Sculptures take on a new life

Following the worst snowstorm for nearly 30 years the sculptures in my garden have taken on a whole new meaning.

Edinburgh versus Glasgow

Spent yesterday in Glasgow after visiting Edinburgh last week and am struck yet again at the difference between the two cities. Edinburgh seems to be like an emotionally constipated old lady while Glasgow is young, gallus, free and easy with a sense of joie de vivre.

Saw a couple of exhibitions including Luke Fowler at The Modern Institute, watched his film "The Scratch Orchestra". Interesting. Well, I sat for 40 minutes through it. The Gallery of Modern Art has an exhibition of landscape work from their permanent collection. Only two did anything for me- S. Salgado and Andy Goldsworthy.

Ice Blink a newe exhibition by Simon Faithfull is at the Stills gallery in Edinburgh. Worth a visit.

New Media Scotland

Went to the bi-monthly evening seminars at Dundee Contemporary Arts where Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead were doing a presentation. Their work is web based .
Says Thomson:
" You are physically here but virtually everwhere."

Had a chat with Cezanne Charles, director of New Media Scotland , about our proposed online collective, an idea that came out of our recent Art+Tech Stirling conference. Over 20 people have signed up saying they are interested in a New Media collective. Question is: do we make it online/virtual?

BAFTA award Claire Simpson

Delighted to see that Claire Simpson, sister of Anne Simpson ( my former boss on The Herald) received the BAFTA award last night for editing The Constant Gardner.

Art+Tech conference

Guess its a long time since the last entry!...conference a fantastic success. We were stunned at the interest and the distance folk had travelled to get there. Clearly there is a tremendous thirst amongst artists to try and find a way of coming to terms with new media which is changing the way not only that we see the world but the way art is produced.
Our speakers were:

Professor Beryl Graham of Sunderland University on : what is New Media?

Michelle Kasprzak, Programmes Director on the role New Media Scotland has in helping artists to promote their work
Richard Brown artist-in-residence Edinburgh University - on interactive installations

Sarah Kettley, Napier University- on communications within small groups using computers embedded in jewellery
on sound as a means of enhancing everyday life

Sue Greirson-video and installation artist and President of the Scottish Artist Union
Karen Strang - painter and performance artist - a personal story .

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

I rang up my local Waterstones to see if they had a copy of "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers"by YiYun Li, winner of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story award and the subject of rave reviews.
"No, but we could order it for you....it will take about 10 to 14 days."

So I clicked on www.Amazon.com, and the book arrived in the following morning's post......is it any wonder the chairman of Waterstones has resigned?

Now I would quite happily have waited 2/3 days because I like going into Waterstones, I like browsing through their books. All they had to do was order it themselves over the internet......and give me a ring.
So, they have yet another lost customer.


Link:www.annshaw.net
www.zen2Go.blogspot.com

Art+Tech in the 21st century conference- update

Well, all our speakers are in place so now its time to drum up some publicity for the event.
The following press release has been sent out to the media.:

Art+Tech in the 21st century- Stirling conference
Artists working with digital technologies will be the subject of a one day conference to be held in Stirling.
It will take place in The Changing Room gallery on Saturday January 28th from 10.am – 5pm.
This is a NAN (Networking Artists Network) initiative organised by local artists Ann Shaw and Karen Howard.
The keynote speech will be given by Beryl Graham, Professor of New Media Art at Sunderland University who will talk on the role of New Media in the creation of art today.
Others taking part include Richard Brown artist- in- residence at Edinburgh University and Sarah Kettley who is researching computers implanted into jewellery to aid communication .
New Media Scotland, the arts charity set up to help artists in this emerging field, will also talk about their role in supporting artists.
Says Ann Shaw:” We aim to bring together as diverse a group as possible to show the breadth of work that is being undertaken by artists today whose use of New Technologies is integral to their creative process.
“We are also inviting artists who wish to attend to bring along some sample of their work, if they wish, either as digital photos, text, or on DVD to share with others in the group discussions.”
The conference is free but places are limited so booking is essential.
To reserve a place email: events@a-n.co.uk
Anyone wanting further information should ring either Ann Shaw (01786 832287) or Karen .Howard (01506.84.2419)
This conference is supported by the Scottish Arts Council, Artist Newsletter magazine, New Media Scotland and The Changing Room Gallery.

Art+Tech Stirling conference

Within the first afternoon of this conference being advertised over 20 people had signed up on e-mail!
If you are interested book online:

email:events@a-n.co.uk)

NAN event - Art + Technology – 28th January 2006
Programme for One day conference - Changing Room Gallery, Stirling 10am-5pm

A dynamic day of talks, presentations, critical dialogue and socialising.
Looking at the crossovers and interactions between art, science and technology.
10.30 – 11am Coffee / chat / registration

11 am Lynn Wilson - artist / facilitator – chair for the day
former coordinator of Artlink Central and Arts Co-ordinator for North East Glasgow Regeneration Project

11am Art and Technology : Beryl Graham, Professor of New Media Art, Sunderland University
11.30am New Media Scotland. facilitating artists working with new media
12pm Richard Brown, artists in residence - Edinburgh university
- on “interactive installations”

12.30pm lunch and coffee/tea
1.30pm Sarah Kettley – research including computers implanted jewellery allowing networking within small groups
2pm Kirsty Stansfield – researching Sound as a means of enhancing everyday life ( Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art).
2.30pm Patrick O'Gowney – video and audience participation
3-4.30pm Group Discussions
Karen Strang – video presentation of artist and scientist working together.

Participants are invited to bring along and share a work they have made or that is under construction either (a) inspired by science and technology or (b) using technology as a tool to develop their creative vision.
Formats can vary from photographs, catalogues, CDs, DVD or VHS. We would invite all to bring examples of work for exchange or display. Short presentations can also be made (3-5mins) but please let us know in advance if you would like to give a brief talk ort presentation of your work.

4.30 – 5pm Summary of days event. Plans for the Future!!
5 – 7pm After conference informal drinks / buffet in nearby bistro.

7 pm… post conference drinks. - local pub, for those who want to carry on
To apply

Art + Technology is a free event but places are limited and will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
Please email : events@a-n.co.uk with - Art + Technology Stirling - in the subject line.
Book a.s.a.p.
A small number of travel bursaries are available to assist artists out with Stirling to attend this event. Please email events@a-n.co.uk with your details.
Travel Bursaries will be given on a first come first served basis and will be limited to a maximum of £25 per applicant. As the funds are limited, please only apply if necessary.

