fake show

there you are, in conversation, and get asked a question about something you mentioned. You begin to talk about this and try to create a complete concept, adding in some important information that will function as a backdrop to the main details. You tell of the bigger picture and try to recreate the atmosphere and situation, your mind tries to focus on the vital details that will bring it into sharpest focus, allowing the listener to grasp the full story.
In my memory the story is clear, but what have I recreated for the listener? Have I become a side show busker trying to sell my story?
The work revolves around these aspects and the notion of fakery and deception.... inadvertent deception. By emphasis I may have made the story more colourful or different.
The camera is a metaphor for recreating reality, albeit in a different medium and only containing certain visual information.
The pigeon holes are parts of stories, like treasured family photos, shared between two people.
I have been having fun with this piece... especially the camera. I made it from cardboard and glue and used a metal based paint to let it rust realistically. Also a small tip of the hat to Miroslav Tichy and his marvelous photos and fantastic cameras.
Its snowing and the sky is gray. Hoarknockle will be doing the barbeque tonight. A fine pinot noir from Oregon should warm the cockles tonight.

voy who?

making small talk and someone is talking about an occurrence, are we voyeurs in some small way? Are we intruding or peeping into an event that we had no part in? Why are we interested in what is being told? Many reasons....
To what extent do we beguile and seduce in the telling of a story? Do we colour and embellish to gain the attention of the listeners? Do we facilitate their voyeurism?
What kind of thrill do we provide by the recounting of a story? Is it like finding a fresh motor car accident along the highway of catching a glimpse of exposed skin in a crowd?
Do we play this game intentionally or is it a subconscious reaction to hold the listeners attention?
Imagine opening a box of possessions and lifting out objects one by one...things you know nothing about...they enthrall you and there is a frisson of discovery... Why? What is it we get excited about?
In the work I am doing right now, I am playing off different images and trying to confront the viewer with images that may trigger predictable reactions and then contrasting the imagery with something unexpected.
Here are two views of two different pieces. The upper is a glimpse of a figure through a small window and the lower image is ons of the "magic" boxes with the various sliding panels and dead end storage spaces. They are both only aspects of the entire work and are still in process.

creepiness

oddly enough this comes just after Halloween... although this was not my intention. Happenstance.
In my piece titled "Mimesis" its a large panel with a rhino-horned self portrait which hinges apart in the center to reveal the dark inner section of the door panels and these small unsettling images of insects and skulls. A reference to the 17thC "vanitas" concept. I like the idea of having creepy scurrying things lurking in the crack, unseen whilst the main image is dominant.
I have drawn some of the images in silverpoint. Its an interesting change of feeling to graphite, the metal point has a different feeling...less creamy and slick than pencil, but it has a directness which is refreshing. It either seems to make a mark or not, unlike the wide range of tonal value graphite gives. I also thought the notion of drawing insects in silver was an interesting notion.
I have prepared some more small panels for silverpoint by applying a ground which accepts the metal. Most other surfaces dont make marks when using silver, although some house paints seem to have whichever the ingredient is that makes the silver leave marks.
Once drawn, the silver tarnishes a bit and loses its dark intensity and becomes a warm gray tone. I prefer to keep the darker tonality and use an acrylic varnish to prevent the tarnishing, by painting it on right after I finish. This seals it but also precludes any further work as the silver does not take on the varnish.
The silverpoint itself is an annealed silver wire, slightly softer than regular silver and clamped in a clutch pen. It wears fairly slowly.
I have sent Hoarknockle off to collect various different pieces from our collection of sterling silver flatware and I shall be trying these out to see what kind of effect they give. I shall have to try and see if they make marks on a starched table cloth...

