Errant Inspiration

Ursula's voice

2011-10-18T02:26:00.000-07:00

"We may each of us live in our own private hells, but the Devil gets a bulk deal on wallpaper. "

Ursula Vernon on shared weird feelings: It's not just you.

I love her work, but in true creepy stalker fashion, it's her blog and podcast I follow most ardently. There's something about the way Ursula Vernon speaks and writes that twangs something in my brain. I guess it's that there's a lot about her I admire: she's strong, funny, snarky and surreal, constructing immense edifices of whimsy always grounded in an earthy practicality (eg. considering the poor elf who deals with all the non-pretty injuries). She's gone through a lot of crap but picked herself up again, and has shared some of her experiences and their aftermath which may help others in true your-mileage-may-vary fashion. Most of all, she seems so forthright, honest and genuine in everything she does. Most of all, I admire people who get fired up when they speak, who occasionally stumble over their words because they're too excited and want to say it all at once. Also weird adventures. I crave weird adventures. Anyone got any adventures? Count me in.

Her publicly revealed meanderings echo with something of who I want to be. Being formed from a weird mix of science and art, craft and industry, and being hugely influenced by my parents, I look to a diverse range of sources for examples, but while there are many people I admire, there are few I want to, or could emulate. When it comes to role models, I think I could do a lot worse than this "artist and writer and creator of random oddities".

Quick post - Stop motion sculpture

2011-08-12T00:18:00.000-07:00

I've broken my recent habit of archiving things to post about when I'm less busy to put up the details of a striking stop-motion sculpture project. A deceptively simple concept, complex in execution, executed flawlessly on a fantastic array of locations to great effect.

MÖBIUS from ENESS on Vimeo.
Via Collossal, which I can't recommend highly enough - it keeps finding me all kinds of amazing, inspiring things!

Margolin's Kinetic Sculpture

2011-03-19T03:34:00.000-07:00

A brilliant video of interviews with Reuben Margolin as he builds astonishingly beautiful kinetic sculpture:

Via Cocktail Party Physics

Indoor water garden

2011-02-10T11:12:00.000-08:00

Following up on the previous post on water gardens, I just spotted this piece on indoor water-gardens over winter! I'm so excited...

Indoor Tabletop Water Garden from RadMegan

Zimoun - sound sculptures

2011-01-13T03:53:00.000-08:00

Video showcasing a number of sound sculptures and installations from someone called Zimoun. Some really interesting ideas in there surrounding motors, multiples and the like. Especially nifty is the sculpture of hanging rotating wheels which give each other a big kick of energy when they collide.

Hypnotic transformations - Flux

2011-01-13T03:33:00.000-08:00

Came across this beautiflly hyptnotic and compelling video by by Candas Sisman. Really interesting use of a completely static frame and restricted view to increase tension and confusion...

Self-contained pond

2010-08-25T02:31:00.000-07:00

Apartment therapy have some great articles, in this case for making a water garden in a container:

Container garden by Bart Everson (licensed for use under Creative Commons)

Such a fantastic idea.

Sometimes stuff speaks to you...

2010-08-25T02:26:00.000-07:00

Ursula Vernon, the woman I hope to be if I don't grow up, discussing the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

"Now, it’s not a perfect book. Lots of people would find it a snore, or annoying, or whatever. But hey, I enjoyed it, parts of it spoke to me. There is a scene where she sits in Italy and carefully arranges the absolutely perfect lunch on a plate and feels a kind of odd happiness and I stood in my kitchen more than once, carefully laying out several kinds of interesting salad on a piece of red Fiestaware, and feeling a fragile emotion that I would hard pressed to explain fully, except that it was something like even though my life is wrecked beyond measure and I do not know how much of it I am going to be able to salvage, this meal here is perfect and the rest doesn’t matter while I am eating it."

Yeah, made me cry. I'm still uncertain and messed up. Woo.

