END OF THIS LINE

CONTINUATION OF POSTS
go to:

http://chronologicallyours.blogspot.co.uk/

(Due to the filling up of this site)

Are yuh yellah Bob?

Shit!! Ive just been told I'm out of space on this site (again)
Thats a drag as I have already moved stuff off it. I think this means there is a memory of what has been put into it and thats it.
I'll have to do another one.
 

 London Surrey Arts, May 1982

 



Thing I'm really after is dating the stuff. Putting it into context.

Ive got stacks of pictures about, but where do they all fit.

This is not to say that I'm after loads of images more.

I could do with more stuff from "Genesis"



I have quite a few bad photos of work and actual work, it's a case of sifting through it.
 

Also some images from the ring cycle, even though I got ill and didnt show - I was very involved in producing images.
The LSA site is just about taking shape now - - -
Anyway, here's the link to that site:
http://umphries.blogspot.co.uk/p/london-surrey-arts.html
Although what with this site jamming up, I can see a separate site for London Surrey Arts forming.

 24-11-2012
Sadly the "Motherload" site is moving although I dont think its public yet.
but it will be the main site to link all the others together .
http://chronologicallyours.blogspot.co.uk/

Battle of the paintings

Izrael and Gaza
Thing thats getting through to me at the moment is the seemingly balanced, fair and serious people from both sides that start off sensible and then get more and more fanatical.

Maddox x an Ash

 

Eddie Maddox, cutting back an ash in 1976, one of two that threatened the house with falling bows.

Through the years I have been tending elm saplings that were possibly too small for the bugs to revisit and destroy. I haven't been back for a year and a half I wonder if they are still there - maybe find out next week.



LSA principles

I guess that L.S.A.principles were formulated between Julian Pefanis and Tony Wright (two Americans avoiding the late Vietnam draft) and I. Whilst at Epsom art college in the early 70's
L.S.A. started to grow into it's main format after leaving college mainly as a way of keeping contact, but also as a way of keeping the ball up in the air. I met Bob Meecham working in an aluminium foundry and then it really kicked off when Tony came back from the states after having been deported. We were holding meetings at my place in Bromley and also at John Hosking's in Folkestone. It all carried on until I moved to Cardiff and subsequently went to India with my wife Anne.
I bought a leather-bound note book, about the size of a family bible in Calcutta in December 81. I started using it as a kind of "no limits" art diary involving quite a few people, but basically centring around the L.S.A. format.
This diary carried on for quite a while and could almost be seen to cover the main thrust of what we were up to - especially in the 80's.
*
Unfortunately, the diary and I parted company a couple of years ago, which for me was a little heart breaking.
Earlier this year I decided to jot down in a notebook memories as they surfaced. - So I believe what has emerged is a summery of generally a much wider view of what happened or was covered under the L.S.A. umbrella.
I aim here to date the pages chronologically and put them into order on this blog. Having this as a framework I hope to further embellish with surviving paintings, photos, etc.
11/11/2012

A poem, between night and day, with words from Bob Tony John and I. which was also recorded at the time.






Folkestone Revisited

Quite a happening few days.

We took a Chalet on in Dymchurch for three nights, basically to go to John Hosking's two person opening which he shared with Rebecca Holtom.
It was a very rough and ready chavvy site which suited us as we were very near the sea and on the out-skirts of the place and as such only had to take the dogs over the road for a walk.
It seems that one of my earliest tutors has recently died, I heard about it today from Tim Mapson although I am not sure when it happened.
And of course - this morning came the relieving news that Barrack Obama has been re-elected. As Richard Butler put it - phew!

We spent the morning on Saturday with Dave Bridge, Rosemary Hosking and three dogs in and around Johns garden and Studio in the woods. I informed him that didn't deserve it! A beautiful place to be and work.

The show was on Sunday morning. It was a very pleasant and efficient event in an ample library gallery. In fact, ambitious and delightful.

Here we also met up with Nina Gieble and Bob Meecham. Turning the whole affair into a bit of a re-union.

