Lindsey Carr Blog

Natural Dark Threadless Tee!

Hello folks.

A wee note that my Natural Dark design is up for voting on Threadless at the moment! I actually would genuinely love this lady on a tee for myself :) In any case, if it's easy enough would be so grateful if you could vote for it here.

 

Mandrillus Sphynx

Here's my piece for the upcoming LAX/PDX show at Together Gallery in Portland.

The frame is a nice antique piece of gilt gesso and wood. The title 'Dolens Fecund' is some dodgy latin meaning 'Painfully fecund' (I did latin at school but only because I found the latin teacher hilariously funny, and so I learnt nothing).

Apparently there is such a condition as Super-fecundity but it's quite normal and not some super-power - it means the ability to store sperm within the body for use at some later date....I think this is how chickens fertilise their eggs?

Anyway, I hope you're all well x

 

Passing through

I've been trying to formulate a big rambling and philosphical blog post, but it's too much for me to complete right now - and I thought I should be slighlty more sensible to post about the exhibition down in Suffolk...potentially people won't fall asleep whilst reading it ;)

Me and my good pal Jen went down on the saturday on the train - it took a mere 8 hours and we spent it eating, sleeping, talking and eventually drinking pina coladas (M&S sell them in tiny cans! How could we resist?)

Jen doesn't like photos

Imagine Gallery is set in the very genteel village of Long Melford, it's the perfect location for Midsomer Murders or similar, and for me a perfect location for a show. It's a genuine pleasure to be there. The opening was on a Sunday afternoon so it was all very relaxed. We drank wine and ate cheese sticks...I ate too many and had to be removed from the crisp bowl for my own good.

John Foley hard at work

Actually it was the most relaxed i'd been for months, knowing all of it was out of my hands now.

I'm back home now but not able to rest on my laurels! I'm sending a piece to Portland for this show.

Tiny peek at part of the new piece

And then i'm preparing for a first US solo at Thinkspace in September. I'll be in their project room while in the main gallery 2 very talented hyper-realist painters will be showing -Jennifer Nehrbass & Aaron Nagel. I'm looking forward to it immensely for all the obvious reasons, and also i'll be going over to LA for the opening and i've never set foot in the US before.

All for now, hoping folks are keeping well. X

List of Paintings

Just thought i'd show you the wee page I compiled of everything i'm showing on the 27th at Imagine Gallery. It shows sizes and also some of the pieces have a backstory to them:

 

Click here to have a look-see

 

I'm not actually relaxing though as i'm taking part in a lovely group show at the Together Gallery in Portland, USA on March 31st. It' called LAX/PDX and is a collaboration between Thinkspace and the Together Gallery.

So i'm busy working on something for that which i'm finding quite interesting...I'm never particularly deliberate about the meaning of pieces, it just happens I have things sloshing around in me and sometimes work comes out of that in an intuitive way. If i'm too deliberate it always looks stagey and I never like it. At the moment i'm all hot & bothered about sexual selection. The absurdities it creates and the pains it puts creatures through. For example - The Irish Elk - now extinct with nothing to show for it but some enormous skeletons found in bogs with the biggest antlers of it's kind (up to 12ft!).

 

A non-extinct Elk with very average Antlers

One of the theories about why this Elk died out was that its antlers simply became too big. It couldn't maneuver itself quickly and fell pray to human hunters and also during difficult times it simply couldn't get enough of the minerals required to have antlers of such a great size . And one of the theories behind why their antler size became so big is sexual selection - they were used for display and chosen for mating as a result - now the emphasis on sexual selection has been somewhat downplayed through various good arguments but I prefer to ignore rationale in the pursuit of a good story. The death of a species through the aesthetic preferences of its females makes a better story than statistics about body to antler mass ratios.

