NEW PAINTING DONE IN MEDITATION

It was a beautiful sunny day in my studio when I painted this image in meditation. It is difficult to see at this size, but it looks like a farmer or person walking towards us over a hill. In the distance, it looks like a hamlet or a farm. It looks as if the 'farmer' has huge wings. I will probably work into this one to make it part of a larger design. I find these images profoundly beautiful - a meaning beyond drawing, linking pure form to absolute simplicity and purity: to sacred geometry and the Universe.

A copyright image. Thank you.

STUDIES FROM LORRIES AND TANKERS

I want to leave my 'Zen' paintings for now and move on to a visual source in this case, lorries and tankers.

Whilst driving to and fro from college I have become fascinated by the colour, shape and geometry of lorries and tankers. There are round tankers, oval ones, striped ones, tankers with ladders, tankers wrapped in pipes. And there are lorries.

I am not going into the laws of relativity but, I sit there, still, not running or walking and yet the world passes by, a sort of time travel. The wheels go round and round. Driving is rather like meditating. It becomes automatic but with an alert wakefulness. I wonder what the lorries carry. Do they have illegal immigrants on board, or food, or cigarettes? I have been known to follow an interesting lorry for miles, off the motorway and through a town to some industrial estate somewhere. I spent a very interesting and funny day at the Highways Depot. The drivers are proud of their lorry, keeping it clean and in working order.

Tanker. Colours changed from gold and black to white and navy (cutout)

Tanker. Colour changed from gold to white (cutout)

Following on from the lorry pictures in previous blogs, I have only just begun to draw and sketch the imagery. I am planning many more studies in different mediums.

Ongoing sketches in various mediums.

'Ladder' Digital print.

'Wheels' Digital print.

I have spent a considerable amount of time this term trying to master the computer and digital printing. I realise I am only at the very basic stages and I am looking forward to creating designs where I can place 'space' and other elements into my design.

However, I am pleased with my progress and with my understanding now. I will continue this study. I do feel that the lorry subject is perfect for experimenting with digital printing.

TANKER HANGINGS.

'Tanker with rear light', 2009. Crepe backed satin silk.

'Ladder' Silk crepe backed satin.

With both of these hangings, after creating design sketches, I took the abstract shapes, matching the blend of tanker colours, a colour palate so different from the colours I had been working with and created these pieces by using masking and using blank screens. This is extremely laborious and high risk. This talked me into mastering digital printing.

I wanted to start with darker colours at the bottom, rising to lighter colours at the top. I love the splash of rust, the rear lights.

All images of mine are copyright.

SILK HANGINGS CREATED FROM SOUND

SILK HANGINGS CREATED FROM SOUND.



On a glorious day, I surrounded myself with the tools to print directly onto the cloth in meditation, whilst listening to the sounds. This one is my interpretation of the sound of a singing bird in flight. A little blackbird and her beautiful song outside my studio

The sound of a pair of crows playing in the trees.

A bird leaving a trail of sound.


The twitting song of a wren captured on silk. We have a battle as to who 'owns' my studio. She can squeeze in through the smallest gap and now seems to have a husband.

'Breath of Dawn' silk hanging

"I opened the doors and windows of my studio and listened to the stillness. The birds trilled in the trees as the sun rose in the valley. My pet sheep congregated around me mounching with the odd 'maaa' in the mists of morning. Lost in the moment of being, I 'drew' the sounds on the silk, marking each one with deliberation."

'The Sound of Rain'

"It is dusk now and the rain patters on the roof, a constant sound, broken only by birdsong and the occasional maaa. I captured the sounds of a peacock chattering in the field, safe from the nearby guns - a moment immortalised."

SILK STOLE CREATED FROM 'ZEN' VISION

Experiments with mixing thick print on dye paste with thick discharge created an exciting third element, a white crustiness cemented into the silk .

'SPIRIT' HANGING

'Spirit' Silk crepe de chine Approximately 9 ft x 18 inches.

After experimenting with mixing my own 'blacks' with red, blue and yellow, I printed 'Spirit'

The huge arc was difficult to create and that was taken from studies of the ceiling lights at Tremough. Within the dark aubergine coloured arc, representing 'The Cosmos', are three brilliant blue, horizontal lines representing healing. (difficult to see in these pictures). The white represents the etherial spiritual place (does it it exist or not - the floaty white tends to blend into the background).

'Spirit' (detail).