The anthem of the event was produced by Dave and his wife Liz - covering the subject of "Senior Moments"

http://www.youtube.com/embed/Xv1tMioGgXI?rel=0

As for myself, I've been having similar experiances ever since I met Mary Jane in the mid sixties.

And - -
a link to some photos I put onto Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151316564201424.531285.707526423&type=3#!/media/set/?set=a.10151316564201424.531285.707526423&type=3



The last thing to come out of these few days was the face that I wasn't easily able to show any of my blogs sites etc. so I have decided to put them down here.

http://martinhumphriestreehouse.blogspot.co.uk/
http://loonsencyclopedia.blogspot.co.uk
http://thegosanipalace.blogspot.com
http://umphries.blogspot.co.uk
 http://woodenom.blogspot.co.uk/#!/p/a-wooden-om.html

www.art-3000.com   (Martin Humphries)
Johns site,
http://www.johnhosking.com/
and last but not least - here is Phil Gray's site that Ive put a couple of things on,
http://www.thevisualdictionary.net/

night by night

Night By Night lyrics
"It's a beggars life", Said the Queen of Spain
But don't tell it to a poor man
'Cause he's got to kill for every thrill
The best he can

Everywhere around me
I see jealousy and mayhem
Because no men have all their peace of mind
To carry them

Well I don't really care
If it's wrong or if it's right
But until my ship comes in
I'll live night by night

When the joker tried to tell me
I could cut it in this rube town
When he tried to hang that sign on me
[ From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/s/steely-dan-lyrics/night-by-night-lyrics.html ]
I said "Take it down"

When the dawn patrol got to tell you twice
They're gonna do it with a shotgun
Yes, I'm cashing in this ten-cent life
For another one

Well I ain't got the heart
To lose another fight
So until my ship comes in
I'll live night by night

Well I don't really care
If it's wrong or if it's right
But until my ship comes in
I'll live night by night

Night by night
Night by night
Night by night
Night by night

 

Steely Dan

 

 

 

Pretty close to the start of the Morocco albums in Facebook



Espace Dunes Essouira

My birthday,
In the middle of our three week stay,
A fair amount of colourful painting achieved and a lot of photos
Unfortunately, I cant fit the card for photos into this battered machine
Staying in a beautiful apartment overlooking the sea smashing into rocks
Seafood meal later at  Chez Sam at the port

I still intend to construct the Kennel before the 6th, but still don't have a big chuck key for my drill

Its a beautiful place, lovely weather and many considerate people

Spot, Roof and Morocco

What I have been working on is a kennel for the Spotted Dog, what has delayed me is a hole in the roof and what I am about to do is Morocco for three weeks.

I was hoping to get something up for an active and dry month of September, also something that will be weatherproof for the winter, with a twinkly side and heavily varnished.
Big enough for children to fit into - in fact, big enough for a couple of smallish grown-ups to squeeze into side by side in an almost voyeuristic capacity with just enough personal space. A nice place to sit in if you actually are in the dog house with views all around, but not in.

I had hoped to have this finished and up before our trip to Morocco, but have been somewhat delayed by a hole in the roof.
So, before I go the thing will be completely finished, but I wont and don't have enough time to install it.
However, it seems that Sean is organising an event on the 6th October, maybe that could be a good erection date.

Spot the sign

My previous (last) commitment and possibly the most important one since my 60th birthday.

I wanted to see one of the pub signs in situ, in public, maybe in a place where I could see some sort of reaction or even feedback. Also in a place where I could see one of the signs from a distance.
Importantly though, I wanted to show something in an arena where it would be welcomed by its "landlord". - In fact I had got to the stage where this was imperative after too many months of ifs, ands and maybes.

So the thing stood in the middle of an "event" at the Spotted Dog.

Photo

I didn't see the event, but Sean Tighe tells me that it was both accepted and rejected - which suits us both. Whatever, it was the possible starting point for "part-time interventions". Which leads me on to a "next".
A dog house, labelled "Spot" which follows on from the sign (fortunately). But also happens to be the type of thing that I have been aiming to make for a while - and also along the lines of things that I have been making since the age of eight - gang huts!
My initial idea was a simple dog house with a papier-mache "Spot", like "the Universal.

