Monastery Diaries

Mulberry paper with sumi ink and paint

Sometimes looking back at the past can help propel forward motion in the present.

These images are from a 2012 artist residency I did at the Community of the Resurrection (CR), an Anglican monastery in Mirfield. West Yorkshire.

Close up detail of hanging piece

The works were made using Chinese mulberry bark paper, which has a very light and delicate quality. This trait caused a most surprising (and wonderful) unforeseen effect with some of the pieces I installed in the final show.  

You can read more about it here in my Mirfield Monastery blog.

What an amazing experience it all was! Thank you so much to the CR Community ffor inviting me into their beautiful and special space. 

Unforgettable.
.

Google Maps 1572

Inspired by air - sketchbook work     R Allen-Sherwood 2016

I attended a very interesting event recently. "A festival of ideas: Questions of space" was a two day collaboration between Canterbury Cathedral and researchers and academics from the Faculty of Humanities Department at Kent University. 

It was the leaflet catchphrase that hooked me: "We’d like to share with you our research on how we respond to the spaces around us, and how we as artists, architects and historians are exploring Canterbury Cathedral’s hidden spaces."  

My balloon now lives on my kitchen ceiling

One of events Hot Air, was a hands-on experiment to analyse the air flow inside the cathedral crypt, using helium balloons. 

Shadows and light     photo R. Allen-Sherwood 2016

On the one hand it might sound dry and boring, but imagine seeing a bunch of adults navigating shiny floating balloons inside an semi lit ancient medieval crypt! This is the stuff of dreams for a spacenik like me! Even made drawings from it. 

Eastbridge Pilgrims Hospital

Another offering was the chance to experience how Canterbury looked in the 1500's by walking around (in our socks) on top of an enlarged medieval map placed on the floor of the Chapter House.

The hood in the Middle Ages 

Seeing the wide empty open spaces where my neighbourhood now stands made me feel like I was inside an old Google Map circa 1572

Mapping Canterbury in my sketchbook 

Thank you Canterbury Cathedral for daring to experiment and try something different  And, of course to all the researchers, academics and teachers of Kent uni for putting it all together. I thoroughly enjoyed the event!

Becket's Candle               photo R Allen-Sherwood 2016

(And please do it again next year)  (Bigger.)

To Drink the Act in Motion

I want to find myself standing on the wire of action, inside action. In the realism of motion.

After action begins, before action comes to its conclusion.

I want to be lost in the inebriety of the instant, in the giddiness of motion. 

 I need to drink the act of motion, and fall asleep drunk.

 

Excerpt from
"To Drink the Act in Motion"
by Antonio D'Alfonso 
9 June 1983   

Breakin' Convention 2016

The Ruggeds in mid flow in my sketchbook!

Last week a cutting edge hiphop dance show called "Breakin' Convention 2016" came to my area and performed at a local university to a fully packed house. The show was incredible! It all kicked off at 7pm and I sat, transfixed, in the middle of it all with trusty sketchbook in lap, drawing materials to hand and a great big ear-to-ear grin all across my ever loving face....

Hella yeah!

The video piece is from Iron Skulls, the troupe from Spain. I love how well they integrate architecture and space in their work. And this is only one example from so many good performances!

Seriously, if you get the chance, do see Breakin' Convention UK Tour. It's better than a vitamin shot! 

(A few more drawings here)

Presence & Absence

"Adam" (detail)               RAllen-Sherwood 2016

Some say absence makes the heart grow fonder. But perhaps it was written by a hopelessly romantic soul.

I've been away due to some unforeseen circumstances beyond my control.....but thankfully things are slowly getting sorted. Thus, I am grateful (and relieved!) to be back in the studio again.

Hands, detail

As a warming up exercise to stretch my creative muscles, I attended a life drawing class run by a close friend. These posted images are from that day. I wanted to document and share them because it's not often I find such strong statements of presence and absence in my work. And from life drawing, of all things!

"Adam 4"  ink & brush        RAllen-Sherwood 2016

My guardian deities of Form & Emptiness sit deep at the core of my being, quietly awaiting my next mark.

Art keeps me real.

Shoko Kanazawa

 "Together Alive"        Shoko Kanazawa 2016

In Japanese Shodo (Way of Calligraphy), there is a saying which goes: Kokoro tadashikereba sunawachi fude tadashii— which means loosely "If your mind is correct, the brush will be correct."  The Japanese word 'Kokoro' can also mean 'heart', but sometimes it can mean other things as well, such as mind, spirit and the essence of an individual. It's a big little word.

 

Shoko Kanazawa  2012

In Shodo practice, having a correct mind actually means to become free of conceptualising mind and make marks directly from our true nature. Correct mind means to stay calm, focused and be fully present so that all the brushstrokes come directly from the heart, or kokoro.

If you want to see what that really means, please take a look at acclaimed Japanese calligrapher Shoko Kanazawa in action by clicking right here. 

Images courtesy of  shoko.org/en/index.html

Étienne ét Moi

http://laurastestaardvark.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/photographing-air.html

I've been looking at the works of a nineteenth century French scientist, biomechanics engineer, inventor and motion photographer named Étienne Jules Marey. His name may not sound familiar but it was Marey's work that served as the foundation for Eadweard Muybridge‘s iconic animal locomotion studies. Marey also directly influenced the development of early cinema. (see links for info) 

Marey's smoke and aether photographs are my personal favourites. They are mysterious and haunting images. The occupation with making the invisible visible, took up the latter part of his life. He dedicated his last few years to documenting movements of air. When asked why it was so important Marey stated in  La méthode graphique dans les sciences expérimentales (1878), "This method allows observing and measuring the "relation of space to time that is the essence of motion"  

Nereid Running  (reversed)    R Allen-Sherwood

The similarity in our interests kindles a feeling of familiarity. Of something known, even though it is unknown. But the real "aha!" moment came when, on a hunch, I reversed or inverted one of my black and white Nereid images, and placed it.next to his photo and..... voilà!  A perfect doppelgänger - aetheristically speaking, of course. 

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89tienne-Jules_Marey
http://www.robinsonlibrary.com

Musee D'Orsay