Tuesday 30 April 2013

The Space Sessions # 1 - Ignasi Terraza

  
This is the first installment in a series of conversations about the nature of space from different perspectives. My debut guest is renowned Catalan jazz musician/composer, Ignasi Terraza

"Ignasi Terraza is a Catalan jazz pianist. Blind from the age of 10, he currently leads his own jazz trio playing both standards and tunes composed by himself and the band members. The trio tours around the world. Ignasi has also been teaching jazz piano at the Higher School of Music of Catalonia – Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya, since 2003".   
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignasi_Terraza


THE SPACE SESSIONS  #1

Rachelle (RAS) -  Ignasi, lets get straight into it, if you don't mind. What is your feeling of space?

Ignasi (IT) – My feeling of space – depending on different kinds of space - how I perceive space....I perceive space through sound – but there are different ways. Also there is a sense of space in the sense of touch.

RAS -Touch.....

IT – Yes of course, for example, your foot gives you information about the space

RAS - Of course...

IT- your body when you are sitting down, your back, your body giving you a sense of the physical space...

RAS - Does your body hold a memory of this space?

IT – No, but all this information comes to me and I imagine in my mind the sense of the space....I lose my sight at the age of ten, and then since then, when I listen to a voice, I can imagine a figure on the space.

RAS – Oh, so when you hear a voice, you imagine the figure that carries that voice?

IT – Yeah, something like this – or if I go inside a room, the room gives me something. For example, if you go in a room....you can...by the sound, by the temperature, by the foot, the information of the  touch on the foot,  you have a certain configuration. Also, through the ear, you have a sense of the space in terms of if it is huge, or if it is small Your foot can give you the information of the kind of ground you have -  if it is a carpet or if it is bricks or whatever but also, the sound gives you information about the size of the room – is it big or small

RAS - Yes, yes, the acoustics of the room...

IT – Yeah, the acoustics also give you a kind of information, for example if it’s an empty room, with all the walls empty, the acoustics is very, eh, very reverb

RAS - Yes, meaning the sound bounces around the walls

IT - And then if there is a lot of wood, or carpet, the acoustics are totally different. And that gives you a sense of whether the space is a cold space or a warm space.

RAS - Ah, so space has a temperature....


To be continued


Wednesday 24 April 2013

Seeing Through The Obvious

"Flotilla"  Ink, pen, silver felt tip   2013
In his book " Form, Space & Vision", artist, critic and teacher Graham Collier, spoke about how surfaces have directional movement as they extend into space, whether angled, curvilinear, concave, convex, flat or ridged.

Rendition of Gravity Probe B around Earth  NASA
Referring to the dichotomy between space and form, Collier points out that, “in perception they and the space they shape are indivisible. Space is the matrix for form, and form is the matrix for space”.

"Seeing Through The Obvious"  Ink & wash   2013
He goes on to describe how our Western culture is interested in the concrete, not the invisible. We tend to look for figure without realising that the total image is as much space as it is figure. (*Collier, 1972)

*Collier, Graham. (1972) Form, Space & Vision

The above post was taken from "Space, Form and Emptiness: The Influence of Japanese Zen Rock Gardens on Eastern and Western Art" -  by R Allen-Sherwood  2011

Thursday 18 April 2013

Drawing Space

"That Which is Eternal & Unchanging"  Ink, pen, chalk & wash   2013
   Drawing Space  

inside space
empty space
physical space
open space 
 overhead space
internal space
external space
interior space
universal space

"Untitled"  Monoprint  Ink, pen, wash   2013
non-space
radiant space
dead space
dissolving space
across space
blank-space
yonder space
outer Space

Work-in-progress (detail)  Ink, pen, chalk, graphite   2013
inner space
positive space
negative space
relative space  
absolute space
gravitational space
neutral space
horizontal space
vertical space

"Not Moving Towards nor Running Away"  Ink, pen, wash   2013



two-dimensional space
three-dimensional space
psychological space
concave space
linear space
curvilinear space
convex space
monumental space

"Covcave View"  Photo R Allen-Sherwood   2013
void
space
organic space
mechanical space
emergent space
white space
circular space
perceptual space
dynamic space

"Mt. Hiei "  Chalk, ink   2013

active space
passive space
environmental space
meeting space
meditative space
architectural space
breathing space

luminous space


2011  Rachelle Allen-Sherwood

Saturday 13 April 2013

Space Meets Itself


"Non-doing"  Ink, wash   2013

Space is to place as eternity is to time.
Joseph Joubert

Friday 5 April 2013

Painting With The Mind's Eye


"Breathless"  Ink, pen, wash   2013

Japanese dry landscape gardens (Karesansui), are excellent examples to use as visual demonstrations of the connection between garden principles and Zen spatial philosophies on Emptiness or the Void.

"Topographical View"  Ink, graphite, pen, wash   2013
In their book, Reading Zen Between the Rocks, authors Berthier/Parkes wrote: "The purpose of these dry landscape gardens is to copy faithfully the attractions of an authentic landscape, and to convey the real impression that a genuine landscape communicates."

"Stone Code 3"   Ink    2013
These gardens can also have an artistic facet, as Parkes recalls an ancient master’s description of the Zen garden as “Paintings painted without brushes, sutras (Buddhist teachings) written without characters.”

This is one of the aspects which inspires the current work I am making with the garden. Under it's influence, I  try to keep what artist Agnes Martin called  "a state of empty mind" so that space may meet Space and express itself simply and clearly, no frills attached.