A final set of Ruth Asawa-inspired photographs produced in advance of The Kick-About No.74, wherein simple cones of ruled transparent acetate give rise to delicate shell-like impressions.
After Asawa #3 (2023)
Tag: abstract art
After Asawa #2 (2023)
A second bunch of photographs inspired by Ruth Asawa and produced in the run-up to The Kick-About No.74. This set were taken under different lighting conditions, producing these more sepia tones. They put me in mind of old architectural prints or zoological cross-sections.
After Asawa #1 (2023)
Ruth Asawa’s sculptures – our prompt for The Kick-About No.74 – at once reminded me of the sorts of drawings produced by childhood Spirographs – not so much the organic shapes, but their transparency, layering, and particularly the densifying of line and mesh as the interior and exterior shapes combine.
Without recourse to an abundance of thread (or time), I wondered how I might produce some kind of equivalent impression – of volume, but also some of those wonderful floating overlaps of cross-hatching and shade.
Reaching for some acetate sheets, an old wooden ruler, and a permanent marker, I marked up a few of the sheets with lots of fine straight lines, then turned the sheets into funnels and cones with a square or two of Selotape holding them in place. Turns out, when you photograph these cones, something rather lovely transpires.
The Kick-About #74 ‘Ruth Asawa’
In common with our last Kick-About together, which was inspired by cephalopods (those buoyant, ballooning denizens of the deep), this latest showcase of new works made in a short time features a further array of responses to floating, globular forms – specifically to the work of Ruth Asawa. Happy browsing.
Graeme Daly
“I was reminded very much of the fluid melting magic of lava lamps and, in certain elements of Asawa’s creations, I envisioned eyes that reminded me very much of Hitchcock and Dali’s dream sequence in the film, Spellbound. My images were created from photographing melted wax accumulated on a wine bottle over a period of time, with a couple of videos of my own eyes overlaid on top to pay homage to that surreal dream sequence.”
graemedaly.com / graemedalyart.com / @graemedalyart / vimeo.com/graemedaly / linkedin.com/in/graeme-daly / twitter.com/Graeme_Daly / gentlegiant.blog
Tom Beg
“I like the contradiction in Ruth Asawa’s art in that her sculptures appear like they are born from geometry and mathematics but are actually delicately crafted hand-made pieces made one loop at a time. The black and white photography of her artwork really imbues the sculptures with a dreamy quality I also wanted to try and capture in these images of undulating circles.”
twitter.com/earthlystranger / vimeo.com/tombeg / tombeg.com
Phil Gomm
“Ruth Asawa’s sculptures at once reminded me of the sorts of drawings produced by childhood Spirographs – not so much the organic shapes, but their transparency, layering, and particularly the densifying of line and mesh as the interior and exterior shapes combine. Without recourse to an abundance of thread (or time), I wondered how I might produce some kind of equivalent impression – of volume, but also some of those wonderful floating overlaps of cross-hatching and shade. Reaching for some acetate sheets, an old wooden ruler, and a permanent marker, I marked up a few of the sheets with lots of fine straight lines, then turned the sheets into funnels and cones with a square or two of Selotape holding them in place. Turns out, when you photograph these cones, something rather lovely transpires. Who’d have thought it?”
Vanessa Clegg
“Encasing what, to me, look like eggs in the sculpture of Ruth Asawa, and combining that with the trauma of the internment camp during her childhood, led me to nests (security/home), this one being empty – the cage, rust and decay. Here’s a book: ‘When the Emperor was Divine’ by Julie Otsuka, which tells the story of an American/Japanese family interned during the war. Highly recommended.” Graphite on paper with felt tip on Perspex as top layer.
Jan Blake
“I felt a sense of a kindred spirit in Ruth Asawa’s work. The translucence of the hanging sculptures and their derivation from naturally-occurring forms echo my own interests. How curious she was exploring this media many years before and with such versatility AND she had 6 children! She puts my productivity to shame!
