Tuesday 20 September 2016

C-Art Cumbria, 2016. Sprint Mill

Sprint Mill was the last of our studio visit and was a studio hub, meaning that they had opened their door to several artists to display their work during C-Art, including painter Hamish MacLain and  ceramicist, What really fascinated me though was the mill itself and the work of owner/artist Edward Acland and his daughter Francis, a photographer.

Sprint Mill is one of the oldest mills in Cumbria.  Set in 15 acres on a bend of the River Sprint in Burneside, the mill is a place of inspiration and beauty.  It is owned and run by Edward and Ramola Acland.  The collections inside include a historic 1840 water mill and a wealth of old hand tools associated with rural crafts. It is a fascinating aladin's cave of collections; it makes our garden studio, which is full of our own eclectic collections, look very small scale.  In the grounds the Aclands manage wildflower meadows and hedgerows using traditional techniques, along with a burgeoning allotment.  As well as the work of invited guest artists Edward Acland displayed his own quirky pieces.

While I was there I bought a catalogue for one of his past exhibtions in the Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal from 2006.  The catalogue included photographs of the works in the exhibition, several of which, or similar are on display in the mill.  He makes abstract art work from any manner of of unusual materials such as bale string, sea glass and broken ceramics, roast egg shell, dried couch grass, old used nails and many, many more.  One exhibit in the mill was a collection of jars full of odd materials in waiting.
In the catalogue Edward Acland writes an intoroduction to Another World?  I empathise with his thoughts and philosophy in this.  He says that a previous exhibition from 2004 Another Story attempted to display his own delight of what his family witnessed through 'living a life' at their home, Sprint Mill.  Another World? extended this theme.  He says that over the last few years a growing sense of unease has pervaded humankind in relation to the general well being of Planet Earth.  A familiar story from the photographers featured in William A. Ewing's Landmark.  Acland says that the integrity of the 'skin' or bioshpere of the world, on which we all depend for our survival, is under threat, couresy of the impact and conduct of our species, homo sapiens.  Another World?, he says stubbornly rejects a 'too-late-to-do-anything' scenario and invites us instead to connect to a real alternative.  The question mark indicates choice! One is the current 'business as usual' option.  The other calls on us to bring about a radical shift of attitude to speedily take us all towards an ecologically long term secure future, based on recognising the natural limits of the way we live and work.

 I feel that in my photographs depicting the darker side of woodland, I have touched on this ethos.  I think that, perhaps, those who indulge in the fly tipping of mattresses, settees and all manner of other things have adopted the 'business as usual' approach to life.  Presumably they think that someone else will clear up their mess.

C-Art, Cumbria 2016. The Long View

Our monthly visit to our caravan in the Lake District last week coincided with Cumbria's C-Art open studio trail.  We had a very enjoyable couple of days looking at the work of several artists.  One of these was the work of husband and wife artists Harriet and Rob Fraser.  I was fascinated by this work, not only because it was photography, but from the point of view of the text involved as the course notes accompanying part 4 of BOW is to do with the use of text (although I have still to give it my consideration.)  Rob Fraser is a photographer and his wife a poet and the two have combined images and words in this project.  We saw the work displayed at Thorney How guest house at Grasmere.  The last time I had been there was when I stayed many years ago during its previous incarnation as a youth hostel so I was doubly fascinated.

Rob and Harriet tell us that the Long View focuses on seven remarkably ordinary trees in extraordinary locations.  Each tree is photographed by Rob and Harriet has written poetry for each. Their website is at this link.

 They have been getting to know the trees over the past year and intend to continue walking to them and recording their journeys and their responses until June 2017.  Each tree is twinned with a local school and the pair are leading public walks during the duration of the project.  Each tree will take its turn to be transformed with a colour of the rainbow.  The first transformation was at The Wasdale Oak last May and involved the placement of a poem on 110m of yellow cloth, connecting the tree to the shore of Wastwater.  The final exhibition, which will include the installation of real trees, 3D artwork, photographs, poetry and video, will launch at The Galleries in Grizedale Forest in July 2017.  It will tour the UK in 2018.

When I was looking at the website I was reminded of some photography I have done of a particular oak tree on the fellside above our caravan and camping club site at Ashes Lane near Stavely.  I include some of the images below.










Philippe Jacques De Loutherbourg, Abbot Hall Gallery, Kendal.