sisters

two sisters painted. Tried to keep it light and loose and fun. Thank goodness for digital photography which allows me to shoot as many pictures as I can of children...they can be so fickle and difficult to get a good shot. In this case they were two angels and really worked hard to give a smile with mom coaching them off camera.
I used an oilpaint wash with turpentine which I rubbed off in places and gave a lovely tonal range. Lots of glaze as always.
Now back to the main work of getting my history story done.
Snow has fallen and I can more easily stay indoors and work. Less distractions.
Also working on my new website with the crew of Squareflo.com They are helping me build a fine and refined new website which will host my blog and everything else. Now my illustration work will be side by side with my fine art stuff.

believing

my friend Ivann asked me how I started each work and until that moment I had not quite realised how I went about it. For that moment he took me to his perspective and showed me myself from a different angle.
I had not sought it out and it was only when I had somehow stumbled into it, that I intuitively approached every new piece in this way. Like a swimmer standing on the starting block, smelling the chlorine and breathing in the pre start hush, feeling the jangling anticipation of the race... thats how I try to shape my mindset when I start each new work.
Its not easy, please let me dispel that thought. Its something that one needs to feed, like a yeast plant that can live from one bread to the next, but needs attention to live on and on. I feed it enthusiasm and thrill and in return it breeds more. I receive this with gratitude. Its a synergy.
There have been times where the horror of a blank surface has paralysed me. I have no guarantee that it wont happen again, but I do believe that the enthusiastic pursuit will have enough momentum to keep me rolling...trick is not to come to a halt.
I try to summon the feelings of triumph and the knowledge and experience of previous works to infuse me ...to find that child-like thrill of starting something new, Dare I say it...its like the Force. I dare not ponder the negative possibles of anything I begin...Its a positive image that sucks me into it. The last three pieces have flowed from one to the next and drawn me in and taken me along...and I have to keep the momentum, carry the speed. Its rather like mountain biking over rolling terrain.
I have worked at so many dreadful things and for so many thoughtless people that I make a conscious effort to remember that and to feel the rush of working to the call of my own ideas. Its a great big thing of wonder.
I recently overheard someone saying that work was only for money. Its quite scary to hear someone say that...and to know that there are so many people who live like that. I have found work to be something that propels me and forms me. It gives a certain meaning to who I am as equally I give meaning to what it is I do. Even awful jobs have been like this. I have always tried (tried...not always succeeded) to make the work part of who I am...and not only for the money. For now, I work because it is what I do, its more like breathing and I know it is a very very special opportunity. I work because I feed off it beyond the money. My condolences to those who don't.
The triptych is a digital representation of the work I will print and mount in a frame of sorts...each piece will be around 12 by 18 inches and I will glaze and paint into them as well...
What are they about? Imagine that you are going through an old box with pictures and letters, you may or may not know whose they are, but you form some kind of idea or opinion on what all these differing bits mean. These images have some things that connect them, and also not. How do my stories relate to each other? Maybe they do, maybe not.

creative journeys

the point of going on a voyage of discovery is not to decide beforehand what it is you will discover, you have to be open to whatever you find. I believe there is an ancient Zen concept of not arriving at a spring with a full cup since you already have a filled vessel, you cannot take away anything from the spring.
Its in this spirit that I try to voyage and find ideas. There is no point in censoring yourself before you even find anything. There is no point in forming a mental construct of anything until you have found and studied it. As artists its our job to look and find and amplify. Is there any difference to finding a beautiful (yes, define beauty?) butterfly in a rain forest or a scary looking fish in the crushing black depths of the Marianas trench? You can never tell which creature may have a bigger impact or surprise.
I try to explain my work to myself and I try to follow some kind of logic, but there are times when solutions present themselves and there is no going back or rational explanation to be made. Isnt it equally irrational to paint a bunch of flowers slashed from their natural surroundings and jammed into a vase (purely for our own pleasure) and then painted? Why not then make a still life of 20 rashers of bacon draped over a door handle? It all comes down to what we regard as the norm. There is little rational about this.
Is there anything really rational about classical music? It must be the ultimate in abstraction, yet we regard it with the utmost reverence and awe. Why should visual art be anything less? (well okay , I do find Jeff Koons and Tracy Emin rather silly)