I have included in the images a piece I had already started – Pod – and some experiments I have been meaning to do for a while. There is an enormous Cordyline palm that grows in my garden I brought from London nearly 30 years ago as a seeding, which I’d nurtured. It has flourished, so much so it strews plentiful dead swathes of its fronds everywhere. It occurred to me last year that, apart from burning them, I could make use of them, so bundles were made as a temporary fencing, but more kept falling. I started to collect them and strip them apart as they naturally disintegrate into thin strips. It was a bit like making daisy chains as a child, easing holes that became wider to be able to thread them and so on. Soaking them made them more malleable but still tough when I tried to crochet, as Ruth Asawa had done with the metal wire. That was very tricky and needed more time to soak and make them softer to handle… however tiny nests for tiny birds appeared anyway.”
Kerfe Roig
“I went back to my tiny shibori fabric pieces and first did three circles trying to imitate her looped baskets. I think these were pretty successful. Then I attempted to layer circles in chain stitch to reproduce the effect of her hanging circles within circles. I think it might have worked better if I had used one strand of floss instead of two. But even if it doesn’t resemble Asawa’s layering that closely, it’s an interesting idea for future embroidery explorations.”
kblog.blog / methodtwomadness.wordpress.com
Phil Cooper
“When I saw the Ruth Asawa prompt I immediately thought of the lampshade in our bedroom, a bulb-shaped wire structure that looks a lot like some of her sculptures. I like Asawa’s work very much and I like our lampshade so this was an opportunity to make something for the Kick-About that drew inspiration from both.
I photographed the lampshade and then put the images through the Procreate and Snapseed editing Apps. The sculptural form of the lampshade got flattened, like a Ruth Asawa construction that had been under a steamroller and then I added colour to liven it up. I ended up with what, to me, look like designs for rugs or tapestries. The Kick-About often leaves me with the feeling that, if I could clone myself and have another three lifetimes, I’d like to be a rug-maker, potter, fabric designer, film-maker etc…”
instagram.com/philcoops / hedgecrows.wordpress.com / phil-cooper.com
Charly Skilling
“I love the simplicity of line and strength of presence of Ruth Asawa’s work and have often thought about how you could achieve something similar. Asawa often uses wire to create shapes that are both sustainable and supported. I have used wire circles to support the main shape, then used balloons and pva glue to ‘encourage’ the crochet to resist gravity. I don’t know how long my ‘sculpture’ will maintain its shape – and next time I will spend more time on the mathematics of the shape before starting, rather than working it out as I go along. But, for all that, I have learnt a lot from this exercise and will certainly try it again.”
James Randall
“Thank you Charly for this wonderful prompt and your lovely cephalopod tale last KA. Lots of lovely works. Ruth Asawa’s gentle pieces often feel figurative to me. So I drew up some body shapes and investigated displacement mapping lines across the shapes without a great deal of success. So I turned to filling the shapes with lines that I ‘roughen’ filtered then mirrored these shapes. I layered a couple of photos to form a background then plonked a few test shapes onto the background – they looked insect-like so I kept building up shapes and played with the colours (and line angles to reference weaving) on the rich blue greeen background (which I kept changing). Finally I thought the colour mix needed a dash of yellow green in the background so I combined a few big shapes and filled them with diagonal lines before adding layers of dark graduations left and right to keep the people bugs a bit more contained.”
Gary Thorne
“Amazing that wire can weave such intricate organic forms and leave your 10 digits intact. Local resources return into play for KA#74; as Asawa suggests, play enough with one material and discoveries unfold. Struggles to sway a material to bend your way however, demanded an alternative for the side weave, and to the rescue old-fashioned macrame 3mm cotton-wool twist, adding a pleasing colour. Not a basket for much more than Italian Grissini, but, as a lover of all things Italian, that’s just fine by me.”
Marion Raper
“I remembered I had made a lot of Irish crochet motifs over the years with wonderful designs from Irish patterns inspired by roses, shamrocks, ferns and leaves. I didn’t want to use PVA to stiffen them so I decided to weave some very fine wire around the edges so I could bend them into some unusual shapes. This proved a rather tricky business, but when I photographed them hanging in the sunlight they appeared like a small delicate chandelier.”
