Thoughts & Sketches
‘Still Small Voice’ British Biblical Art in a Secular Age (1950-2014) – The Wilson, Cheltenham
For me there is no separation between spirituality and art; it is one and the same thing. To express the essence of what it is to exist is, indeed, connecting to the divine.
I was really excited about visiting ‘Still Small Voice’ Biblical Art in a Secular Age (1850-2014) at The Wilson, Cheltenham. Biblical art has always hooked me in and captivated me. No matter which artist or style of working, they all fascinate me. Biblical Art always expresses so much more than a mere story or image…
The exhibition is full of inspiring pieces, all of which spoke in a variety of different and beautiful ways. But one, for me, grabbed me by the guts and shook me hard.
‘Body of Christ’ (Red background) , 2008 – Craigie Aitchison (1926-2009)
The reduction of the image of Christ to almost a mark on the canvas, to me, shouted louder and more fiercely than any huge show of grandeur and story-telling. It made me stop, stock-still and caught me breathless. The vibrancy of the red background colour, with the stark, strong and definite marks depicting the image of Jesus was mesmerising in its simplicity and mandala-like as it drew me inside. I stood for some time absorbing its energy, and with its lack of narrative I was able to explore my own thoughts through it…
Jesus’s life was a mark in time which continues to vibrate through history and into the future. If, like this piece by Aitchison, we go behind the images, the idolatry, the rules and the teachings. If we go right back to the essence and heartbeat of the silence, from where Jesus came. If we listen quietly to the ‘no’-thing. If we open up our soul and ignore the mind, we might also be able to feel the heartbeat of the silence within us, and through this connect to the divine. If we create art from the empty, infinite void, rather than from knowledge-based, category-based, ‘fit in a box’ ideals, we too might be able to create something of such simplicity, such beauty, and with such a small but overwhelmingly powerful voice. If we over-complicate, over-adorn, over-think the art that we create it sometimes loses its impact.
Sometimes less really is more….
29th MARCH 2015
2am Sketching
2am – Woke up, couldn’t sleep; restless with a voice inside that couldn’t be pacified… Light on, grabbed bag next to bed. Found a sketchbook, pen and charcoal stick. Sat on the bedroom floor, in the dark, in the peace; gave audience to the voice. (Sketches above) Got back into bed. Peace. Sleep…….
Sometimes the urge to create, to draw, to speak is so overwhelming it swells through me like a tsunami; unstoppable, overwhelming, to the point of drowning if it isn’t heard…. I am ‘between studios’ at the moment (new one ready in a couple of weeks) and I am pacing around like a caged wild animal…. I wander into the space all my kit is being kept in and end up coming out, hands plastered in paint….Just have to touch it….
Paint, charcoal, pencils are as essential as oxygen – even the smell of them makes me happy…..
23rd MARCH 2015
Most perfect day…
Most perfect day. Sketching movement – capturing essence. Line, over line, over line. Vibration building in density and form. Why capture the physical nature of form? We can experience this via our senses. Capturing the essential nature, the thing behind the thing. The inter-dimensional resonance – imprint. Beautiful dance of energy and essence pushing out into physical matter. Shaping from the internal to external. Can we push thought into form? Where does thought come from? Is it the chemical firing of neurons? Is it from intelligence/consciousness behind form? What is it?
Watching the beautiful dance of movement of a small boy piling log upon log, building a den. Thought, intent, movement, joy, joined together in a line of time to create. Where or is, that essence of creation recorded, captured? Is it? Does it need to be? Does it define what follows – mark that which has passed? The smells, the light, the air, the leaves, the sun, the joy, the touch – the everything. Layer upon layer, moment upon moment. Not one, but a string, tying – binding – holding the essence of all that was there, together. How to capture; how to capture. Where is it? What is it? Has it gone, never to be grasped again? Intangable effervescence. You can’t see it, bottle it, photograph it, touch it, but only sense it at some deep, far away level. And I – some fool – want to capture the intangible in form. Net it and have it back – that movement through time. That which isn’t there, into solidity. Let there be art – and there was. Can only God create form? Where does it manifest from? No, not messiah complex. Just questions, questions, questions… What is it I want to achieve? I need direction – a point to this whole ****ing thing…
26th DECEMBER 2014
Creativity and Pain…
Every moment is perfection – it hangs in time and space – perfectly. We miss it, each and every time. Distracted by mind and the physical nature of being.
Pain – it all begins with pain. Mental, physical, psychological, emotional. Pain. Pain is what distracts us from the perfection of the present – the gift – the moment. A life without pain is Heaven, Nirvana, perfection. But a life without pain is a life without inspiration. Or can inspiration come from perfection? If we strive for a pain-free existence in a quest to find the perfection of peace, in the striving comes the pain. Curious. Striving to be pain-free results in discontent and the discomfort of the striving. But if we abandon the striving we become free – freedom decreases the pain, resulting in us becoming closer to the thing we were striving towards. Like creating art. The more you strive, the more painful it is, the more painful it is, the harder the struggle – the further away you move from the purity of the abandonment of creation. Allow mind to let go – do not aim at creating – then let what rushes in to fill the void be what creates. This is the purity of creating; it is peaceful, it is perfect imperfection. It is what it chooses to be and should be left as such. Bliss.
18th OCTOBER 2014
To be an artist….
To be an artist, to be who you are, you have to undo, separate and desist from who you were. Not necessarily in a moving- away, hermit kind of way (although that may be a dream come true in expressing the ever expanding explorations of the insatiable mind), but in a separation kind of way.