The imagery of the drawing is whatever you see in it, a butterfly, an angel, a bird?


All designs and images are the copyright of Carol Mackenzie Gale and no image may be copied without my permission. Thank you.

YOHJI YAMAMOTO

Yohju Yamamoto, b.1943 in Tokyo a fashion designer who creates a blend of traditional Japanese dress with Western day wear. He achieves a unique, abstract style, often loosely layered black with simple asymmetric design.


I was introduced to his work in the V. & A. Museum in the 'Exhibition of Costume' in 2007 where they displayed the 'Summer Dress', Tokyo 1988-89. This dress was so simple, black with an asymmetric triangle of burn orange. The hem dipped almost to the ground on one side rising to an unusual cupped finish on the other.

'Summer Dress', V. & A. Museum, 2007

He often uses black, adding offset collars, non functional flaps and irregular hems, sometimes in white on the black ground, often capitalizing on the effects of light on matt and shiny black.

"I always wear black or navy, my only concession to colour being a white shirt or T-shirt", (Sunday Times Magazine, 26th Feb. 1989).


In his latest menswear collection, he shows asymmetric coloured shapes on the suits. Often he will have uneven gown shoulder straps, hems and jacket lengths. Many have different cut lengths around a jacket or coat.
As I am studying and experimenting with different blacks, I am interested to see that Yohju does the same. He presents his garments from pure black through to blues and soft dark greens and greys often showing black matt against shiny with one sided detail, sometimes white, also rust, scarlet blue or turquoise.

hypebeast.com 04/05/2009

Why do I find his work so interesting? I use similar colours but also I find the aesthetic of his work comes from a deeper level than the pure visual. This is the way of being of the Japanese culture. If it doesn't mean something to them, if it doesn't touch their souls, then it is not worth doing.

SHIHOKO FUKUMOTO

'Star Light'. 1998

I have long been an admirer of Shihoko Fukumoto's work. I saw this piece, 'Star Light', 1998 at 'Collect' a couple of years ago. It is just as radiant in reality.

She was born in Osaka, Japan in 1945 becoming a fine artist but found that she was unhappy with the medium of paint and went on to study the art of using Indigo. She achieves astonishing gradations in colour and effects of luminosity, her imagery often incorporating the moon and water. Blending the traditional Japanese craft of Indigo dyeing 'shibori' and tonal gradation dyeing 'bokashi', Fukumoto creates subtle works of transcendent beauty.

'Aoi Kioku', 1996 'Tiny points of light divided by a large central panel of light'.

She considers indigo is more than just a colour, it is the colour of space, of a feeling of the ethereal, of the spiritual.

To stop the contamination of the whites when creating her pieces, she hangs her work on a pole with the white uppermost and washes it with a hose. Light is crucial to an understanding of Fukumoto's work, a paradox given indigo's vulnerability to sunlight. Nevertheless, Fukumoto developed a special technique to prevent it from fading under exposed conditions.

www.culturebase.net/artist 04.05.09

On a trip to New Guinea, Shihoko saw the craftspeople making things which were linked to their culture and their religion. She realised she was merely imitating Western Art. She says "Indigo cast a marvelous spell over me", and of course indigo has deep roots in Japanese culture. She made many of her own tools.

Fukumoto's fabric works have a remarkable, delicate beauty. To the Westerner, their perfection

is as unapproachable and dreamlike as the vision of Japan from which they spring.

'The Constellation', 1998 Indigo dyed on Turfan cotton.

One can see the spirituality of the universal space in this piece, 'The Constellation', with its vibrant star bursts and varying blues.

Part of my research has been to explore 'blacks'. This came from the vision of 'The Cosmos' or 'Universal Space' during meditation, a soft dark bluey, purply black so I feel an empathy with this piece. My explorations have also included the dark and light, balance and space and asymmetric placing of design.

TERRY FROST

Along with Ellsworth Kelly, I admire the work of Terry Frost and in both find that their geometry and flat planes of colour hold their own language.

I am still attempting to understand the meaning of 'abstraction'.

Anthony Hill said:-

"Abstract art is a non-mimetic art aiming at an aesthetic of objective invention and sensation, distinctly rational and determinist ... The work is the sum of what is in it and can be considered as the resolving of the situation where all variants of a formalised thematic grouped by criteria are ordered by principles of hierarchy". Terry Frost. Six Decades. Royal Academy of Arts. 2000.

Oh, that explains it then.

