Shadows

Cristina Iglesias: Pavilion suspended in a room 2005

In a rather bitty way I have been reading the fantastic book on Ian McKeever's paintings and also thinking about shadows. Today this led to me remembering Cristina Iglesias' work, so I set my fingers to work in Google. And found this link. Very interesting.

Ian McKeever: Sentinel gouache 2003

Quiet café

I sometimes wander round Amazon, looking for attractive sounding titles to break out of any rut I'm in, and in doing so recently came across In praise of shadows by Junichiro Tanazaki. I liked the idea of looking at the aesthetics of shadows, but the book turned out to be something other than I had expected. However, this was a good thing.

Luck seems to bring me the books I need to read when I need to read them. I don't always buy them when I need them, but somehow titles I've had lying around the house for many years bring themselves to my attention just when they are required. This very slim volume was written before WWII, and speaks of how global influence: 'progress' can influence a culture's development - perhaps for ill. The shadows of the title are to do with the importance of not only obscurity in Japanese interiors, but also of the importance of quiet simplicity.

I am increasingly aware of the elegance of distillation: a simplicity full of elements that it is not. And now suddenly having had so much of my time and thoughts eaten into by the demands of caring for my mother, I appreciate even more how vital it is not to squander precious opportunities to savour delicacies. This essay by the Japanese novelist has brought thoughts which spill over, and have prepared me to make the most of a link to another thought-provoking parcel of input from Japan.

Earlier today I wrote a post in Ragged Cloth Cafe prompted by my friend's visit to an exhibition of sashiko textiles curated by Michele Walker. I found the website for the exhibition inspirational - especially Walker's article. Together with ideas brewing from reading the book, the thoughts that are being inspired are to do with making the most of one's own cultural values.

It is the quiet intensity of enthusiasm that has moved me in both book and article, and it has cheered me that it's not always absolutely essential to visit an exhibition oneself in order to derive benefit from it. Of course that is one of the boons of the Internet.

'The best art always returns you to yourself.'

This is a sentence which got me thinking. Stated in the Guardian newspaper by a critic whose articles I nearly always find thought-provoking: Adrian Searle. I agree with him in that I believe the most powerful art which I encounter always makes me ask profound questions - and the best niggle away at me forever after in one way or another.

I found the whole article was a bowlful of fruit to savour, and certainly the parting shot spoke directly to me: Doubt is difficult. Complications and contingencies mess with your head. They might not help you out of a crisis but they are all we have.

Ah, that affirmation of my love of enigma. As Searle says: Keep dancing !

Autumn views

The view out of my mother's kitchen window is over the wetland. Early in the morning is a good time to watch the wildlife. The deer have come back unfortunately, and have nibbled all my mother's roses. They do look lovely though: there were two the other day. The ducks seem happy splashing around in the water of next door's pond. The mallards are all in the wetland, and the village pond is now left to the white Aylesbury ducks.

The photos are of mosaics I saw in the Byzantine museum in Salonica.

Thought process

Design in process

I've been thinking a lot about thought processes these days as I try to untangle what my mother is attempting to say, and also how she proceeds through tasks. Underlying this is a realisation that she does not take any responsibility for her own improvement. This is not a new thing - 'twas ever thus.

This latter dawning brought me to a fleeting ponder over breakfast about the timing of the philosophy of Existentialism. Was it that my parents' generation was the last which could believe that life happened to them, and the next generation then determined to try to take responsibility for their own progress? Only to lapse back into a belief in the present generation that a good life should happen to all?

Unfortunately that's about as much thought as I can cope with at a time.

Magic box

design in progress

I'm lucky that my mother goes to bed to sleep in the late afternoon at present, and so I am free for the evening. There is not much space left in my brain for anything much by that point, however, so I really appreciate this wondrous portal which is the computer.

I lurk around a few blogs - it's like having a pile of new magazines come through the door - and before I know it my interest is perked. I see something which sets dormant ideas a-shifting, and I even begin thinking about designs. Of course because the magic box already provides tools and studio for me I can get down to work straightway. No setting up, no clearing away. Whether I produce anything worthwhile, however, is something I'll have to wait and see. But 'twas ever thus.

A loss can become a gain

Nancy Spero has died. Her obituary was in Friday's Guardian newspaper. Adrian Searle, one of the art critics on the Guardian also wrote this article. He knew Spero and her artist husband Leon Golub, and there is an interesting podcast review of her retrospective in Madrid last year: Let the Priests Tremble.

I had heard of Nancy Spero, but it was not until I saw her joint exhibition with Kiki Smith some years ago that I started finding out about her and her work. And since then she often comes to mind. It can be a jolt to hear that the life force of an artist is gone, and that she will not produce any more work - and yet, this very news can act as a catalyst to making a deeper study of that work to make sure that it continues to live.