Having first come across Philippe Jacques De Loutherbourg (1740 -1812) in Jesse Alexander's book Perspectives on Place, I was fascinated to find two of his paintings in the Abbot Hall Gallery in Kendal when I was visiting to see a Winifred Nicholson exhibition.  Alexander first mentions Loutherbourg in the section of his book on The Sublime.  He says that the sublime was a common theme within 19th century landscape and history painting and he mentions Loutherbourg in particular.  He refers to his depiction of an avalanche in the Alps and describes it as a classic example from this period.  His description of the picture and the reaction to the avalanche in the three figures in it to the avalanche certainly fit with Edmund Burke's contention that the sublime should contain within it a degree of awe and terror.

The first painting is Belle Isle, Windermere, In a Storm 1785 Oil on Canvas  The exhibition notes state that this is the earlier of the two De Loutherbourg's represented in the gallery. As a pair it says they are probably the two most important Romantic depictions of the Lake District, painted at the height of the Picturesque movement.  In this painting he successfully evokes storm clouds and tumultuous waves and its focus is the imminent shipwreck of the Windermere Ferry on 19th October 1635..  Exactly the sort of effect suggested by Burke.

 The second painting is Belle Isle, Windermere, In a Calm. 1786.  Oil on canvas.  It was painted for the exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1786 and is a total contrast to the previous painting.  It emphasises the softly rolling, wooded fells, Claife Heights which surround the calm and idyllic lake.  Here there is a peaceful atmosphere, and there is no hint of the terror and menace of the lake's darker side.

De Loutherbourg, P.J. (2016) Belle Isle, Windermere, In a Storm, 1785 [oil on canvas] Abbot Hall Gallery, Kendal 2016

De Loutherbourg, P.J. (2016) Belle Isle, Windermere, In a Calm, 1786 [oil on canvas] Abbot Hall Gallery, Kendal 2016

Winifred Nicholson in Cumberland

Whilst staying in the Lake District last weekend we discovered an exhibition by twentieth century painter Winifred Nicholson at the Abbot Hall Gallery in Kendal.  It explores the work of Nicholson who was married to artist Ben Nicholson and is curated by her grandson, art historian, Jovan Nicholson.  Her creativity was both about colour and place and the place that meant more to her than any other was Cumbria.  I found her paintings joyous, fresh and colourful if somewhat 'naive' and simplistic.  I loved the fact that vases that were depicted in some of the paintings were part of the display.  Both she and her husband, who she was married to from 1920 - 1933, were at the forefront of modern painting in Britain during the 1920s.  After the second world war she began to paint landscapes from her parent's house in what was to become her signature style.  She said of her work 'My paintings talk in colour and any of the shapes are there to express colour but not outline.  The flowers are sparks of light, built of and thrown out into the air as rainbows are thrown in an arc.'  He paintings are certainly vibrant and fresh.  She made many trips to the Lake District where she painted atmospheric landscapes of Ullswater, Borrowdale, Skidaw and the Duddon Valley.  Also included in the exhibition are some of her experimental works where she view the scene through a prism.

It was interesting from my point of view to study her composition and to ponder on the locations she had chosen to paint.

Image
Nicholson, W. (1940s) Ullswater, [online image] available from: http://winifrednicholson.com/paintings.html [Accessed 20.9.16]



Monday 19 September 2016

Woodland Dystopia and Darkness

I have recently revisited the woods both looking for some more 'less comfortable' images and also to experiment with some night photography in order to portray a darker side of the woods.

The following are typical of views that I see every time I walk into the woods, but not ones that I would naturally choose to photograph.  However they do illustrate how little humans care for nature around them.  It can be seen that the mattress has been dumped at the beginning of a footpath where people enjoy walking.  It is to be hoped that the forestry workers will make good after their tree felling.  We have to remember that trees are a crop and are managed and harvested like any other, but tree operations do not leave the wood pleasant for walking.  As William A. Ewing says in Landmark ' People come and go, the land is patient and will outlast us all.'  This wood will repair itself given time.






I have also visited the woods at night to attempt to portray the darker, more mysterious side of woods the atmosphere that we read of in some of our darker fairy stories and folk tales.  Some of the photographs are single long exposure images using ambient light and some have been illuminated by torchlight.  I some I have used 'in camera' multiple exposures both with ambient light and torch light.  In one shot a car came past during the exposure, also lighting the scene.  In these images I was looking for images that displayed some ambiguity.  I hope to return for some more experiments.









