experts admit that, so far, little is known about exactly what goes on in the convoluted grey matter inside our skulls. So it may be that the brains of artists...ageing and aged....can teach the experts a thing or two about creativity.
Something else that ageing does is to prod me to shed, rather than to accumulate things and concepts, getting rid of anything that interferes with finding out what my own inner voice is trying to say.
And now a few more photos from the Deauville do. It was an eye-opening experience which I'm grateful to have been a part of and I will not forget the inspiring people I met or whose talks I heard - too many to mention and do justice to.









Mercy Oduyoye, theologian, Director of Women in Religion and Culture, Ghana

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Wednesday, November 06, 2013

AMAZING WOMEN

WOMEN'S GLOBAL FORUM, DEAUVILLE 2013

Amazing is an over-used word but I'm going to use it lavishly because it's too much of an effort to hunt for alternatives and I have an excuse: bunged up sinuses knocked out my cognitive faculties since I got back from France and writing a blog post, let alone thinking of one, has been about as feasible as climbing Everest. But here I am now so it must mean that the wool filling my head is starting to unravel and will, I hope, evaporate if I continue to inhale menthol-infused steam. 

Everything was amazing from the start of my privileged journey on Eurostar in a Premier class seat, breakfast served by solicitous attendants, and at the Gare du Nord my name was on a card held up by a chauffeur who took me to Deauville, a two and a half hour drive from Paris, without my having had to lift a finger or spend a single Euro just because I was one of the invited speakers at the Women's Forum. I was awed by the mind-blowing logistics of organising such an event, involving 207 speakers and 1200 participants from 70 countries, 600 organisations, 143 journalists, and much more. Amazingly, it all ran like Swiss clockwork with never a hitch, at least not visibly. 

My hotel was at the top of a hill, on a vast golf course overlooking the town - that pale blue strip in the distance is the ocean. Below is the view from the window of my room and below that, moi-même in the mirror on the first night, ready to go out to dinner (flat golden shoes) to meet the organisers. The dinner was at another luxury hotel where the company and the food were....amazing. Normandy is known for its gastronomic delights but don't ask me what I ate, or drank, because I don't remember except that it was all super-delicious and frequently timbale-shaped. 





At first I wondered if I'd have to make a long trek down from the hotel every day to Le CID  - Centre International de Deauville - where the Forum was held, but I soon realised that all possible contingencies had been taken care of: a fleet of navettes (coaches) appeared at regular intervals to transport participants to and from the venue. So much was going on during the three days of the Forum's duration that I saw more of Le Cid's interior than I ever saw of Deauville but in the few glimpses I had of the town, it seemed to me like a designer film set, all posh boutiques, hotels and shuttered second homes, deserted except for weekends and holidays when the well-heeled from Paris and elsewhere roll in to play at casino, race-course, golf or yacht. 

The nostalgic old-world, old-money ambiance surviving in a hard-edged new world was summed up when a well-dressed elderly gentleman hobbling with his cane down a shiny main street came up to me and said apologetically: Pardon madame, quel jour est aujourd'hui? (excuse me madam, what day is today?) It wasn't a chat-up line and he was perfectly sober and when I replied, he thanked me politely and hobbled elegantly away. 

There couldn't have been a more vivid contrast between that tiny melancholy incident and the forward-facing, high-powered, high-achieving, high-heeled goings-on at the Women's Global Forum 2013: compete, cooperate, create. There's no way I can give an adequate report of the event or do justice to the myriad praiseworthy projects happening, or about to happen, in many countries thanks to enterprising, inventive, energetic, courageous and clever women world-wide and to organisations and individuals who support them. It seemed odd that I was there at all: moi, an art-worker usually found sitting in her imitation-ivory tower, making things of no discernable use to the real world and occasionally blogging about it: what on earth was I doing in such real-world company? I was very happy to be there but wandered around in a daze, not sure where to focus my attention. Most interesting to me were the conversations I had with some of the fascinating women I met. The Creativity and Aging session (the reason I was invited) was probably the least interesting part of the Forum, in my opinion. But I'll write about that in the next post. 

One thing I did was to take photographs and, looking at them when I returned home, I see that visual content almost always holds my attention more than the verbal. The images I gathered and remember from this experience will, I'm sure, serve me for paintings or other media. I share some of them below. More words and pictures tomorrow. 