From Terry Frost. 'Black, white and red. Tate, st. Ives, narrated by Mel Gooding.

Terry Frost was a great thinker, philosopher and intellectual. His work has been hugely influenced by walks along the quay at Newlyn, watching the boats rock to and fro, creating arcs as the masts and sails move.

For most of his life, his work showed arc shapes, half moons, parts of circles, triangles and spirals, chevrons, quadroons and rectangles. After some years of personal doubt and depression, he had found his forte.

"....My mood has been one of deep depression and I'm still in a very shaky and queer state. It's partly due to my selling paintings regularly for twelve months, a thing I've never done before and it's very worrying. ...I can't see any point in just painting pictures for sale....I only hope I can get used to this professionalism, for if I don't, I'm a finished man and I might as well do some other job." p 85.

How common is this? Many artists, including myself, hate parting with 'one off' pieces. They are so personal. Yet how will we live if we don't sell work.

'The value of a line, of a form, consists for us in the value of the life that it holds for us. It holds its beauty only through our own vital feeling, which, in some mysterious manner, we project into it'. Worringer.Black Circle.

Like Ellsworth Kelly, Terry Frost makes a powerful and spiritual statement with a simple geometric shape, divided symmetrically. He uses a considerable amount of black and white in his work but is also a master colourist.


'I subdivided the flat surface with the Golden Section and the square, so that every geometrical shape was related to every other shape, and then I used colours emotionally. p.44

'Just to think in terms of colour is enough to set the soul alight. This is colour without shape - in the spirit. Shapes are known to people by words, but colour can make its own shape and exists in its own right.' From a text for students at Reading, in David Lewis, Terry Frost, Aldershot 1994 and 2000.

Of teaching Terry says'

'The artist wants to be free but tremendous discipline is needed to use that freedom. There is no freedom without discipline. If there is discipline and no freedom, that equals no art, only propaganda. I rely a lot on what has gone before. I am influenced strongly by all the wondrous works I have seen. They convinced me by the subjective sensations I experienced in from of them that art is a real part of our lives. Some people react more than others and to different interests. But to see something that takes you out of yourself into a moment of a new reality, a sensation far removed from our normal reality and all its problems, is a tonic and spirit-builder. One looks, sees and feels a good form.



Imagination works separately from reality. It belongs to us before reality. Reality isn't for long compared to imagination.



Image, before thought
before narrative
before emotion


Imagination thinks and suffers; it's primordial."

ELLSWORTH KELLY

ABSTRACT. What exactly does abstraction mean? The Collins English Dictionary says:

"1. Having no reference to material objects or specific examples. Not concrete.
2. Not applied or practical; theoretical.
3. Hard to understand; recondite (requiring special knowledge to be understood. Abstruse (not easy to understand, esoteric).
4. Fine Art. Characterised by geometric, formalised or nonrepresentational qualities.

The following by Kenneth Martin (1951) demonstrates the difficulties of definition that varieties of non-representational art created for the practitioner-theorists of 'abstraction'.

"What is generally termed 'abstract' is not to be confused with the abstraction from nature which is concerned with the visual aspect of nature and its reduction to a pictorial form, for, although abstract art has developed through this, it has become a construction coming from within. ... Just as an idea can be given form, so can form be given meaning. By taking the severest form and developing it according to s strict rule, the painter can fill it with significance within the limitations imposed. Such limitations have been constantly used in poetry and music ... The square, the circle, the triangle etc.m are primary elements in the vocabulary of forms, not ends in themselves ... The painter attempts to create a universal language as against a private language ... Heroic efforts have been made towards the creation of this language". 'Terry Frost Six Decades'. RCA p.17.

I have been interested in Ellsworth Kelly's work for some time, feeling the simplicity of his flat plains of colour, his black and white. His inspiration often comes from fleeting visions through doorways, windows or shadows falling across structures. His paintings have an extraordinary poetic vision and sense of geometric clarity.

'Window 1', 1949

He experimented at one time with working clinically to the rules of the Golden Section but he found that his work conformed to perfect balance when working intuitively.

"I like to work from things that I see, whether they are man made or natural. Once in a while I work directly from something I have seen, like a window, or a fragment of a piece of architecture: or the space between things, or just how the shadows of an object would look. With a rock and its shadow, I am not interested in the texture of the rock or that it is a rock, but in the mass of it and its shadow." p.17

Waldman Diane, Ed. Ellsworth Kelly: a Retrospective. Guggenheim Museum.