Art + Technology is a NAN event Organised for a-n's Networking Artists Network Initiative.
Art + Technology has been coordinated by Ann Shaw and Karen Howard in collaboration with A-N.

Supported by SAC, ACE and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation within the Networking Artists Network Initiative.
Also supported by New Media Scotland and the Changing Room Gallery.
Guyan Porter
Artists Events, Scotland

Christmas 2005

Hi!
This looks like being the last entry before I am submerged in "The Family Christmas".
So, what's up? Well Karen Howerd and myself are organising a one day conference on Art and Technology in the 21st. This is under the auspices of NAN -National Artist Network- set up by Artists Newsletter magazine to encourage networking amongst artists. New Media Scotland are also involved.

This will take place on Saturday January 28th in the Changing Room gallery, Stirling.

Watch this space!

Childrens Drawings

Some stills from a film I made based on childrens drawings in The Park gallery, Falkirk during the Lys Hansen exhibition.

Art @ Kilbryde Castle, Scotland

This is the fifth art exhibition to be held at Kilbryde Castle, near Dunblane showing the work of a number of local artists.

We drove for miles down remote country lanes and eventually arrived on a wild dark wintry evening with gale force winds howling around us at this huge isolated private castle.

Pictured above: "Chicken" by Gill Wilson, "Burning" by Jim Wylie.

Tate Modern - Rachel Whiteread

Just visited Tate Modern in London and saw Rachel Whiteread's amazing installation of the inside of cardboard boxes cast in white fibre glass.

Healing Medicine exhibition, Edinburgh

Three Oncologists
- painting by Ken Currie in the current exhibition Healing Medicine at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery , Edinburgh.

This astonishing work of art celebrates the power of paint in the hands of a master.

It is of Professor R. J Steele, Professor Sir Alfred Cuschiere and Professor Sir David P Lane of the Department of Surgery and Molecular Oncology, Ninewells Hospital, Dundee

Lunch-time music, Stirling University

Martin Davies ( piano) and Ian Ainsworth (bass-baritone) gave a free lunch-time concert in the foyer of Stirling University.
Their recital"Musicians, Poets and other Animals" included Apollinaire's Le Bestiaire and a selection of English songs.

Their polished performance gave much pleasure to a large lunch-time audience.

Both are former members of staff at the university.

Lys Hansen art exhibition, Smith gallery, Stirling

Lys Hansen has two exhibitions opening this weekend - one at the Smith gallery, Stirling and the other at the Park Gallery, Falkirk.


Artist Anne Wegmuller (centre picture) gives Lys a helping hand with hanging the exhibition.

Robinson Crusoe

How's this for a bit of serendipity.
While driving along the Fife coast I pulled in at Lower Largo and stopped outside a house where Alexander Selkirk, the man who Daniel Defoe modelled Robinson Crusoe on, was born. Now they have this statue there to commemorate it.
Next day the newspapers are full of an international expedition who have found the actual campsite where Alexander Selkirk lived for four years on a remote Chilean island in the Juan Fernandez archipelago.
They found traces of Selkirk's camp with animal bones and holes that appeared to have housed poles for a shelter.

Wallace - Smith Gallery, Stirling

Is it possible to get TOO MUCH of Wallace?
I ask this question after attending the book launch of "The Wallace Muse" at the Smith gallery, edited by Lesley Duncan and Elspeth King. The book's fine, a gathering together of poems inspired by Wallace. The Provost had recently returned from New York where a quarter of a million people had viewed Wallace's sword - taken over from Stirling for Tartan Week. In the gallery was an amazing installation of a coffin, it looked like a regal lying in state devoted to Wallace .Our national hero ( "thank you Braveheart") died some 700 years ago and never got a burial- he was hung drawn and quartered and his limbs dispersed around the country. Now he is to be a proper burial....

Prague

Having a few days in Prague. Stop off at the cafe used by Kafka, in the Jewish Quarter, and now named after him.

Walking along Charles bridge listen to an unusual rendering of Fur Elise- played on wine glasses.

They say the Sex Museum is the top tourist attraction in Prague and that the city is rivalling Amsterdam as the sex capital of Europe. In the night the city is heaving with hen and stag parties.

Having already been robbed on the underground in Chicago and Paris I was on the alert in Prague. Just as well cause I spotted that we had been targeted. Three men followed us on to the Metro then once they realised we were watching them they jumped off.

Discovered Black Theatre. The Wow! theatre group were opposite our hotel. Amazing!
(www.wow-show.com/wow/main.html)

Old Man of Storr

Environmental artist Agnus Farquhar created the most amazing noctural art project on the Isle of Skye this summer. It involved walking to the top of the Old Man of Storr- at midnight! Well, you set off at 11pm to be precise. I was there two days before the launch and walked up in daylight. There's a fantastic view from the top- which you wouldnt see if you did it in the dark. However, I can well believe that the memory of the experience of doing this walk, tricky in daylight and even more perilous in the night, would remain with you for a very long time.

Ian Hamilton Finlay

Some pictures taken during a visit to Little Sparta, a remote hilltop where Ian Hamilton Finlay , an international artist who is finally getting the recognition in Scotland that he deserves. He's in his 80th year and has three retrospectives in Edinburgh.

Whisky in Scotland

Sometimes it's the unexpected that turns out to be the most interesting. I had gone to Dufftown to see the artists in residence at the Glenfiddich Distillery only to discover that they did not open until noon.
So I went to the Speyside Cooperage to kill time and spent the entire morning there. Here skilled craftsmen make and repair around 100,000 casks, or barrels , a year. They work at a fantastic pace and are paid peace-rate.
(www.speysidecooperage.co.uk)

New Orleans

Where are they now? Hurricane Katrina is about to hit New Orleans, the worst in its history. This guy runs the Voodoo Museum with his collection of exotic snakes. What's going to happen to them in the forthcoming hurricane? he can't escape and leave his snakes behind....
I made a video some time ago in the Voodoo museum and a small section is included in my mini movie which I have entered for the first ever Guardian's laptop movie competition.
New Orleans is below sea level and waves of around 20 feet are expected.
(www.artcom.com/Museums/vs/mr/70116-31.htm)

Francis Bacon exhibition

After a week of video-editing I needed a break from the computer and decided to look at some paintings.....so I visited the Francis Bacon exhibition at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh which everyone is raving about.
Yes, its interesting but hardly riveting. He seems to have spent his life painting his succession of gay lovers. And they all looked the same.
Somehow it all looked so old fashioned. Are we really expected to stand there and admire in silence a bit of canvas on the wall? somehow now in the 21st century one expects more of art.

