Art, Writing and Research
Random work
Artist’s Blog
Three New Paintings
Completed this evening… Old Note, oil on board, 2023 Sun Breaks Through, oil on board, 2023 Sunburst, oil on board, …
Nana’s Mountain
First painting I’ve finished in a long while. I called this one ‘Nana’s Mountain’, after the hill behind her garden, …
Painting
I’ve started painting again and have begun my journey using water-based oils which I must say are rather good. The …
Iridescence
Since buying the piece of Roman glass I described in my previous post, I’ve been interested in its iridescent surface …
Roman Bottle
I recently purchased a beautiful Roman Unguentarium (2nd or 3rd century AD) and have undertaken a Goethean observation of it …
Rinsho
After my last post I watched a video by calligrapher Tomoko Kawao in which she mentions the practice of Rinsho, …
Shadow Calligraphy
On Saturday, whilst at Shotover with the kids, I took some time – whilst they were climbing trees – to …
Becoming Memory
This is a short clip of a recording made at Easter in 1982. It’s part of a performance of a …
Fox Talbot’s Glassware
I recently visited The Weston Library in Oxford to see the ‘Bright Sparks: Photography and the Talbot Archive’ exhibition which …
Goethean Observation: Diffuser II
Thinking about the recent observation I did on the diffuser, I was picking through the words and was struck by …
Goethean Observation: Diffuser
After writing about the empty diffusers I found in my late mum’s house, I’ve been wondering about how I might …
A Remembrance of Things We Never Have Known
Following on from the shadow work I’ve been doing I decided to work in some colour. I suppose it would …
A Moment’s Language
I have long been meaning to work from some videos I made back in 2018, using a calligraphy brush and …
Take Me Home
After we lost mum in September last year, I found some old audio cassettes in her attic, one of which …
Arrival/Departure
It was almost 5 years ago in 2018 that I made these videos in a forest in Oxford and I’ve …
Diffusers
In the months since my mum passed away we have been emptying her house ready for sale – one of …
Grief
After my mum passed away in September I found some old cassettes in cupboards in her attic room and over …
Mum
On Thursday, 29th September, my wonderful mum, Mary, passed away. She was 78 years old and had been diagnosed with …
Measuring the past
“We have been living this same moment ever since we were conceived. It is memory, and to some extent sleep, …
Disordered Time
In my last post I talked about entropy, in particular with reference to a book I’ve recently re-read by Carlo …
Entropy
My work has often involved an exploration of time, in particular, how we can best imagine a past moment as …
Wicked Magician, Fly
For many years I’ve had a song in my head, the lyrics for which I’ve always remembered as being: The …
The Quanta of History
I have just finished reading Carlo Rovelli’s ‘The Order of Time’ which, as well as being a fantastic read, has …
Empathy Forward
Much of my work over the past however many years has been about empathy and how we can empathise with …
The Natural World of 978
I’ve written before about this postcard. When I bought it n 1978 I was 7 years old and, in many …
The Gone Forest
Two years ago I shot some video at Shotover Country Park (see ‘Writing Shadows’) and finally, this weekend, I had …
Empathy/Exchange: 668 grams
This follows on from my last post – Goethean Observation: Pilgrims of the Wild, 1935. I made this observation after …
Goethean Observation: Pilgrims of the Wild, 1935
As with observations of this type, the text is written almost as a stream-of-consciousness, as a result of which there …
Nazareth O
As part of my family history research (as described in my previous post), I chanced upon a name which leapt …
Several Johns and St. Thomas
I’ve recently returned to researching my family tree – something I’ve been doing on and off since 2007, and have been …
Raspberry
Continuing with my research, I’ve gone back a few years to some work I did on World War I, specifically …
Tokens and Shadows
A while ago I made some sketches at Shotover Wood, tracing shadows with ink. Thinking back to these and with …