To me the camera is another way of telling a story. The old adage of: "The camera never lies" has somewhat faded with the arrival of Photoshop, yet there still is a tradition of looking through albums of photos as a kind of story telling. Even if it is a blurry image on a cellphone. This picture is part of my conversation about story telling. I think it will be the middle piece of a triptych, the one side being the fractured portrait in pigeon holes, the other being an image I am currently working on. It feels good. It doesn't make perfect sense, but there is some kind of kinship and connection among the images.
I am not discovering new worlds or continents, I am navigating the smaller fissures on and around them.

missive missile

if one had to visualise the emails and traffic of the internet as missiles, it would look like planetary intercontinental warfare, like a cloud of electrons blurring the nucleus of the globe. Its quite staggering to imagine. I thought of it this morning after the dog HAD to go out and I was waiting for some time and then my brain would NOT go back to sleep.
As an artist, visual stuff is so important. The whole notion of gathering visual fodder and looking at everything becomes such a focus of one's attention. I often forget that others around me don't share this ravenous gathering of images. Furthermore, many don't follow the way one often takes an idea for a walk and finds the strangest routes to explore... it happens. Without the very strange travels and diversions from the normal, it would all remain so predictable and ordinary. In order to find the new world one has to go forth and travel, to go boldly...
In my work I have been looking at how we communicate and how, when we do, we recycle stories and tales and connect them to one another according to the company and the situation. This means that ideas resurface in new and interesting ways. In just this way I am using digital images in my actual paintings by using a transfer film from Digital Art Studio Seminars, and also using photographs of my paintings in my digital work.
I am finding this very exciting and it allows the re-use of imagery and making interesting images.
In the included piece above, I have re-used part of the Sir Cornelis painting and incorporated into a digital work I was making. It extends the narrative I have been pursuing.
I am currently making a companion piece which should go next to it. Work in progress.

look through

working on the billboard style "mimesis", I kept feeling as though I wanted something more on the main picture...to suggest that there would be more hidden elsewhere. I painted an eye looking through a hole where the right eye would be.
Meanwhile I have been working on the preparation of other pieces and experimenting with some technical ideas, adding digital imagery by using a transfer film and getting some smaller pieces covered in silver point ground for drawings.
Nothing much to show there...only the new eye which I thought was worth looking at.

mimesis nemesis

mimesis, the old Greek concept of copying. The thought was that art was mimesis, it copied nature. Art could invent nothing. Its an old debate.
But in the stream of what I am working on, its a reference to the copying or almost miming of stories and history which one tells in social interactions. I "copy and paste" stories into a conversation from my memory.
When one is faced with explaining about yourself... telling about who you are and not just peripheral framework regarding yourself... one is faced with the rather large question about how you portray who you are. Do you under state in the belief that the cultural system of the audience is able to process understatement? Or do you inflate and colour the story for effect, knowing that the listeners will desaturate the story as with most media they come into contact with. (one hopes!)
The way one loads meaning into or onto the verbal picture you create is so easy to miscalculate and change the true nature of the point you are making.
In this image, a billboard style picture of myself,I present myself as a face one would find on a sideshow advert. Its the well worn sign board that is put out to attract the curious to come and see the freak show, the bearded lady, the tattooed man, the lizard creature. I have a single rhino horn growing from my forehead. Rhinos are pretty dangerous and lack good eyesight, they tend to rush in horn first, ready to gore any shadow, more bluff than lethal intent.
Its also a reference to the famous self portrait of Albrecht Durer in which he presents himself as a sophisticated gentleman, his long hair in carefully painted ringlets.
The halo.... so many people unconsciously want the artist to be fired into creativity by the Furor Divinus...divine madness... as though its a fragment of greatness or a touchstone of magical power. This is my worn and damaged and rather tacky halo which is worn on ceremonial occasions only. Hoarknockle dragged it out of the vault for this performance. Specially.
The whole surface of the image will be degraded and aged and faded to make it look old and worn. Rather a has been billboard.
The surprise will lie in the center of the work...which is in fact two narrow doors that hinge in the middle of the piece.
On the narrow faces of the two edges that meet when the hinges are closed, will be painstakingly painted insects against a dark background... once again a reference to the concept of Vanitas...the insects taken from 17th Century still lifes.
But thats still not there...for now its the billboard..getting older by the minute.. paint peeling and flaking off.