You were born a perfect sphere of untouched clay; perfection – potential. Others’ hands moulded, poked, prodded, pushed forward, held back, muddied and dirtied the infinite number of shapes you could have become. They produced the sculpture you see in the mirror. The dents and claw-marks which define and make you, are also the ones that keep you separated from the person you truly are. Each time you smooth and stretch into another shape, exploring and expressing your own thoughts on your own existence, the hands, claws, ties and chains shoot in to rebuild – rebuild.
To be an artist you have to embrace the shape you were made, then step away from all that made you that way. Maybe not physically, but mentally, intellectually, spiritually. The claws hold you the way they shaped you, the way that brings them comfort. You need to reshape, replace, re-emerge re-create that which is you. It is the only space in which growth, exploration, expansion, and expression can exist. Reshape, re-roll spherical perfection. Manifest form as an artist/human being/individual; an unhindered, unrestrained soul. Remove the cages, bars, restraints and expand. Expand. Explore. Expand. It is the only way.
28th SEPTEMBER 2014
‘Vision’
‘Vision’ – a limited edition etching completed as part of the ‘Resonance – Series I’ collection. Inspired and conceived within St Mary’s Church, Painswick.
3rd SEPTEMBER 2014
Facebook article – Royal West of England Academy
https://www.facebook.com/royalwestofenglandacademy
“18 June
Yesterday the RWA had a really exciting visitor, Ben Hooper, who is attempting to swim from Africa to Brazil; the great Atlantic Ocean.
Ben is the first person to endeavour swimming at such extreme lengths using freestyle swimming.
He has already swam around the Mediterranean and this time he wants to really push his limits and challenge his abilities to a more treacherous route.
Ben will swim up to a total of 12 hours per day. His epic swim will take him over 30-foot surges, passing through shark inhabited regions, and without doubt, he will encounter jelly fish, flying fish and a harsh Equatorial sun. The swim will be filmed by a Hollywood crew and edited into a video diary.
http://www.swimthebigblue.com/the-swim
Ben is interested in the artistic input in his project and visited the Power of the Sea for inspiration. He will be accompanied by artist Mel Cross http://mel-cross.co.uk/ who will be documenting the impact the swim will have on Ben, through her work. Mel’s work captures ‘essence’. “I don’t try to illustrate the physical nature of form – we can experience this via our senses. I try to capture the essential nature of form. The inter-dimensional resonance – the imprint the physical makes in the Universe.” “
24th JUNE 2014
Questions are the answers…..
I think that before I have the right to speak that I should have all the answers; but I don’t.
Does only God know the answers?
Do you keep your mouth shut or open it and let it spout?
Shot down in flames, or ears like satellite dishes turned on, tuned in to listen?
Vacuousness spouts and Wisdom listens and knows it knows no-thing.
Speak and fall?
Speak and find answers?
Speak and ask questions?
Wisdom knows questions are the answers.
Questions lead you forward.
Put it out there and a reply comes back.
If I open my mouth will a noise come out or eternal silence?
Fish-mouthed silent ‘o’ bubbles…
Opening ears may find answers; but I need to find questions……
30th MAY 2014
‘Salute’ – My poem to be featured in Sampad.org.uk publication
My poem ‘Salute’ has been selected to feature in a book by Sampad.org.uk in which people from around the world have written about being inspired by museums. My poem came about from a visit to the ‘Flesh and Bone’ exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum – Oxford, featuring Francis Bacon; a great inspiration. This is where I came across a painting I recognised from long, long ago….
Salute
Everything stops.
Suspended.
The beat of my heart, the squeezing of my lungs; synapses ceased.
Silence.
Within the anechoic, charcoal-black room,
Only he,
And I,
Exist.
Not a flicker of recognition, but a fireball.
Sinews ignite; lightening; burning.
I had known him for 20 years;
But I never really KNEW him.
Back then he reached somewhere deep inside me;
Deep inside the shadowy chamber where DNA dances, tangling with passion and soul.
He spoke to me in delicious tongues that he,
And I,
And no-one else I knew,
Spoke.
I took a copy.
I was no longer alone,
Suffocating in the dank-stench of isolation.
We sat in the darkness together;
He showed me the beauty within it.
Life jeered.
People sneered.
Stupid.
‘Being an artist is a waste of time’, Concurred the cloned.
The mythical gavel of ignorance fell.
I folded up my friend and identity and filed them away under -‘Sneering’
He was all I kept of ME.
I limped away.
Wandering in the wilderness, the mask of acceptable normality slid around and buckled on my face.
But here I stand,
20 years later;
Mask-less.
I no longer ignore the screaming of my soul,
And,
unfolding myself,
I put my friend back on the wall.
He sings again.
I am not afraid;
I dance inside.
Resonance.
Everything stopped.
Suspended.
The beat of my heart, the squeezing of my lungs; synapses ceased.
Silence.
I slid into the anechoic, charcoal-black room,
Where only he,
And I,
Exist.
I hadn’t known who he was,
I hadn’t known who had painted him,
But there HE was;
IN
THE
FLESH.
‘Flesh and Bone.’
Study For Portrait III (After the life mask of William Blake’) 1955.
Francis Bacon.
A name for my taper.
Slicing through the stillness, tears of gratitude salute.
My song roars freely.
And now,
Side by side,
On the wall of my studio,
Hang my tattered photocopied friend and my pristine postcard from The Ashmolean;
One and the same.
The Full Circle.
I paint until it hurts.
And,
I smile.
19th MAY 2014