And I got that out in the corridor where I saw the gallery's newest purchases, a set of Damien Hirst medical prints. Now I could identify with that!

drawing

still trying to figure out file format for uploading drawing images...seems tif works.some more of my drawings can be seen on my website (www.annshaw.net)

Edinburgh Festival

Visited Edinburgh Festival.
Wanted a "cheesy" photograph of an icionic Edinburgh view and one of a piper. During the Festival there appears to be a piper on every corner so I followed the sound of this one to Princes St and found it was a blind piper with his golden Labrador. Feeling very guilty and voyeuristic I threw some coins into his box and took this photograph. Was I right to do so? if he had been sighted I would not have hesitated.
This raises again all the moral dilemmas about photographing people in public.

Paradise flower

This is just an experiment to find out what the new Blogger imaging software will upload. Photos are OK but drawings are not. The image is of a Paradise flower I was given which I have used as a motif for some thank-you cards.

Evening view from my home

This photo was taken last night from the kitchen window.

Katie, Changing Room gallery, Stirling

This is a photo of Katie watching a video I made of her grandmother's hands for a week I spent last year in the Changing room gallery, Stirling, part of their innovative scheme of inviting artists to come in and create work in the gallery. I chose to work with members of the public inviting them to have their hands photographed. (www.stirling.gov.uk/changingroom)

"The Journey"

I do believe that I have managed to upload an image, one of my digital photos, to my blog....here goes

Martin Parr, photographer

Heard Martin Parr, one of Britain's best known photographers give a talk on his work today in Edinburgh. He's a member of Magnum and there's a stunning exhibition of Cartier- Bresson's work on at the Dean gallery.
Martin is using the new Sony Ericsson k750 photo messaging phones- all two megapixels and sending it direct to the microsite website. Site not easy to access, to start with there is no section for the UK but those I did manage to get through to in Italy showed some amazing photos.

hope

This is my first attempt to upload an image from my digital sketchbook using the new Blogger software...here goes...

Does Virgin support Tiger?

Yes I know this is a peculiar question - unless you happen to own an Apple and have Virgin as your server.
This is not good news. I am sitting here with a state of the art machine - IMAC G5 and Broadband since you ask- and I can't acess the internet. ( I am writing this on a borrowed pc laptop).
So far all the technical helplines have hinted darkly that it cant be done, at least not yet.
Grrrr...........

Electronic spirituality

Electronic spirituality.
Is cinema the contemporary sacred space? on the radio this morning head about an Aid worker giving a poor Indian family money to buy food. Later in the day he saw all seven of them come out of the local cinema. He was furious and told them so. The Indian father replied:"We will always have to struggle to find something to eat but the money allowe dus to do something this afternoon which will remain with us for ever."

Artist to watch - Michael Visocchi

Well, it's happened.
I wondered who would be the first artist in our year to make a mark in the art world. Opened Scotland on Sunday newspaper to see that Michael Visocchi is one of five young artists singled out by art critic Iain Gale as "rising stars".
Congratulations Michael! you were always very hard working . He's a sculptor and actually MAKES THINGS!.....

The Good News and The Bad News

First, the good news...the pedometer works like a charm, clocked up 10,000 steps for the second day ( O.K its early days!) but one gets a sense of achievement and that's important in this fitness lark.
Talking of which...the bad news. TV programme last night on vitamin pills pointed out the dangers of overdosing on Vitamin A just by taking a vitamin pill a day, nasty things happen like damage to your liver and thinning bones. I have been taking vitamin pills for years! Did a quick check on the labels, horrified to find that Vitamin A is the main ingredient! Have chucked the bottle in the trash can.

Pedometer and video editing

Have just invested in a pedometer in order to encourage me to get away from the computer. 10,000 steps are recommended a day, that sounds like an awful lot of walking. Still, I need it. For the past couple of weeks I have been tied to the computer, editing my work from the Royston Road Project. Have got to reduce nearly 8 hours of footage to a maximum of 20 minutes. Help! need to do some walking to mull over ideas.

Lost posts

why have all my latest blogs disappeared into thin air?

Web Page

At last! my new web page is up! with thanks to Andy Allan who designed it for me.Now to make it inter-active...

Artist residency

Royston Road Project

Have just finished filming in Blackhill/Provanmill, Glasgow. It has taken a lot longer than I expected, a combination of bad weather and difficulty setting up meetings with people. The two women who had agreed to be filmed today failed to show up. However, found another woman, a local activist in the community, was very co-operative and allowed her son and nephew to be filmed too.
Now into the editing stage.....

this is an ink drawing of my cat 

Peer Crit- Glasgow

Some time ago a national Sunday newspaper did a survey on the best place to live in the UK - for employment, health, environment, children, culture etc.
Guess what? Glasgow topped the list as the most edgy place to live if you want to be a contemporary artist.
Well, after last night's crit at the CCA, organised by Steven Anderson, a young painter, I begin to understand why. He had gathered together a group of around 30 artists with four presenting work. These were Aya Iguchi, Japanese artist currently working with sound as artist-in-residence in Lanark musuem, Michael Wursteauer an experimental filmamker who showed a very creepy film made inside the pedestrian/cycle pathway underneath the Clyde and Rachel O'Neil a ceramic artist who has just negotiated an artist residency with Scottish Arts Council funding with a factory in Glasgow.
I showed some work I made during a week's residency in the Changing Room gallery, Stirling.

Glasgow - CCA

Tomorrow I have volunteered to have a free crit in the CCA - Glasgow. No idea what this will involve. Will it be like Art College where they proceed to rip your work apart?

Berlin

Hotel Argon, Frankfurter Allee

Over in Berlin for a few days to hear Dana Hoffman make her professional debut as an opera singer at the Philharmonia concert hall.

The Herald: Old Comrades Reunion

A dozen of us turned up at Babbity Bowsers, one of those trendy Glasgow bars, for our annual reunion. Always feel a bit squeamish, wondering who will be missing...and who has died in the past year?
But tonight it's fine. No talk of deaths though we know that some of our former colleagues had indeed passed away since we last met.
It's seven years since I left The Herald as a Feature Writer to go to Glasgow School of Art but it seems, after a few hours in the company of my ex colleagues, that I have not been away at all... sometimes I do miss that shared camaraderie we all had as journalists, the rough and tumble of a daily newspaper office and tight deadlines.

web page

Well, I guess it has been some time since I did a posting. Have been to Chicago and I am now working as an artist-in-residence in Glasgow ( Royston Road Project).
What has spurred me on to put an entry in is that I am working with web designer Andy Allan to put up a web page and he wants to know what links to put in. Well, I reckon one to this blog is a start.