Heels and mobiles at the Forum

Welcome party given by the Mayor of Deauville at Villa le Cercle

Russian-themed party given by Cartier at Deauville casino in honour of the Russian delegation

 Cooking Boeuf Stroganoff


Serious Russians cooking

Blue dress, red lighting

 Listening to Russian musicians


In a Russian sled 

African winners


 Busy legs, shiny surfaces

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Monday, October 14, 2013

AU REVOIR

Am off to France early tomorrow morning but here's the link showing yours truly on the Forum website. And if you click on Speakers on that page, you'll get the whole photo-gallery of the beautiful...intimidatingly beautiful...people I am going to be mingling with. Full report later.

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Wednesday, October 09, 2013

AND FURTHERMORE...

Here is a relevant comic strip which I drew in 2009. 



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Tuesday, October 08, 2013

STILL CREATIVE EVEN IF...aging?

A few months ago I was invited to be one of the speakers at a prestigious conference organised by the Women's Forum for the Economy and Society which will take place from October 16 to 18 in Deauville, France. Of course I accepted, as you can see by checking the list of speakers here

UPDATE: the 'here' link doesn't work properly, at least on  my browser. It should go to the main Forum site with all speakers pictured and full program as a PDF. Try simply entering Womens Forum Deauville in Google.  
 
The subject I've been asked to participate in discussing on Friday, 18th October, along with Russian author Ludmila Ulitskaya, and Professor David Galenson from the University of Chicago, and Pamela Ryckman, American author and journalist, is: 

Creativity and, ahem, Aging
 
The ahem is entirely mine and explains why I am simultaneously flattered by this invitation and stupefaite that I have turned into someone who can actually be described as ageing. Moi? Vieillissant? There isn't even a French word for the process. I hear you say: fact of life, deal with it! I deal with it by the effective method known as denial. 

Who says denial is bad? For example, it is perfectly sensible to deny entry to burglars or cockroaches or poisonous fumes. So, by denying entry into my psyche of the concept 'aging' I am sensibly keeping out all the heavy baggage that comes with it - prejudices, stereotypes, theories, surveys, statistics. I'm not ignoring death, that would be idiotic. But let me cross that bridge when it comes. The period between then and now is the present and creativity is always in the present tense. 

Does creativity change in the same way one's body changes with time? I've spent my whole life in the creativity game - it is a serious kind of game - and I can't detect any great differences between past and present in terms of creativity. Rather than time, what has always deeply affected creativity for me are life experiences, relationships, places. I chose art as a child, never considering any other profession, and choosing to be a full-time artist is basically giving yourself permission not to join the adult world, the world in which people have proper jobs and proper careers and go on holidays and retire eventually and do that thing called 'aging'. A full-time life-long artist doesn't retire, doesn't like going on holidays, and denies aging. Voilà. C'est tout. 

Next week I'm off to Deauville. Will report, with pictures when I return. I leave you with a photo of 84-year old Matisse creating with cut-out coloured paper in 1952.



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Thursday, September 26, 2013

Monday, September 23, 2013



Sunday, September 22, 2013

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Sunday, September 08, 2013

LESS OPINIONS, MORE WORK

It's hard not to voice an opinion on the crisis in Syria and the world powers' current stance concerning it but I'm resisting the temptation to add to the debates, at least online, though in conversation with friends I can't help saying what I think. I'm aware that my knowledge of the complex factors involved in the situation, being based only on what I read in the media, is so limited that any words I can say on the subject are about as much use to the problem as the meowing of a cat or the tweeting of birds and Tweeters. Therefore I'm posting more artwork to distract your attention from more serious matters, if only for a minute or two.

Here's another of the rough black & white sketches for the book, with one stage of the cut block lying on the table. The vinyl tile is about 2mm thick and quite bendy so the block is fragile because of its large open areas. But after it's been textured with gesso, I glue it to a second vinyl block which acts as backing and brings it up to the right height for eventual printing. The vinyl is quite resistant and cutting blocks with a scalpel requires a lot of effort - I wear a thin leather glove so as not to get sore between thumb and index finger where the handle of the knife rests. Stanley or other chunky knives are not suitable for intricate cuts. The second photo below shows the block upright. 