Black Square
White Square.

Black and White square are his last paintings to be completed in Paris. These are so simple but to me, have such power. I see my own geometry in similar form, a sort of spiritual essence, visions of a window, "an idea of space seen through glass as a monochrome" p.27/28

'Rooftops with blue squares'. (Silk Scarf, Carol Mackenzie Gale). The simple geometry rigid in a painting, changes with the fluidity of silk when draped.

"Preliminary study for Wall", 1955.

I love this example of perfect space, asymmetric in balance and am working with black and coffee with my lorry studies.

"During the early phase of his time in Paris (1948 - 54), Kelly was part of the aesthetics of early abstraction, he was deeply interested in the subject of the spiritual in art. While noting that this quality was present in "all the art man has made," it became his aim to emulate this elusive process, to imbue art with his own expressiveness, his own spirituality, not through the depiction of a narrative, but through colour and form only. His inspiration in nature became the source of his spirituality. p.62

Kelly thought Mondrian's art was spiritual, feeling that his approach would suit him too and he sought to achieve his own version of it.

A version of Mondrian's Tree. - a spiritual journey.

On visiting Constantin Brancusi in 1950, he said, "For me, his art was an affirmation: it strengthened my intention to make an art that is spiritual in content." Similarly, he struggled to "get that spirit just into abstract form", the accomplishment of which became central to his art. p. 63

One of his most exciting pieces. is his book, 'Line, Form and Colour', sent to the Guggenheim Foundation. It contained 46 drawings, eahc 7 1/2 x 8 inches (later 40) with "no writing whatsoever - just (linoleum) prints".1951.

'"Line, Form and Colour", monotone pages of his book of prints which were to become the catalyst for his works of the 1950's and 1960's with new directions in abstract art. This was also the inspiration for my manifesto.

I come back to the language of simple geometry. Kelly's skill in working with form, colour space and edge, create potent visual statements and as with Terry Frost's work, colour becomes the form, the flat plane, the message.

PHOTOSHOP VERSUS ILLUSTRATOR AND BACK AGAIN.

Before I explore the Digital Printing of fabric, I wanted to research whether or not, putting the Photoshop images through Illustrator and back to Photoshop as a tiff maintained smoother edges.




Unfortunately, I cannot upload the Illustrator file or the Tiff.

You can see from the Photoshop file that the rasterised edges are jagged. When converted to an Illustrator file, the vectorised image has absolutely smooth edges. When that Illustrator file is converted into a tiff, the edge remains almost as smooth. So, by putting the Photoshop image into Illustrator and converting it to a tiff the edge of your digital print will be cleaner. Technically, I have learnt a considerable amount in researching this. Now for colour!

BLACKS - research

As I dyed my 'blacks' on silk, I also dyed news print, which dyes beautifully. These dyes are Procions. The Dor beetle, the Australorp chicken and the flower are all called 'Black' and yet they are rich in other colours.

Bluey black. 1.5G Yellow MX4R
2.0G Navy MX4RB (ratio)
1.0G Red NX5B

Browny black 1.0G Yellow MX4R
1.0G Red MX5B "
1.0G Navy MX4RB
1.0G Black PN

Aubergine black 1.0G Yellow MX4R
1.0G Red MX5B "
1.0G Blue P7RX






Bluey Black
As above


Browney black
As above


Green
2.0G Yellow
1.0G Blue
.5G Red




Colours Black and Aubergine as above.

Terry Frost says of his study of blacks:-

" When you are in a bit of a hurry, its O.K. to mix spectrum black and just put some red in it. It doesn't work in a poetic sense when you're trying to stretch your imagination and your mixture of colour together to get your concept out. It's a different thing. It's not to do with trying to write a poem in black and it took me bloody weeks, all those fifteen different blacks from red, yellow and blue."

Mixing blacks gives the colour a warmth and a depth - a uniqueness. My samples have, in many cases, not been quite dark enough. I want to achieve something darker and richer. This research is ongoing.

MILAN

In glorious sunshine, Mel and I drove to the airport. As the 'plane rose in the sky, the sun glittered. Armed with a case full of 'summer clothes', we descended into a dull Milan, rain hammering on the aeroplane engines and white lakes on the ground. The runway was wet as we landed and it was cold! Cold?

