..TUNNEL OF LOVE...

..I can feel the soft silk of your blouse
 and them soft thrills in our little fun house
 then the lights go out........

The Tunnel of Love - another piece in the on-going story of four buildings in my MA course. There are a lot of things going on here , but then this piece exists in two states - the ' Study/ Work in Progress ' piece , illustrated here , and the final completed work , still in construction .

 


The ' Work in Progress ' piece deals with and illustrates  the ideas , the possible futures for this piece ; the work is still ' open ' at this stage  . The  ' completed work ' will deal with just one of those possibilities , taken to a formal conclusion .

The starting point here is of course the idea that the ' Tunnel of Love ' , the fairground ride , is indeed an actual tunnel , running between the basement of the Art Lover's house and the House of the Dominatrix .

Our Hero is intrigued by the possibility that he can pass from the Art Lover's house to next door unnoticed , the idea being that the tunnel becomes a changing room , a 'Rite of Passage ' . Our Hero is of course in love with his alter ego and emerges from the tunnel in his female persona - the ' Reveal ' . The piece of work contains many points at which decisions must be made ; for our Hero , decisions on the colour of lipstick , the colour of nail-varnish. For me , decisions on what to include in the ' final ' piece , what to leave in , what to take out. References are many - fair-ground rides , pop-art ,  magic , transformation , penny-in-the-slot machines , the Hoerengracht ............

 

HHmmmm ..........decisions , decisions........

..I WAS SO MUCH OLDER THEN.............

........Ah , but I was so much older then........
         I'm younger than that now

One from the archives this week ; I was clearing out one of the drawers in the plan-chest , sorting out some interior sketches to take in to Stockport College for the Interior design students , and came across some photos of old projects. Once in a while - if you are lucky - you absolutely nail a job . For some reason everything comes together - the site , the location , the brief , the client , the time - and , putting no small part of yourself into the job , when it arrives , when it's finished , you know that it could not have been any better . If you are lucky you maybe get five or six or these in a professional career ; I can probably still count on the fingers of two hands the projects I am really , really proud of...........so that's eight fingers , then.

 

 

This one dates from 1974; yes, that long ago . I was still wet behind the ears , only four years out of college , and was asked to design a traditional London wine bar - in Manchester . God knows how it came together - it was all assembled on site , by eye , from reclaimed screens and panelling that at that time were being stripped out of traditional pubs all across the city . A wine bar - no beers , draught or bottled , just bottles of wine , and forty years ago Mateus Rose and Hirondelle were all that anyone drank - well , ok , maybe the occasional Blue Nun - so to design a proper wine bar selling Bordeaux , Burgundies , all chateaux bottled was another world to me 

 

Still remembered today with great affection , it had a wonderful atmosphere , suddenly appearing yet feeling as if it had been there for decades. If it was still there today it would make a fortune - only be duplicated , sold on , rolled out , the energy gradually

dissipating as it becomes just another high street brand. One-offs should be remembered for being just that.

Goblets , Bridge street, Manchester , 1974

 

     

..NEEDLES AND PINS......

Following on from last week's posting re the Art Fair in Macclesfield , I should note that I actually ended up buying three pieces , not two . Our time on the saturday was cut short as we had a train to catch , and I didn't have time to purchase the third piece when it caught my eye on the friday .

Fortunately through the catalogue I managed to track down both the piece and the seller , Louise at
www.drawntostitch.com  and the piece duly arrived , safely packaged , at the weekend . Its a small work in mixed media - ' Cottage on the Moors ' , really nice and moody , delicate stiching over brown paper . Check out her website and her page on Facebook for more examples of her work .

 

 

Many thanks , Louise

     

..ART FOR ART'S SAKE..

Art for art's sake, Money for God's sake....

The bi-annual Art Fair in Macclesfield , in aid of East Cheshire Hospice , has just finished and as usual the standard was very high - obviously a lot of talented artists reside in our local area.

As usual I was tempted , my justification to my long suffering wife being A )  ' well its all for a most excellent cause ' and , slightly pathetically , B ) ' well at least they are better than mine '.......... She made no comment.

I ended up buying two paintings ; the first a work by Jenny Hirst who lives in Alderley Edge . Apparently she ran an interior design business for some six years or so but wisely gave it up to concentrate on her painting ; wouldn't we all love to..........

Oil and mixed media , this one is ' St Tropez ' . We had bought one of hers at the previous fair in 2010 , and I really like her style . I sometimes ( most times ) wish I could just sit down and paint , rather than spend days thinking about and designing my illustrations....