And now for some entirely different artwork. I did the little painting below a few months ago, working fast and loose as a break from slow, concentrated effort. As sometimes happens, such exhalations can turn out surprisingly well - this one's going into my Apple Series.


A Happy Apple NdA 2013. Oil on canvas board. 25 x 30cms (10" x 12") 

Another artwork, this one from a very long time ago: a portrait of my late ex-husband Reg which I painted in San Miguel Allende, Mexico where I first met him, when I was an art student and he was a teacher at the Instituto Allende (see this part of my autobiography). The portrait will soon be going to Vancouver where some of his grown-up children and grand-children live. It was painted in Duco, the industrial paint which was used at the art school and by many of the Mexican muralists. I like this painting, it captures Reg's personality, the sunny time and the enthusiasm I felt. 

Reg in San Miguel, Mexico  NdA. Duco on board. 24" x 36"

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Wednesday, August 28, 2013

MIDNIGHT AT ATELIER NdA



The clock on the wall is showing quarter past twelve: that's midnight, not noon. When I next look up it will probably say 3:30 or 4am but that's the kind of time it usually is when I'm up there in my mansarde. I cannot shake off the habit of working late. There must be something about mornings which puts me off but I haven't got time to analyse why and does it matter anyway? Getting the work done is the main thing, never mind what time of day or night. 

Since I'm blogging so infrequently I thought I would show you some of what I'm doing which, as I've mentioned before, is illustrating the long poem by Blaise Cendrars Trans-Siberian Prosody and Little Jeanne from France translated by Dick Jones which will be published by The Old Stile Press . I'm creating about 48 images, and cutting as many blocks, to be eventually hand-printed by Nicolas McDowall. The photo above shows the sink for damping paper etc. and the table where I work out ideas. Before cutting the final blocks out of vynil tiles, I work out the design and colours for each image by cutting trial blocks out of cardboard and proofing them on my etching press.



I've had this press a very long time and it has served me well - I printed most of the images for my artist's books on it. For those who are not familiar with this simple machine, an etching press resembles a mangle: the old-fashioned kind that was used for wringing clothes. Except that the baby photographed above consists of heavy solid steel rollers, between which a steel bed is driven back and forth by a geared wheel. Pressure is adjusted by turning the top screws on either side of the frame. Special blankets are laid between the top roller and the paper and plate to be printed. The difference between an etching press and a litho press or a relief press is that it's designed primarily to print intaglio: a design that is engraved or etched below the flat surface of a plate - traditionally metal, but can also be any material which will fit under the etching press roller. Printing intaglio consists of pushing ink into the lines, grooves and textures that have deeply scarred the surface of the plate and then wiping the surface clean. Damp paper is laid over the plate and when it's passed under the roller, heavy pressure pushes the paper into the grooves of the plate, lifting out the ink, creating the intaglio image (always embossed on the back of the paper). 

More recent presses are adaptable to both intaglio and relief because the top roller can be lifted off the bed, allowing blocks of any thickness to be printed. Unfortunately my old press doesn't have this flexibility and, since the blocks I'm cutting for this book will be printed in relief (off the flat surface of the block) they must be a lot thicker than a normal intaglio plate. Therefore any proofing I do doesn't show the same detail or texture as it will eventually have on Nicolas' excellent relief press. 

My working process goes like this: the text is of primary importance, it gives me the rhythm and content of each page. I've made a full-size (30cms x 28cms/ 12" x 11") dummy in which I do rough drawings and/or collages in black only. From these, I cut the first trial blocks out of thin cardboard, proof them, then start cutting the final vynil blocks, perhaps two or three blocks for each design since they will be printed in colour: each colour requires a separate block. Below is the working dummy open at pages 8-9. 


Below is one of the finished vynil blocks for page 9: its strongly textured (with gesso) surface doesn't show in the photo. The green and red areas inside the main figure are actually holes through which you're seeing the table behind. The holes are so that the relief press rollers won't deposit ink in those areas. 