So recently i've been fascinated with Mandrills as they seem to be the perfect example of an animal whose appearance is so defined by sex and this piece i'm working on is a sort of homage to fecundity and excitement....it sounds a bit raunchy but it really isn't :)

 

On the subject of sexual selection - when I read about the complex mating rituals of the Bower Bird. The male with his glorious displays of found objects elegantly arranged and the females casting their critical eyes over them before consenting to mate....I think of human art, and wonder if we're simply an ape version of this curious bird. Lots of things support my theory - for example young boys who form bands almost always do so to 'get girls' :)

 

A Vogelkopp Bowerbird Sculpture (Mixed Media)

Anyway, all for now. I hope you're all very well!

 

 

 

Nearly there

I've been sort of in limbo the last week or so. Awaiting for glass panels to arrive. Waiting for those old frames I love. Mounts. All coming from different places at different times....A note for the future, stock pile these items well in advance. My studio room is a diasaster area as a result, empty card boxes and frames in various states. And my fashion ensemble is truly tragic....I am wearing leg warmers which I hacked from the arms of an old sweater and 3/4 length flares.

 

Halcyon days

I hope i'll manage to get some photos of the frames to show you....Some of them are unbelievably lovely. One was an old marine mirror, and the bonus was it had a convex mirror (which I removed). I've been searching for a good large convex mirror because you can use it to reduce an image easily...I always use a mirror anyway to check an image...but if you're painting large then a convex mirror lets you see it shrunk.

Some of the paintings are a bit whimsical actually

Some are different directions

 

There's no definitive theme really except everything is plant or bird or mammal....And a theme does seem to spring from it...if only in my minds eye.

All for now...just over a week to go. Can't wait to be back in suffolk, I love the village of Long Melford it has such an easy pace and is so genteel.

I hope you're all doing very well. Thanks for your lovely comments on the last painting...it's much appreciated  (NB: it's over a meter wide!) x

Finishing a big painting

I've decided need to either have lots of time on my hands to do a big painting - or else I need to do slightly smaller pieces. This big painting drove me a bit mental.

 

The peacock and other characters were fine, I spent a long time on them. Then I messed up one background and had to cut all of the parts out of the original and glue them onto a fresh piece of paper...and then I had hardly any time to do the surroundings....I had to do the best I could in the time available with foliage but it wasn't my favourite way to work...I really don't like to rush.

Sill, such is life. Live and learn....Now it just needs to get to the gallery intact.

Hope you're all well....2 weeks left and i'm bricking it.

In other news Hi Fructose blog did a nice write up of my work - and also on lovely Lili Piri's.

Right, for me it's lunch time and then I think i'll watch Kit Williams Documentary again - so inspiring..And start a new monkey.

Mizzling and dreich

The weather outside is mizzling - drookit - dreich. All those good scots terms. The reason they have such excellent and varied vocabulary for wetness and drabness is the sheer quantity of water and cloud there is here.

Nacho is not impressed. There are sheep out there that need savaging. Silky soft moles surfacing from the grass that need to be toyed with. He can't do any of it because he's afraid of the dreich.

 

Hmmm

So there's a lot of wailing and tearing up the place.Attacking rugs and pens and bits of paper. He's also in my studio room a lot, wailing to be hugged or played with or....god knows what. A restless spirit is definitely descending upon the house.

Meanwhile, I am still busy. It's all coming together...I haven't finished my next big one but it's nearly there....and a flamingo. I read they are 'gregarious' and I felt that something jaunty was appropriate :)

 

 

Excitement and having to get on and do!

This week has been one of ups and downs, big waves of emotion, high levels of stress intermingled with insane working hours and giddy excitement.

The exhibition opening seems to be zooming towards me at high speed. I thought originally, gosh, I will get SO much done being at home the entire time. But I am never quite able to fully appreciate how long it takes to paint well...which is obviously rather crucial :).

 

Memories of Home

I dashed off one large piece at the start and spent 3 weeks hating it. Since then I cut the lot up....don't worry not in a crazy way but in a methodical way. Cutting out parts which I liked and could reuse again in a collage manner. I've done that a few times now since working in paper and I like it a lot. Being able to reorganise, reuse, recompose.

