Mike Watts & Sue LeCren - Books For Free

Sue LeCren and Mike Watts
with Patternotion
 

Two for the price of one!

Both the books and the lovers of art, culture and  'Duke Special' that are holding them here.

A big welcome to the fold for New Zealand's 'Sue the Librarian' and hope you enjoy Patternotion. Don't let your food get cold either, looks delicious.
Keep in touch with Sue on Twitter at @LiSu and as she says herself, 

"I'm an escape artist for a living... I live to escape... well OK, I'm a librarian. Same thing"

Catch her if you can!

 If any of you don't know the distinguished gentleman pictured here then let me introduce you to Mike Watts, who is both a Stem Cell aficionado at UCH and photographer on London's live music circuit. As well as bumping into one another in live music venues he recently accompanied us on all 10 miles of our Patternotion Blue Plaque walk across North London.

It seems he has got itchy feet once again and has travelled a little further than those 10 miles of Patternotion. Have a good time in New Zealand and keep spreading the Books For Free message!

Mike Watts is @DrFizzy if you want to keep abreast of his adventures in your Twitter walking boots.

AL.

Sonia Jarema & Cath Rive - Poem Painting Conversations

There is a mysterious page at the end of the first chapter in the Patternotion book. On Page 60 we find no image or poem just a declaration for the ahead.
This is what it says -

 

Collaboration

I hate to make resolutions but I didn’t want the year to
start running away without having made any plans so I asked my artist friend, Cath, if we could collaborate and this is what she said,

 

"Great idea
You give me a poem
I’ll give you a painting
I’ll give you the painting from the poem
You give me the poem from the painting
We can keep going
And see where it takes us?"

 

So this year we will be  having conversations between
paintings and poems.

 

--------------------------------------------------

 

So here it is! The first rally between two creates minds. First the poem by Sonia Jarema and then a visual reply by artist Cath Rive.

New Kid on the Tower Block

 

New Kid on the Tower Block (after Duchamp)
Cath Rive

Balletic you tested each stair
with toe, pad and heel.
Your hand glided the banister
as you stopped to shake sunshine
into the dark staircase.
Your shirt held clouds
you’d clung onto on the rooftop.
I could see the skyline
in your legs poised like cranes.
That evening you brought in
the dank brook on your trousers.
You told me how the water
drank you as you waded her length
to find the unfamiliar way home.

 

 

 

Check out their page (right) where we will be documenting their conversation as it unfolds.

AL.

 

 

The Verdict - Colin Gray Photographer

Tim Cullingford - The Wrestler

Oscar Wilde said 'great art should be about life, death or whimsy. I found plenty of this here, there is much diversity in this edition (applies to both the Freedbook and Patternotion book) the edit is such that each page is a surprise and you don't know what to expect.

Some pieces looked liked they were done in minutes whilst others looked like they were done in days. I like the size of the book and have been carrying it around in my pocket, easy to pull out on the bus.

 The only thing that disappoints is the lack of production values though for the price you can't complain.

Colin Gray,
Photographer
http://www.colingray.net/



Colin Gray. I'm a photographer/artist/film maker. Based in Glasgow, UK
My personal work is based on the people I love. I think it is the hardest work any artist can do. It is often harder to coax you’re your nearest and dearest, than actually making the pictures.
The 31 year old project with my parents: In Sickness and in Health, now touring and 'The Parents', (exhibited in many of the worlds leading galleries and museums).
Work with my children forms many sub projects, some show on this site, many in progress.
I have worked worldwide for a diverse range of advertising agencies, design consultancies and record companies.
I have won many awards including a Euro Art Directors gold, 2 D&AD silvers with nine appearances in the D&AD annual.

Anna McNay's Review for Art-Corpus

 'Patternotion is a charming little book, full of idiosyncratic responses, and soul-baring offerings'  *****
Anna McNay, Art-Corpus blog

Read the rest of Anna McNay's review by following this link - HERE



Art-Corpus

In other news....
Patternotion can be now be bought on AMAZON - LINK HERE

Monika Fischbein - Patternotion's Big Bang

Monika Fischbein -
'The Start of Everything'

Photograph of a book presented to us, rather provocatively, on it’s side. That is to say the photograph is turned on its side so that the book appears at first glance to be attached to a wall rather than resting on a table.

I love books. During some recent toadying I said to my employer “making fridge magnets is charming, creative and fun but to publish a book must be a far more thrilling and rewarding exercise”. He seemed pleased.

I would like to point out that I do not approve of the way that books are treated by the artist on page 51 of Patternotion (see also page 27 of Freedbook). I shall make no further reference to this person except to say that I applaud the recent confiscation of her library card.

