After some Tenzo cooking duties at New Year have been using genmai brown rice more for experimenting with filling chahan dishes, plus simple miso shiru soups like tofu and spring onion. You are going to need miso and katsuo dashi fish stock for that and some mirin, sake optional (but great to drink hot with dinner after a studio shift!) and shoyu soy sauce. Spring is on its way so more salads like nato (fermented beans) salad with scrambled egg (good with sugar and soy sauce in) and sliced tomato will be good…
- 16 February 2012
- Art, Walking
I’ve been out with my camera walking and looking at new sites not too far from Glasgow and trying to get some good atmospheric shots with my SLR. The phone camera shots here are a good memory trigger for later to get ideas going for sketchbook work and generally remembering the sights and sounds, the multi-sense experience. Being next to the gently swirling and meditative river reminded me of the slow moving intro at the start of Twin Peaks (David Lynch and Mark Frost). Before the spring growth there is a quiet stillness so ideal for photography in this area of Scotland, a gateway to the North and West Highlands. Lots of birdsong here on the southern edge of Loch Lomond National Park, rustling in the hedgerows of blackbirds and a tiny goldcrest hopping on a young planted pine – plus never far away the detritus of industry and people’s consumables intermingling with nature in a curious, weird and sometimes talkative way…
- 05 February 2012
- Poetry, Zen
Zazen
Silent movement
Passing through the stillness
And empty form.
This wee haiku is a thought on zazen and experience. After my recent studio shift, zazen and considering the looser paintings I’ve been doing, I think it’s good not to bring too much, or any at all although this can be impossible, of the bias, discrimination and ‘knowledge’ into the present as these kill the fullness of action and experience. As our teacher at the Glasgow Zen Group says, it is about leaping…
- 05 February 2012
- Art, News, Poetry
moon snow
guided by the rolling moon
heated by the february sun
Glinting and sunbeams – obscured horizons
Above animal tracks, boot prints,
Mountain hare prints in blue-white snow -
Towards the half-moon rolling down Ben Vrackie’s
White hill edge topped by south pointing ice
Snow fingers from monstrous frozen rust structure,
Rising from the summit’s ocean floor of coral crystals,
Plunging to dark red black land below brightening moon.
Over the last few months I’ve been continuing to build up new ideas about 3D work in my practice, using various techniques, props, lighting and digital photography to explore presentation and atmosphere…
It’s great fun building installations and working from these in sketchbooks, such as my dynamics studies, below left, (some tighter work and looser too, all on the spot from life) using various studio and other fairly lightweight materials. Some of my students made the installation below right, making some interesting negative spaces.
Of course there are a lot of inspiring artists out there exploring various media, some that have influenced me with land art, installation, experimental sculpture – all fluid categories where boundaries are really quite free and blurred – such as Ai Weiwei’s ‘Forever’ installation or Chinese doors piece that spontaneously collapsed mid exhibition, Richard Long’s eloquently photographed sculpture during remote walks, Hamish Fulton’s poetic artist’s books and installations of text, and of course Anselm Kiefer’s various experments.
- 28 January 2012
- Art, Poetry
Here are some excerpts of word art drawings and notation, plus ink studies, reflections on last year’s trips to the Outer Hebrides…
splintered half-covered green-grass wild-flowers sheep-shit tide-in tide-out rustless pink-steel-alloy sloping-hillside
visitors at a distance cloudy morning passing boats skull shaped sculpture spacecraft zigzag trickle of fresh black water on grey brown rock wave splash
- 27 January 2012
- Art, News
Recent studies using mixed media on card, paper and sketchbooks have been leading to much more free and abstracted pieces that is the way I’m trying to push forward into more poetic, less pictorially restricted territory… ‘Flowing Through Space’ (top-left) was a bit of a breakthrough. Many of these pieces are moving fluidly through city and landscape waymarks working from sketches, memory, sometimes photos or other distorted images, a mix of these or from other pieces, essentially distilling the process. Nevertheless I’m trying to keep it real! by not overworking and not too flat. So it can be pretty hit and miss!
Okamoto Taro (mid to late 20thC Japan), whose spirit and passion for art I really admire, said ‘Art is Magic.’ Although I don’t go for all his work his sculpture and D&P was often free and playful and he never wanted anything to get in the way of experiencing his work, such as any artistic compromise or even just framing with glass which apparently particularly upset him. Picasso was also perfectly on the ball when he said ‘Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.’
- 23 January 2012
- Art, Poetry
A very talented and enthusiastic student of mine blogged her visit to my studio with the photo and creative writing below, which I really like, and kindly allowed me to re-post here. It is great to be able to see the studio through fresh eyes…
“Monday 23 January 2012: What’s through the door this week?
Just back from my first art class of 2012.
I adore my art class despite, or maybe because, I experience the whole gamut of emotions in two short hours.
1st – excited – what will we do this week?
2nd – joyous – my first marks on the paper are really promising. I like them!
3rd – fear – what will happen if I draw that line there. Shall I do it? Shall I not?
4th – anger – knew I shouldn’t have done it!
5th – hope – hey, if I keep at it it might just turn out okay
6th – gratitude – the art tutor just said he likes that bit I did in the far left corner of the paper
7th – suspicion – does that mean he doesn’t like the rest of it?
8th – determination – I won’t give up god damn it!
9th – satisfaction – it did turn out okay after all
10th – contentment – I get to drive home listening to Dolly Parton at full volume singing at the top of my voice
11th – excitement – what will we do next week?”
Over the new year weekend I went to the inaugural Glasgow Zen Group retreat, or sesshin, at Rokpa House in Glasgow’s west end. Every morning up at half past five to start the day with one and a half hours zazen meditation before breakfast during the holiday may not be many people’s idea of fun, but as a zazen practitioner in it for the long run it was right up my street. A great way to start the day! It is so fortunate to have such a positive group and encouraging teacher John Fraser. To get away from the hussle and bussle of everyday routine for even a small number of days and meditate and study zen philosophy is very nourishing and revitalising for my general mindset and approach as an artist. Zazen meditation is not an escape, but actually means facing up to the world so zen practice for me is invaluable in being able to fully experience the world around me, so is a real gift artistically!
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- 07 January 2012
- Art, Poetry, Zen
This is my sensei Wakabayashi’s Sho calligraphy of zen master Dogen’s poem coming to terms with reality ‘empty-handed’ after returning from China – ‘The eyes are horizontal, and the nose is vertical.’
This prompted my partner to tell me the story she read of Ikkyu (Rinzai zen master, 1394-1481) who placed a curving, twisted bonsai tree on display outside with the note attached ‘If you can see this tree as straight, you will receive a reward’. Townspeople duly gathered up, squinting hard and mumbling ‘How can we see it straight?’
Towards sunset a passing traveller stopped and admired the tree saying ‘What a beautiful winding tree.’ When Ikkyu heard this he passed the traveller the small reward.
The traveller, like Dogen, had grasped reality as it was rather than being carried away by things. Wakabayashi is getting old now, in his nineties, but I am grateful for what I can learn from the wisdom of his markmaking, not unlike that of winding, curved branches and roots…