gun again

just a short posting.
Mostly finished the two pieces I have been working on and have been doing a lot of glazing and over glazing...slow going.
There are so many things that rob one of time to paint.
Its interesting to me that my grandfather, Johannes B Wessels, had to sign a paper promising allegiance to the British Crown after the cessation of Boer War hostilities. In becoming a Canadian citizen I too had to pledge allegiance to the British Crown. After all these years!
The rifle barrel is the front end of the rifle trigger...the more business-like end of the tool. I have often wondered at whom it may have been pointed and if it ever found its mark. Sobering thought.
These pictures have had numerous layers of over glazes to develop the depth of darkness and colour I was striving for. Its slow going but it certainly does achieve results.
The other pieces I am working on are all in such an early phase that it seems pointless to show a bare piece of wood.

empty space

rather like waking from a coma, and not quite knowing where you are in space and time. Having just arrived back from installing my youngest son in university, a week of preparation and driving and making sure he is okay.
I walk back into the studio and feel like I have suffered a brief spell of amnesia, the pictures look familiar but I feel I need to re-establish my connection with them, slightly awkward.
Hoarknockle (Why did I want to call him Horseradish?) is away visiting his sick auntie (I suspect there is a comely niece or cousin once divided, erm I mean removed, who may be hovering there). This means that I am currently living a life devoid of ethanolic joys as I cannot seem to find the wine cellar. Lets call it amnesia.
This has allowed me a giant stride in my work. I have taken up the brush again, a heroic moment. Now if only I can remember what one does with it.
My eldest son has returned from hunting tigers...or whatever it is the young men do nowadays. He is thin as a rake and has an extraordinary preoccupation with bicycles and Belgium. He intends to go peddling in Tobago... not quite sure what he'll be peddling. As long as he isnt trying to sell off the cars..... or my wine collection. Oh correction... pedaling.
Here are the most recent iterations of my work too.
The large painting featuring Sir Cornelis is almost done.I added parts of a rifle to it The red phone is coming along and is part of something more. The Cuca refers to a Portugese beer "Cuca" which was sold in Angola and after which illegal drinking places were named during the South African Angolan war. I found the bottle cap during a sojourn in Angola.

trigger

times when one manages to complete things in a satisfactory way... one always seems to remember those breakthroughs rather than the long slog to get to the point where you decorate the whole things with a final cherry on the top.
The large piece with Sir Cornelis is getting closer to completion and I finished a smaller panel that will be added to the large piece, a very satisfactory moment.
This trigger is an actual rifle part from an old .303 rifle that came into my grandfather's possession toward the later part of the Boer War. There is quite a long story behind it. Its a wonderful metaphorical component to the image.
Positive, very positive.

artist?

just what do people imagine one to be when they discover that you are an artist? Is it registered as a kind of condition, much like being blonde or flat footed? Could it be that because there are so many people who claim to be artists that it has lost any kind of meaning? There are those who have bought a pad of paper and a set of pencil crayons and have the urge to draw.... but dont. They claim to be artists.
Its time they regulated this title. Not that many fakers claim to be doctors or space scientists.
It leaves me dumbfounded when people see my work and utter "I never realised you did that..." I make art...I paint...I am not sure what they imagined. If I were a wine maker...would people be surprised if I produced a bottle of wine?..."I would never have imagined that you ACTUALLY make wine...fancy that!"
I rest my case.
Meanwhile I have been making art. Much to everyone's surprise. I know.... "and for my next trick..."
Sir Cornelis continues...gets darker and partially disappears. There are other things happening to that piece you cannot see. Its a surprise. I am doing something using paint. Completely unexpected.
I also began work on a red telephone. It may cause people to lose consciousness when they find out. Please show it around responsibly.
Hoarknockle is back and I suspect that he may have become contaminated by liberal ideas from his visit to Lord Pfaff.
Lady Sandra is packing the Maybach in anticipation of sending our boy off to university.