 

The Great Hornbill

I long ago accepted that not every piece I make will be something i'm happy with. Oftentimes this is just down to the fact that a composition which worked in a thumbnail won't work on a large scale...who knows why. And i'm still finding my balance between something which is too big for me to cope with and too small to have sufficient spectacle.

 

Hand decorated frame

Either way, irrespective of the stress and tiredness I am so happy to get this continuous block of painting work. It's impossible to fully appreciate how your skill level grows when you work persistently if you never get the chance. The work is less patchy, more consistent, one idea naturally moves into another rather than being broken up. It's a joy.

The other news which sent me totally do-lalley (great word hey?)is that my Fox Confessor T-Shirt won the Threadless 101010 prize for first-time submissions! I was so over the moon and excited when I got the news that Nacho the cat ran off to hide. He does not like displays of emotion ;)

I would never have entered at all, nor would I have entered this particular image, except for encouragement from Joe Carr and Terry Fan. Both of these chaps are brilliant illustrators and have so many Tees printed by Threadless that they're quite famous :) They were both generous with their time and energies, and this is one of the big things I got from Threadless generally, a community of talented people who are really out to help one another...so I encourage any of you who think one of your images might work as a t-shirt to get submitting!

Anyway, it is seriously windy and stomry outside and after an extended breakfast this morning it's definately time to get back on the paint pedallo and start pedalling :)

I hope you are all well X

 

 

Great Artists - Kit Williams

The first artist I wanted to write about is someone who many of you might not know now - but who at one point sparked a nationwide treasure hunt. The artist is Kit Williams and he's probably best known for his book Masquerade  .

A photo of Kit around the time of 'Masquerade'

The book is an exceptional series of paintings which each give a clue as to the whereabouts of a golden hare which the artist buried somewhere in England.

 

The hunt lasted 2 years and the outcome was controversial. It seemed the people who found it hadn't genuinely worked out the riddle properly. As a result of the hunt Williams became incredibly popular overnight, but he disliked the limelight intensely and made the decision to step out of it. He now lives a pretty hermetical existence creating art for his own delight.

 

Kit infront of one of his paintings 'Diana'

Kit Williams' 'Advancing Ripe Harvest'. Click for a larger view.

It takes him around 400 hours to create one of his highly rendered paintings and he produces around 4 every year. It also seems that he rarely ever exhibits or sells his pieces. Once a year he holds an open studio where a select few people are able to go and see his latest pieces.

 

Kit Williams' 'Badger'

Not only that but he makes all of his own frames. In a recent documentary about the artist he said that he gets a kick out of making everything....I can appreciate a sentiment like that in an age where artists regularly outsource.

The documentary I mentioned is no longer available on BBC iPlayer, however someone has kindly split it into sections and uploaded it to YouTube. The first section is here you can then just select the subsequent sections after watching.

 

Kit Williams' 'Firmament'

The book Masquerade is still available as well as other books by Kit - second hand - on Amazon.

Not only is Williams an astonishingly brilliant painter but he's also responsible for some of the most impressive and wonderous public timepieces and displays in England.

Kit Williams' 'Wishing Fish Clock' in Cheltenham, England

Kit Williams' 'Bubble-Blowing Frog clock', in Telford, England

It's unbelievable and glorious to me to look at Williams' output. His meticulous detailing, the breadth of his knowledge, and importantly the fact that he has never been confined to one thing. He both illustrates and produces fine art. He has done goldsmithing, engineering, toy making, painting, woodworking. It's a well rounded and curious art-making which is abundant and energetic and inspirational.

 

 

A few wee things

Just a few wee things to mention.

The first is that you can now buy Fox Confessor as a T-shirt on Threadless!

 

The second is the time, date and place of my first solo show in the UK!

The opening reception is 27th February, midday onwards at Imagine Gallery, Long Melford, Suffolk, UK. If any of you are in or around that area at that time I would love to see you there, it's a sunday and a very relaxed and homely place to be. If you want to enquire about available pieces then John Foley is the man for you - he can be got hold of on:[email protected]

Although I won't be posting up much work until the show - I am hoping to do some posts on favourite artists and other sundries. So keep an eye out!

Hoping you are all well X