800% more beautiful

2010-08-18T05:44:00.000-07:00

A wonderful little bit of serendipity - a song, time-stretched 800% becomes so, so beautiful, ethereal, and calm... I listened to a snippet of the original anaemic pre-pubescent poppy warbling, just so I could hear where it was coming from - yuck. It was ignorable, I guess, but the symphonic, mutated version conjures slow waves on alien shores against violet skies, and I love it.

If you're not friends with flash, you can download it here.

Mmmmmpipes

2010-08-06T02:56:00.000-07:00

I'm slightly stunned by the fact that I'm really relating to something on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour...

Unfortunately the prog doesn't appear to be available to listen again, sadly. *pout*

Andrea Boyd is a Nova Scotian, and woahman, can she play the pipes:

There's loads more of her online, I highly recommend a listen, if you like that sort of thing.

This has just been the biggest huge-wet-bag-of-nostalgia-slap-in-the-face I've had for a while, and it's strong! I played the pipes (well, starting with the beginner's 'chanter', of course) from when I moved to Scotland around age 8, until quite a few years later in high school when my Mum and I had a chat, and decided that with the introduction of fees, it wasn't worth continuing to learn as the eldest in a girls-only (rather than ability-level) class. Paying to teach others! Where's the mileage in that? The thoughtless sexism which caused me to quit makes me sad but I don't really regret it - it allowed me to focus more on academic and crafty pursuits. I do miss being good at an instrument though, one that felt so natural, and I especially miss making such a massive, beautiful noise.

I hope that one day I'll have the time and money to get my own set and learn again, though I have the far more challenging ukulele to learn first ;)

Mysteries and blank maps...

2010-08-04T03:40:00.000-07:00

"...lived by the admonition of E. T. Jaynes that if you were ignorant about a phenomenon, that was a fact about your own state of mind, not a fact about the phenomenon itself; that your uncertainty was a fact about you, not a fact about whatever you were uncertain about; that ignorance existed in the mind, not in reality; that a blank map did not correspond to a blank territory. There were mysterious questions, but a mysterious answer was a contradiction in terms. A phenomenon could be mysterious to some particular person, but there could be no phenomena mysterious of themselves. To worship a sacred mystery was just to worship your own ignorance.

[...] People had no sense of history, they learned about chemistry and biology and astronomy and thought that these matters had always been the proper meat of science, that they had never been mysterious. The stars had once been mysteries. Lord Kelvin had once called the nature of life and biology - the response of muscles to human will and the generation of trees from seeds - a mystery "infinitely beyond" the reach of science. (Not just a little beyond, mind you, but infinitely beyond. Lord Kelvin sure had gotten a big emotional kick out of not knowing something.) Every mystery ever solved had been a puzzle from the dawn of the human species right up until someone solved it."

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong

Embracing absurdity

2010-03-16T06:25:00.000-07:00

Bhaktapur, Nepal

Delightfully odd! You have to have a look at the Facedowns blog. Holiday snaps with a twist - the subjects are pictured lying face down, in various exotic locations around the world. Looking through it made me giggle.

Dali Desert, Bolivia

I had to share it here. Beautifully simple in concept, endlessly versatile in execution, this innocent subversion of something so ubiqutous encourages people to be playful in a public place.

Red Cube. New York, New York

I feel it reminds me to look at things in another way, just for the joy of it. Embrace the silly, there are like-minded others out there!

Glimpse: Nesting heart bowls

2010-03-02T07:52:00.000-08:00

Nesting heart bowls by Jen of JDWolfe Pottery

What a find! I'm always such a sucker for ceramics, especially hand-made, hand-glazed ones, but I just had to squee over these bowls by J D Wolfe Pottery, via Krafty Thoughts. I love the natural variations, gradients, visual textures and layers of colour that an experienced potter can achieve with glazes - it's a fascinating art. It grabs me similarly to the jewel-bright colours enamellers bring to metalwork, though the glaze usually shows less precision and more natural variation that just makes the finished item feel all the more precious to me. I can browse pottery all day, and just become more amazed. Don't want to do it (well, maybe a little), but I do want to own it, to hold it, and to share it. I already have one sake set, a sake bottle, a tea bowl and some other oddments, I don't have the space or money to start a collection!