Fraud- Capodimonte museum, Naples

The phone rang. I had just returned from a week in Naples and Sorrento.
"Have you spent 700 euros on books in the Capodimonte museum in Naples?"
"Pardon?"
"And 500 euros in an Italian supermarket?"
Well, I had just been congratulating myself that despite all the horror tales of crime etc in Naples I had returned without being robbed or mugged. Now this. I had reckoneed without the new crime of credit card cloning.
So how did it happen? Well, the most likely suspect is the museum itself since I had bought some books - a mere 30 euros - there on the day of the first illegal transaction and had lunch in the museum cafe- that's when the waiter took my credit card away for rather a long time.....

Panther found with sheep!

Phone call from Bridge of Allan police.
"We've found your panther.It was in a field with sheep."
Well, I'm delighted to get it back, only slightly damaged, and to learn it has been used for an art installation, well a site specific one, though I suspect the pranksters ( students during Stirling University Freshers Week?) were unaware that what they were doing could be construed as a work of art.
Wonder what the sheep thought of it...
I put a poster up in the village( Bridge of Allan) offering a reward and it seems a woman walking her dog spotted it .

Stolen Sculpture!

"Where's your black panther?" said a friend this morning looking around the garden. I looked across into the wooded area alongside the road and - no panther. This is a life-size black resin sculpture I made some years ago which I am very fond of.
That's when I realised it had been nicked. This is not the first time I've had work stolen- the other occasion was a vcr/tv and tape from a gallery. But at least I could claim on the insurance and go out and buy another telly. As it was a digital work I still had the mastercopy.
But sculpture is different. It's a one -off.
The police were quick off the mark and two arrived within an hour taking statements etc. Maybe it will turn up on e-bay......

SIBOS -Atlanta

Well, my little seahorse video is certainly getting around!.... I filmed it in The Shedd Aquarium in Chicago (www.sheddaquarium.org ) a few years ago while on an international student exchange to the School of the Art Institute.(www.artic.edu/saic/) It was one of the films I showed recently in the Mission gallery, Swansea and while there I met Sue Foley of Peter Evans, (www.peterevans.com) the software company specialising in web security.
She asked if they could use the video when they go to SIBOS in Atlanta this month. Now I must confess I had never heard of SIBOS - international annual conference for the world's financial sector.
I understand the video will be shown on a plasma screen and there will be over 5,000 delegates. Phew!...my wee digital fishes are certainly seeing the world.( I tweaked them with some digital effects).
www.swift.com/index.cfm?item_id=40406-10k-4Oct2004
www.swift.co/index.cfm?item_id=40524

Art Scam - Scotland

Who says you can't make money out of the internet? well, there is a very clever scam operating out of Nigeria that is working its way through the Society of Scottish Artists. It is a money laundering scheme. They e-mail members and say they want to buy work. They send too much money and ask you to send the surplus on to a "shipper". You do and the original cheque bounces.
Anyway, its worth visiting our site:www.s-s-a.org

Crowsteps

The Crowsteps exhibition in Blairlogie has just finished. Well, I guess we can all learn a few lessons from it. To start with only about ten pieces of work sold and the reason is n0t hard to find: the prices were far too high with some work in the £1,000- £7,000 bracket.
Folk don't expect to pay those prices when they go to an art exhibition in a small, conservation village on the edge of Stirling. Still the aim of the exhibition was to bring together again a group of artists who had shown there over twenty years ago when they were in the early stages of their career.

Chinese art.
A recent trek through Mongolia and the Gobi desert by artist Hock Aun Teh has resulted in a stunning exhibition which opened yesterday ( Sept. 18 ) in Edinburgh at the Phoenix 369 Gallery.
I had just trawled through seven Edinburgh galleries and was on my way home when the sheer exuberance of Hock Aun Teh's colours caught my eye across a busy Edinburgh street. There in all their splendid glory was a new exhibition by this Malaysian born painter who came to study at Glasgow School of Art and remained in the city. The gallery, unfortunately, does not have a web site but its worth a visit to the following sites to check out the work of Hock Aun Teh:
www.gpsart.co.uk www.tukido.co.uk www.eapgroup.com/china2.htm

South America.
How often do you talk about this vast continent, or even think about it? In my case very rarely. Except to-day. Had lunch with Sue who had just returned from spending a year travelling around the world and raved about South America,especially Chile and Argentina.
Along with her partner Wolf they belong to the new breed of Gap year travellers- older people who have downsized and used their money to travel the world. See their web diary at:www.angelfire.com/trek/wolftours.
This evening saw Motorcycle Diaries, Che Guevara's travel diaries up the South American continent. Great film.

Well, the Crowsteps exhibition opening at Blairlogie attracted a good turn out of people including one of the leading "movers and shakers" in the art world , my former Head of Dep. at Glasgow School of Art, David Harding.www.davidharding.org David is the original pioneer of environmental art and the following interview with him is worth reading. www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archive/ca/roth-harding.php .
He made some favourable comments about my video "Matriarch" which deals with three generations of women's hands.

Keeping a blog is bad for your health!
Well, according to psychologists at a conference in Edinburgh yesterday they said that keeping a diary of traumatic events and re-reading them could be bad for your mental health.
But what if you don't have traumatic events to record and you don't re-read your entries every few days? Well, that was not covered . This research strikes me as positively weak, full of loopholes.
See The Herald for full story:www.theherald.co.uk

Have been helping Lys Hansen with setting up the Crowsteps exhibition this week in Blairlogie. See her website:http://www.goartists.co.uk/LysHansen.asp.

