Taking a Line for a Ride

Notes from a sketchbook                               R.Allen-Sherwood 2015

Last year I became re-interested in another subject I studied during my art school days at university. I am talking about the concept of motion or movement. The drawing above is one of the very first studies I made whilst riding on a bus.

Yorkshire Train Ride                                  R Allen-Sherwood 2015

I never really developed the idea until much later. This second drawing above was done ten years after the first one! Using sumi ink and brush, I completed the drawing whilst travelling on a train this time.

This personal investigation into movement continued in fits and spurts in the background whilst I carried on with other things in life. But it was always there, like some distant memory of a song in the back of your mind. A song you can't remember the name of but can't stop humming the melody........ I continued making motion works but always found the results unsatisfactory,

Sands of Time                                                      R Allen-SHerwood 2015

Then I tried using a camera. It works better, but I still feel there still a ways to go before the idea, inspiration and execution can marry into one happy union that goes skipping off into the sunset..

Am I fussy? Yeah. Motion matters to me because it's an important component in my never-ending search into the meaning of space.

Motion defines space. I will dedicate more time this year towards this because I honestly feel that Motion & Space are flip sides of the same spinning coin. 

3 x 3 Inches Square

My idea of what a Zen garden should or shouldn't be has changed dramatically. Maybe it's a natural progression, given the seven years I've spent,dedicated to this subject matter in one way or another.

Now, the Zen-garden-in-my-mind expands and shrinks at the same time..It has become internalised. On the one hand, Zen-garden fills this world, yet also sits quietly inside a compact little 3 x 3 inch square box covering half the space of my upturned hand.

The above photo was my first realisation that things have changed.

Change. Something we can always rely on....

Happy New Year.