COMING BACK IS NOT SO EASY, AS YOU COULD TELL FROM THE LONG PAUSE

For me every departure and every return involves a complete re-adjustment of focus, of purpose, of intention, as if the internal and external machinery which sets me in motion has ground to a halt. Like when you put new batteries in a digital camera and the screen message scolds: Date and time not set  and then you have to re-enter the whole shebang - year, month, day, hour, minutes - because the stupid camera has forgotten everything.

I am that stupid camera. It's me who needs re-setting every time but every time is not quite the same and with every departure and every return over the years, tiny changes take place, a kind of evolution and who knows what the end result will be or if there ever is an end result but I have a feeling it's all to the good. Going away is good, probably essential for an artist. And returning is good, certainly essential, but difficult.

There's a poem by Blaise Cendrars which begins (my translation) like this:

Quand tu aimes il faut partir            When you love you must go
Quitte ta femme quitte ton enfant    Leave your wife leave your child
Quitte ton ami quitte ton amie         Leave your boyfriend leave your girlfriend
Quitte ton amante quitte ton amant  Leave your mistress leave your lover
Quand tu aime il faut partir.             When you love you must go.

(read the whole poem in French here)

The title is: Tu est plus belle que le ciel et la mer and, in my view, it's Cendrars' hymn to love, passionate but not sentimental, leaving love behind only to stretch it out like a fishing net to collect all of life and then offer it back to loved ones, transformed. It reminds me of Van Gogh in his outsider solitude, caressing with brush and pen everything he saw.

What I like about going away is leaving the familiar. Even if, especially if, the familiar is good and is comfortable. Being somewhere else, where the walls are not your walls, the objects not your objects, the faces not the faces you know and the hours not the hours you waste or use at home - all this shakes up your body and your psyche, reminding you that you can always start again, no matter how late it is.

So I'm a bit overwhelmed by the familiar at the moment, dealing with some boring stuff that needs to be dealt with and trying to retain the impetus towards painting that was rekindled in Tavira. Hence my bloggish silence.

Don't go away, if you're here, and come back if you've given up on me. I am most definitely still here and will be visible again very shortly. �

Bli's dog with almond trees. Tavira, January 2010

PS: My website is currently being transferred to a new host and as it includes the main Blaugustine blog, I can't add new posts there until the transfer is complete. This should be within the next day or three.

HOME SWEET HOME

Being back home is sweet indeed but I will continue to see, to feel and to make use of the light, the shadows, the shapes of Tavira. Certain images are forever engraved in my mind: the extraordinary array of lines and colours of the fishing boats moored along the riverbank; the clusters of old men in flat caps sitting on benches in the park; the sumptuously decaying façades of abandoned houses; the independent dogs hurrying along the street, minding their own business; the plain white outer walls of the churches and their riotous baroque interiors; the enamel blue of the sky and of the azulejo-tiled walls. And so much more. I'm grateful to Casa 5 for giving me the opportunity to get back in touch with my painterly senses, disgracefully neglected in recent digitally-dominated times. 

Tree and balcony, Tavira  (coincidentally, Jean (tasting rhubarb) and I took a similar photograph, in a different place at a different time. See her March 5th post and scroll to the third picture down.)

Blue-red boat, Tavira 

Yesterday I had to go immediately to see the Real Van Gogh exhibition - the Artist and his Letters   and the ordeal of queuing for nearly two hours in the freezing courtyard of the Royal Academy did not dampen the joy, when finally inside the gallery, of being once again in the presence of Vincent, my old hero. The first encounter I had with his oeuvre was at a large exhibition in Paris which I saw as a student: it was love at first sight and Vincent became my inspiration, my goal. At that time I bought a paperback of his letters, in French, a book now falling apart from being avidly thumbed so often. 

The current R.A. exhibition is marvellously conceived and even if you think you know Vincent's work from ubiquitous reproductions, it's worth braving the crowds to see some of the original paintings, many stunning rarely shown drawings, and to come face-to-face with the passion of this man's life and his hard-won achievement. I can't have been the only visitor to wonder how he, the outsider, would react to this exhibition and to the universal acclaim his work and his letters have received. If you want to read all 902 letters from and to Van Gogh, you don't have to spend the £300-something it costs to buy the magnificent new edition on sale in the shop: you can see them all at leisure by visiting the excellent website of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

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NdA Exhibition opens at Casa 5

It all went quite well yesterday, apart from the arrival of an uninvited horde of cockroaches a few hours before the private view in the gallery. A dozen or so were milling around the front door, obviously not art-lovers, so we attacked them with insect spray and in revenge, a whole army started crawling out, threatening to take over the premises. Much more insecticide and bashing with broomstick, then sweeping cockroach corpses out into the street. Who knows why the critters chose this particular day to emerge from wherever they were hiding, but emerge they did. Anyway by the time the real guests started arriving, the nasty intruders, dead and alive, were gone.