Fiona Ross, an artist friend, has just come back from Edinburgh where she delivered some work to the Solo gallery in Dundas St. She's taking part in a group exhibition opening on Friday Sept. 10th.
She specialises in the Fife coast and her paintings of fishing villages are cheerful and colourful, not surprisingly they sell well.www.tartangallery.com

Just discovered some videoblogging sites. Must work out how to upload some footage. Trawled through the South American site of the Dutch filmmaker- despite the glowing report given it by The Guardian I found it not as informative as expected, more geeky than travel. See for yourself:www.Rhizome.org Luuk Bouwman

Decided to revisit Craig-y-nos, former home of world famous opera singer Adelina Patti which became a sanatorium. Spent some years there as a child. This was a very emotional trip down memory lane. The castle was more like a prison than a hospital.http://www.opera-singer.co.uk/adelina2.htm.
Today it is used as a hotel.www.craigynoscastle.com

Returning to my home country of Wales is always full of surprises. Just back from a joint wedding anniversary and birthday party of my cousins Ken and Ann Powell. They have a farm near Maescwmmer and the party for 130 people was held in the garden. We were lucky in that it didnt rain because they have had a very wet summer- Wales is notorious for its rain- amongst the food, fireworks and festivities was Gerry Walker, magician. I promised him that I would put a link to his web-site on my blog diary. He didnt believe me. Well, Gerry here it is: www.gerrymagic.co.uk Enjoy!

Some good news! Just heard from Chicago that the meeting to discuss planning regulation changes to the The Three Arts Club has been postponed. Maybe they are having second thoughts now that they see the amount of opposition there is to radically changing this historic building.(www.threearts.org)
Visited Edinburgh Fringe Festival yesterday (www.edfringe.com) usual traffic chaos in the city. Wish had gone in by train.
Went to see Chronicles- Lamentations by the Polish theatre/music/dance group. Fantastic! no wonder it got a Fringe award. Deals with music on the edge between life and death.(www.piesnkozla.pl)
Called in to see a photographic/painting exhibition -21st Century Dream-French based work. Particularly liked Vanessa Franklin's work has a touch of humour about it - she takes famous French paintings and reinterprets them digitally. (www.vanessafranklin.com)

Guess you are wondering what prompted me to resurrect this blog...well I got an e-mail from a friend in Chicago to tell me that the Three Arts Club (www.threearts.org) faces a crisis. It closed for upgrading and now it looks as if the developers have their eyes on it.
I spent a great year there in 2000 while at the School of the Art Institute ..(www.saic.edu)

Can you believe it?....nearly TWO YEARS since last posted!
No, have not been asleep. Millions of problems starting with my beloved AppleMac getting itself all in a twist cause I upgraded ( big mistake) to OSX.
Anyway, this is just checking that the system works again.

An e-mail from a friend asking what has happened to my on-line diary has prompted me to make an entry....too many summer visitors along with a weekend visit to Plockton to attend the opening of a friend, Miriam Drysdale's, new gallery for contemporary art. She has got a very impressive set-up and plans soon to start doing painting holidays.
Bought a Clare Harkness painting .

Just back from Pittenweem Arts Festival on the Fife coast - this goes from strength to strength. Glorious weather difficult to believe this is Scotland. We have had the worst summer on record - at least that is what a neighbour tells me.

Oh yes last Tuesay went to the Artworks in Mental Health openingat the McLellan gallery inGlasgow. My photograph - of Father's hands- was the first one in theexhibition. Must say was impressed with the overall standard. Seems they got over 1,000 entries and accepted120.

Just back from Iceland. It is over 30 years since I visited the country and the first thing that strikes me are the trees. Reykavik is a leafy city now. It used to be totally barren and bleak. The main street is heaving with designer shops. Fortunately next to our hotel is a second hand Red Cross shop and I purchase a bright yellow ski jacket all for equivalent of £8. Had not brought proper outdoor clothing with me for the rain . My memory was of a summer of endless days of bright blue skies....
What has not changed is the high price of goods. On the plus side this is a country of fire and water - yes, yes, a cliche I know but how else can you describe such an extraordinary country where geysirs come bubbling out of the lava fields and you bathe in the newly opened Blue lagoon - something that is worth a visit in itself - set amongst lava fields huge open air swimming pool constructed from the natural lava. And the water really is blue.

Just read a fascinating story from the Guardian onlineabout Blogs. Its the way the future is shaping up as far as journalism goes: from Old Media to New Media and now this: We Media - completely interactive. Great.

Blogger is playing up!...my last entry printed but refused to publish.
This is a test.
OK we have action again. Well, it must have been a glitch in the system.
So much has happened.... Have booked to go to Iceland next week for a few days. This is a nostalgic visit. I used to work there many, many years ago. Will it have changed? will I recognise it? Am spending a lot of my time these days editing old video clips. Most are glorified home movies but there are some which containan element of storytelling which goes beyond the home movie. That's what I am working on.

now everything has disappeared...what glitch is therein the system?

Blogger is refusing to publish!...whats gone wrong? this is just a test.

Yes, I know my on-line diary has lapsed...reason is slow access to the internet. Reckon it takes me nearly five mintues to get fired up and then it has to be before noon - before America wakes up.
There is something wrong with my internet service provider- surprise, surprise- have to log on through e-mail first - outlook express - in order to establish a link.
Went to see Minority Report last night - Tom Cruise and Spielberg- those 2 names alone will ensure Box Office success- but we both found it tedious...yes the special effects were good . But all that fighting set int he future. Just the same old macho cowboys and indians stuff fast forwarded 50 years. The Cafe Flicker at GMAC - open house where all can show their own films in Glasgow once a month is much more (a) entertaining and (b) innovative.www.g-mac.co.uk

Just checked the Art Works in Mental Health www.artworksinmentalhealth.co.uk. site where I have a photo of my Father on exhibition. This is their virtual online gallery . The exhibition opens in London on July 3 then come to Scotland end of the month and will eventually end in Cardiff end of August. The aim is to promote a better understanding of mental health problems. My Father , who died last year aged 98 years, suffered from depression.

Woke up this morning and decided that I would be environmentally conscious. i would leave the car at the station and take the train to Dundee for the Degree Show. Checked the train timetable using www.railtrack.co.uk. Impressed with the site. Will use it again in preference to trying to make a phone call. The day has long gone when we could ring up the station in Stirling and ask for the time for the next train.
Then I remembered. There's nowhere to park in Dunblane. That was one of the gripes at last weeks public meeting. True you can park in the local supermarket but how do you negotiate your way around the towns one way system unless you know the place? dont have time to experiment. so I jump in the car and drive to Dundee.
Here's a city that's picked itself up and is a pleasure to visit. No problem parking even though I dont know the city. And the new Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre, of which I have heard so much but never visited,, turned out to be a real joy to visit. Whats more its a working studio as well as a gallery for cutting edge art, unlike the CCA in Glasgow which suffers from pretentiousness.
The Degree show is well up to standard. Pity they have abolished cermaics. This was their swansong and what a show! Seems young people no longer want to do ceramics.
found the animation the strongest also some of the painting. No real surprises. Reading the artists statements am aware how academically driven the work is. it is as if the students have buried their heads in the library, found an idea they like, then constructed some art work around it. Hence most of the installations were weak. Only the work that had a heavy input of craft or technical skill did it stand up to close scrutiny.