Photo

But the idea was mooted of a kennel big enough for small children. Which follows on to "what about big children" - but following that: the smallest space that a "big child" could  comfortably sit in to maybe escape blame and retribution. After all, it is a dog house. Importantly though - with embellishment, it is also a folly.

Very waterproof with a translucent roof for a shady light. Built on a step/slope with a little porch on it.

And - fitting into the sad walled area which could provide a stunning area for a view from the smoking area all twinkly on a winter night.

Umphries

A new site is born!

http://umphries.blogspot.co.uk/

It directly follows on from Loons Encyclopedia in that it contains "articles" separate stories from different times that quite often I have decided to finish off and publish, having this availability to do so.

UMPHRIES

It was a break from the "om" (which as a blog site maybe getting overcrowded), a problem I seem to be starting to bump into at present.

So, as stated above, I'm going to try to keep "umphries" as a reasonably small thing or rather a series of reasonably small things, thinking that anything that actually gets big enough will be taken out and put onto its own site. Maybe it will end up as a bunch of things that may be one day, the germs of new sites.

Any way I am also about to start another new page under the name "The Gulhani Palace" which will contain the work I did whilst staying on a houseboat for three months back in 1983. And also contain a load of corresponding black and white photos, notes scribbles postcards and a couple of letters.



Whats Cooking?

http://loonsencyclopedia.blogspot.co.uk/p/whats-cooking.html

 

Thyis is one of two pieces of writing I produced whilst doing a part time M.A. in Margaret Street Birmingham. Its based around some video stuff I did during a visit in December 99. I produced a lot of video still images in order to illustrate it

Unfortunately, this one wasnt accepted as part of my course work - it didnt "underpin my practise" & also didnt cut it on a couple of other issues. ( I had been painfully misdirected by a humanities proffessor)

Non the less I had enjoyed writing it and when I got over my wounded pride, enjoyed writing the next one, after all, I was on a part-time M.A. and was there to "experience and learn!"

I have only recently found most of the bits and feel greatfull for a chance to publish it / give it a second airing.

 

 



Spot the proof

Yes yes & added nutritional information for you.
The first link is to the hedge sign which I didnt give them enough time to accept or reject (silly me)
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150476511301424.427236.707526423&type=3#!/photo.php?fbid=10151101399556424&set=a.10150476511301424.427236.707526423&type=3&theater

I think a (small) child sized kennel is a great idea!
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwha6gLdP7ZQqiTJbZYunuUogctx3A78ZuVZOlLRwRKV4d182YXUqXrA6BeCrB2Z1qj4GkVyuY45Apqw4rcKxmPiKx52aRG_HZnfWhH_ve180jW7wrXVnH_0U8N8U0ajgWU5UF_xclEsY/s1600/Rain+Hut+1.50.jpg

A couple of my bird houses, they havent all survived - some where not fit enough to make it.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKc7so5gTJCVGdWFBIngIu60_dvZ8OkxdLEp0Mde-aFph4hcy5nh3uUWcEzdK0g-ViPHlrl4AGHIWC70_MvasBhyphenhypheniznvtkDJrFzsaSoQA3hvfdQzUuJ9jeLKST6D638IfyinXb8jNQT2w/s1600/Birdhouse+1.50.jpg

The throne room at the x-ray factory.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyXdWXf8zK_LI2TVFE7cXXdH1FzPpouNlAMjIC0dww7B_jvVaoYZeXJqQd978kh4KP1RB720UVpfc4SzvHOPNkTVwhvnO-_g9gazZGUqY7sKG8Wy93iuEBfKe3VakLYGDxowYGUw869Ow/s1600/Throne+Room+frm+stairs.JPG

The Tree House in West Brom
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2m5dAqN3MuNLT4pEVtzie7QAukQolGRuav4tdAHPesSN7A0w9XA8v2XNUbBT0WryOG1fMAWQPuij6Ik7ROvuncWDoJH-Fadaxvv-iH38XdLqTZdNgeVb78REMyxPodKbNicDnbaPx7IU/s1600/Tree+House.jpg

Identity

At the end of last year, I designed a card.
I never got round to getting it printed for various reasons.
The fact that I'm going to Cardiff to Alice's large wedding tomorrow prompted me to remember it.
I think I have improved it a bit, although it will be a two sided affair and exist in a polythene sheet as it wont be waterproof.