 

 

The second piece was by another local artist , Renata Davies . This isn't it as I don't have a pic of it yet , but this is typical of her style - quite small watercolours sometimes collaged together on bits of paper and card with an intensity of feeling for local landscape. 

 

Both quite traditional pieces in a way , both technically accomplished and something to look at and aspire to as I sit at the drawing board getting increasingly frustrated and wondering just what on earth I am supposed to be doing.......... 

 

AND it's all in a good cause .....................

 



..BAD MOON RISING..

...Night Time......

Our hero is standing outside a discreet doorway on Canal St in central Manchester - The House of the Dominatrix.  He wishes , tonight to be a submissive , to relinquish all control for once , to be punished .But now he pauses at the door , apprehensive - as so he should be .

A voice beckons...........

" Come on in , dear , she won't bite............."

........but of course she will , for tonight is the night of the bad moon rising.........

Back to the illustrative work I am producing for my MA , using buildings that I know in Manchester and the framework of architecturally drawn sections and plans to investigate alternative futures , alternative pasts , alternative presences........

 

This is still a work in progress , probably around 85% complete. This is based in the House of the Dominatrix and is entitled ' Red Riding Hood / Role Play : 1 '. Fairy stories generally always have their origins in old myths , legends and folk tales and I was interested in exploring the initial premise of role play via the Dominatrix through the idea of transformation and shape-shifting .

 

 Our hero enters the building on the understanding that he is to be dressed in the costume of a dog and then be subject to the ritual obediance lessons as required by his mistress - an inversion of the usual wolf / little red riding hood relationship.....the dominatrix is , however , at a certain period in the month a shapeshifter and does indeed become her alter-ego , wolf as the predator ; a far more terrifying presence. 

 

And whilst writing this , it has only just ocurred to me that the red signifies the menstrual flow......... 

 

Hhhhmmmmmmm

 

I see the bad moon rising

I see trouble on the way

I see earthquakes and lightnin'

I see bad times today

 

Don't go round tonight

Well it's bound to take your life

There's a bad moon on the rise

 

 

..MUSIC IN A DOLL'S HOUSE ( FAMILY )

...London Fashion Week , Tuesday 18th September , 1.00 pm , and down in a hotel on Park Lane , London , Anya Hindmarch's Spring 2013 Collection ' Pomp and Pleasure ' begins to roll......or at least rotate...............

Having spent much of the last forty years or so as an interior designer sketching out interiors and then seeing them come to life , it's no longer a suprise when they actually get finished , mostly just a sense of satisfaction.

For a certain Jonathan Chadwick of www.artistictype.co.uk , however , it was ' a most surreal experience , seeing my illustrations brought to life in a full / life size doll's house ' . Jonathan had been approached by the designers of the show , who had come up with the doll's house concept , to produce each and every elevation plus all the details as illustrations that would then be blown up and reproduced at a life size scale ;
eighteen days single handedly sketching out and formatting all the walls and all the furniture to the correct proportion . Not just straightforward elevations, either ; the whole design had an illustrative quality far removed from the normal ' working drawing ' style .The house was then constructed on a circular turntable and rotated slowly to the delight of the crowd , together with  fully programmed lighting and sound effects and complete with Anya playing the organ.........far beyond anything i've ever done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=AMvDUu0CNiM

' Surreal , just surreal ' Jonathan commented.........and since the only thing that I have ever seen that comes remotely close to this on this scale were Hockney's designs for  ' The Rakes Progress ' then maybe some theatre work may beckon for him ? And I did notice amongst the scenery in the doll's house a quasi-renaissence putti that bore more than a passing resemblance to a certain grand-daughter , naked in all her glory.

Like a passing show that has now left town , the structure had but a fleeting presence ;
for Jonathan however the experience will remain with him for a long long time.

And , yes , for those of you who follow the more arcane and obtuse musical references in all these blog headers , the album  ' Music In A Doll's House ' was released in 1968
by the group Family. Most appropriate , I thought.......

...IN THE SUMMERTIME....

.......In the summertime not much gets done on here as we have been out in France , walking up in the Pyrennees and Navarra - Northern Spain really is a lovely part of the country , and walking in the mountains in the early morning
tends to clear ones head...............

But september has arrived , term time for my MA looms and now it's down to work . One sketch I did manage to get done in the last four weeks or so was a concept sketch for a new dim-sum and cocktail bar for Dre Masso in Gerrard St , Soho........

 

The contact here came via Jonathan @ Artistic Type , who has created the logo for the bar and went on to fine-tune my sketch for the press release.............

 

 

 

.....and a fine job he did too.............and we have both been invited down to the opening.

 

More on Jonathan's work in the next posting - Music In A Doll's House perhaps ?