April is renowned for its capriciousness. This month a visit to Tate Britain set a rhapsody in blue in mental motion. And I attempted to harness the sun’s rays in the name of artistic expression - with varying results.
While maps took the SEVEN art collective to some unexpected places, I attempted some wandering mind-herding (yes, that is a thing) by way of more frequent meditation, mindful snapping, and a new time management book for creatives…
“Why don’t you cover a big cork bulletin board in bright pink felt, banded with bamboo, and pin with coloured thumb-tacks all your various enthusiasms as your life varies from week to week?”
Robert Rauschenberg at Tate Modern
The “first full-scale retrospective since the artist’s death in 2008” was cited as a celebration of Rauschenberg’s …”extraordinary six-decade career, taking you on a dazzling adventure through modern art ...”. From early abstract expressionist paintings via a tyre-encircled angora goat, 60s silkscreens, and even “1,000 gallons of bentonite mud bubbling to its own rhythm.” (I love plopping mud. A lot. But, it was the life-size cyanotype which captured my imagination…).
Cyanotype - a study in blue
The planned precision of a blueprint, or cyanotype, is not what I got from my kid’s set experiment. The ghostly, glowing x-ray-esque images created by artist Sarah Grace Harris largely alluded me. This is the precarious place where science and sunlight collide - and in my case blurred. Promising negatives bled and bleached in a kind of high speed ageing process. But when it works the results are kinda surreal...
Psychotherapist Philippa Perry muses on the real surreal
Surreal may have been the Merriam-Webster’s 2016 word of the year. But 2017 marks its centenary ‘outing’. Not just a lobster on a telephone or a man with an apple for a face, the Surrealists were railing against what they saw as the constraints of the rational mind and an oppressive society.
Automatic writing and drawing techniques overrode and revealed. And, influenced by Sigmund Freud they often wandered “...the royal road to the unconscious” via dreams. But there they parted ways, says, Perry. Where Freud sought cure and conclusion the Surrealists wondered ever deeper...
SEVEN plays with maps: cue artistic adventures
Follow lines. Extend lines. Cut out shapes. Block out spaces. Re-name places. Pick out faces, and figures and things - the way people find portraits of Jesus in toast or futures in tea leaves. In short: maps can be a road to inspiration. Why not play with a place with personal relevance? Adding yet another dimension to your creative cartographic exploration….
April Love 2017 - 30 photos in 30 days
Susannah Conway says her April Love photo challenge is “...an invitation to explore self-love, self-care and self-compassion in a community setting.” Her short - often one-word - prompts are meant to act as a simple way to have a mindful moment. To look. To listen. To think. To feel. From blue (cyanotypes again!) to favourite books to gratitude. It’s a thoughtful way to share images - and peek into other worlds and other psyches...
Don’t Read This Book - time management for creative-types
A friend told me recently how he was compelled to start a reading challenge because his ex told him he couldn’t do it. There’s a book in that I thought. Because we all know that feeling, right? Grrrrr. So, when I spotted this book telling me not to read it at the end of a rather frustrating week, guess what? Instead of drowning my sorrows down ye olde pub I decided to bloody well time manage my life instead! A recovering listaholic can I prove my own muddled mind wrong?
Insight Timer - one small step for meditation one giant leap for moi
Speaking of time management and the mind, I went all app-happy and downloaded Insight Timer. Two words: life enhancing! From om-tastic self-timers to guided meditations - of all shapes and sizes - this one wee change has had me meditating at least once, if not twice a day. On an entirely different note it’s even got me Soul Collaging, which I’d been meaning to do for eons...
Street Wisdom - @notestostrangers
On a trip to meet the aforementioned book-challenged buddy at the much overlooked Wallace Collection I meandered via Piccadilly and the Burlington Arcade. Window-watching my way via firework bursts of flowers and Easter parades of consumerist glitter I happened upon this little nugget o’ wisdom just off Bond Street. Turns out it’s a one man art movement lead by artist Andy Leek...