Landmark: The Fields of Landscape Photography. William A. Ewing

I spotted this book, published by Thames and Hudson on the Amazon Website when ordering something else and thought that it sounded an ideal source of research and inspiration for my current work.  William A. Ewing has been an author, lecturer, curator of photography and museum director for more than 40 years.  He was director of the Musee deLElysee, Lausanne from 1996 - 2010, and has curated exhibitions at numerous other institutions , including MOMA, New York, the Jeu de Paume, Paris and the Hayward Gallery, London.  The book comprises and excellent preface and introductory essay by Ewing and then 10 chapters entitled: Sublime, Pastoral, Artefacts, Rupture, Playground,Scar,Control, Enigma, Hallucination and Reverie.  It covers the full range of landscape genres and sometimes goes beyond landscape.  It ranges from bucolic images through disturbing depictions of a sullied earth, to surreal and artificial landscapes where nature is chanelled and regulated.  Each chapter begins with an introductory text and there are artists' statements from the contributing photographers who include the likes of Jem Southam,  Sally Mann, Mitch Epstein, Lee Friedlander, Joan Fontcuberta, Thomas Struth, John Davies to name but a few.

I found the text to be thought provoking and illumination and the included photographers a rich source of inspiration.

I include below selected extract from the preface and introduction that particularly resonated with me and highlights indicate those that I found of particular interest.


