In our last Kick-About, the spinning top had us thinking about rhythm, motion, and balance. This week, the prompt takes a more fantastical turn with Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s Vertumnus—a portrait of Emperor Rudolf II composed entirely of fruits, flowers, and vegetables. Part play, part provocation, it asks us to see the familiar made strange. As always, the works that follow were made in a short time—and for all previous editions of The Kick-About, go here.
James Randall
“There are enough fruity people in our little household, and the alternative at hand was to use some motorcycle pic bits that I took last year. I had a moment when the scent of the motorcycle was far more heady than that of the peach — so much fodder for this KA! I used a tightly cropped Eadweard Muybridge figure as a basis, set against a simple background, and overlaid the motorcycle parts. I liked the results — I felt I’d maintained a sense of motion — until I realised how much it looked like a Terminator character…”
Charly Skilling
When I first started to think about vegetables in depictions of people, my head was full of thoughts of “harvest”, “ripening”, and “autumn” — and all those images of auburn-haired, full-figured young women that litter British culture. But when I started looking at vegetables, and really thinking about autumn, I kept imagining a sort of Norma Desmond-type figure — throwing on more bright colours and camouflage to hide the passing years, but unable to prevent the odd bald patch showing through her thinning hair, or the spots and blemishes of ageing skin. I had great fun crocheting “Dame Autumn”. This KA, as usual, stretched my skills and taught me much. But one thing I shall never forget from this experience — life’s too short to stuff a blackberry!“
Gary Thorne
“I liked Arcimboldo’s symbolism, his exaggeration and overstatement, where a darker inner-self hides behind his painted images. Yet words came first to me—through TV, radio, the press, as they shocked and provoked. Finding an image was harder. In ‘Give us back our country’ I imagined it was those on the rafts speaking, wishing they’d be given back their own country from ruin and destruction, or from persecution. Or in ‘If my son marries…’ the darker tone being respectable people say shocking things behind closed doors. And nostalgia plays a part in these works, as contrast to realities we might face, i.e. ‘Home I’ll never be’ yet, it may be positive. And history is always about new towns – its progress – once beneath our feet it was pastoral, wild and stunning.”
Itta Howie
“Strange autumn creatures are going on an adventure in my garden.”
Kerfe Roig
“I’ll start out by confessing that I’ve always disliked this painting—a gimmicky work worthy of our present Instagram Age in my opinion. So I was at a loss as to what to do… While looking through an old Japanese magazine I found on the bookshelf full of strange doll-like humans and other creatures (deciding if I should keep it, just tear some pages out, or give it away), I stumbled on some paper dolls made of geometric origami forms. Why not use fruit, vegetables, and flowers to make some paper dolls? I’ve always loved paper dolls, so I did.”
kblog.blog / methodtwomadness.wordpress.com
Lewis Punton
“I haven’t been blessed with much time over the past fortnight, partly due to finding myself in the fever dream that is Disneyland Paris for a few nights. Without the chance to put something a little more ambitious to paper — and, being surrounded by the animated creations of the happiest place on Earth — I decided to opt for a five-minute story sketch of an original pumpkin character: Patch! Inspired by the vegetation featured in the latest Kick-About prompt, and by those beloved original characters of Walt himself, I think this cheerful, in-season fella would fit right in at the House of Mouse…”
Phil Gomm
“There is a long-running radio programme on the BBC called ‘Just a Minute’, in which contestants are given one minute to talk about a given subject for a minute without repetition or deviation. Fittingly, I was listening to this half-hour programme in the kitchen while pinning a selection of foliage and flowers from the garden to a polystyrene head. The leaves were harvested quickly—because it was about to rain—and this Vertumnus-inspired head was started and finished in just under thirty minutes. Early next morning, I took him out into the garden and photographed him in his element. It’s all a bit more ‘Midsommar’ than Arcimboldo!”
philgomm.com / behance.net/Phil_Gomm
As October draws in and the nights grow a little stranger, our prompt turns to the world of Diane Arbus—an artist who found beauty and truth in the uncanny and the overlooked.
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