Despite warnings of marauding gipsies, we arrived at the campsite with no threats or incidences at about midnight to erect our tents in the rain. I pulled the plug on my self inflating mattress expecting it to rise to at least 4 inches thick - nice and soft? It was like a sheet of 1" thick rubber! The bar was still open and we managed a couple of drinks. The tent and our clothes were damp and it was freezing! No sleep that night - or any night as it happens. On the second night I 'put my back out' and I have never known such agony. Getting into the tent was difficult enough, never mind getting my clothes off and into my sleeping bag.

On the campsite we wondered why strange animals were kept. They looked like a cross between an Anglo Nubian goat and a sheep.

Later, we discovered they were the lawn mowers, let out each day to munch the grass between tents and caravans. What a good idea.

Behind the camp site, there was a farm. Charlotte was fascinated by the beautiful peacocks, about six of them.

and every night, one would start squawking followed by the rest and this was to continue all night, every night. Then the cockerels would start followed by the campanologists at the local church. On my last night, the peacocks echoed across the campsite and each time they squawked, there followed a cacophony of mimics. Very funny and I was amused that the whole campsite was awake. Hah!

Tortona was alive with shows and the atmosphere was electric. There was not much Charlotte and I could do to help with the erection of the stand.

Andy, Rupert and Patrick.
Andy and John Miller worked hard to erect the stand and work on time.

Hanging the work.

Work hung. No lighting yet.

We met some of the students from the Dutch stand next to us who had been working with adults with learning difficulties and between them, they created the above seat. I loved Nina Riatano's silicon cups. I chatted to her about the use of silicon on fabric. Laura Pregger's cup lighting was innovative and beautiful. They produced all sorts of constructions during the putting up of their stand but when set up, all that could be seen were a couple of tables. The 'set ups' were for their daily events. Each day at 5 p.m. they held a session to attract the customers to their stand, usually involving snacks and drinks. The Milan Poli had a line of sewing machines and the students continually made things. On the first day, collars and the second, tee shirts - an 'action' to catch the attention of the public.

I spent some time with the interesting girl promoting her boyfriends bicycles. The two outside bikes are exercise bikes and the central one is a rideable bicycle. Apparently, he is a very introspective character and I so wanted to meet him, but didn't.

The Press View and Private View were absolutely crowded and this stand was dispensing free Campari. Alas, I was on a diet and not drinking.

Olly and Ben we met at the campsite and what interesting guys they were. Olly was planning the Maccu Piccu trip to Peru, something I have always wanted to do.

I have already talked about my wonderful day at the Zucchi Printing Block Museum. I was surprised to see so many errors in their texts which made me realise just how much precious and historic information I have. I working for David Evans for a whole summer. When exploring ties and visiting Turnbull and Asser, Jermyn Street in London, I found out that some of their ties were block printed by David Evans and there was a tie, the design of which I had engraved at David Evans. I hated working in the design studio. The designs were minuscule and tedious. I eventually worked with the printers in the screen printing department, spending as much time as possible in the block printing area where only 4 block printers remained printing very expensive, exclusive silks. Staff gave me artifacts, photos etc. and the management gave me blocks, strike offs, block printed silks, and even a ledger of hand scripted, piece work pay for the block printers. I was told I could have any information I could write down, record or photograph. I worked like stink for the whole summer while staff worried about their jobs and not about saving the many historic artifacts despite my pleas to give them to a museum. And the blocks, catalogued whilst I was there, ended up in the Zucchi museum in Milan. I later wrote my B.A. thesis on my stay, now a unique and historic document.

Valentina at the Zucchi museum encouraged me to write my book - and I will.

Finally, I spent two evenings with the gorgeous Sophie, my neighbour's niece who lives in Milan, and her partner, Carlo.

Sophie and Carlo

On my last night, I couldn't have wished for anything more divine. Carlo runs a family delicatessen. We started with melon, Italian parma hams and Italian cheeses, one we had with honey. Scrumptious! Carlo had made the biscuits and I have not tasted anything like them, a sort of cheesy shortbread with pistachios. We then had the most gorgeous lasagna with bechemal sauce and an Italian wine followed by an apricot tart Carlo had made and again - the pastry was unique and special, just out of this world.

Then my last night on the sheet of rubber. The next morning I was having hallucinations of my soft bed and of soaking in a hot bath. My back was agony. I was delighted to hear many 'young-uns' complaining about their backs whilst sleeping on this self inflating bed!

Oh how I appreciated my bed. It was like sleeping on a cloud and I slept and slept. My hot bath relieved my aches and soon I was back to normal?