  • I have been drawn to landscape (in all its forms) more than any other genre of photography.
  • Like many of my professional colleagues, though, it is the man-altered or, rather, man -inhabited kind of landscape that I find most stimulating, rather than the pristine, operatic visions of, say, an Ansel Adams.  The human footprint is simple too massive to ignore.  A focus on the 'Anthropocene' is reflected in the term I have chosen for the book's title.
  • Of Calendars - it helped that the sun always shone in these pictures.
  • The English really do have a great love of landscape.......all nations do something similar, but I do not know of another whose love is for such a 'pastoral' quality - a yearning for that golden mean.
  • ....would have been saddened to learn that half of Britons admit that they have never stopped to admire the British Countryside and 68% say they have no idea where to watch the sunset in Britain.  They say they are far too busy.
  • Then, again, we've seen a plethora of images of a particular landscape before we ever actually get to visit it, and how can reality possibly live up to the sickly air-brushed images in the tourist brochure?
  • I cherish a degree of ambiguity; the images that hold my interest the most are those that hover on the fine line between the obvious and the ambiguous.
  • Critic Kenneth Baker writing of Burtinsky "Aesthetics and conscience collide in photography as nowhere else in contemporary art."  That collision certainly makes for gripping imagery.
  • Landscape photography is as varied a terrain as is the landscape itself.
  • Of course tourism, especially, relies on imagery of alluring landscapes, steering well clear of irksome realities such as junk yards, hazardous waste sites and rivers with eddies of soapsuds and fertilizer run-off.
  • Clearly the idea of the distant landscape as a site of escape, or even mystical, purifying powers, still holds sway over the human imagination.
  • ...evidently a photographer working for BP will take very different photographs from one working for Greenpeace.
  • By 'pleasure' I do not mean only the obvious pleasure that derives from an adept handling of aesthetics; I mean also the deep satisfaction that can stem from intelligent picture making: the moulding of something seen and felt, an judged to be important, into a convincing image.
  • Compare Harry Cory Wright's serene Cuckmere Haven with Google Earth/Street View images......but Wright's vision has transformed the site; he has selected what interests him - not the hustle and bustle of the here and now, but an indeterminate time. (Also Thomas Struth's El Capitan on the frontispiece and National Geographic's image of a tourist thronged entrance to Yosemite Valley.)
  • People come and go, the land is patient - it will outlast us all.
  • This distinction between what is correct and conventional, but unexciting, and what is incorrect, unconventional, but exciting, divides critics to this day.
  • There are those who have chosen to stay close to home, arguing that interest, beauty, perhaps even sublimity, may be found only a stone's throw away.
  • All photographers focus their cameras on the real physical world.  Some say that the world is beautiful enough or fascinating enough or even absurd enough as it is and does not need any artful tinkering.  But another camp disagrees.  They point out that even classical landscape photographers have subtly tweaked things to enhance effect. (in the 1850s the French photographer Camille Silvy sometimes moved clouds around to maximise the languid atmosphere he wanted and Ansel Adams, annoyed by humanity's careless behaviour outdoors, excised its unsightly signs in his work with a bit of deft retouching.)  Likewise many of today's photographers are ready to make minor changes to nature in the service of a more forceful image. (Ironically in art this is perfectly acceptable, while in photojournalism it is a sin, when discovered, that is punishable by career death. Also in the Landscape Photographer of the Year and Wildlife Photographer of the year competitions.)
  • The reshaping of the Earth is happening on a scale unimaginable to the reader of the Photographic News of 1875.
  • Photographer Edward Burtynsky speaks for many of his colleagues when he notes that ' we are reshaping the Earth in colossal ways'. before concluding that, 'We are capable of engineering our own demise.'
  • Many modernists had, in fact, begun as pictorialists.  Practitioners of both schools held in great reverence the finely crafted print, and in the work of modernists we find echoes of the pictorialists' symbolist credo that photography could convey deep feeling, even spirituality.
  • The twentieth century figure most associated with landscape photography in the public mind is Ansel Adams. ........a persuasive proselytizer, a passionate and effective environmentalist.
  • ....until, in the late 1960s and 1970s, a new generation arrived with a different mind-set.
  • Whereas Ansel Adams had expunged signs of civilization, the new topographics focused on them full in the face.
  • Today we are essentially still in this new topographic mind-set.  However, our historical sketch would not be complete without a final landmark: what has become known as the Dusseldorf School.................under the spiritual guidance of Bernd and Hilla Becher, photographers such as Thomas Struth, Alex Hutte, Elgar Essex and Andreas Gursky, individual voices united in their appreciation of the camera's clear-sighted objectivity (falsely criticized as neutrality), skillfully controlled colour and form to make prints of landscape imagery, the imapact of which is dramatic and authoritative.
  • A landscape does not necessarily have any connection with people; by definition place takes account of human presence.
  • One of the strongest threads running through the artist statements from 21st century photographers is that of the political.
  • Devoid of human habitation and use, or not, ultimately the land is owned, publicly or privately by someone.
  • A landscape is defended.  It is controlled.  In all probability its form has been altered, even if the changes took place long ago.  Indeed we can say with assurance today that its form has been altered, as civilisation has affected climatic conditions globally; not one single place can be said to be pristine.  Use in essay.
  • David Maisel 'There is no escaping the political.'
  • Rob Hann adds 'I'm not documenting the brutal, creeping sprawl of corporate America; I'm seeking the magic that still exists in the spaces in-between.'............Yet these words still suggest a certain political position.
  • 'The photographs I make are both personal and political', states John Davies simply.
  • Today the 20th century's new topographics lives on in altered landscapes, a shorthand term for the widespread current practice of searching out and recording the myriad ways human beings transform the surface of the Earth, 
  • .....most of the photographers in Landmark no longer regard landscape practice in its classic mid 20th century sense - a focus on the land devoid of human habitat, ideally in the form of wilderness (essay).  They have moved away from, if not firmly broken with the long-standing idea that the photographer stands apart from the landscape and looks at it as a passive, timeless thing......they are acutely aware of the self in the equation.
  • The earlier generation looked for spiritual growth and enlightenment (some connection with the Romantic sublime); the current generation is more anxiously focused on more pressing existential issues, driven by the feeling that the clock is ticking - what are we doing to the Earth?
  • ......there are still pleasures to be gained from landscape photographs that remind us of what we have lost, or grasp for alternative routes to the future.
  • Each generation of photographers has a new world to contend with, full of Chekhov's good and evil.  (Michael? Ass 4?)

Tuesday 6 September 2016

Ansel Adams, The Politics of Natural Space. Andy Grundberg.

My tutor recommended that I read this article when I was studying at Level 2 and having had it recommended to me by a fellow student following a recent Google Hangout where my work was discussed I felt that it was timely to give it another read.  It was written for The New Criterion in 1984 and is in Grundberg's book Crisis of the Real.

