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.
Gary Thorne
“I’m calling this ‘ROOM FOR SALE’ making homage to Philip Guston’s titled work ‘Room’, and Kandinsky’s colouration of sound. I considered the vacated domestic space and its dynamism. Although Dulux helps erase hand-me-down occupant existence, a persistent association with the past can linger, creating at times a lively sensation, a bit like a stage set just after the performance. I wonder if we’d be more fluid and poetically connected without redecorating? (This KA reminds me of Charly’s KA#7 prompt ‘Ennui’ by Sickert).” Oil paint on primed paper 75cm x 55cm
Charly Skilling
“When I was exploring this prompt, I came across another quote from Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, which got stuck in my head and wouldn’t be shifted. It was this: ‘Words … are little houses, each with its cellar and garret. Common sense lives on the ground floor, always ready to engage in ‘foreign commerce’ on the same level as the others, as the passers-by, who are never dreamers. To go upstairs in the word house is to withdraw step by step; while to go down to the cellar is to dream.’ The following poem needs more work, certainly some polishing, but such as it is, I share it with you.”
You’ll find a PDF version here.
Phil Cooper
“The prompt this week coincided with my first visit in a long time back to the U.K. to visit mum. She still lives in the Victorian town house where I grew up and, despite having left when I was 18, which is now nearly 30 years ago, it still feels like the family home, the place where we gather together when we can. Dad passed away a few years ago, but the house is full of memories of him. Looking around the old home, there are traces of all of us; gifts we gave each other, things brought back from holidays, family heirlooms, antiques, and things bought for pennies in junk shops. Each object has its own associations, memories of people and places and of particular moments in our shared histories. I’ve photographed a small fraction of them, taking them out of their usual environment of the windowsill or mantelpiece where they have become so familiar. I’ve enjoyed handling them, feeling the vibrations of their stories resonate again down through the years to the present moment. They still feel very alive and the memories they stir up so vivid and poignant.”
instagram.com/philcoops / hedgecrows.wordpress.com / phil-cooper.com
Vanessa Clegg
“I honed in on boxes, so these are a couple of examples of treasures secreted away in dark spaces…”
Kerfe Roig
“I don’t know why, but the quote made me immediately think of my boots. So I drew them on some well-used packing paper.”
kblog.blog / methodtwomadness.wordpress.com
Jan Blake
“So lovely to see the continuation of everyones amazing creative work over the past few Kick-Abouts… I have spent a lot of time inside these four walls lately, and I have brought the trees with me. The outside is so close to me here in both directions, even though I live in the centre of a city. It’s as if the walls no longer exist, except perhaps in winter, when the shutters are closed early and the fire is lit. Yet the wood of the shutters are my trees in winter and the wind is my music. It is already lit throughout now with sunshine as I write this, and I feel its true self. The outside is also the inside and I am the bird perched high on the hill, ready to fly off. Curiously the work I have been doing feels appropriate. I am inside the tree.”
Phil Gomm
“My response to Bachelard’s observation was, in part, inspired by a recent re-watch of Street of Crocodiles by The Brothers Quay, a stop-motion animated short in which the miniature world on screen is characterised by its grime, dust, and catalogue of discarded, forgotten things. Street of Crocodiles always puts me in mind of my student house when I was at art college, a rather grim affair of fractured linoleum, black mold, and an upright hoover that seemed to produce dust rather than consume it. ‘Desquamation, deriving from the latin word desquamare, meaning ‘to scrape the scales off a fish’, is the word describing the shedding of our skin. None of us like to think too long or too hard about what comprises the dust collecting on the surfaces of our homes, but to watch Street of Crocodiles is to fairly relish in the stuff...’ or so I have written previously, and it was with this in mind, I settled upon my idea: to visit some of the less pristine surfaces in my own home, and with the aid of a tiny, but blazing light source, illuminate these spaces that also speak to the truth of habitation. Featured here are all those sites of domestic shame: the grill pan, the unwashed hob, the dust-bunnies under the bed and behind the door, the stray hairs, beard-based or otherwise, once connected, now disembodied and abject, and also the cropping up of balls of bright red fluff, from my socks I think, but as widely dispersed as spores.”
Graeme Daly
“I found Gaston Bachelard’s words very inspiring – along with a recent chat with Phil G. I too wanted to capture that feeling of space feeling occupied, by showing the wondrous shedding of life of which lived-in spaces have an abundance – especially in the depths of where you don’t look. I live in an old Victorian house, and me being a hairy bastard I have so much copious scatterings of hair matted into carpets you could make a toupée. Pictured here are clumps of my hair, with the usual sprinklings of dust, dead skin cells and other oddities that life and space deposit”
@graemedalyart / vimeo.com/graemedaly / linkedin.com/in/graeme-daly / twitter.com/Graeme_Daly / gentlegiant.blog
James Randall
“I started thinking about all the little bits and bobs we leave around and began taking snaps of stuff my dear husband covers all surfaces in, but I was getting maudlin and decided not to go there – so I went to the wider outdoors as an inhabited space. Of course this has to go to colonial occupation and my lovely country being a form of home invasion. I’m currently listening to an audio book – ‘Salt’ by Bruce Pascoe, who talks about all the environmental changes that his ancestors made to the land but explorers thought were the natural environmental state of the land. I saw this KA as an opportunity for a white male to give support to the indigenous custodians of this land. I thought it needed to be positive – it’s just simple. Emphasis on ‘our’ treaty.”
Marion Raper
“If you looked around my house you would see that I heartily agree with Monsieur Bachelard’s sentiments. I have a very ecclectic assortment of objects, which give my place the ‘lived in’ look. I decided to wander around and sketch some of my favourite either useful or beautiful items. Firstly my sewing machine – very essential to me, together with my daylight angle poise lamp. Then, although books are not so necessary these days, I am still intrigued to peruse through a bookshelf and see what people are passionate about. It’s the same with cushions. They not only brighten a dull corner but you can tell a lot about someone’s style with a cushion – mine have a tendency to be patchwork! There are also three very ancient teddy bears. One is the same age as me and is wearing my first knitted jumper and hand-sewn trousers. Next a couple of mirrors. One is fancy and belonged to my parents, and the other an art deco copy, which I found in an antique shop and luckily just managed to squeeze enough money to buy. Strangely, I love my set of saucepans which when hung from the ceiling give the ‘country kitchen’ look and finally there is the old grandfather clock. It was made between 1740 -91 and the family rumour is that my great great grandpa lost all his possessions on a bet and the only thing he had left was the clock. He brought it to London and started a business as a Law Stationer. So although my house does not have a trendy minimalist look, I cannot imagine living without the things that have stood the test of time and have so many memories.”
And for our next excursion into thinking and making, the work of photographer, John Stezaker… have fun!
Red's Kingdom 
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