Photographic Response to the Journeys with Wasteland Exhibition at Turner Contemporary.

Turner Contemporary's new exhibition has taken TS Eliot's poem The Wasteland as it's theme.

Eliot stayed in Margate in 1921 convalescing after the first world war and the beach shelter at Nayland Rock is where he worked and wrote some of his poem The Wasteland.

This poem proved to be a pivotal work, moving poetry into a new modernist direction, with the fractured form, reflecting something of the aftermath of the war on body and mind.

It's not one of my favourite poems,  some of the imagery is powerful though and provoking.

I have taken the shelter at Nayland rock as my subject, exploring it in photography and with digital processes. These are the first images.

Visit to A&C animation studios.

I enjoyed some mulled wine and a tour lead by Dan Richards of A&C animation studios this week, in aid of Thanet Winter Shelter.. They are a local company in Margate and specialize in stop motion animation.

It was great to get an insight into production, see the large infinity curve studio and the model making room and other production facilities

The cupboard full of  different colours of modelling medium was great as were the cabinets showing some of the models used in advertising campaigns.


It was really busy, lots of people interested in the studios and the Victorian laundry building it's based in.

New Drawings

I've been sorting through sketch books and drawing recently.

There is something quite satisfying about a simple line drawing, I often do them in ink.
I might use these as reference for other works or colour them in some way, but at the moment I like them as simple lines.

Some taken from my Venice holiday images and two Buddha heads.

Flat Iron Building exhibition at Bernie's Chocolate Bar.

Bernie's Chocolate Bar in Margate, is part of the Flat Iron Building, Imperial House, on the corner of the High Street overlooking the sea. Bernie has been interested in the history of the building since starting her business and to celebrate it's third birthday she has organized an exhibition looking at the history and showing artists responses to it.

 Imperial House was originally called Imperial Hotel, and is one of the worlds oldest flat iron buildings, and was built over 20 years earlier than the famous Flatiron building in New York.

Imperial Hotel images from a local history site here

The exhibition includes painting, photography and illustration and I have a wooden box in the exhibition, that I have drawn a picture of the building on.
The box, an re purposed tea box, was made to look like an old souvenir of the flat iron building, painted and distressed.

The exhibition is open till Thursday 2nd of March 2017 at Bernie's Chocolate Bar, Imperial House, High Street,  Margate CT9 1AT

You can follow on twitter @flatironmargate

Advent Calendar and digital Mandala art.

I have been using some digital processes to work with photographs I've taken.

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And I'm enjoying choosing and moving the forms around to make Mandala type images.

I have used images of my paintings, bubbles, woodland and sky, the sea and decorations.

It seems almost anything can be used, but I particularly like the bluebells and wood, trees and
flowers.

Using some of these new images and others I've put together an online Advent calendar.

You can make up your own on their site.

Working with Circles continued.

Following on with the theme of circles that we have been working with at Blank Canvas for a few terms

 I have been photographing circular forms and using them in other art works.
Walking along the Harbour arm in Margate, there were circles in the stones, on the walls, and as part of signs and structures.

 The weathered stumps of iron railings looked like metal nests for some strange mechanical birds.

The sunsets we have here in Margate, continue to inspire and gather groups of people to photograph them, or sit and simply enjoy the show.

Dreamland continues with it's restoration of the site and buildings and here the big wheel was lit up for an arts event.

A Calming Stone,A Blank Canvas Happening at Turner Contemporary.

Blank Canvas organized a happening at Turner Contemporary last week, called A Calming Stone, as part of the closing day events for their exhibition.
We collected stones and pebbles from local beaches and arranged then in the gallery on one of the benches, over spilling to the floor.

The simple act of arranging them in size, colour and shape, turned an ordinary collection of random stones into something much more interesting and attractive.

Our plan was to invite visitors to select a stone, or rather let a stone select them, they could take their stone with them as they walked around the gallery and then return the stone to a sculpture on the floor, or select a stone and add it to the sculpture straight away.

We also encouraged visitors to think about why they chose their stone and if they wanted to, allow the stone to absorb any thoughts they wanted to leave behind.

We were returning all the stones and pebbles to the sea, and any thoughts left in the stones would be washed away in the sea.


Well a lot of visitors were interested in the event, talked about their choice of stones, love of collecting or memories of collecting from their childhood.

For some, the stones called to them straight away, others took their time. Visitors described things such as the texture of their stone,the patterns and suggested images they could see on the stone, the noise it made, what it reminded them of and qualities like love.

 Some took their stones away with them as they explored the gallery and became quite attached to them. There is something very tactile and soothing about holding a stone or a pebble.

Everyone however wanted to be part of what was a ritual in someways, and added their stone to the growing sculpture on the floor. We had envisaged a spiral but went with what the visitors co created.

After the event we collected all the stones and pebbles together and all took some of them with us to return them to the sea.