The unfocussed fuzzy moon
Strange streaks in the sky
And the beckoning bedroom
Fuzzy Moon
Category: Art Photography
Monday
I waited for dawn
Here it is all fresh and new
Monday pink and grey.
THE NAIRNE KNIFING …
The judge looked over his spectacles.
“Fox, you are a miserable contemptible grub” he spat.
“There is no point denying your crime – you were caught in action, knife in hand.”
“You have paint on your hands – and this is not the first time!”
“You are a serial knifer of the worse kind – Have you forgotten your grotesque unnatural Silhouette Series?
And try as you may, surely your disgusting obsession with cliff faces cannot be wiped from your warped and wicked mind.”
“Now – look at me, look at me! – today you have crawled out from whatever dark and filthy hole you call home and combined the two crimes – Silhouettes on a Cliff Face”
“Is there no end to your filth!?”
“How do you feel about this, Ant Fox my lad?”
“Are you sorry? Do you regret what you’ve done?”
(A shuffling of feet and clearing of throat).
The old bent artist stammered a reply
– “I don’t regret it yet – it’s a work in progress!”
The Artist’s Mindset (or “Mind” Set)
It’s Monday (3pm Adelaide time)
and “Mindset”? … I’m not sure I’ve got one.
Even so, I’ve decided that I have to force some evolution in my artworks … I’m a bit bored with my oil abstractish landscapes (extended post-exhibition blues), so I’m trying to move slightly away from them.
On the weekend, I finished a sort of “Modernist” ish painted sketch on ‘canvas paper’ of people in a gallery with a redhead in the focus area –
(I’ve always had this “thing” for redheads with glasses – 45 or so years ago I even married one … she’s a “keeper”). ….. But I digress.
I purchased an A4 pad of Yupo paper on Friday. I’d read about it but never seen the stuff.
After breakfast and before coffee, I sketched some stones on half a sheet (ie A5) using ink and pencil – lovely smooth free surface.
This afternoon I have spent a short (very short) time splodging on it with diluted oils (Prussian Blue, Australian Red-Gold, Raw Umber with AS Medium No 1).
This has been a really quick exercise – a very, very different painting surface that has sparked at least a large fragment of my imagination.
I’m not sure how resilient the painted surface will be once fully dry, but the potential seems great.
This is not a great artwork by any stretch of over active imagination, nor is it meant to be – simply a mini review and potential gathering exercise.
See – I told you I don’t really have a Mindset as such.
A Work In Crisis
I’m feeling the cold this winter.
My studio is very cold, so I haven’t been doing much painting.
But, I am slowly painting second layers over a largish canvas, constructing an abstract landscapey work … as a WIP, it isn’t fit for viewing yet.
For fun, I took some close-ups of portions of the canvas and made them into a digital photo collage … the subject is “from the easel”, but the result is “from the computer”.
“Fragments Of A Work In Crisis”
(digital photo collage of details of an oil painting work possibly in progress)
THE EXHIBITION THAT WAS
You know, it takes a lot less time to take down an art exhibition than it does to hang one.
We sold a few pieces, more than enough to cover our direct expenses.
But was there an overall profit?
No, nothing like it.
Of course the experience could be classed as a “profit” even though no money changed hands.
The knowledge that I have sold more paintings in my lifetime than Van Gogh managed has to be priceless!
We took our time over the deconstruction.
We could have driven there in the morning, taken it down, and driven back that evening, but somehow the overnight stay seemed the better option.
Mind you, it was a fairly expensive option.
The hotel room was comfortable and fairly well appointed, but the price was a bit steep for a room in a small country town.
Yes, the room tariff was less than we paid on our last stay in Sydney, but not all that much less.
In Sydney we stayed on the top floor of a tall hotel in the centre of the city, where we had stunning views of high-rises, sunsets, and the road heading to the harbour.
In our small country town hotel, we were up one flight of stairs with a walkway balcony outside our window and a view of the drive through bottle department.
Still, the bed was comfortable, the food in the dining room was OK (if not wonderful), and the wine was great.
The start-of-winter journey there and back was picturesque, through country we love, tinged the faintest of greens by the breaking of the drought.
The wrapped paintings in the back of the wagon muted road noise and any rattles, and the roads were quiet.
It was a good exhibition we are told.
It was fun to set up.
It was a buzz to listen to the praise at the opening.
But … I think I have come to the conclusion that my paintings might be a bit – well … boring.
I’ll work on a new direction for inspiration … perhaps I’ll look back to the 1980s when it almost (almost) felt like I had something.
But for now now, two months after the hanging,
the A.Fox Collective “Abstracted Landscapes” has left the building.
Photographic Special Defects
For many years – From about 1969 until the mid 1990s I processed all my own black and white photos.
I toyed with colour processing and printing, but black and white was my passion.
I loved my Pan F and FP4.
I carried my Pentax cameras everywhere.
Occasionally I borrowed a large format camera (including, a couple times, a very nice heavy Linhof plate camera), but essentially I was a 35mm man.
I had access to a real darkroom equipped with a Leitz enlarger.
Ah – those were the days!
Now I have no access to a darkroom, and I confess that I lack the spirit and will to set one up.
But nowadays, I have digital photography to amuse me.
I have an iPhone SE, which has a pretty good camera, a Pentax DSLR, and a Sony a6000 mirrorless (a lovely digital camera) … and an iMac computer to play upon.
No, it isn’t the same as the good old film days but it keeps me happy, and some of the images are really very good.
The shooting limitation of film is gone – a two headed coin. With the ability to shoot hundreds of shots in any session we can get a bit careless, but at the same time good old aunty serendipity can present us with one or two sensational shots from all those many.
And the processing is so simple.
There are many apps and the like that let a fella like me do all the tweaking and bending and distorting that I would have once upon a time done with double exposures, maskings, chemicals, solarising, and all that fun jazz.
Yes, it is cheating. Yes, back in the 70s I would have sneered. But now, I’m a happy wee grey haired digital photoist … having fun with a camera, computer, and cup of tea close at hand.
Who’d have thunk it?
The Lights of the City
This is a little experiment in duotone digital photography.
Image taken yesterday on North Terrace Adelaide,
from the passenger seat of our Skoda using my iPhone via the Filmborn App set to emulate PanF.
Processed at home whilst consuming Yorkshire Gold tea bag tea – currently on sale in our local Foodland Supermarket.
(Don’t say that I don’t supply the details of my artworks! 😉 )
Foxings 