And to mark the occasion of our 75th prompt, I’m inviting you to one hell of a party…
Un-sofa #1 (2023)
The short version is we bought a new leather sofa recently, which turned out to be too big for the room it was meant for. The sofa came wrapped in plastic – and remains so while we wait for some nice people to come and collect it and take it back to wherever unwanted sofas are destined to go. We have been living with this ‘un-sofa’ for quite a few weeks now – not sitting on it, not daring too, goaded by its postponement of creature comforts. I scowl at it every morning, not least because I was responsible for measuring up and only have myself to blame. Still, what is it that insufferably chipper types say about making lemonade when life gives you lemons (or outsized sofas)? I started noticing how different types of light at different times of day produced strange mountainous terrains out of the plastic wrapping covering the sofa, so with The Kick-About No.71 firmly in mind, I set about investigating them.
After Hilma #3 (2022)
The fast few Hilma Af Klint-inspired images produced for The Kick-About No.70: murky, ominous canvases with a cosmic vibe.
After Hilma #2 (2022)
A second set of images inspired by the Swedish artist, Hilma Af Klint and produced for The Kick-About No.70, deriving originally from some inconsequential doodles in the margins of to-do lists etc, before being layered up in the hope of achieving something more ominous and arcane.
After Hilma #1 (2022)
That I’d never heard of Hilma Af Klint before The Kick-About No.70 has left me soul-searching ever since… How’s it possible this fascinating artist has been otherwise invisible to me? I guess the answer to that is a largely depressing one – something along the lines of only victors getting to write the history books.
For my part, I was interested by the automatism aspect of Klint’s creative process, so looked at what my hand and brain likes to visualise while I’m supposed to be thinking about other things; so I looked again at the recent pages of my various diaries and journals, and what I scribble when I’m in all those interminable Zoom meetings. That done, I decided to produce further happenstance by layering up the doodles to produce as much texture as possible, and then went about reinstating the circle, in a nod to the more arcane aspects of Klint’s temple paintings.
Further inspired by the cosmology of Klint’s artwork, I just went on layering up my images to produce greater depth and expansiveness, and all the while imagined these images to be as least as big as Klint’s paintings, and likewise hanging in dark gallery spaces lit softly. I kept going back to an image as-and-when until I started to feel something ‘big’ and mysterious was getting started before me. Ultimately, not sure what I’ve produced, but I enjoyed ‘not knowing’ a great deal.
The Kick-About #70 ‘Hilma Af Klint’
Our last Kick-About together celebrated that deep-winter symbol of light-in-the-darkness, the Christmas tree. Our next creative foray (our first of 2023) is likewise exploring the desire for illumination, but with artist and mystic Hilma Af Klint as our muse. Enjoy this latest selection of new works made in a short time and also “Happy New Year!”.
Graeme Daly
“I have been yearning to do some traditional art lately, probably due to the fact that, during the Christmas break, my nieces and nephew received some arty presents. Here are some oil pastel drawings similar to some Irish sigils.”
graemedaly.com / graemedalyart.com / @graemedalyart / vimeo.com/graemedaly / linkedin.com/in/graeme-daly / twitter.com/Graeme_Daly / gentlegiant.blog
Kerfe Roig
“As always I would have liked to do more, and these will be added to the pile for future further exploration. I always felt Hilma af Klint’s art was a searching for spirit. She got involved in a lot of philosophy about it, but I think that, in the case of spirit, images and music will always get much closer to it than words or ideas. I focused on circles, but the tension between geometry and essence is present in all her work. I painted enso circles and then embroidered geometric lines and circles on top to try to capture some of that feeling.”