Rats!....diary is getting put to the bottom of the "to do" pile every day.
Well the Golden Jubilee has been and gone...what a relief! we can stop pretending that we believe in the Royal Family, just another British anarchronism that is stopping us moving forward into the 21st century. Fast.
Showed my short video Waverley at Cafe Flicker the other night. though I say it myself it worked in a funny kind of way. The rest of the time have been struggling with a more ambitious project and it is going wrong, wrong wrong...showed it to Carol the other night - after we had been to see the Cuban band, "Sierra Maestra" in Stirling, (great show in the Tolbooth, pity about the seats, designed for midgets, even I was terribly cramped. Spoilt enjoyment of the performance. And did they have to have the full blast of their amplifiers on in such a small intimate theatre?
Carol says the problem is the work is unresolved. Got to think more about what I am trying to achieve.

It is good to get back to drawing. I was reminded of the words of Tanya Brugera, the Cuban performance artist who works with sheep, ( I met her in Chicago) that I should consider working with sheep too . After all I was brought up on a farm in Wales. Within minutes of my house I pass fields of sheep every morning and have taken to drawing, photographing them. Am influenced by Henry Moore's sheep drawings. Tayna used some of my video, mainly sound, during her video /performance in the Korean Biennale in 2000.
Meanwhile we are all desperately trying to avoid Golden Jubilee celberations. Some neighbours have even got flags out!....

Just back from Paris.It has changed. No longer the ultra chic place it used to be. General dumbing down. Asked my French cousin if this was her impression too.
"Yes. Everyone wants to dress like teenagers."
And that means casual grungewear.

Did the usual cultural circuit- Louvre -Musee d' Orsay, Musee Rodin and,of course, the Pompidou Centre.
Some surprises. First sculpture I see when I walk into the sculpture court of the Lourve is the original bronze of a lion with a serpent by Antoine-Louis Barye (1795 . Paris). Spent one week of my first year at Glasgow School of Art drawing a plaster cast of that sculpture -life size in pastel .
As for the Pompei Centre there were so many works there that were clearly the inspiration for so many well known artists in England and Scotland that I dont know where to start... at least I will be charitable and say inspiration though some may say they were a straight pinch of ideas.
Oh well ,as Picasso said:minor artists borrow great artists steal"

Even works from last year's Degree Show....surely it was not a coincidence?

Got robbed on the Metro. It was so innocently down that I never suspected until the three little girls aged around 10-12, who asked me the time, rushed off the train just as the doors were closing. I looked down. Yes, my bag previouslsy closed , even turned towards me, was open and my purse gone.
Fortuantely there was little in it but the purse was of sentimental value, given to me many years ago as a present by a former student in Hong Kong.
Now I saw another side of modern French life. Reported it to the metro police. They shook their heads :"Czechosloviakn...a group of 15 we know them well..there's nothing we can do."
It is the wave of immigrants flooding France . The children are too young to be charged and even if they were what happens? they get a small fine and are back on the streets again.
Noticvs everywhere warn you of pickpockets. Somehow I had envisaged these minor criminals as streetwise young men. It never occurred to me that today they would be children - and girls at that.

On a lighter note we get taken to the Lido, one of Paris most famous nightclubs and a tourist honeypot on the Champs Elysees, by my French cousins who are somewhat horrified that we want to go there.
Those who expect titallating nude dancing are in for a shock. iIts so squeaky clean that you could take your great grandmother there. In fact at the table next to us a 90 year old woman was celebrating her birthday! We know because they brought in lighted candles.with the age written in large letters. She was proud to be 90. The woman behind me had a similar birthday. She looked less pleased to have her age - 56 -emblazed on a cardboard cake in front of her.

Just another example of art extending its boundaries...
Ben Long is an artist who does finger drawings on the backs of lorries at New Covent Garden in south London.

He graduated last year and couldn't afford a studio. So he took to the outdoors.

Now his work is being shown, as a video , in the Prospects contemporary drawing prize at Essor Gallery. It will run until June 1.

What is happiness? this morning on the radio there is a story about a guy, Alan de Botton, who had achieved what he thought was the ultimate in happiness: the holiday of a lifetime - lying on a beach in Barbados only to discover that he had brought all his worries with him. Now this bestselling author has written a book, The Art of Travel, which explains why foreign holidays alone can never mmake us happy.
www.guardian.co.uk/travel

You can't take a holiday from yourself.

Yesterday The Observer had a large spiel on the general unhappiness in our society yet we appear to have everything.
What is missing of course is peace with oneself. Without sounding all New Agey maybe its the lack of spirituality in our lives that is causing so much unhappiness.
Just a thought...back to building web pages.

Met up with Sue, Mona and Robert last Friday - we all graduated at the same time- now we are planning to share an exhibition. Have sounded out one gallery in Glasgow.

Your comments

Have got my own Web Page up at last. Go to
www.annshaw.co.uk
e-mail: mail me

For some reason the link to The Herald failed to work.
So, here goes www.theherald.co.uk

Building my own web site - despite what the pundits say- is a SLOW business.
This morning managed to set up my own domain name:annshaw.net
But...I can't make links anymore.
So, here goes. How about trying to contactthe Herald, the paper I worked on for nearly 20 years in Glasgow.
it should come up at: No comments:

Yet another graduate of Glasgow School of Art walks away with a major prize:
www.gsa.ac.uk
Toby Paterson wins this year's Beck's Futures art prize.
He is the second one from the college to win it following in the footsteps of Roddy Buchanan in 2000.
Congratulations Toby!

Now Philip Dodd, director of London's ICA says that the cutting edge of art has moved from London to Glasgow!....
Great.

Scotland's newest music and arts centre- The Tolbooth- has just opened in Stirling. Went in last night for a drink with some friends. Apart from the architecture which is truly amazing , I hardly recognized the place where I used to share a studio space there some years ago- the maintopic of conversation among everyone was: ghosts.
yep. The place is haunted. Mysterious sounds, and crashing of bottles have been heard and seen including a gin bottle flying off the bar only to land unbroken on the floor!
Worth a visit. www.stirling.gov.uk

Sometimes people say:"Where do you get your ideas from?"
Simple.
The family.
Yesterday I started on a digital portrait of my nephew. Nothing surprising in that you may say except that Alex is only 20 weeks old ....in the womb.

