Memories

I remember my first visit to one of the big London Art Museums , probably the Tate , the only Tate back then. I must have seen a lot of art before that visit, as Cardiff , the nearest big city to the village I grew up in, also had a pretty good art museum. The art in London was art that I saw in books and postcards, it was reproduced.

That experience in London really gave me an awareness of the difference between an actual piece of art experienced in the flesh ,from the art seen in a book or reproduced on a poster or postcard. I remember vividly seeing the work of Piet Mondrian for the first time and really noticing the brush strokes and the small imperfections. Also seeing the work of Pierre Bonnard and enjoying his use of color and light and admiring his skills immensely. It was so exciting to see this work with my own eyes and imagine the hand of the artist handling this particular piece of work. Although this experience was a long time ago , I remember the feeling very vividly.

I am working on a series about the four elements, fire , earth, air and water, the series has grown and now I am almost finished with a series about when the elements go out of balance. Below is "Element Disaster Series-Wildfire"

Ghibli Museum

Hayao Miyazaki's movie "Spirited Away" made me want to visit this museum in Tokyo, it was quite a trek out to the suburbs, but well worth it. The museum is very small, the feel of the movie studio is incorporated into its architecture. There is a very wistful feeling to the ivy covered walls, the stain-glass, incorporating various movie creatures, and the building itself, with staircases and tunnels inside. There were two rooms recreating the studio where original drawings for the animated movies were made. Some exquisite drawings , such beautiful landscapes, that I was almost tempted to take one , such intense blue with white drifting clouds, truly a vision of a magical place.

Before I visited Japan, I was really curious about the overwhelming use of "cuteness" in the culture. You see it everywhere, each town has an adorable mascot, the Pokemon universe of delightful creatures and the people themselves are attractive and cute for the most part. Being in Japan gave me a better understanding of how this "cuteness" is an integral part of the culture. Since I came back I have been thinking about this concept and here is one of the results.I am not yet sure if its finished.

Japan Thoughts

The trip to Japan has exposed me, on my first visit to the Asian continent, to a wealth of culture and beauty, that I am so grateful to have experienced a wee taste of. I was amazedto learn about a different view of antiquity than the one , I am used to. Going to see ruins from older cultures , all the Roman ruins in Britain for example, where the original buildings or structures will have survived somewhat intact or not. In Japan because of building techniques, earthquakes and wars a lot of original historical sights have been rebuilt , some , several times. So many shrines and temples have signs explaining a long history of the building on this site, but adding ,this particular structure may have been rebuilt in the 1980's for example.

This fluidity about time and structures that are historical is interesting to me. I also saw an integration of culture and history , different than what I am used to. Kimonos are worn , not as historical dress , but simply as special item of clothing. Couples and groups of women wore kimonos as tourists ,visiting the shrines. I can't imagine Brits dressing up in Henry the Eighth's garb to visit Hampton court. In the West we have a different look at history, its definitely looking back to another time , which we are separate from.

I don't know how these thoughts will translate into my work. I am at a place of new beginnings again. before I left for Japan , I did a number of drawings of how I imagined the country might look. There is an example below.

Japan Travels

I just came back from a two week trip to Japan. What an amazingly beautiful, sophisticated , refined culture. I felt so at home there, which was a surprise, I expected to feel very out of place. They even drive on the left like Great Britain, and like my home country there is a restraint in the culture, although the sense of community and caring is more apparent than any place, I have ever visited. This sense of care extends to everything , the care with which food is presented and the particular care with ingredients, using a lot of seasonal foods as a link to nature. The use of ceramics as a way to present the food, but also to show the beauty of the handmade. It is a culture that revers the hand made.

All the crafts seem to be held in high esteem. In a department stores huge sections devoted to ceramics. Lots of examples of fabrics , knitted goods, woodworking elevated to a place of importance with seeming respect for the crafts person. I felt very at home visually with this care and importance for how things look. It was a kind of ease I felt there. Sometimes living in the US, I feel as though there is an adversarial relationship, between art and the people.

When my son was in Elementary school in our town of La Verne, I got involved in the Beautification Committee intent on improving the school environment. We did a lot of landscaping and tree planting. I also made a tile mural around two huge windows on the front of the kindergarten building, based on drawings the kids did . At the time our group faced a lot of controversy, apparently a lot of other parents felt that, beautifying the school had little to do with learning. I would say that the Japanese people know intrinsically that having beauty in peoples lives in a human need.