I exhibited 35 works on paper (works much appreciated but no sales)  plus a video interviewing some Tavira people in their surroundings. Here's a link to this video. I had to compress it a lot so it's not as sharp as the original, especially the written titles, but I hope you can still get the ambiance.

http://blip.tv/file/3281352

And below some photos of Casa 5 gallery walls before the opening. I didn't manage to take any photos while people were there, too busy chatting.

CLICK ON PICS TO ENLARGE

 

  

  

Portrait of Matthijs Leijenaar NdA Feb.2010  pastel on paper

 

 

  

  

MORE FROM TAVIRA

No time to write. The workshop went well, we did monoprints from collagraphs and monotypes from the ink left over on glass sheets after printing. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Will post some results later. Now I'm preparing for my exhibition which opens on Saturday and lasts for the few days until I leave on March 3rd. Can't believe it's nearly all over!

Below is another painting, again from that cafe the earlier monoprint was about. It's called Anazu, not azul as I said before. And some more photos of Tavira.

CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE

Cafe Anazu  NdA  February 2010  Acrylic on paper

 

Uma Flor  Found poem, Tavira

Found profile on Tavira wall

Fishing boats on the Gilao river, Tavira

 

The view from Casa 5, Tavira

A PORTRAIT AND A CARNIVAL

Yesterday I did a portrait in pastels of Isabel Macieira, partner of Matthijs Leijenaar and co-director with him of Casa 5. I was going to work on it some more but am afraid I'll ruin it so am leaving it alone. These are not oil pastels but the dry chalky kind, lovely to work with for spontaneity as long as you don't smooth and fiddle too much. Next I'll do one of Matthijs. On Saturday I'm giving a workshop on monoprinting without a press. Will post some of the work produced then.

It was carnival here on the weekend, cold and raining on and off, but that didn't deter the high spirits. I was bundled up wearing three layers of clothes but some people didn't feel the cold at all.

 

 

New work progress

Words seem to be failing me since images have taken precedence. The right brain left brain division is in evidence and my left brain must be waiting for me back in London.

A lot of rain in the last couple of days and the temperature has dropped so I've been working indoors, as close as possible to a gas heater. Have been doing some monoprinting from stencils such as the first image below, not quite finished.

CLICK PICTURES  TO ENLARGE

 Cafe Azul monoprint.   NdA  Feb.2010

 

Portuguese Woman  monotype  NdA  Feb. 2010

 

Inside-Outside  NdA  acrylic on paper  Feb. 2010

SOME OF MY TAVIRA IMPRESSIONS SO FAR

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White Shawl, Tavira Cafe - NdA Acrylic on paper

 

Gallery, Casa 5  NdA  Coloured pencil on paper

Park, Tavira  NdA  Watercolour pencil on paper

Cafe Mira, Tavira  NdA  Watercolour pencil on paper

Cafe Azul  NdA  Watercolour pencil on paper

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MORE PICTURES FROM TAVIRA

To give you a glimpse of what my eyes and brain and feelings are taking in every day, here's a selection of photos I've taken in Tavira and in the surrounding countryside where the almond trees in flower are life imitating Van Gogh.

Click on pictures to enlarge.

 

  

  

 

TAVIRA TIME GOES BY

I can't believe I've already been here ten days! The sun is out and everything looks amazing and I want to do more than I'm doing - by more I mean less fiddling, more coherence, more simplicity. The devil is in the detail, yes, and it's devilishly difficult to resist the temptation of detail. I ruin a good start as soon as I start adding more detail, out of some kind of slavish obedience. Have just ruined the picture you see on the easel, of a woman with white shawl sitting in a cafe. That  was the start and it was okay. Now I've"finished" it and it's no good. Well, there'll be others. Not much time for blogging.

Click on photos to see full size.

1. Works in progress.
2. Tourists asleep in the sun.
3. Human made up as statue (he stands on the Roman bridge almost all day).

BEING TAVIREAN

So far, I've done a lot of walking, taken quite a few photos, done a few sketches and started one small painting. Something strange is going on inside me which is difficult to put into words. Let's just say that I'm trying to forget all that I know about art, about painting, about drawing - all those artist-voices past and present telling me what to do or not do. I want to shut them all up and just try to find out what it is that I'm interested in: is it light? Is it colour? Is it solid shapes? Is it faces? Is it space? Or none of those? I'd like to see like that dog sees.

The bottom photo is of the work table in my room at Casa 5.