I've not posted for a couple of days, no real reason, just not really had much to say. I toyed with some kind of vaguely political article, following the death of Osama Bin Laden, but that's not really what this blog's all about. I might say something at some point, but only when I have something coherent to say!
So, tonight, what shall my monologue concern itself with. I was thinking about art and photography earlier, so that will do! As pretty much everyone who knows me is aware, I am a fairly keen amateur photographer. I have liked taking pictures since I was a kid, and it's no co-incidence that I've hated having my picture taken again, since I was a kid! I have no doubts that the two are interlinked! I figured out early on that if I was holding the camera, then I was safe from having it pointed at me.
That aside, I took up photography as my way to express my 'visual' side - I can't draw, not at all, my dad was the artistic one in the family and he declined to share those genes with me, so if I want to make a picture, I have to use a camera - even I can press a button!! When I am in the right mood, I enjoy grabbing my camera, going somewhere and seeing what I can find to take a picture of. At the moment, I'm hugely into painting with light, I've always liked taking landscape shots, and I am not adverse to having the odd pretty lady stand in front of my lens!
Whilst I can't draw or paint, I do like art, well, some art. I'm a huge fan of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (one of my favourite paintings, Henry Wallis' "Death of Chatterton" is in the Pre-Raphaelite style Click here to see it) and like a lot of people, find the surrealist movement fascinating, with Dali, of course, being right up there. I don't, however, have any fondness for 'modern art'. I remember being at the Allbright-Knox Gallery of Modern Art in Buffalo a few years ago, getting more and more indignant as I wandered around - most of the exhibits looked like they could have come from a, Ikea display. There was an entire corridor decorated with canvasses, about 12"x12", white, save a diagonal band of colour. Is that really art? My rule of thumb is "if I can do it, it's not art!".
Nor am I much of a fan of 'installation art'. I'm fairly sure Tracy Emin is a very talented artist, but is an unmade bed really art? If so, I plan to sell my bedroom as an installation piece for ooooh, I don't know... £3,000,000? All I need to do is give it some provenance - I can say that the clothes on the floor are indicative of my non-conformist streak, whilst the colour of the walls demonstrate my subconscious desire for inner peace. The bed itself show that even in vast surroundings, I like to have a specific area which is delineated from everywhere else as my own little haven (to give this some context, I live on my own, and despite having a double bed, I always sleep pretty much on the edge of the bed, I have no idea why). So, there you go, grade A installation art. Now, let me see if I can find Sotheby's phone number...
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