To view the ultra-sound digitally manipulated photo of Alex click on:

Looking for a really cool arty place in Glasgow?

Try the re-vamped CCA ( Centre for Contemporary Arts) in Sauchiehall St.
www.cca-glasgow.com uk

Visited the Royal Scottish Academy annual exhibition held this year in the McLellan Galleries, Glasgow.

Lots of sumptious paintings. As usual the standard of presentation, technique,craftsmanship, content is exceptionally high. True there were some paintings, and we are talking paintings andsculpture here - photoraphy and video is a "no no" as far as the Academy is concerned, which made you wonder what criteria was used for their selection.Still they were few and far bertween.

But I asked myself: is this the world of 2002? there was nothing I saw that could not have been painted 10,20- even 50 years ago...
On to Cafe Flicker (Glasgow Media Access Centre - www.g-mac.co.uk) where I showed my mini film: visitChicago.com a spoof advert. It got a good reception. Lots of interesting films were shown . One had been made on a High 8 camera by 2 young men in 45 minutes about a psycho-analyst who fed his cocaine habit by giving unnecessary medication to his patients. Yes it had lots of technical things wrong with it but it was on the ball.
Which is more than I can say for the annual RSA exhibition.

Had a moan to Lys Hansen, artist and mentor, about the thinness of so much contemporary art and she said:
"It could be about to change. Read the New Stateman - 18 Feb."

"Do you mean the Ivan Massow article by the chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts? he got sacked for it."
"No, this is somebody else saying much the same thing."

I got a copy from Stirling library. First surprise - New Stateman is now much more readable. Its years since I used to subscribe to it. Maybe I will again. Or maybe I will just readit on-line. (www.newstateman.co.uk).

In the article Peter Watson says an awful lot of influential people in the Tate establishment had confided to him that they were appalled at this year's Turner Prize shenanigans and hope that it will never be repeated. www.tate.com

He said some changes are being considered to alter the rules: to make it biennial, to lift the age restriction and to remove the embargo on non-British artists.

If a gallery as influential as the Tate was to take the lead we may well see the current strangehold of conceptual art diminish in this country.
"Revamping the Turner Prize is the single most important initiative the Tate establishment could make to move us beyond bad aesthetic times. It won't change overnight, or all by itself, but it is a high-profile start," said Peter Watson, author of A Terrible Beauty: the people and ideas that shaped the modern mind ( Phoenix publisher).


He wonders how much longer it will take us all to realise how unambitious contemporary art has become, how unidimensional the aesthetic are and that we are faced with an intellectual and aesthetic dead end.
Am reminded again of an American art historian who said during a lecture at the School of ther Art Institute in Chicago , where I did a year as an Exchange Student, that as far as they were concerned "conceptual art has been packaged and put in the past."
www.artic.edu
If we are talking cutting-edge art work then she considered the next wave most likely to be immersive, work using the latest technological tools available, which allowed the viewer to become part of the art work.

And you can't bullshit your way around that lot.

As the American art critic and philosopher Arthur Danto said:
"We are living in bad aesthetic times."
And that needs to change.

There's an awful lot that is pretentious and transitory in today's contemporayr art scene.

And I had a gutsful of it yesterday in Edinburgh : bits of an old book torn out and stuck on the wall with tape - Fruitmarket gallery - Young Scottish Contemporay Artists, - lightbulbs swinging like a giant pendulum - Collective hankering back to this year's Turner prize of light bulbs flashing on and off-and more, much more that it would be embarrassing to write about it all.
Yet critics do. They enthuse over these mind games because that is what they are, an,artistic version of crossword puzzles. : The contemporary artworld has been hijacked by academics.

Surely in three hours tramping through Edinburgh galleries I saw something I liked? Yes. The Ingleby gallery ( www.inglebygallery.com) with its retrospective on Ian Hamilton Finlay- always have been a fan of his work and a new discovery for me of the work of sculptor Emily Young who works in stone.

The work has emotional and aesthetic appeal. It hits you in the gut. This is the real stuff. You don't need to read several hundred words of academic "insight" into what its all about. You feel it in your bones.

As art critic Richard Ingleby, ( for the Independent newspaper) who runs the gallery, says about her work putting it into its historical perspective:
"For all the associations that tie Emily Young's work into the history of 20th century British art there is a sense that her closest cousins are further back in an ancient past of Cycladic figures and Easter Island totems. The history of sculpture itself is 30,000 years old and the stones that Emily Young uses were formed in nature many millions of years before that, so what's a few thousand years here or there in the making.

This is the wider context: it's a sobering thought and one which, like her best work can't but inspire humility."

Honesty. That's what I find missing in so much of the pretentious work that passes for contemporary art today. Only when you come across the work of someone like Emily Young do you realise that is what is missing from so much work today.
It's being clever for the sake of being clever. Fine. There is a place for that
But it has nothing to do with the human spirit.

Change your routine. That was the advise from my favourite pop pyschologist who writes a weekly column in the Financial Times.
(Normally I read The Guardian www.guardian.co.uk but on Saturdays I like the FT )
He says: "There's a simple psychological principle that says if we do things differently, it helps us think differenlty, and alternative thinking easily leads to innovative action."
So I skipped the Saturday morning housework and went in to Glasgow to see the series of Bruno Bozzetto animation films on at the Glasgow Film Theatre, part of their Italian film Festival.

Was I glad? You bet. Did the house suffer? Nope. The dust will be there in a weeks time: Bozzetto was a one-off showing of Italy's most famous and prolific animator's work.

Talking of thinking differently I was reminded of Charles Handy's words that if something worked in the past it is unlikely to work in the future . "We must not let our past, however glorious, get in the way of our future". He was talking about the changing worlds of organisations and business. The Church of Scotland announced yesterday that research shows that unless something is done the current decline in its congregations will see it defunct in 50 years time.

Popped into our local art gallery-Fotheringham, in Bridge-of-Allan- www.bridgeofallan.comyesterday where a private viewing of Jonathan Hood's work was taking place. What struck me was that nearly everybody standing there sipping wine was grey-haired. Had not seen so many old people in one room for a long time.
Does this say something about the people who buy traditional oil paintings?

The first invitation dropped through my door this week for an opening exhibition by 2 students who graduated from Glasgow School of Art with me last year.

So last night I went to the Lloyd jerome gallery in Glasgow - a dentist who has turned his waiting room in to an exhibition space for contemporary art-for the opening of Kate Foster and Stephanie Connelly's exhibition "The Biography of a Lie".
In true GSA style it was very professional and thought provoking.