circled by spirit
doubled
vision—the same
circle in two places–
precision and surprise,
mirrored, random,
centered
oceans
of earth and fire,
floating transparencies,
waves repeating—ebb, flow–
footprints erased
by time
kblog.blog / methodtwomadness.wordpress.com
Charly Skilling
“I was not sure, at first, how to respond to this prompt. Some Kick-About prompts fire off a flurry of ideas, associations, visualisations… but not this one. Then I remembered a bag of cotton yarns I was given some years ago, but never found a really good use for. Normally my yarns are stored in gauze bags so I can see what’s in them at a glance, but I decanted these cottons into a denser cloth bag, so I could not see the colours. I then plunged my hand in, drew out the first ball I touched and started crocheting with it. There was no plan, no judgement about colour suitability. I crocheted varying stitches, determined by whim and often realising I had moved from one stitch to another without any real conscious thought. When I got bored, I changed yarn. There was one ball of yarn that had come unravelled and got very tangled, and I struggled to un-tangle it. Then my son said “Just crochet the knots in”, so I did. Each day I fastened off whatever I’d been working on and the next day started again with the next ball to emerge from the bag. Only as I approached the Kick-About deadline did I apply amy kind of critical editing, and then only to decide not to include a couple of sections. The whole process was helped by listening to a really good audiobook while I crocheted (a David Baldacci novel) and thereby diverting my conscious mind from too much busy-bodying about the work. So here it is. Make of it what you will!“
James Randall
“This one just didn’t want to emerge from my 2022 puckered head! Hilma had her moment of glory in Australia in Sydney during the pandemic, so she’s well promoted if little actually seen. I feel her work morphs out of nature’s motifs, so my jumping-off point was the poinciana trees that line the local streets. The Madagascan natives have bright red and yellow pinwheel-shaped flowers (in full bloom at the moment) and almost fern-like foliage. I designed a graphic representation of its flower to begin with, along with the leaves, and then broke it down into its components and added local skies mirrored into grid-isolated forms, along with ‘dashed’ line graphics to reflect Hilma’s inclusion of line. Left me feeling very hippy! Hello 2023.”
Gary Thorne
“Brava Hilma Af Klint in her organic, free flowing, richly-coloured magical forms. Regards KA70, I must say the result would make for the most infuriating 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Happy new year KA-ers.”
Vanessa Clegg
“Well… happy new year to all Kick-Abouts. As the first challenge of 2023, this was a good one, tapping into the spontaneous aspect of Klint’s work, i.e. automatic writing. I threw my usual tight drawing style to the winds, closed my eyes, imagined figures and animals – and started. What resulted led me to think this could be a weekly exercise that reminds me of art school years in the life drawing room where we’d be asked to draw whilst only looking at the model and not the paper, which is an excellent test of observation. The ‘painting’ is my first go at laying down watercolour or ink and folding the paper over… Again, no control and something to be continued.”
Phil Gomm
“That I’d never heard of Hilma Af Klint before this prompt has left me soul-searching ever since… How’s it possible this fascinating artist has been otherwise invisible to me? I guess the answer to that is a largely depressing one – something along the lines of only victors getting to write the history books. For my part, I was interested by the automatism aspect of Klint’s creative process, so looked at what my hand and brain likes to visualise while I’m supposed to be thinking about other things; so I looked again at the recent pages of my various diaries and journals, and what I scribble when I’m in all those interminable Zoom meetings. That done, I decided to produce further happenstance by layering up the doodles to produce as much texture as possible, and then went about reinstating the circle, in a nod to the more arcane aspects of Klint’s temple paintings. Further inspired by the cosmology of Klint’s artwork, I just went on layering up my images to produce greater depth and expansiveness, and all the while imagined these images to be as least as big as Klint’s paintings, and likewise hanging in dark gallery spaces lit softly. I kept going back to an image as-and-when until I started to feel something ‘big’ and mysterious was getting started before me. Ultimately, not sure what I’ve produced, but I enjoyed ‘not knowing’ a great deal!”
Marion Raper
“I find abstract works very interesting, but unfortunately my type of artistic style seems to over complicate things. Having left things until New Years Eve, I decided to make a start by attempting to imitate Hilma’s ‘flower abstract’ and read that she was also a bit of a mystic. I used some of my ink and bleach backgrounds and decided to cut out some contrasting flower shapes from an old catalogue. It was a complete surprise to learn that they we’re called Petunia Grandiflora Mystical Midnight Gold. How spooky! Happy New Year to one and all!”
Now that Christmas 2022 is done and dusted you might be thinking, ‘Phew, no more gift-wrapping!’
Um, about that…
The Kick-About #66 ‘Vesuvius’
In contrast to the sombre and sepulchral offerings of our previous Kick-About together, this week’s collection of new works made in a short time is a more explosive affair. Inspired by Turner’s painterly apocalypse, enjoy the flash and sizzle of our own creative outpourings. Boom!