where from?

where do ideas come from? I have no idea. Really. Thats why the relationship with the muses is so important. One does not want the muses to cut off your ideas. Ever.
Ive often worked on pieces which have not cooperated ... resisted my best efforts and seemed to have a mind of its own. And then, without warning something will happen...Ive seen this a lot... and I can tell when its happened, but never how to make it happen. An elusive thing it is. Its a thrilling feeling to suddenly see it come to life.
Here is a close up of part of the picture... its the image of Sir Cornelis fractured and inside small square spaces. Its still in process...but close enough for it to look like something.
The progress is positive.

insurrection and paint

A friend and fellow artist called me from one of the old colonies, the United States, in fact. He has been having some awful trouble with his servants who seem to have formed a union and refuse to work. Seems they are under the impression that they have rights of some kind!
I immediately got Hoarknockle to pack emergency relief supplies and commandeer his friend Alphonse Gorefinch to travel to the distant land and offer my help. They have packed cases of claret and some of my burgundy and a collection of fine hunting guns...my WW Greener matching pair as well.(I do hope they remembered to pack some foie gras for dear Kurt)

I havent heard back from them as yet. They set off a day or two ago in the Maybach.

Meanwhile I have been working like a trojan, doing everything myself. I have even discovered the kitchen, but did draw the line at making anything myself. I now have a scullery maid who waits on me.. she carries a small portable radio device from which I dispense orders for her to comply with. Not quite dear Hoarknockle...but she will do for now.

Here is some actual painting I managed to do. Its Great Grandfather, Sir Cornelis. (Lady Sandra says I look just like him..without the beard of course.)

crackle...etc etc

the studio is full of pieces in differing stages of work.
Bad paint flaked off a large panel and there was some swearing and scraping. New primer turned out to be a solvent based paint and is a reminder that spectacles should be worn when buying paint, even when the can is among others of the acrylic persuasion.
The image of crackled paint is something I did... its not actually old.
Household enamel paint is horrid stuff. I'm not perturbed by the solvent....it's due to consistency and stickyness and its unique ability to hold a static charge and flick off the brush and land in places its not wanted.
On the conceptual front there has been steady progress and ideas keep turning up and knocking on the door. Who knows where they come from? Right now I dont care, as long as they keep coming.
Its going well.
I quite like the look of the Diana Dors 1949 Type 175 S Delahaye going on the block soon. I am tempted. It would look quite lovely if it were covered in paisley design....Its such a beautiful car... Lady Sandra would just love it...I can see her in it, her blonde hair blowing in the wind....

lots of white

it takes time to layer on enough paint to approximate the kind of build up found on indoor surfaces that takes years and constant abuse. Old enamel paint used to drip and dribble and leave marks and then eventually dry to a glassy finish which cracked or splintered and chipped to reveal ghastly older colours beneath.
This is all part of the concept I am working on for my exhibition.
Imagine arriving in a different culture and trying to explain yourself. Even if you get the language right, you struggle to convey ideas because there are many small obstacles like words having subtle differences and accents which have all kinds of meaning inside them.
If you come from a different culture, even simple things dont necessarily hold the same meaning or value. The ability to use a verbal shorthand is lost because the whole construct of understanding is based on very different values and historical knowledge.
My work deals with the issues and obstacles of telling my history story. Every time I am in a situation where I need to explain or tell about who I am, I figuratively unpack all the boxes I travelled with. Sometimes the stories follow a different order and different things are emphasised and there are subtle differences in meaning from one occasion to the next. The configuration changes although the essential truth of it all remains the same...but the constant reconstruction of the larger story allows the nature of it to change.
My works revolve around this "telling of history story"
To show this I am working in and on boxes...painting objects which will go into boxes, painting onto actual boxes and special boxes which have been purpose built to show many ideas, but the panels obstruct each other. Other works will be built from collections of loose bits, rather like a quilt. (no...not a quilt!!) There will be repetition of imagery and sly trompe l'oeil trickery to add a confusing element.
Right now I am in the process of making and preparing the various objects and surfaces onto which I want to paint. The want to look old and used and I am going back to my recent career as scenic artist in film and TV to use techniques of breakdown and aging which will make everything look used and well travelled.
It is taking some time... be patient....Hoarknockle is trying his level best.

