Mud paintings from Robert Louis Stevenson cave

Tomorrow evening a small exhibition of my mud paintings will be shown in Blairlogie, part of an evening organised by George Sutherland to celebrate the work of Robert Louis Stevenson.

Stevenson spent childhood holidays in Bridge of Allan and this cave  along the Allanwater river is believed to be the inspiration for Ben Gunn’s cave in Treasure Island.

My paintings are made from mud collected from the floor of the cave and they are mythological creatures that spring from the earth.

The evening is a mixture of a literary and art event with performance artist Karen Strang, actor artist Keith Neill and artist Lys Hansen reading some of his poems.

Also there will be an inter-active element where members of the public will be invited to create their own mud paintings working alongside artist Libby Yule.

Unfortunately I will not be able to attend because I will have set off on my travels.

Meanwhile, back at the Macrobert Arts centre we older dancers were filmed yesterday as art of a documentary to show the work of the centre, which like every other arts organisation is desperate for funding since government cutbacks.

Gift from Paolozzi

“Art is not produced in art Colleges but in  studios, with people working together.” Paolozzi

   I have just finished re-writing my “Masterclass- Ten Days with Paolozzi”

Now I am looking for an editor and people to read and check it.

    At the end of the week we were all given a Paolozzi plaster cast of a head with the proviso from Geraldine Prince, art historian and course organizer:
“If you think you have not had value for your money you can always sell it.”

Diary of a Masterclass with Paolozzi

"All human experience is just one big collage."  Paolozzi

Editing my diary of Ten Days with Paolozzi – a Masterclass held in Edinburgh College of Art – I have been struck by how prescient he was of our future: of the role robots play, of the melding of man, machine and robot, how technology is changing us as beings and the way we interact with the world yet at the same time he ransacked cultures from the past re-creating them in his own  images. He regarded the studio more like a kitchen or cauldron mixing stuff up and seeing what emerges at the end.

On a personal level I found my time with Paolozzi just as beneficial, if not more so, in some ways than four years at Glasgow School of Art because with Paolozzi one had a link direct to the past – he had met Braque, Arp, Giacometti, Leger, Dubuffet, Miro and Tristan Tzara in Paris.

And in a strange way the process of turning this diary into a book means I am re-living that time in Ediburgh College of Art and in a vicarious way touching these seminal figures from our artistic past.

Masterclass with Paolozzi - 1996

Paolozzi having his hand cast in plaster- Edinburgh College of Art, 1996

“The golden rule is just to follow one's obsessions."

 Eduardo  Paolozzi

 "Paolozzi is all about the unexpected - as anyone brave enough to sign up for his Masterclass in Edinburgh this summer will quickly discover” – art critic Iain Gale. The Independent

Well, I signed up for this Masterclass in Edinburgh College of Art  and Paolozzi asked us to keep a diary. I did so. 

The other day I re-read it  and realised what a remarkable insight it offered into this grand old man of British sculpture.

Oh it was not easy. We had a roller-coaster  ten days when we saw Paolozzi in both his benign and belligerent moods.

Today with the ease of self-publishing  both e-book and print-on-demand  I have decided to put publish that diary. 

But first comes the difficult bit- editing the images and text.