Francesca Maxwell
“My take of an explosion of some kind, more of an emotional kind, I think, so I wanted to feel surrounded by and immersed in it. Not the beautiful and dramatic rendition of Turner’s Vesuvious one – close enough to make us feel the power of it but from some safe distance. Nor the fireworks we seem to get these days, more noise than light! I used to love watching the fireworks over the sea for Genova’s Saint Patron’s day as a child. It was a glorious spectacle of lights, colours and patterns, mirrored on the water surface – and far enough not to be too noisy. I suppose now we need to be more environmentally conscious with these things as well. Hope you all had a fun weekend!“
Marion Raper
“It came to mind I had previously done a painting entitled “Volcano”, albeit about 55 years ago! This was when I was at senior school and the reason it has stuck in my mind… is because I never actually finished it! I had painted people trying to escape, and running away in panic from a volcano, but the thing was the bell rang for end of lesson before I had time to put in their faces! It was therefore quite a surprise for me to see, about a week later, my unfinished masterpiece hanging on the wall outside the headmistress study! It was even more of a shock when the headmistress herself happened to be walking by, as I stood with my mouth open saying to some friends “Blimey! That’s my picture up there!” She gave me a very stoney stare (which others who went to this same school may vividly remember) and said “Did you mean for all the people to be faceless?” I was always taught that honesty is the best policy so I said, in a very feeble voice, “Well actually Miss I didn’t get to finish it” Wrong answer. Next day my painting had disappeared from the wall.”
Charly Skilling
“When looking at images of volcanoes, I am always struck by the contrast between the life and heat and light and movement of the explosions and the lava flow and the cold, dark, stillness of the ash and landscape left behind. I have tried to capture some of this contrast with a freeform crochet, approximately 25″ x 38″. I used a yarn with sequins for the lava itself, the sequins reflected light giving life and movement Other yarns, with a fine silver fleck running through them, helped bring a suggestion of light and movement to the more distant volcanic cloud and the night sky. The landscape surrounding the volcano is made up of greys, charcoal and blacks, with streaks of fire giving the terrain some definition. Finally, an old tree, lit by moonlight on one side and firelight on the other, stands poised at the moment the first flames begin to lick – on the cusp of flaring into destruction.”
Vanessa Clegg
“1983: I close my eyes. Hearing the crunch of hardened lava… a calcified sea leading into the forest… ascending into the thinning air, straining the lungs, weakening the legs, pumping the heart… progress slowing. Six hours later: emerging into mist, temperature dropping, giant pointed succulents scattered over rubble, light failing, crawling to the crater’s lip, peering into the depths… a stomach flip from the power and scale… molten lava hidden by cloud smoke. Three metal huts… most without floors… just below the peak. Eating out of tins, curling like squirrels into a deep damp sleep… the bass notes of the mountain penetrating our dreams.”
Mt Meru, Tanzania, stratovolcano (last eruption 1910) Walk: 2001. Pen and ink on paper
Nyragongo, Congo, live stratovolcano last eruption prior to walk in1977) Walk: 1983. Pen and ink on paper
Jan Blake
“For many years I had this desire to go up a volcano on horse-back. The fact I had never been on a horse before was not going to deter me. My dear friend Penny, who died a few months ago in Mexico, was Don Quixote to my Sancho Panza. Jesus and his little son, Simon appropriately led us up the volcano. There was no-one else for 8 hours. So the prompt this time for me was not the blazing furnace of a volcano erupting, but the life-changing experience of climbing this steaming, breathing volcano. It had grown to eruption in 10 years in 1952, enveloping the pueblo and ending abruptly at the altar of the church. From the top you can see across the whole of Mexico and the fault line runs steeply down to South America. When we arrived back to Guadalajara I made this first painting. It was as if the volcano had entered my entire body, so visceral were the feelings. We hardly spoke for hours. Here is that drawing and a detail of the core. I selected out a photo of the volcano landscape itself, so still, silent and empty on the downward slope, a complete opposite of the Turner eruption and magnitude of its flaring torment. The earth talks to us very clearly. I hope the politicians are listening. Maybe they should take them up to the top of a breathing earth next time – rather than a mega-rich paradise!”