Lily Pad with Miniature Heart by Jen of JDWolfe

I really have to stop right now or this will just be pottery as far as the eye can see. Close the window, step away from the Etsy...

Shot - Lucy Harvey

2010-02-10T06:07:00.000-08:00

Found objects artist Lucy Harvey is currently in residence at Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales, exploring rural legend and creating an outdoor site-specific installation.

The Black Knight necklace from Harvey's jewellery enterprise Elsie Owl Adornment

I've been following Harvey's work since I discovered her extraordinary "Science and Superstition" collection and something in her work grabbed me. I don't now what it is about found object pieces, but it's something I find myself looking out for and devouring avidly. I haven't really done any myself, I don't feel I need to explore it, but something in it fascinates me. It's been great to see her recent posts accumulating objects beachcombed from the surrounding area, combing the archives of fishing paraphenalia at the local museum and considering the function or otherwise of objects.

"My work explores the psychological necessity for narrative structure and how anxieties are sublimated through the mundane and extraordinary. I use craft processes as a vehicle to speak of the unknown, the uncanny and the melancholy. I manipulate the pre-existing to create enigmatic artefacts which toy with our longing to believe in the fantastic."

Lucey Harvey

These four recent untitled pieces hit me and I had to share. Take a look at the full image to see the diversity of objects combined:

Four new pieces from the Aberystwith Primitive series by Lucy Harvey

I can't wait to see more.

Sculpting metal - Melissa Manley

2010-02-10T04:33:00.000-08:00

I'd forgotten about the metalwork techniques of chasing and repousse - forming metal by working it from front and back with punches and hammers. It struck me as having huge possibilities for sculptural excitement, deforming malleable metal to combine my love of curve and shape with exciting techniques such as etching and soldering, and one day perhaps even enamel. Unfortunately however it's a bit antisocial - bashing something with a hammer for hours on end isn't appreciated in my livingroom, not to mention that my table-from-ikea workbench might not take well to it. Thus it was relegated to the dream pile.

Caught in the Current by Melissa Manley

Today however I discovered Melissa Manley's beautiful chased and raised sculptural bowls. The contrast between smooth, translucent, bright vitreous enamel over shapley forms and the grungy, organic texture grown by electroforming on copper 'branches' gives her raised vessels uniquely submarine feel that I love.

"...the copper branches I made which I later threaded through the holes at the edge..." from The Making of a Vessel

Even more wonderfully, she's shared the process used to create the piece Caught in the Current, from copper sheet and rod to finished piece. I find seeing how others create hugely inspiring - not only are they showing you the techniques and how to apply them, but seeing it from the artist's eye view brings the creative process down from the exalted clouds of imagined studios to the familiar world of banged fingers, firescale and grot. To me, showing how a piece came into being doesn't detract from the impact of its 'glamour shots' but gives me a deeper appreciation accompanied by a huge burst of admiration for the artist's skill and ingenuity .

Robert's Belt Buckle by Melissa Manley

The strange thing however was that it was this relatively simple little piece that clouted me upside the head and said "get some pitch and start hammering!" Perhaps it's that it represents something achievable to someone starting out, with a little dedication - smaller scale, less specialised equipment required, generally a lower threshold to getting started. Perhaps also it's the idea that you can incorporate it into other projects while perfecting your technique, rather than creating something that must stand alone. Perhaps though it's because I've had some really exciting ideas wibbling about in my head for making similar deformed-surface graphical work, and it reminded me of that. I think it might be a good direction to go in next.

In any case, I had to write this little piece not just to share Melissa Manley's beautiful work, but to remind me to ask if I could have some tools made for my birthday!