paler shade of white

its takes time to build a good layer of paint thick enough to look like years of paint build up. Hoarknockle has been faithfully working away at layer after layer, day after day.
The image of the squares with the surfaces set into them are a box with pigeon holes into which I have set small pieces of card and layered on thick paint which has now cracked rather delicately and beautifully. Onto the smaller card surfaces I will paint an image which will collectively become one picture. The pigeon hole box will be mounted on a larger wooden panel which I have also been working on.
The other image is an old piece of board with a door cut into it...and this piece is also currently undergoing the layered paint treatment. There will be an image on this board and another, possibly contradictory image inside when the door is opened.
I have also been working on sketches and concepts and more priming of boxes with mysterious hidden panels.
The preparation is tedious but allows much time for thought and making of plans. Working on a number of pieces at the same time also avoids time spent watching paint dry.
Lady Sandra and I took the yacht out on the lake last night, sipping a delicate Gosset champagne while watching the sun set . Most soothing. I highly recommend it.

layers

the work before starting on the actual painting is less romantic and just requires a brush and paint applied to a surface to prepare the surface. This gives me time to reflect on the concepts and techniques I want to use and refine the imagery I have in my head.
As I sit here watching Hoarknockle scrape and paint the boxes and boards I will use, I can sip a beautiful wine and marvel at the tenacity of the human body as it works to paint and sand, a tedious and exhausting cycle of steps that will allow me to work on a velvety smooth substrate.
I am also using an old scenic painting trick of painting acrylic onto PVC plastic in layers and then peeling it off and then sticking it to a board or other surface... this gives the effect of thick old paint which can be peeled back or cracked and splintered off, giving wonderful textural effects. I also plan on using chips and sheets of this paint to draw on in silverpoint.
I havent really thought this whole thing through properly... now that Hoarknockle is painting, I have no one to minister to my demands for libationary sustenance....and I cant seem to remember any of the other servants names, how do I call for anyone?
I wonder if Lady Sandra knows?

...and once again...from the top...

back from the land of chocolate and wild yeast beers...and the famous Fabrique Nationale weapons factory! Yes Belgium.
Hoarknockle is holding me steady as I plunge recklessly into my HISTORY STORY project. (Although the title may change depending on my mood and whim)
The grant I received from the Saskatchewan Arts Board will allow me to work almost exclusively on this project which will deal with the notion that I have to explain my background to the people I get to know in the country I now call homeland. Because I was born on a different continent and have boxes full of real and metaphorical stuff to share and explain, my work will deal with the concept/metaphor of boxes and the contents.
The white boxes shown in the photo were custom made for this project and have all kinds of wonderful hidden, sliding panels on which I can paint. So far its all priming and getting them ready...quite a lot of preparation before one can get to the juicy stuff.
I now have red and white wine piped to taps in my studio, a large supply of cripplingly expensive cigars and a new collection of artistic cravats and berets to wear while I paint.
Lady Sandra is out tending to the poorly as she usually does. The boy wonders are individually either flying a kite or riding a bicycle very quickly.
Rather exhilarating!
Its about time for my snack of crepes and melted Belgian chocolate...