Five Years at Rathfarnham Castle

A couple of weeks ago I had great delight in attending the launch of both The Dublin Bowie Festival 2022 and the affiliated exhibition Five Years, by graphic designer Cartoon Bowie, at the gorgeous Rathfarnham Castle. For me it was especially interesting to see how the space was transformed after my recent exhibition of paintings and prints there. For a look at my work, Memory Is My Homeland, installed at this venue see my blogs here, here and here.

While technically The Dining Room is the last exhibition room one is likely to enter, The Entrance Hall offers a lovely portal view of a large animation, setting a great mood for the evening.

The Saloon was full of graphic images of Bowie, grouped thematically. I spoke to Cartoon Bowie on the launch night and he talked of the more recent images in blue and yellow, which he created after the Russian invasion and subsequent war in Ukraine. Specifically he confirmed, as with Bowie himself, that each time he thought he was done with this body of work, some new theme would present itself. 

Among my favourite images in the exhibition were the most minimal ones.

But on the other hand, I also adored the use of Japanese calligraphic characters in the group of works that celebrated the work of costume designer and Bowie image collaborator, Kansai Yamamoto.

On the end wall in this room were a series of works which emulated, through a Bowie point of view, the work of other artists - one can certainly see an homage to The Beatles Sgt Pepper album, and I recognised immediately the vintage cruise ship travel poster look to illustrate the song Fantastic Voyage.

I really enjoyed that the works were all designed squarely as faux but very plausible album covers.

Cartoon Bowie also showed his wit throughout the exhibition - a wit that I am sure the great Bowie woulld have approved of wholeheartedly.

During the Bowie Festival and for the duration of this exhibition, limited edition prints are available for purchase with all proceeds going to humanitarian aid in Ukraine.

The works in The Pistol Loop room continued with the theme of an ever-stunning, ever-changing consideration of Bowie's profile.

Throughout the exhibition each grouping had it's own didactic, which located the works in Bowie lore and offered a personal commentary from Cartoon Bowie.

The Starman wall was a stark reminder that Bowie is no longer on the earth, having returned to the cosmos in January 2016, shortly after the release of his final album Blackstar. The joy, though, is evident especially in the lower images (outlining a black star) and a reminder also that David Bowie has left a huge legacy to the music, art, fashion and film industries as well as to humanity in general! Cartoon Bowie used his skills as graphic designer to pay an amazing tribute to this amazing man.

Summertime - music gigs!

I think it is common worldwide that musical people equate summer with gigs. Although bands play year-round, there is a proliferation of outdoor festival gigs in the summer, and there are also other annual music events that mark the beginning of summer.

Here in Ireland, where I live, the May bank holiday weekend (always including the first Monday of the month) is marked by the annual Bray Jazz Festival. It has been going strong for 19 years now, and though the Town Hall gigs are no longer free (as they were in the first few years), there is still the pub trail that sees a huge amount of free live music in bars all over the town. One of my locals, The Harbour Bar, was hosting several live gigs daily over the weekend and I saw that The Tommy Halferty Trio, who I had seen and heard and enjoyed a number of years ago, were scheduled to play the Sunday afternoon of the festival..

Halferty is a jazz guitarist extraordinaire and the first set included some great improv jazz from Halferty's latest album, Station Midi, as well as "standard" work by the likes of innovator Thelonius Monk. Since it was a gorgeous, summery weekend, I refused to stay in the cave of a pub (often in Ireland you could miss the summer by blinking) so I only stayed for the first set and gave up my prime seat at the bar to people arriving for the second set and the rest of the gigs taking place that day and night..

Some friends had invited us to spend the warm evening with dinner and drinks in their gorgeous garden that evening, so leaving the pub was not a hardship! By my good fortune, those same friends had a spare ticket to see The Rolling Stones in Croke Park a few weeks later. And summer persisted, so it was a completely unforgettable evening by those four legends. I definitely have to hand it to those wrinkly rockers for putting on an incredibly amazing show.

Last night the summer of gigs continued for me as I headed off to Malahide Castle in north Dublin to see LCD Soundsystem. The gig was fabulous, helped by the atypical continuation of summer weather - even James Murphy (LCD's front man) declared incredulously "this is the longest sunset I have ever seen!" We never saw the castle because the grounds are huge, and the gig was in an outdoor area. It is a good venue to see a band in fine weather, but boy what a trek from where I live!

My love of music has really worked out well this summer, winning tickets to the Bryan Ferry gig at Trinity College in July. And I was absolutely over the moon to win tickets this past weekend to see two more rock legends in the autumn when Van Morrison and Robert Plant (with the Sensational Space Shifters) play a double bill at the 3 Arena in Dublin. Wow! Many, many thanks to Radio Nova, the Dublin radio station that I listen to constantly.

Just Kids

Yesterday I finished reading Patti Smith's "Just Kids", her story (mostly) of the relationship between her and artist Robert Mapplethorpe and their early time together in New York. Smith's writing is beautiful and the love with which it is written is so pure. Of course, I was bawling my eyes out at the end, knowing the inevitable devastation at the death of Mapplethorpe.

I had the great fortune to see an exhibition of Mapplethorpe's flowers on my second trip to New York in 1981. I was obsessed with yellow tulips at the time myself and he photographed them beautifully. I love his photos of flowers. Here is Calla Lily from 1984:

And Poppy from 1988:

And a portrait of Patti Smith from 1986:

I am always interested in finding new things by Patti Smith -- she is a very generous artist (poet, painter, musician). Here she shares some advice for writers given to her by William Burroughs. And here she is performing a wonderful tribute to Virginia Woolf.

Before xmas I came across a review of and link to the film Patti Smith: Dream of Life by Steven Sebring in Brainpickings and finally had time to see the film which was ten years in the making. The review and film can be accessed here. It is a wonderful and insightful 2007 documentary which also includes older footage. A joy to watch.

Suzanne Osborne and Tindersticks

I love the band Tindersticks and am really taken with their new album "the something rain" (I listened to it A LOT while I was in the attic painting my big egg).  I am excited at the news that they are coming to Dublin in October, at a wonderful small venue, Vicar St.  The last concert I have been to in fact was at Vicar St. where the excellent American bands Low Anthem and Brown Bear played.  This is the only Tindersticks song I could find on YouTube from "the something rain".

Another thing that fascinated me about this cd was the cover, which was obviously a series of paintings. Happily, the cd contained a pullout insert printed with a few of the paintings, and the artist was of course credited. So I googled Suzanne Osborne and found her website http://www.suzanneosborne.com/small-paintings, which included the section on "small paintings". She painted the sky daily for a year, and on her website she gives the date and weather conditions the day of the painting. I love the paintings and would love to see them in person. The closest thing for me though will probably be a copy of the limited edition book that Osborne and Stuart Staples (Tindersticks) are putting out together -- Osborne's paintings and Staples' lyrics. My copy is ordered! You can find more information here:  http://www.tindersticks.co.uk/tomorrows/.

Eggs-austed!

So I have been very busy since last Tuesday, working on this egg.  A little more detail after blocking.

 With the blue background it is starting to give more of a sense of what it may look like when finished. 

Since I'm up in the attic (my studio garret) my working soundtrack is provided by the dvd player, which means one cd at a time.  I alternate between 2 cds all day long -- PJ Harvey's "Let England Shake" and Tindersticks's "The Something Rain".  They are both fantastic cds, energetic and thoughtful - perfect for painting to.