   
Below: roughs for pages 14-15 




Printmaking demands equal and extreme amounts of messiness and cleanliness in constant alternation. Above, my inking table and rollers are about to be cleaned. This procedure has to be repeated many times during the day because ink (I use only oil-based) mustn't be allowed to dry on slabs or rollers. The smell of white spirit (turps) is pervasive so ventilation is essential. That shark-like shape on the top right in the picture below is the edge of an open Velux skylight window - my studio is a converted loft. 






A colour proof of page 7, using three blocks. The text is only pasted on and not printed as it will be in the final book. 

Voilà, that's it for tonight. The time is now five past 2 am.


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Wednesday, August 21, 2013

EVERYTHING MUST CHANGE

The banal lyrics of this song are transformed by Nina Simone's extraordinary voice and piano into a profound hymn that hits you in the solar plexus from the very first deep chord to the last high-flying heart-tearing note. 

I'm posting it here because today's a good day for making changes. 



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Tuesday, August 13, 2013

ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSALISTS

For a long time I've been used to a rather hermitic, if not hermetic, life and the presence of another person or persons for longer than a day, whether family or friends, regardless of my feelings for them, is something I have great difficulty in adjusting to. Being on my own has never been a problem. On the contrary, I need a kind of open solitude in order to function as myself. I've had lonely times of course - who hasn't? - but solitude is not the same as loneliness. Solitude is an ingredient as essential to me as air or food. 

So this has been a difficult birthday week and in order to restore my own rhythm I went to see the Alternative Guide to the Universe exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. Big, bustling, pushy crowds are not my thing but those which amble along in leisurely fashion on a sunny day in pleasant surroundings are fun to observe and mingle with and conversations can be eavesdropped without having to join in - a pleasant way to be part of society without needing to be sociable. A bit like logging in to Facebook but not participating. 




The South Bank is in the midst of a Festival of Neighbourhood and all sorts of things have cropped up which weren't there before. Those yellow banners for instance and the fierce animals and humanoid insect-creatures drawn on walls. I don't know who did them or whether they will stay permanently and I'm not not sure what, if anything, they have to do with neighbourliness but they are startling and intriguing. 




Inside the Hayward I began by going up to the level where the Museum of Everything is exhibiting a few works by the wonderful Nek Chand who, like Facteur Cheval, Simon Rodia and other so-called 'naive' artist-builders elsewhere, created an extraordinary magical world from recycled materials. You can see some of Chand's Rock Garden on this video and there's an interview with him here with subtitles in English. 




I've always been fascinated and inspired by such mavericks: artists outside art movements, DIY scientists with no academic degrees, inventors/engineers/architects without qualifications, thinkers outside the outside of any box, philosophers mocked by their peers for their far-out theories, visionaries, odd-balls - I love them all. And the Alternative Guide to the Universe exhibition is dedicated to them. I only managed to sneak a few photos but have ordered the book and there are good images and plenty of information on the internet about all the people featured in the show. If you're as intrigued as I am by Otherness, please be sure to follow the links:

BODYS ISEK KINGELEZ (some of his models are on the upper right in the photo below); GEORGE WIDENER (below left).


EMERY BLAGDON (one of his 'healing machines' is shown below).

UPDATE: Don't miss this wonderful video about Emery Blagdon, his life and work.



Below: two works by PAUL LAFFOLEY 



And there's MARCEL STORR and JAMES CARTER and many more but that's enough to distract you from whatever else you happen to be doing right now. 

What interests me about these and similar outsiders is that whether they are as sane as you and I (hahahaha), a bit bonkers, completely bonkers, hypersensitive, autistic, visionary or any other classification you prefer, they all speak the same 'language' and explore the same kind of themes: cosmological, mathematical, patterned, symbolic, universal, sometimes mystical, none of it within accepted traditions and yet seeming to belong to a common lineage. It's as if a part of their mind is tuned to a wavelength beyond the reach of most minds, even very sophisticated, erudite minds. I don't think it's a coincidence that most of these mavericks are self-taught, if taught at all. Maybe their lack of sophistication is one of the factors which allows them to be antennae for whatever arcane messages the universe sends out. Of course any content they pick up and transform into paintings, constructions or words will be interpreted by their individual personalities and culture and thus may look weird, incomprehensible or merely charming to spectators. But I wouldn't dismiss it too easily. 

And then I went home on the tube and saw this:



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