Well done Kate and Stephanie!

Visited my former Head of Department, David Harding, to collect some extra footage of his amazing farewell party last summer. A gathering of some 300 - boarded the Waverley steamer in Glasgow to pay tribute to David Harding who was one of the key figures, if not the key figure, in turning Scotland into such a cutting-edge zone for conceptual art.

David was awarded an OBE for his work. The 300 who boarded the steamer that day represented a walking Who's Who in Scottish contemporary art.
I have it on video . Now my job is to turn it into something more than a home movie. David suggested savage editing to 5 minutes!...

Rare to find an interactive installation that fulfills all the criteria: aesthetically pleasing, interesting and totally immersive.

But the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow are showing one : Polaria/Gastarbyter.
Artists Bruce Gilchrist, Jo Joelson and photographer Anthony Oliver trvelled to remote north east Greenland to conduct fieldwork on light and physiology in 2001.

The result is Polaria. You sit on a plastic see through chair in a white cube, wearing a white hooded padded anorak, white overshoes and place your hands flat on to a plastic surface either side of you. The heat from your hands triggers off different colours of light depending on the pressure you put on the embedded electrical surfaces.
You feel a slight tingling in your hands.
You are totally immersed in it.

Meanwhile for those watching from outside the white cube all they see is your back- total anonymity- and the chaning light inside. You , the art consumer, becomes a piece of performance art.
It is a knock-out.

Forgot to mention something really innovative at the Glasgow Art Fair - the arrival of the carvan gallery.
This is a totally new way of showing art.


Organised by Jan Williams and Chris and Chris Teasdale from Portsmouth they tour the country with their specially constructed caravan which doubles up as a gallery. They produce art works - postcards- in response to the places they visit. It is mobile, free and highly accessible.

They capture the ordinary and extraordinary details of life in the 21st century in Britain seeing the world with fresh eyes.

Head stuck in computers and editing suites for past week to 10 days hence no blog diary.
Had a break visiting Glasgow Art Fair which was disappointing.

Tremendous sense of deja-vu. Same old paintings, same old frames,same old names, only the people manning the stalls seemed to have changed.
And the prices they were asking? they must be kidding!...the only people I saw buying were an elderly couple purchasing a Scottish landscape. Nothing wrong with that. Except I have seen more innovation walking around Habitat.
Perhaps that sums up the gallery scene today. Only old people want to buy traditional paintings.
Maybe painting really is dead. Does it have anything new to say ?
Tramway offered some new and interestingmulti-mediawork. ended up buying a CD for £5 Where Do We Go From Here by the Icelandic Love Corporation. Now that was refreshing...and new.

What's up Doc? yet another blog failed...yet another message about parameters. Is it something to do with the length? had no idea there was a limit to the number of words one couldwrite in a blog. Still it was only about 200 so that can't be the problem.

Why do we do it? write, paint or create. That's the question I ask myself.I could be out shopping, playing golf or just meeting friends, instead here I am flogging away at the computer, doing all sorts of digital editing and writing and wondering....
Talked to another artist friend last night and she was feeling low too. In fact she was on the verge of getting herself a job when she found that the post delivered two invitations from people wanting her work, one a prestigious London gallery.
So, its a case of struggling on...

Help! after an absence of some weeks - due to family problems in Wales- I do a blog entry and it disappears...says the parameters are wrong...this is another attempt..

Edited my first movie at home - a performance of Red Moon theatre group in Chicago - using Imovie.
They did the piece in the Three Arts Club, where I happened to be staying, for a 100 dollar a head charity function. As mere students we could not attend but I filmed it in the courtyard from my bedroom window. Talk about serendipity. The fire dancers/eaters had been rehearsing all afternoon on the roof.

Went to David Mach's opening at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow. They have cleared the top gallery for his work. it is an amazing show - so much diversity, so colourful and witty. Best I have seen for a very long time.

Found myself standing next to him so I introduced myself . Have admired his work for years. He comes from Dundee, is totally without "side" and has little time for much so-called conceptual work. Hurray!

Has film failed?
That was the subject of a radio discussion tonight from Tate Modern.

Having spent the day in GMAC ( Glasgow Media Access Centre) editing a video on David Harding listened with particular interest.
To summarise - digital technologies are not only changing the way that films are made - you can shoot endless footage vey cheaply but it is also changing the way the stories are told. With digital manipulation to can create alternative narratives to the ones shot using traditional methods of film.
Mind-boggling.
Had a small taste of it the scope and fluidity of digital editing today when we needed a close-up of Pete McG laughing to go with one speech- so we took the shot from a close up of him laughing at a subsequent speakers speech...
oh what a tangled web we weave!

Victor Burgin came with glowing credentials to the last Friday lecture this season. Unfortunately he had lost his luggage containing all his lecture notes, slides and video clips. So he got something together in a hurry this morning in his hotel room.
It showed.

Yet again am reminded of the fact that academics don't live in the real world. Airlines are notorious for loosing luggage on internal flights - surely he must know that? why didnt he carry the documents?
He spopke on the 'specificity' of an art practice, arguing that the concept is more useful to us in the age of digital technologies than is the traditional notion of 'medium'.

He made some interesting points:
a).the first art school established in Paris in 1648 introduced theory. Painting was no longer a technical skill.
So we have had art theory around for an awful long time....
b) when photography was introduced they started to say that painting was dead. ye it is still very much alive. so what is it about painting that it has that other art forms do not have? he reckons it is the specifity of paint - the quality of the paint on the canvas. It is the painted surface.

He made scant reference to digital technologies. At least he was able to talk and it was stimulating. Then he showed some rough cuts of his video work which he had sent in advance to GSA. All I can say is that they fell flat on a big screen. We could sense his own embarrassment at seeing his work blown up big. Maybe on a small tv monitor , in situ, with site specific work it might have worked..
Am reminded yet again that the ability toi talk about your work is of primary importance, the ability to convince others that what you are going is "art" is really what is important. Think Duchamp. Think urinals.

Is mental illness coming in from the cold? is it the new cool? Not that long ago both subjects would have been taboo, certainly not the subject of films aimed at a mass audience. Yet both have met with tremendous critical acclaim.

Last week saw the film "Iris" Judi Dench in her Oscar winning performance of Iris Murdoch's decline into Alzheimers disease and tonight have just seen "My Beautiful Mind" all about Nobel Prize winner Prof John Nash and his affliction with schizophrenia.

Found the latter film far more alarming.