Botanical Beads of the World by Ruth J. Smith

2010-02-04T04:27:00.000-08:00

Melon seed purse from Botanical Beads of the World by Ruth J. Smith

While searching for a reviewer today, I stumbled across a compilation of jewellery and other items from around the world that incorporate botanical bead elements. Primarily seeds, nuts, and fruits, there's incredible variety and subtlety shown in the images. I love the story about how she got started:

"From childhood I have been fascinated by nature’s infinite variety of forms, colors, textures, shapes and sizes. Seeds display this amazing diversity, and over the years I have accumulated a sizeable collection of botanical necklaces. These “beads” consist of seeds, fruits, stems, roots, arils (seed appendages) and rhizomes (underground stems). I admired them, I wore them and I wondered about them. Where had the seed come from and which plant produced it? When I tried to learn something about these “beads” I discovered there were no books that dealt with the subject."

Extract from Introduction from Botanical Beads of the World by Ruth J. Smith

Datura seed necklace from Botanical Beads of the World by Ruth J. Smith

She went on to work with botanists to identify her collection, and explore the cultural significance of each element of it. I can't wait to look through the book in more detail, and read this interview and feature on her collection over at The Herb Companion.

A new start, and amazing artist of the day: Mike Lythgo

2010-02-02T05:14:00.000-08:00

Diving Gannet and Wee Fish by Mike Lythgoe

I've been trying to read Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit for a while now, but was a bit put off by feeling vuagely embarassed or unworthy. I'm glad I picked it up again yesterday though - something in it really made me reconsider what I want to be doing with my art, what my inspirations are, what I'm good at, where I come from. Me, me me, it sounds so self-centered! However, I think trying to work it out is a worthwhile exercise, especially if I can become less frustrated and miserable with my art. Hopefully I'll be able to puzzle out where I should be directing and focussing my urgent, constant and sometimes overwhelming need to create.

I covet images and inspirations, hoarding them like Smaug, which isn't particularly healthy. I can't print and pin all of them to my wall, but perhaps presenting and analysing them here will allow my thoughts to crystalise and I'll find some peace. If I can introduce people to some of the stunning work that finds its way through my eyeballs every day, that further validates the exercise. I'll try and avoid making this too heavy, but it's primarily an exercise in untangling my thoughts - edited and audited, but still thinking out loud. It might not be the best reading, but pretty pictures are guaranteed.

Five Sanderlings Resting by Mike Lythgoe

Searching for the Mike Lythgoe (who presented the Radio 4 programme I'm writing about at the moment), I came across his namesake's incredible bird sculptures. Something in them really speaks to me, and has shaken the dust off some sculptures I've had kicking around in my head for quite a while now.

I think it's the purity and simplicity of form, not sacrificing the beauty of the curves for the sake of realism, but capturing the motion and character of the subject. He compliments the creatures using the matt, rugged, quiet forms of driftwood as incredibly unobtrusive stands and backdrops, be it for individual figures or for his utterly delightful tableau of predatory bird and bright, fleeing fish.

A year or so ago I spent a fascinating afternoon in the library, devouring a book on carving accurate and realistic life-size replicas of various birds, right down to individual feather-barbs. I found the artist's work beautiful and incredible, but though stunning in its execution of carving, paint and pose, it didn't move me the way that Lythgoe's work does.

Five Sanderlings Resting makes me homesick for the Essex marshes, long for the sea, and feel utterly at home. Thinking about it along with Tharp's comments on artistic scope and scale is making me reconsider why I've been having such trouble with the carving I've been working on for the past two years. Existing halfway between the extreme detail I can't seem to avoid in painting or drawing, and the extreme abstraction I long to sculpt in stone, it's fallen in a hinterland, a morass of conflicting desires and designs. I'll persevere with it, but I think this revalation is going to be helpful not just in finishing it but in recognising and discarding or redeveloping dead-end ideas in future.