Heart of Darkness

click photo to enlarge
Joseph Conrad's novel, "Heart of Darkness", as a piece of art reminds me, in a couple of respects at least, of the eponymous album, "The Velvet Underground & Nico" - massively influential, long lasting, but read (or listened to) by fewer people than know of it.

The book centres around a river journey into darkest Africa to find an ivory trader, Kurtz, who is worshipped by the natives of the area. Conrad weaves a number of themes into the novel such as horror, racism, imperialism and colonialism. The most famous adaptation of the critically acclaimed novel is Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film, "Apocalypse Now" set in the Vietnam War.

On a recent visit to the National Centre for Craft and Design in Sleaford we saw another art work that uses Conrad's novel as its inspiration. Clair Morgan's piece features thousands of flies fixed to hanging threads in columns and rows that collectively form a cuboid shape. It adopts Conrad's title and is not one of those works that the viewer finds agreeable or pleasurable. Rather, it fascinates in a disquieting sort of way, a characteristic it shares with Conrad's opus.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Heart of Dearkness by Claire Morgan
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm (34mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/80 sec
ISO:640
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Eye-scorching colour

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Living in the countryside I am surrounded by natural, largely muted colour - the greens and browns of grass and leaves, the dark earth, the bricks, tiles and stone of village and farm buildings. It's true that points of strong colour intrude in the form of flowers, large agricultural vehicles, and most of all the blue of the sky. But it's also true to say that I don't regularly experience the layers of in-your-face, man-made colours so often found in the city. And there are times when I crave them.

So, I was pleased to visit an exhibition of creative textiles by Michael Brennand-Woods at the National Centre for Craft and Design at Sleaford, Lincolnshire, and discover that many of the pieces on display offered eye-scorching colour. As I've mentioned before, it's not unusual for me to come away from NCCD exhibitions feeling disappointed. But, as I've also noted there are occasions when I enjoy an encounter with a kind of craft (or art) that I don't usually seek out, and I depart from the show visually and creatively stimulated. Such was my experience on a recent visit where I saw textiles on the theme of "Seeds of Memory". I can't say that I engaged with the works on the terms that they were offered to me, and the impenetrable, jargon-ridden, art-speak made me despair, as it always does. But I got a lot from the experience on my own terms and that was enough for me. Other visitors who, like us, seem to have popped in for a break from shopping, appeared to appreciate the exhibition too.

During my visit I reflected on whether or not these pieces would work outside the gallery, in a home or an office for example, and decided they would. I often think otherwise about NCCD exhibits because many benefit from the light, shadows and space in which they are displayed, qualities that don't easily transfer to smaller settings.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm (90mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO:4000
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Glass sculpture

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Glass has many qualities that fascinate me: its ability to reflect, to distort, to transmit light through its structure, its hardness and smoothness, even its fragility. In recent years I've realised that glass has always intrigued me. Even back in my childhood I loved to look into mirrors, glass marbles, prisms, cheap jewellery or cut glass decanters to see how they distorted reality. But it's only in the past fifteen or so years, as I've expanded the range of my photography, that I've realised the depth of my interest. Now I rarely miss an opportunity to snap a good reflection, a distortion or any other kind of interesting manifestation in glass.

When I go to the National Centre for Craft and Design in Sleaford I find that its always the glass exhibits for sale in their shop that I look at first. I can't say I've bought a lot of "art" glass, but we did buy a couple of rather fine bowls a few years ago, one of which has made an appearance on the blog. Consequently, when we recently made one of our regular trips to Sleaford to take in the current exhibition I was delighted to find that it featured the work of someone who worked in glass. Luke Jerram had pieces from three of his major series on display: Radiometer Chandeliers, Glass Microbiology and Rotated Data Sculpture. It was very refreshing to find that these titles are very clear descriptions of the work rather than the usual opaque artspeak. Of the three types of glass work it was the forms drawn from the world of viruses, bacteria and microbiology that I enjoyed most. To see structures inspired by the microscopic forms that can only be seen under powerful magnification, that are rendered large, in beautifully formed glass and lit by powerful lamps was marvellous. So much so that I took a couple of shots with my pocket camera. Today's photograph is a detail of one of the larger pieces.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: iAuto
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Super-size curve stitching

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Last year, in a post showing a photograph of church organ pipes, I briefly touched on the subject of curve stitching (often called string or pin and thread art) - that is to say, the assembly of straight lines of thread in such a way that they produce curves. It's an activity that I associate with my own years as a primary school pupil. However, it must still be quite popular because I see from my hit counter that particular blog page being regularly landed on by people searching using the phrase "curve stitching". The activity is, to my mind, a craft. However, the other day at the National Centre for Craft and Design at Sleaford, Lincolnshire, I came upon an example on a giant scale that bridged the gap between craft and art.

The main exhibition gallery was filled with a piece by Gabriel Dawe called Plexus No. 10. Accompanying text by the artist described his arrangement of taut, visible spectrum coloured threads arranged in lines and curve-stitching- style arcs that the viewer can walk between as "materialising the structure of light." To wander into the piece was a fascinating journey because the coloursof the threads changed depending on your position, as did their shape, from some angles resembling the slats of venetian blinds. An interesting phenomenon was the way that the viewer sometimes became disorientated, losing a sense of how near the threads were. We often descend on the N.C.C.D. at a time when we are the only visitors, or when there are just one or two others. On this occasion there were quite a few people and it was interesting to hear and see their reaction. There were lots of smiles, gasps and much careful peering to see how the structures were constructed and why they behaved as they did. In this piece Gabriel Dawe has clearly pulled of that most difficult of tricks by creating a work that is both good, popular and fun. The exhibition opened on 22 October and continues until 15 January 2012. I thoroughly recommend it.

With permission I took several photographs, none of which effectively describe the sight, experience and fun of moving around the installation - fitting three dimensions into two often has that result. However, they do give an indication of what I've been talking about and were interesting to shoot. Here are my best three.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 102mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

hub becomes nccd

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It seems that the hub (lower case) has become nccd (also lower case). An improvement, certainly, but wouldn't it have been so much better to have gone the whole hog and made it N.C.C.D.?

Ever since I moved to Lincolnshire I've visited the National Centre for Craft & Design in Sleaford. I've been delighted, bemused, exasperated and despairing as I've viewed their regular exhibitions. And that's exactly how it should be. There's absolutely no reason why I should like everything that is shown. I much prefer to see a wide range of exhibitions that bring me experiences that are new, different and challenging, and that necessarily means, as far as I personally am concerned, there'll be hits and misses. The next blog post will feature the current main exhibition which I think is a definite hit. However, for today let's stick with the "re-branding" exercise.

It makes much more sense to use the initials of the centre's official name rather than the generic title of "the hub". There are too many other places with that name which leads to confusion, and anyway it's become a touch passe. But why keep the lower case? Surely that's a fashion that's had its day too. Moreover, lower case becomes either confusing ot unreadable when written in a block of text. I would rather that capitalized initials had featured in the new advertising and that subsequent updates to the style and signage simply modified them. I do, however, quite like the overlapping angular shapes that accompany the revised name, and the painting of them on one side of the building works well too. So well in fact that I had to photograph them with the window reflecting a nearby tree.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On