Something a little irreverent (though not intentionally irrelevant) for today – I'm allowed to, for today's post marks this blog's Fiftieth 'Birthday'! My representatives, Iologies Fine Art, wanted fifty posts by June – I'm only a month late.
Thank you so much to you all who have supported me through the past 49 posts. I hope you won't leave now! From messages, and comments both verbal and virtual, it seems that at least some of my offerings have provided food for thought. This is what I want to do – not make pronouncements, not overtly to push my own artistic output, but to stimulate thought about, and reaction to Art – especially Abstract of course.
Today I want to look at walls, floors and tables, those enticing and un-thanked surfaces upon which artists spill paint, media and other fluids, or use them to rehearse gestures and to try out colours.
My own studio walls bear some gestures so beautifully minimal and fresh that I wish they had occurred on canvas. I have, on occasion, attempted to crib them and incorporate them into paintings; not surprisingly, a terrible idea, for they were fresh no more.
Francis Bacon used to mix his paint on his walls.
Francis Bacon with his vertical palette
The surfaces in our studios become ever-shifting diaries that record what went on, peripherally, at a certain time in the creative process. I like to look through the transparent dust-canister wall of my vacuum cleaner and see the patterns of what I have just sucked up; strange behaviour, I freely admit. Studio surfaces become a bit like that, repositories for waste that assume a tranquil beauty in their effortlessness.
A wall in my studio
Table surfaces in my studio
My studio floor
Here is The Krasner-Pollock studio floor. I'm rather proud that it looks a bit like mine! I wonder which marks are Lee's, and which were made by Jackson.
The studio floor of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner
Right, I'm off to think of some proper subjects to write about now! Happy Fiftieth, everyone!
Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023
Congratulations! I wish you strength and success!🌠
Congratulations on the 50! I have looked forward to every one of them.
Congratulations Haydn- what an achievement ! Not only in terms of the sheer number of blogs you have written in a relatively short time but especially for each being so beautifully written and thought provoking . Love this last one and especially love your studio wall !