James Randall
“Way back in 2008 we walked the Tongariro Alpine Crossing in New Zealand – eight hours, 19kms – along the way reaching the top of the still active red crater. A fabulous walk full of fascinating natural wonders- a yellow lake, emerald lakes, areas of snow, waterfalls, steam rising from rocks and amazing colours. When we got home I spotted a photo I had taken of a ridge line which was part of the track and there was a row of tiny people one after the other on it. Who knows how many people walk the track every day, but it would be enormous. I wouldn’t want not to have undertaken this marvel trek, but the impact on nature must be devastating. So my image is of the pleading volcano – I suppose a comment on over population. Also time for a gouache painting I thought. And I was inspired by several of the last Art challenge submissions that took a simpler approach – not that I achieved simplicity here, but I really liked what they achieved!”
Phil Cooper
“Turner’s painting of Vesuvius is so sublime, so epic. I can’t compete with that, so I’ve gone to the other end of the scale – a bit of a damp squib compared to Turner’s fiery mountain. I photographed a fire demon who has lost his mojo. He should be running around causing mischief, but he’s over it and doesn’t quite know what to do with himself; what does a demon do if he’s not wreaking havoc? His demon friends think he’s a loser and ordinary folk run away screaming. He doesn’t fit in anywhere these days. He did go off and get a prospectus from the community college last week, so that’s a start…”
instagram.com/philcoops / hedgecrows.wordpress.com / phil-cooper.com
Phil Gomm
“A few points of reference going on here: of course, those ash-encased bodies of Pompeii’s unlucky inhabitants, entombed where they embraced by the volcano’s pyroclastic flow, but also memories of watching the news in the aftermath of 9/11, people walking through the city streets, bewildered, made ghostly by their lamina of ash. I sourced some of those little people architects deploy to bring their scale models to life, coated them with a few blasts of hairspray, then rolled them in wood ash from the stove. I was particularly taken by the humdrum poses of the figures and, in some strange way, find the resulting photographs comforting. It’s as if those poor Pompeiians got up off the floor one day and resumed their lives, chatting, flirting, popping down the shops…”
Graeme Daly
“I was awestruck by the colours of Turner’s painting, especially the light and darkness, and contemplated how the land after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius would have been nothing but dark ash and charred to a crisp, the poisoned, suffocating smoke billowing into the air, the wispy remains of trees, and how the lava cemented the landscape. I decided to comb through the surplus of landscape photography I have of rural Ireland, and gave a whirl to producing apocalyptic, darker hues. Here are some mixed media images created by digitally painting over my photography of those images of rural Ireland.”
graemedaly.com / graemedalyart.com / @graemedalyart / vimeo.com/graemedaly / linkedin.com/in/graeme-daly / twitter.com/Graeme_Daly / gentlegiant.blog
Kerfe Roig
“Vesuvius has always seemed cosmic to me, so I consulted my stash of cosmic reference photos in order to construct some collage. The third one didn’t work as I originally created it, so I cut it into two—much better. And when, after doing the collages, I did a little research and discovered that Venus is the patroness of Pompeii, I thought: perfect! I’ve also put together five volcanic haiku to make a cadralor. According to Wikipedia, “The root of the word Pompeii would appear to be the Oscan word for the number five, pompe”. Venus is also associated with the pentagram, another five.“
in search of Venus
1
what season is this?
dark, enigmatic, grown wild–
spilling from our eyes
2
the madness of fire–
consummation and release,
sweeping life away
3
inside opens out
disintegrates unbound–
what was not, now is
4
random lines break down–
the page explodes, caught trembling–
from nothing, vast light
5
the locus that gyres–
gravities of orbiting
become somewhere else
kblog.blog / methodtwomadness.wordpress.com
Gary Thorne
“KA coincided with a nice surprise of an abundance of flowers arriving to the house. Try-outs to capture the explosive nature of this group proved difficult, until the rain chucked it down beneath a heavily overcast sky. I simply rotated the vase 90 degrees, trying to capture subtle differences. I find it is with zoomed-in examination that things appear really sensual. Zoom-away to freely discover your own hidden treasures. ”
And for our 67th run-about together, feast your eyes on the extraordinary sculpture-come-wall-hangings of the Ghanaian artist El Anatsui, who uses recycled materials to produce huge, sumptuous installations: “Anatsui refers to himself as both a painter and a sculptor. He essentially ‘paints’ and builds up colour and pattern with the bottle-caps – with his works have been compared to traditional Ghanaian kente cloth, Western mosaics, tapestries and paintings by Gustav Klimt…”
Red's Kingdom 