A final set of dust and gleaming hair strands in relation to Gaston Bachelards words of lived in spaces. Sometimes I would vigorously pat the rug where these unheimlich mounds lay to get some dust orbs to show up in camera, sometimes it worked sometimes not, but it was always a joy to see when the camera picked them up.
As I played with various areas around my house I found other unbeknownst oddities in the depths of livid in spaces – an apple core, or the tendrils of one of my favourite but fraying jumpers. A while ago before these photos were taken, I had to change a lightbulb in my bathroom – the light source being one of those little spotlights that are embedded into the ceiling, to my horror upon unscrewing the light – the many mummified carcasses of bees fell from above the crevice and glided their way down to the floorboards.. I definitely should have hoovered more throughly. You can see one of the little fellas in these photos, having him rest on a clump of hair and dust feels like something you might see on natural history about cordyceps where the spores of fungus have attached to the brain of an inebriated insect and ultimately burst through the shells of the little critters.
A second set of macro photography inspired by the words of Gaston Bachelard. Being the hirsute kind, spiralling hair clumps who knows from where and floating dust orbs make up the most of these compositions, illuminated by a tiny but mighty LED light with sweet wrappers used as gels. Most of these photos were taken in my bedroom where a grasp through my rug pulled out bunches of hair. I loved when the camera was able to pick up mounds of dust caught in the webs of hair shafts, like an insect glued to a spiders web.
The transformative words of Gaston Bachelard is this weeks Kick About over on Red’s Kingdom.
If our last Kick-About together introduced all of us to subjects far-removed from our daily lives and wonderfully esoteric, this week’s prompt, courtesy of Gaston Bachelard, returns us to more familiar spaces, as we explore together what makes from a house a home, and between us producing new works in a short time.
The Kick-About #46 ‘Not An Inert Box’ — Red’s Kingdom
This weeks kick about over on Red’s Kingdom is the illustration “The Night Before Christmas” by Arthur Rachham. I found the illustration by Arthur Rachham horrifying, in the best way. To me his art always veers on that polarising view of charming but in an uncanny not quite right way. Something about the blackness of the line work, particularly with the scratchy shadows and the way the sickly stained walls progressively get more bruised towards the top makes me think that old Saint Nick isn’t as jolly as it’s told and could be hiding in those shadows, ready to unhinge his bearded jaw and gobble up those kids as they run right up to him. So keeping in theme to that here’s a couple illustrations.
Now that the evenings are creeping in I reminisce about times spent in Ireland during the Winter. I know that pictures of sunsets is one of the things that are overabundant on the internet but something magical happened on this particular evening on one of my usual routes trudging through the boglands of rural Ireland. I am no meteorologist but the gloomy clouds crept in out of nowhere during this trip while away in the distance the golden hour gleam lit up where I was standing in a brilliant red, Yes the photos have been edited to bring out the red but done so in a way to highlight how it felt in the moment, while further away the ghostly spherical arc of a rainbow could be seen. I felt like I was in the epicentre of a storm – it was one of those moments where I basked in what was going on around me and before I could take any more photos from different angles it was gone in an instant.
When reading about Sheila Legge’s inspiration behind her walking real life surrealist exhibition for this weeks Kick About and how she was so inspired by the paintings of Dalí, I decided to create some Dalí-esque dream-like landscapes while paying homage to Legge’s face full of flowers. The female models were downloaded and imported into Maya where on their heads I glued an abundance of multicoloured flowers- tiger Lilly’s, Dahlia’s, Delphinium’s, African Lilly’s and Daisy’s. Combined with a quick and dirty rig and skin of the figures as well as some mountains in the background to complete the scene and move the figures to my every whim. The rig on the figure on the left of the above image messed up and I loved how fluid and melty the resulting movements turned out – I tried to replicate this mistake with the other rigs but my efforts did not gratify, It was one of those moments where a mistake tuned out to be a blessing but could not be recreated.
This prompt also reminded me of one of my favourite films – Annihilation (2018). In particular when the team walk across a baron land called “The Shimmer” where their bodies start to turn into plant matter. It is a strange and beautiful film that left a lasting impression on me, much in the same respect that surrealist paintings do.
Some great news today – Pools created in response to the Kick about on Reds Kingdom has been nominated in the Human-Environment category with The International Human Environment Care Film Festival in the Heart Of Pickering, Canada. The International Human Environment Care Film Festival has a special interest and preference in submissions that speak about the conservation of our planet as it reads “it is our belief nature is the mother of life, and its importance is undeniable. We wish to watch more films commemorating the value of the environment and nature. Films that speak on behalf of nature. Today environmental protection is the biggest challenge of humankind and we hope films can contribute to this challenge.”
Pools was discovered deep with the caverns of the forestry in Ireland where it was filmed and I may not be done with the footage and photography just yet, a recent wave of inspiration ignites the feeling of diving back in..
It has been a long time coming since Phil Gomm with Reds Kingdom and myself had a long chat about all the creative endeavours underway. Everything from Pools, The Green Glider Animated short, The Lighthouse Keeper and delving into the freelance realm is discussed below. Have a gawk and a listen.
It’s been rather too long since artist-in-residence, Graeme Daly, and I sat down for a proper blether about his continuing adventures as a freelancer, film-maker and photographer. I keep up with Graeme’s various creative endeavours via his Gentle Giant blog and Twitter feed, but nothing tops an old-fashioned chinwag…
Artist-In-Residence: Graeme Daly #6 — Red’s Kingdom
Some good news today – Pools created in response to the Kick about on Reds Kingdom has been nominated in the experimental category and will be screened with 7th Siding Festival of Film. The 7th Siding Festival of Film has a special interest and preference in submissions that are ‘Rural’ and or remotely produced locations outside of urban centre’s. Films are exhibited in 4 venues in Creston, including the single screen art deco style Tivoli Theatre first opened in November 1938!
Gentle Giant 