Questions

When someone asks me what my work is like, then immediately says "Southwestern?" I am left thinking wow, I have no idea how to answer this. How to explain, that I feel boxed in by this concept of what art is, that is so flawed, it would take a lifetime of art education to make the questioner, realize that this is not a good way, to talk to an artist about their work.

A similar question that I am often flummoxed by is "Do you believe in God?". I have to again unpack the question, so if "God" is the average male based deity and "believe" is the concept of overriding your own knowing, to go to a place ,where others have crafted a system, that requires you to subsume your identity, in order to be accepted by them, then no, I do not "believe" in "God" . I do however experience Divinity , and do so every time I take a breath.

Back to my work, I can only say that my work is complex and covers a lot of ground because each piece is made in real time, and every second it changes. I do not have preconceptions about my work, its a process that with each new piece ,I dig deep into my creative spirit, to try and react to these marks and this time ,now.

Why I make Work

I primarily make work because I want to see something new, that excites me visually. When I am in galleries and museums I often see work that feels like I have seen it before. Maybe its our obsession with movie sequels and reworking the styles of decades, I but I often despair of seeing something truly original.

Fashion looks to the past to get inspiration, as does cinema and this is not necessarily a bad thing especially when there is a new twist, but really another comment on our consumer culture by putting packaging, that once contained consumer goods onto canvas and presuming societal commentary, its too easy, dig deeper I say.

Creative Process

I know the creative process is shrouded in mystery. The idea that an artist starts to make something ,with no idea where the process may lead, is a perplexing idea. The true blank canvas is scary for most people. For an artist this launching into the unknown, is a creative ,necessary ,freedom.

When I work, I draw deep from my soul, often this process bypasses my mind, when its really good I can work away for hours connected to some invisible force and not be aware of anything else. Suffice to say ,the meaning of a piece may take some time to unfold. For example when I was in Graduate school I made a small bronze sculpture of a tooth with small roots sprouting from it (see below). It wasn't until I had finished the piece, that it occurred to me that the piece was about being uprooted, yet at the same time, as a new immigrant to the US ,I was struggling to put out shoots and find new roots for myself.

Working in a Series

I have been thinking about why working on a series of drawings is so crucial and natural for me. I have worked in many different mediums , in doing 3D work I know there is never one point of view, because literally you can walk around the piece. Seeing is a constantly changing experience, by working on 4 drawings at once, I can explore the relationships between the pieces.

When I was at Teacher Training College, many moons ago, we did a great class, art in the 20th century, it was about looking across the arts at a particular time period. We read "As I lay Dying" by William Faulkner and "The Wasteland" by TS Eliot to name a few. In the classic book "As I lay Dying" the same story is told through the eyes of four different people. This idea has really influenced my work. It is a common place idea now, and occurs in lots of movies, but for me at the time the idea that each point of view is quite distinct was revelatory. I have been doing a lot of preparatory drawings recently , with nothing to show yet, so I show below, a set of drawings that shows the series idea, quite clearly from a couple of years ago.

Positive Feedback

Recently I received a letter from a fellow artist friend, towards the end of the letter he said talking about my work:-
 "Provocative because you make me think beyond what the surface is doing, Your work is not eye candy, its bold and I envy your gutsiness to fill whole walls with lots to chew on"
 How nice to be the recipient of such positive feedback, its rather rare in my life, and I appreciate the comment immensely. I find sometimes people have an easier time talking about what they don't like. It takes time to look for the positive.

Anyway still working away, a bit slowly in the heat of the summer, with no A/C in my studio. I was part of a local show at the Alexander Hughes Center called "Claremont Art Showcase", organized by the Claremont Art Museum and the Claremont Graduate University, that opened on August 19th and goes on until November 18th. Grateful to be included in this show.

Tentative Anxiety

Since my return for the United Kingdom last month I have been having an extensive email correspondence  with my brother, he is also an artist and lived over here in the US for six years , doing his MFA at Ohio State University in Columbus. We have been talking among other things, about the links and problems with our work. He mentioned that he and I have a similar issue with the shape and the ground , in other words what does the background end up becoming, merely an afterthought. He suggested that I make sculpture again and release the shape, from its ground.

Here is a link to my brothers website  http://duncanssmith.com/

I have been feeling of late that I want to make sculpture again, unsure of how to start . This idea of my brothers is a way into the medium again. I  I recently saw a video of Judy Pfaff talking about a recent show. I have admired her work for a long time. She usually does installations, this show is more wall based and more contained than other work I have seen.

Here is a link to the video    https://vimeo.com/35771492

Here is a small maquette  I made today.