I've written about the Stonehenge exhibition I went to last summer in another post and wanted to find out more about the significance of these sites and find ways to represent them on paper. I'm also wondering if there's something sculptural or even interactive I can do with my concertinas. Looking more closely at these as a potential objects or installations.
I'm thinking about gatherings. Maybe there's some way I can create a piece that invites this in some way. I don't want to completely lose my work with paper though. This is central to my experience and I wouldn't be able to make work that wasn't tactile and with my hands.
I'm intrigued by the alignment of stone circles - not just the more obvious circle shapes, but also the outer stones that can sometimes seem to trail off into the distance, almost as if on a journey of its own. It makes me think of travel, migration, moving in and out of a space. I do this a lot and have done as a way to reassure and seek comfort and solace.
I'm wondering how can I convey this?
Stone site: Stanton Drew.
Wandering and returning....
I like how this site contains a larger circle, with smaller ones almost meandering off it. I wanted to experiment working this onto paper.
After leaving it for a few days I tried to add some more to it and ended up getting into a muddle! I want to try and capture a feeling of connectedness, repetition, movement and rhythm. I'm thinking about ground trodden over many times and the feeling of moving around a shared space. I haven't done that successfully here but can see areas that I like and can draw out and work on. The difficulty is trying to keep a feeling of spontaneity and also when to switch to dry materials over the paint. I haven't got the balance of these things right yet.
I had this old wash waiting in a pile and added some circular marks to it. I liked how certain areas became deeper from this, and I tried to pull out some landscape in some of the lines - attempting to create a sense of place that is being re trodden and remembered. I think this gives me something to work on in terms of combining a sense of place/location with the forms of circles.
I had a go thinking about the stones more here, but indicating through circular lines that they are connected - or connect people. I like how you can see the 'landscape' behind and through the large stone on the right and want to experiment with this more.
My application of paint didn't really work here (I was trying to create a varied silhouette of stones and people but it became too muddy. I'm also not sure about the forms all in one line and would like to create more of a feeling of circular gathering.
Updated March 31st 2023
As I continue these experiments, discarding some, trying to develop others - I'm trying to find a way to combine a sense of place in a physical sense as well as a more indicated feeling of that place having a force or energy or how we might repeat our visits to it.
I've done quite a lot of 'chopping up' experiments where I've made new pieces from old, or sectioning off areas to develop. I tried this with the piece below where I wanted to bring in a feeling of movement and connectedness. The forms indicate landscape and some human forms moving together. The wash of the paint over the figures was actually a bit of a mistake, but I decided to not paint more over it, quite liking how the paint was knocked back so the figures became almost translucent.
This is the right hand side of the larger piece. I haven't added any figures in here but I was trying to create a balance between some hill like forms, with the circles containing them. When I had a chat with an art therapist yesterday, she mentioned how circles are significant not only for their infinite symbolism but also a shape of containment. I suppose this containment could be interpreted as safety on the one hand, but also possibly confinement on another.
April 20th
In Tuesday's MA meet up session we were prompted to make or paint/create something in response to 'chasing shadows'.
I had been chipping away in the background on some mark making, mostly informed by Ithell Colqhoun's 'Landscape with Antiquities (Lamorna)' and coincidently, I had been thinking about the shadows cast by stone circles as I was working.
The prompt gave me the opportunity to delve into this further and I ended up with a sort or meandering experiment, loosely a map, but also a representation of stones and figures - with (hopefully) an evocation of the support and integrity they provide one another when in formation. I was trying to make a link between stones and people also in this 'formation' emotionally.
April 28th 2023
Having visited an exhibition of Hilma af Klint's work yesterday, I'm keen to keep moving with how I arrange stone like forms in a composition. I was interested to read about Klint's application of the wet on wet technique with watercolour in some of her later work, and how she connected with the meditative aspects of painting. I was interested to read in the exhibition literature that "Seismic social,technological and artistic advancements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries encouraged many to question the nature of the universe" and what impact this had on Klint's work. Likewise with Colquhoun and her travel away from London after the second world war to a place of sanctuary from where to delve deeper into her own work.
I've been thinking about these ideas today - how external forces can begin a desire in us to turn away, or perhaps less negatively, find another path or focus. I began some more loose experiments, trying to keep connected with what watercolour paint can do on paper and through working in this way, find the meditative benefits and pause on the idea of space or sanctuary.
Further to this, I have been reading more about stone circles. The wealth of theory surrounding their role and significance is always fascinating to me and I was interested to read that there is speculation the sites were a place of sanctuary for neolithic communities. Is this why we still visit them today? Do we somehow tune into these footsteps from the past? What does that say about us now, today?
May 1st
I've been adding more to the above experiments. Something I'm still finding is that working on a smaller scale feels easier to me and I still struggle to translate things onto larger scale. I'm aware that often working smaller is 'safer' but maybe I should be less critical of this and re frame my thinking of my smaller work to being more 'contained' or 'subtle'...
Stepping through time, journeying over trodden ground, connecting with the past and the solace found in familiar spaces.
Larger scale - trying to add more definition and form. Adding some small figures embedded in the shapes. Trying to make a connection between stone circles and women gathering. I found some of the blue a bit luminous to added more wash to dampen it. I like exploring with this kind of rambling composition.
The landscape is more hostile than I expected. I wonder why the combination of blues and yellows sometimes conjures this - but sometimes doesn't. Here, I'm thinking about space and distance both physically and metaphorically. This is largely inspired by the interesting alignment of some stone circles, where there are sometimes great distances between them and yet you feel a strong sense that they are connection, a bit like old cherished friends who you may not see often but you know is always there.
