the textures of the alhambra .....

I bought a children's book of The Alhambra whilst there and the chapter about the buildings begins thus ... "For the poets the Alhambra is 'a crown on the brow of Granada', 'a paradise on earth', a dream, a treasure of harmony and light ... and many things besides.  But let us leave the poets.  What does the word Alhambra mean? It means 'red'. So that in the Arabic tongue 'alqala al hamra' means the red castle."  Personally, I favour those words of the poets and only wish I had the talent to write more about this amazing place.  

I took so many, many photos on our visit to the Alhambra in Granada.  We managed to get tickets and were amongst the first visitors to enter.  Thousands visit each day and you must pre arrange your visit or be disappointed. I am so glad we were first in as the crowds were enormous as the hours passed.  We had about four hours looking around - you could spend days.

Books abound on this unbelievable and unforgettable building - site really, a collection of buildings which grew and changed over the centuries.  My photographs do not compare with those that are published and I am not going to compete.  Here below are a number of the hundreds of photographs I took. The first ones show only tiny glimpses of the detail of the Royal Palace.  It is overwhelmingly glorious, and the following photographs show some of the details round about which caught my artist's eye.

reflective drawings ...... soon

These are photographs I took when we visited Honfleur in Normandy.  The reflections in the port will be a starting point for many large drawings I think.  I am feeling rather impatient to get on with these but soon I will have a couple of weeks whilst Steve is away doing an Emergency locum in Emerald.  I miss him dreadfully when he is away, but really enjoy having my own head space during the day.

I find that I really need that isolation when I start any large body of work or even singular large works.  With painting too I found I had to isolate myself in order to achieve any good results.  Not that I paint much any more - I much prefer my drawings which I like to refer to as painting drawings.  I may even add splashes of colour with these new works - not sure yet.

For this reason I think I took to etching and book making so readily while the children were still at school - I could manage it in smaller time spans.  I guess it stayed with me and both those practices have become my favourites.  I have been missing my large work though - not that I have posted on that, but I will.  If I have success with them!

So, I am thinking that the Richard Serra Guggenheim installation and these reflections, may be a good starting point.  Sometimes that is all you need, and most often you end up in an entirely different place.  Which is grand.

These images look so much more interesting larger ...... 

photographic flattery .....

This was the very first artist's book I made as long ago as 1998.  It is not well made, but whilst sorting the studio today I came across it and decided to take some photographs.  Truth is, the photographs flatter the book which is poorly made and was never really completed. I called it 'Forest Floor' and it is made from a number of different papers including transparent paper - all rusted.  Yes, even back then I was rusting papers.

I am way more delighted with the photographs than the book itself and in light of my last post, think I must have been interested in the same forms and textures as Richard Serra way back!  I have sourced some very large sheets of rusted metal and hope one day to make a book which can sit outside amongst the trees .....

a trip to the guggenheim in bilbao .....

Many of my friends and blogging friends have wondered what the greatest inspiration was in my latest travels and I would have to say my visit to Bilbao's Guggenheim.  For so many, many years I have hoped I would one day get to visit this architectural icon and this year I did. The building itself is completely remarkable and I have included some of my images later in this post.  Sublime really. 

I had a couple of hours there only and most of that time was spent immersing myself in Richard Serra's 'The Matter of Time'.  I think the hour I wandered in and out of this sculpture/installation was the highlight of my trip.  Even now when I think of it I breath heavily!   For me it was like wandering through the pages of an enormous rusted book, ones I have dreamt of making and perhaps one day will - not on this scale obviously but large.  I also had the feeling that if one could carve in slices, somewhere like Kata Juta or Uluru, it would feel like walking through the insides of those sacred, mysterious places. Though finer photographs may be found on the Guggenheim official site, these are mine, I was there, I had this amazing experience ....

For those wishing to read more about the work of Richard Serra you can go to this link at Artsy which is a fabulous site and whose mission is to make all the world's art accessible to anyone.

The images above are all of Richard Serra's work showing textures and form.  The scale was impressive - about 30 metres long and a height of 3 to 4 metres.  You are enveloped as you walk through. Breathtaking.  And here below, are some of the many images I took of the actual building by  Frank Gehry.