graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm
original source: 'The Times' 10/03/08
Another image used as source material because of its obviously ‘photographic’ appearance, the capturing of a frozen micro-moment yet suggestive of action & movement courtesy of the blurred elements of the composition. Again, the drawn transcription relates, in formal terms at least, to the blurring technique utilised by Gerhard Richter, &, of course, the process of drawing & the temporal investment involved contrasts with the split-second creation of the original photographic image, although both drawing & running share a physically active dimension & sense of being-in-the-world.
By way of a sort-of coincidence relating to this image, the current reading & research matter includes the most handsome volume, ‘The Not-So-Still Life’, a survey of a century (i.e. the 20th) of Californian painting & sculpture based on the genre of the still life & its development over the course of that time. Fascinating stuff, both in the featured artists’ engagement with contemporaneous developments elsewhere in the (art) world & their deviations from such, lavishly & beautifully illustrated with many a fine example of work. I came across the book during a visit to the workplace by a bookseller, we chose it for our own resources from amongst the selection on offer, & then, suitably impressed & enthused to do so, I managed to track down a copy for my personal library via Amazon for a mere £3, absolute irresistible bargain! A while back I discovered a wonderful resource for cataloguing one’s books online, Librarything, which also has an active community aspect: well worth investigating for any bibliophile.
Soundtrack:
Sparklehorse ‘Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot’
Belle & Sebastian ‘If You’re Feeling Sinister’
Sigur Ros ‘Takk’
Throwing Muses ‘In a Doghouse’
Lambchop ‘What Another man Spills’
Dug out the Sparklehorse for a listen after surprisingly encountering a snippet of one of its tracks during the course of a TV programme, this particular album being the first in a wonderful trinity of such also including ‘Good Morning Spider’ & ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’: I’m a great admirer of Mark Linkous’s aesthetic & the unique sound he creates, the inclusion of all manner of instruments he uses to layer his songs with such engaging textures, & of course the range of the songs themselves, from full-on, wig-flipping rockouts to irresistible melodic pop tunes (my first encounter with his ouevre was in fact ‘Sick of Goodbyes’, one such example) to the most gentle, fragile & vulnerable melancholic (almost more so than anyone) ballads, all suffused with a unique poetry & vision: a true artist, a painter of wonderful sound pictures.
For whatever whim - perhaps the idiosyncrasies of Sparklehorse - something drew my thoughts back to the first Throwing Muses releases, the eponymous debut album & the subsequent ‘Chains Changed’ EP, eventually discovered as existing as the ‘In a Doghouse’ collection: still sounding as astonishing & electrifying now as upon first hearing 20 years ago (more than!), music & an energy coming as close to escaping description as it’s possible to imagine, a truly incredible sound & experience, the sheer visceral quality, the thrill of which I always felt they somehow never managed to recapture…thoroughly recommended.
Must write upon the magnificence of Lambchop, another one-off in terms of their aesthetic, sometime too…
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