 

‘The Start of Everything’ is overwhelming as a concept and it’s a bit puzzling as the title of this picture. If it’s The Start Of Everything then why does the position of the bookmark (or “silk” as it’s possibly called) indicate that the reader is a third of her way through the book? Answer me that! Perhaps this title is a reference to the Book of Genesis.

 

Monika Fischbein -
Freedbook Page

They (experts) used to proclaim confidently that the start of everything was a Big Bang. Now our greatest minds are suggesting that there was probably some stuff going on just before the Big Bang. Asked why they’re now unhappy with a Big Bang as the Start of Everything the experts have replied “it seems an unlikely thing to happen”. As an expert in my own field I find this unsatisfactory. I’ve sent emails.

 

So why has Monika Fischbein chosen “The Start Of Everything” as a title for this photograph? A myriad of reasons I suppose. Artists tend towards the enigmatic. They tease us with possibilities. See also Fischbein’s excellent contribution to Freedbook for a further example of her elegant titular idiosyncrasy.

Being enigmatic carries with it a misinterpretation prerogative for the viewer. This is the loophole which allows me to ponder birds, books, big bangs and other tangents when almost certainly the artist would prefer us to be appreciating the more abstract qualities contained within her work.

For example. Are the birds at the left edge of this image in sharper focus than everything else? That might be important.

 

PKD

 

Link to Monika Fischbein's Website

Ella Klenner - The healthy human

Ella Klenner - Keep the balance
Patternotion book

As a general rule I reckoned that if we left the other lumps of rock and metal orbiting our sun well alone they could take care of themselves. Then that scary meteorite hit us the other week and I wasn’t so sure.

 

Ella Klenner’s little figure leans back precariously in a wooden chair. His face may be distorted by G-force but he has a quiet dignity about him. You will note, for example, that he is not shouting “Whooaahh!” and that his arms do not flail about in a traditional slapstick manner. The fellow may even have his hands in his pockets. The legs which are carelessly positioned between Mars and Jupiter play merry havoc with the asteroid belt.

 

For any non astronomers I should point out that this is an entirely realistic diagram of our solar system with 1. Mercury (top left) above the mans head. 2. Venus (top right) next to the word “buch”. 3. Earth with a picture of what might be an oil well gushing on its surface. You will have noticed that due to an entirely naturalistic perspective the birds depicted can be seen to fly behind our Earth but not behind any of the other planets. 4. Mars above the knee. 5. Jupiter below the heel. 6. Saturn easily spotted with it’s distinctive rings. 7. Uranus under Saturn. 8. the elusive Neptune (bottom right) hiding under the table.

 

Ella Klenner - Monkey Business 1
Brighton Open 2012

When I look at the surface of Neptune depicted here I see a rocky landscape. A certain friend viewing the same small disc called me an innocent fool to my face and said she could see “parts”. The surface of Neptune is covered entirely with male and female “parts” according to her. Even through a magnifying glass I’m not convinced by this reading. But just suppose for a moment that this is the case. How refreshing that not all creative people need to have their private areas waggling at us from centre stage the whole time. Here is someone who has had the discretion to put them on the surface of distant Neptune and then to hide that gas giant under a table. Such filth peddlers as Michelangelo Buonarroti could learn something from this.

 

I was born into a solar system with nine planets and I miss Pluto very much but what can you do? Up until age 46 nothing could harm me, I thought I was superhuman. No aches and pains to speak of, everything functioning satisfactorily. Someone recently told me that for him it was age 28 when things started going wrong. I’ve been lucky I suppose but never have I been more aware of the delicate balancing act necessary for remaining healthy than I am at present. My hero Mark E Smith once sang “I’ve got a nervous system” and he was dead right.

 

PJD.

Sarah Beinart - Yarnbombing-by-the-sea

Plenty of clues as to what kind of person we are dealing with here. Extremely pleased with myself for having remembered that “habit is a great deadener” is a quote from Waiting For Godot. Just to the right of the artist herself sits a pencil drawing of Samuel Beckett. Nobody in Beckett would have much use for the word “Renaissance” of course. His writing tends to be about people trapped in situations from which they are unable or even unwilling to escape.

 

 I had to google the other Beckett quote “Dance first think later…”. I was expecting it to be a BeeGees lyric to tell you the truth. Puzzled by the big fellow, slight resemblance to Peter Ustinov, in the drawing to the left of S.B.  I’m sure he’s another important creative influence. Do you think the word “Alma” (written inside the guitar) is relevant here? Or is it that just the name of the manufacturer?

 

 S.B. describes herself as a yarn-bombing experimentalist living by the sea. Well I hope she wasn’t the one who yarn bombed the Merry Maidens stone circle. Certain people I know of were very upset about that. Spells were cast, incantations were uttered in ancient cornish. This is just a friendly warning, don’t mess with the stones!

 

Page 12 of Patternotion contains a joyful self portrait and a bold statement of creative renewal. Hallelujah!

 

 

PJD