Art From London Markets, a-n feature

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This week I went with @alexmcintyre and her friend Karen first to see my work at Tower 42
and then to the Jasper Johns at the Royal Academy.

I suppose that until now I had only really thought of Johns and his bright flags, and not really thought much about him. However current events in America make his darkened flags and targets seem really relevant and contemporary. These works were made in the 1950s, another very right wing era in American politics, with McCarthy, and pre the 1960s civil rights movement.

And the thing that struck me the most was the image of a target as an eye. The way that any target you focus on is looking back at you. Every target I looked at after that peered back at me and made me nervous. And then it allowed me to also see them as tunnels, like an eye, a space through which it is possible to see.

It got me thinking about American gun culture, Nationalism, and at a personal level the goals (targets?) we set ourselves.

No photos allowed, so you will just have to go and see for yourself!

After clearing the mess that was the flood in our house, (I am just about at the end of the back log of washing) peering up at water marked ceilings, waiting for things to be fully dry, I am relived that I was at home when it happened. So that while at the time of the flood the anxiety about getting everything out of the way of the water was panicky… the fact that I was there to turn off the stopcock means that the damage was less than it could have been. And this and a visit to Alex McIntyre’s studio this weekend had me thinking about the advantages/disadvantages of a home based studio….

Advantages: no travel time, the possibility of ruining pyjamas as you stroll in and do a bit of work before you are even dressed,

the glance into the studio in the evening as I go to brush my teeth and see what I have done…

is a real motivator.

The fact that I can use an hour here or there, and above all the fact that it is not an additional cost. Ability to stop work the moment I am needed at home.  And the fact that when the studio gets over crowded I can use the rest of the house as drying space!

The disadvantages: no peers,(however this can be planned for by networking outside of studio time), distraction of domestic tasks (which do after all have to be done) , size (see above) , no Open Studios (but I plan to apply to a local artists open house so that will be solved).

So I had set myself a target of getting a bigger studio by next year, but Jasper Johns has me reassessing my targets, and when this one looks back at me I think maybe I got it wrong and there are more important things for next year. I’ll keep them to myself until they have looked me back in the eye.
And just to say Alex McIntyre has probably put herself in the perfect position by having a studio within a short walk across the fields from her flat…