Walking and Drawing in Snowdonia

Four days, walking and drawing on remote mountains in Snowdonia, focusing on the rhythmic sound of walking and sounds of the surrounding landscape through the Zoom mic headphones. I first notice how easily I climb the steep gradient to the lake, listening has changed the emphasis, drawing attention away from the usual dominant visual clues of distance. Walking in silence with a new focus on listening has created a different atmosphere and altered my experience of the landscape. Confusingly, it has become internalised and at the same time a vaster space. It is quiet, sounds are distant, the mist occasionally lifts over the ridge and sun glints through from behind it. I stop and draw at a rest point

Up towards lake

My focus shifts; switching from listening to seeing, the steep incline of the path becomes more physical, more demanding. By focusing on the rhythm of walking I hadn't noticed how quickly I gained height, the remote mountain ridge now dominates. I try to respond with quick drawings of the ever changing mists that cover and uncover the varied contours ahead. I recognise Turner’s problems and how he used the advantages of a misty effect to accentuate distance in his work, confusing altering and denying form he develops his idea with and in the mist. His structures do not merely describe what is underneath it.

Walter Thombury, The Life and Correspondence of JMW Turner

 

Drawn from the National Gallery- pencil on small sketch book Jill Evans

 

 

 

 

Research Folio

Over the 2 years of the MA Drawing course I will be keeping a Research Folio of interesting things,  and probably a lot of thoughts. I have been wondering how this should look but have now decided to just get on with it and to begin here.

Anri Sala at the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park
An exhibition of sound/performance/film/sculpture and light.
This is the first time I had seen/heard his work and initially I am a little confused inside the installation. I try not to read too much information prior to looking, as I like to understand it on my own terms first.
A snare drum is playing on it's own, a pair of rubber hands moving in a set way in a darkened room and in the next room a film. The large windows of the serpentine are covered, cut out slots allowed light to filter in casting patterns. Looking through the slots I can see different chunks of the park. In the film somebody was slowly feeding disorganised pieces of slotted card into a barrel organ creating chopped up sound. Moving on through a dark space and into the next room, a film followed a man wandering around outside a neglected and graffitti covered building, he is carrying a box and winding the handle to play 'should I stay or should I go'.
Now that I recognise the music, I feel a little more comfortable and begin to enjoy how the sounds from each room mix as they pass through the spaces. A real saxophonist begins playing adding to this mixture, unfortunately the mini barrel organ in the window isn't working.

The visual ambiguity of slots of light (the same pattern as the music score) that create both the patterns inside the room and snapshots of outside simultaneously are interesting. These combined with the quiet visual film footage and mixture of sounds leaking through from the separate room spaces, all evoke a very specific atmosphere. It is both a moving and at the same time enjoyable experience.

http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2011/03/anri_sala.html