Todays Happiness Experiment entry

Delivering Masterclass on Short Form Video in Site Gallery, Sheffield overlooking the pop domes

Visit to Graves Gallery for small photography exhibition (Street Photos) after which, on the street, I chatted about freemason signs & antiquities with a benign drunkard

Low yellow winter sunlight bathing the red brick and towers of the city (after meeting with Milan)

Street View: Photographs of Urban Life (Graves Gallery, Sheffield)

cartier-bresson
palermo 72
2 boys playing with wheel, hearse in bg
life & death momento mori - dynamism of kids vs parked hearse

garry winogrand
american legion convention dallas 64
ignoring amputee in ground
amputee in iwn dimension like nuck drake in my photo

fountains fell yorks dales 3/8/08
simon roberts
couple picnicing by road
tranquil - watching nature on own terms

colin jones
children c75
skipping along foot of wall
backdrop of solid brick
shadow of house opposite adds mystery

sheffield = city of seven hills
paul nash did photography in last 14 years
martin parr did series on bad weather britain

happiness experiment entries

tues 22 nov

wisdom from roger g at mentoring session in st pancras

chat at october gallery with james birch about christine keeler - kind gift of mayor catalogue

ciggie chat with photographer ray stevenson on stairs by rock archive (on my old stomping ground near carleton rd) about bowie, pistols, who, crosby s&n etc. as I collected my miles & trane photo (which i promptly took down to frameworks to finish)

wed 23

calm chat with N after the storm

shakshuka in HGS strip park

meeting with meagan the pagan at old st about edin tv fest

Estonian Happiness Experiment entries

Thurs 17 Nov
Lon - Helsinki - Tallinn

late lunch alone in a candlelit restaurant (art nouveau style) with Amos Oz & Louis Armstrong

working in the flow on my Tallinn keynote on the plane to Helsinki

initial wander into Tallinn old town, serenaded by a heavy metal guitarist, freezing despite his long hair

Fri 18

Delivered keynote address to mark 90th anniversary of broadcasting in Estonia in Tallinn University (on stage where Umberto Eco spoke) in front of Chairman of ERR, Head of Baltic Film School & 250 others

Evening walking tour of upper old town with Juri, an Estonian TV personality - enjoying the atmospheric lighting

My 1st Thanksgiving Dinner at the house of the Deputy Chief of Mission of the US Embassy where I met DCMs & other diplomatic types from Germany, Norway, Sweden, France, Spain, Georgia, Austria & others

Sat 19

Ran workshop at Baltic Film Media Arts & Communication School with Alessandro

Siesta to Kind of Blue

Vegging out with Grand Tour ep 1 in hotel room

Sun 20
Tallinn - Helsinki - Lon

Inspired to resume writing When Sparks Fly 2 in wake of workshop - wrote almost 2,000 words on journey home

Reading Judas by Amos

Listening to Natural Mystic

exhilerating dream

dreamt at about 4am today. I use a wooden item, the spatula in our kitchen but larger, as a snowboard. the dream is the ride downhill. it is viscerally thrilling, slightly scary at times, white with snow, fast - twice i lose visibility in the driving snow and have to take a chance my blind direction is ok. I finally halt in such a blind upwards ramp or bridge. when i halt and some visibility returns there are a few people in the vicinity, New York street workers in hard hats. i awake with the exhilaration of the ride.

Coincidence

9.X.16
School near Olympic Stadium where Dylan had Frantic Assembly audition had a quotation on the wall from Ulysses by Tennyson (possibly "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield")

Podcast (10?.X.16) Richard Flanagan on The Narrow Road to the Deep North in which the protagonist constantly refers to the same poem

I was trying to recall where I'd come across the poem at the school and it cropped up while jogging within a day or two (on a podcast I'd already listened to)

National Gallery

Van Gogh - Sunflowers 88
Distinctive pale lemon bg
Narrow palette - yellow/mustard green
Fantasy decorative piece

Gauguin - Vase of flowers 96
Wide palette
Aspect of death & decay
Less abstract than VG
And less epic

Braque - Olive Tree 07
Style derived from Gauguin/VG/Post-exp
No black
Pastel palette
Curved lines not hard edges of Cezanne

George Bellows - Men of the Docks 1912
Claustrophobic NY composition
Cf Cez??
Contrast with France - epic Modernist urban

Surprise - Rousseau
91
Is Tiger surprised by lightening or human?
Blake
Tiger not properly grounded
Rain v effective
Michael Franks

Klimt - hermine gallia
04
Cf Gainsborough
Cf Sargent
Grey & pink palette Cf Whistler
Raised jewels are a flaw

Matisse - Greta Moll
08
Same held hands pose as above
Almost a caricature face yet a strong impression of the woman

Seurat - bathers at asnieres 84
Epic
Urban bucolic
Monumental, statuesque - classical
Strong L > R movement
Individual faces yet universalised - 4 figures are generic, 3 particular
Mirror-like water effect
Coherent palette, luminous

Monet - Waterlilies, setting sun c07
Smooth reflection layer v rough actual layer
Floating reality

Money - Gare St Lazare 77
Solid iron v ephemeral steam
Nature free zone Urban modernity

Star Spot #266

miriam margolyes
bafta

Flesh - York Art Gallery 3/11/16

1 FLESH

Francesco Francia - Lucretia c1508
Vivacious light palette

Italian School - Pieta 1575-1642
Right arm = Classical death cf Chatterton

Style of Tosa School
Kusozu: death of a noble lady & decay of her body
Cf Sam Taylor Wood
Sequence of 9 images

Bacon
Henrietta Moraes on blue couch
65
(Manc art gal)
Cf Soutine Carcass of meat
Cf Picasso - facets of face

Kossoff
Seated nude 63
Cf Auerbach - thick paint technique

Freud
Girl holding foot
87 etching

Masterful fine hatching technique

Degas
Study of girls head 1870s
Interesting palette - strokes of pale green & yellow

2 ANATOMIES

Jacob Kramer
Clay 28
Leeds Art Gal

Slade
Foreshadowing of Holocaust

3 STILL LIFE

Helen Chadwick
The philosophers fear of death
89

Infinity or hourglass
Hairy belly v chicken flesh

4 ABSTRACT FLESH

end

BURTON GALLERY

LS Lowry
Clifford's tower
52/3
Linking the ages
Jewish resonance

Arthur Studd 1863-1819
Went to Samoa & Tahiti with Gauguin

Robert Medley 05-94
Bicyclists agst blue bg 51
Festival of Britain commission
Sketchy black outlines very 50s

Hockney
Egyptian Head Disappearing into Descending Clouds
61

Lightness
Carelessness of youth

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham
Orange Form 56
Nicholson & Hepworth /St Ives
Beautiful subtle textures

Nicholson
1934 (1934)
Cf Picasso still-lifes
Complexity of texture v simplicity of form

Gwen John
Young woman in red shawl
20
Cf Schiele - hands
Wonderfully subtle palette

Jacob Epstein was friend of Paul Robeson
Visited Harlem dancehalls together

Harold gosney
Reverie
2015 oak

Grew out of the shape and cracks of the wood

Fungai
Dead Christ supported by 2 angels
1480-1520

Fingers in wound so powerful

End