Tag Archives: Creative

Studio Build ONE

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This is the new studio I got through Axisweb. A 2,800 sq. ft. light industrial unit for £30 per month. Obviously it’s not only my studio but I am the only one in it at the moment. The space is the biggest I’ve had access to for a good while and has come at a good time for me.

I have been working towards building an environment, with interactive elements, since 2005 when I completed my MA. I was always stymied by the need to earn a living leading to a lack of space and time. Now that I’m retired I have the time but didn’t have the space and couldn’t afford a commercial rent so I applied for an Arts Council grant under their Develop Your Creative Practice strand. I was unsuccessful in the application but then the Axisweb studio came up and I thought why not do it anyway.

The project can be seen here https://www.ian-latham.com/geranium/geranium.html where there a series of developmental animations of 3d models. I will write more about the space itself in a different post, this series will plot the physical and practical process involved in building it and its more open companion piece.

As a reference point for the studio space artist groups in Doncaster are offering spaces through the council that measure 4.5 x 2.5 metres, that’s slightly bigger than half the blue tarpaulin in the close up picture, for £15 per month.

Spaces like this have limits you accept and work around. This space is essentially a fifteen metre square with a 5x4mtr corner office. The corner office has motion sensor triggered lighting and two wall heaters that have timers attached. It has four double wall sockets and is carpeted. None of this useful for me at all. The rest of the space has no lighting and one double socket next to the electrical consumer unit. There is no heating either. The space is well lit by six large skylights, clear corrugated plastic by the look of it, and is usable during daylight hours. I have had to invest in extension leads and adopt a very considered practice – never leaving anything plugged in that’s not being used, taking time to put away equipment between uses as I move the sockets near enough to the work – to be able to build. The other downside to AxisWeb spaces is that you have a 21 day notice period from either side, so if the landlord rents the space you have to leave quickly.

I took the keys on October 26th , and moved the equipment in on Tuesday 30th. Materials were delivered on Monday 5th November and I built the bench in the picture below that afternoon (yesterday as I write). Stay tuned for more as time passes.

Tomatoes

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Over the summer I planted tomatoes for the first time in years. I didn’t get them in until May so the fruit ripened in September and was so ugly that may wife declared they could not be eaten. So here’s what I did with them.

This is the first painting – I tend to find first versions are over involved, become fussy and subject to continual finessing, and make me wish there was someone there to tie my hands so that I stopped. These are placed on a drawing board on my turntable in my attic studio. Oil on Paper 90×90.

Two tomatoes Oil on board 46x81cm

Two tomatoes Oil on board 46x81cm

As I progressed I used a lot of red and yellow paint so I started other paintings so as not to waste any. This is the first, on hardboard that was lying around. I’m trying to establish their weight and get the right shininess onto the surface.

Two Tomatoes Two oil on board 46x81cm

Two Tomatoes Two oil on board 46x81cm

another Two tomatoes version done at the same time and with the same ends. I decided I wanted to paint all eight with a different background to concentrate their redness.

Tomatoes on Yellow oil on paper 115x90cm

Tomatoes on Yellow oil on paper 115x90cm

The photograph doesn’t do complete justice to the yellow, the two tones are a lot closer.

At the same time I made two sets of three tomatoes.

three tomatoes two oil on 200lb watercolour paper A1

three tomatoes two oil on 200lb watercolour paper A1

I did these as I had some watercolour paper stretched and I wanted to see how the absorbency affected the paint.

three tomatoes oil on 200lb watercolour paper A1

three tomatoes oil on 200lb watercolour paper A1

By this time the tomatoes were beginning to get soft so I disposed of them humanely! They are heirloom beefsteak tomatoes and the biggest of them was just over a pound in weight and about eight inches across.

The whole episode took about three weeks and is easily enough red for one project.

Drawing Towards Sculpture [THREE]

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[ONE] talked about the development of collage drawings from site specific drawings and notes, [TWO] took a diversion to discuss drawing as an act of translation and touched upon the drawing dictating its own ends, [THREE] examines the transition of the drawings to two new forms, stand alone 3d entities and an environment.

To start this post I have to step back to before the first post and talk about the reasons for addressing the thing that has sat at the back of my mind for years and is now asking to be experienced. I have always found gardens important. I can track my life through these outdoor spaces where I first experienced a simulacrum of freedom. Where I first daydreamed, projecting myself into a smaller world, that was at once battlefield, farmyard, football pitch. Where I buried hamsters, birds and cats. A space that has remained a place for play while the nature of playing has changed. Where the past is always drifting just out of sight bar the shadows in the corner of your eye. I have continually created gardens, or parts of gardens, since the 1980’s.

BA Final Show Installation 1982

This view of my BA final show in 1982 shows a selection of sculptures built from the observational drawings of storms and landscapes that are displayed behind them. Response to nature has always been there in my work. I was introduced to art in the late ’70’s as a way to explain rather describe, but increasingly I have come to see it as a way to suggest. To render an implication rather to only evidence an event or place.

Continuing with the translation of drawing into sculpture it is relatively easy to see the change from these collage/drawings

Collage Drawings 2018

Collage Drawings 2018

To this sculpture

Ptolemy's Garden 1

Ptolemy’s Garden 1

Or this one

Ptolemy's Garden 4

Ptolemy’s Garden 4

There is a clear line of, for want of a better word, progress between these small sculptures and the earlier ones.

The process through drawing to sculpture is led through the development of a repertoire of marks that are refined as the pieces develop. The pieces are stand alone but are always placed to accentuate their edges and to articulate empty space through their proximity.

The work also develops into environmental pieces – the installation of the exhibition illustrated above as an obvious example – or the piece I made for my MA at www.veilworld.co.uk
This particular range of work is growing into this environment. https://www.ian-latham.com/geranium/geranium.html

3D model view of proposed geranium project installation

3D model view of proposed geranium project installation