Andy Grundberg begins the essay by reminding us that when Ansel Adams died in 1984 he was the best-known and most widely admired photographer in the United States, if not the world.  He says that Adams' photographs took on the status of public monuments.  He suggests, though, that despite his popularity the nature of his aesthetic achievement is unresolved, going on to argue that he actually aspired to be the world-famous photographer that he became, working hard to cultivate this image.  He befriended Beaumont and Nancy Newhall and helped establish the photography department in MOMA in 1940 and in 1977 he provided funds to endow the Beaumont and Nancy Newhall Curatorial Fellowship at MOMA.  Grundberg goes on to inform us that Adams was the author of more than 35 books and was also a figure in conservation circles, serving as a Sierra Club director from 1936 to 1970.  Grundberg asserts as well that what made Adams so popular in the public mind was, primarily, his photography, especially those images that portrayed nature as a majestic and indomitable force impervious to the depredations of time and tourism.  He says that these images are among the most visually imposing, dramatically printed images of 20th century photography.  He suggests that in some ways they have similarities to the retouched images of the pictorialist era yet in most ways they are diametrically opposed to these ideals and are much more in sympathy with the straightforward and richly detailed early Western Frontier views of William Henry Jackson, Timothy O'Sullivan and Carleton Watkins.  Unlike those early pioneers who portrayed the land as alien and inhospitable Adams' photographs made nature seem gentle and friendly.  He says that in Adams' universe the moon always seems to be rising and storms always to be clearing, which suggest his modernist optimism for the future of the human spirit.

The downside to this, according to Grundberg, is that it shows us a sanitized world.  It never was like that, though in Adams' day as a 1922 to letter to his future wife shows when he complains of the crowds in the Yosemite Valley.  Grundberg asserts that, not only does Adams never spoke of the meanings of his pictures, neither does anyone else.  Grundbeg says that it is this silence coupled with the absence of any criticism of the work is what has left Adams' place in the art of the 20th Century surprisingly unsettled.  Grundberg argues that the person who has come closest to suggesting the nature of Adams' accomplishments as a picture maker is John Szarkowski, director of Photography at MOMA who wrote: " He is the last of those Romantic artists who have seen the great spaces of the wilderness as a metaphor for freedom and  and heroic aspirations."

Grundberg goes on to say that the experience of Yosemite depicted in Adams' photographs in no longer ours (and it would appear was not his either) and today's experience is more akin to Bruce Davidson's 1965 photograph of a crowded campsite on the valley floor.  More recently National Geographic magazine showed a photograph of the famous viewpoint at the entrance to the valley crowded with vehicles and tourists, far removed from the pristine wilderness of Adams.  Although that view is still there, but it is what is beyond and around it that strikes us today.  Grundberg expresses interest in the lengths that Adams went in his time to avoid everyday reality both in his subject matter and in his printing style.  In his concluding paragraph Andy Grundberg argues that there still exists a longing for the "clean and pure and untouched" spaces that Adams' landscapes depict and he says that in this style of images there is a comfort of a kind entirely lacking in the "man-altered" landscapes of the New Topographics  He concludes by asserting that Adams' photographs are valued because they now function in lieu of the scenic wildernesses as artifacts of a lost contentment.

I found rereading this essay very useful for getting me back on track when depicting landscape and nature in Lincolnshire.  As the first draft of Assignment 4 shows I have a tendency to portray an idealized view of nature of which I am in awe, both in my writing and my photography.  This was pointed out to me by my hangout group and on reflection I had to agree with them.  It is easy to walk in the landscape and see only what you want to see in a very blinkered fashion.  I returned to the woods and this time ignored the 'perfect, untroubled' nature and looked for that which was darker and made me feel less comfortable.  I have photographed this aspect of the land and paired these images with my previous ones to highlight the contrast.  These are shown in my third draft for Assignment 4 which can be found here..

Monday 5 September 2016

Body of Work Assignment 4, Third Draft

For Assignment 4 I have continued my walking from Assignment 3, this time walking through the Lincolnshire Limewoods that I skirted previously.  As I walk I am attracted to the beauty of nature around me, especially the close-up intricate detail that it is easy to miss and not notice.  At the same time, however, it would be impossible not to notice the darker, more uncomfortable side of the landscape.

These images are designed to be viewed in pairs with 'idealized nature' on the left and the 'less comfortable side of the landscape on the right, with footpath views interspersed between.  This is as shown in the thumbnails below.  The images can be viewed full size by clicking on the images, but this sadly mixes the order.




































































































































































































The introductory writing for this assignment is still a work in progress as is the editing and ordering of the images.  I am not sure I am able to do anything about the mixing of the order of the images in large on the blog, but it is fine in the thumbnails.  When the assignment is submitted it will be easier to pair them correctly; It would also be interesting to submit them as a PDF which allow the images to be viewed side by side as in a book.  As far as the text is concerned I am conscious of not writing too much as I am wary of providing 'all the answers' and would like the viewer to ask/answer their own questions.