Good luck for the future Alice and Chris

A boy and his bull

The latest addition to the Wooden Om blog.

Originally drawn in April 81 in the form of three studies then made into an etching in Folkestone a couple of years later.

A boy accompanied me on a couple of visits to a favourite Siva temple of mine and wrote his name on that particular drawing for me.

We met again high up in the mountains where he had help herd his families sheep up to summer pastures.

http://woodenom.blogspot.co.uk/#!/p/a-wooden-om.html

That's the spirit

Whoooa smash it up smash it up.

(but I dont think he will win though)

https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=10151092290061424&set=a.10150145707046424.334166.707526423&type=1&theater

The Wooden Om

THE WOODEN OM

It's one of those years where I haven't seemed to be able to get anything much to happen so I found solace in going back and seem to have come out with something after all. All the baby boomer bands seem to be re-mixing their old stuff, so why not me!?
This new blog site started off as another page on my "Loons Encyclopaedia. Something to be covered as a large project but has in fact turned into something in its own rite. I am adjusting certain parts of the original script, but by and large am trying to portray how I felt as it happened - even if I got it wrong at the time. Every time I add more stuff to the Wooden Om page itself I plan to also put it out as a post and link that to other sites.

When I originally wrote it during my initial "time out" in India, I wanted to make a mad account diary that was readable as oppose to garbled. i hit on the idea of sending my anecdotes as e-mails to my friends, thereby ensuring that I was trying to convey something to other people instead of writing notes just to myself. I wanted to put raw, immediate reactions to my daily existence. Maybe I thought I was doing something unique and important. Whatever that initial trip to India with Anne was very possibly the most influential thing I've done in my life.

How do you manage sponteneity?

A thing that has and will raise it's head all my life.

I suppose a large goal of mine in terms of paint ay least is to create compositions.

This involves working from various notes and studies many of which can remain fresher than what the finished product becomes.

As I sit here pondering,

I have two ways to deal with this situation: 

1/ Make at least some of the roughs on a bigger scale, almost so they they become finished pieces in their own right.

2/ Substitute freshness with richness, intencity and vibrancy.

As it happens, whilst writing up the Wooden Om page:
http://loonsencyclopedia.blogspot.co.uk/p/wooden-om.html
I came across some stuff I wrote on the same subject whilst staying in a very peacefull place in Puri at the end of a long trip to India and just at the point where I was contemplating painting a large show in oils on canvas.
It had been quite a thoughtfull time in Puri and I had been able to give the issue a fair degree of consideration.

Puri 3.11.81

The fishing fleet floats ever so slowly back to sell it's wares and the sparrow decides not to build it's nest in our rafters and we are more contented than we will be for a long time.

( It must be the ups and downs of a trip like this)

I think of the problem of how am I actually do my oils on this enormous subject - the title of which struggles ever upward.

It is basically a problem of non "conversion" I have to do something like make new pictures,

otherwize the the oils become glorifications of the existing watercolours and quite often with not nearly as much life or energy in them.

Although I could be basing this very much on what people have said to me in the past about my work. I do find for me that if Ive lived in a canvas it takes a certain life of its own.

One way to get round the problem of "plastic re-representation2 is to study the notes, memorise what is the basic thing that has to be said and then pump it out without any further reference to the notes.

Trouble is that it's quite hard to be spontaneous when you are trying to remember colour, tone, form, line etc. It's too much to handle: hopeing for no mistakes. You have a very delicate composition problem where spontaneous life has to be carefully, exactly and correctly manufactured.

The facts of dynamic tension have to be cold bloodedly executed with the aid of additional drawings: All points worked out separately and simply painted with awarness of "now" and with control and patience.

So far, I have:

Basic impression (with practice - a thing performed by heart)

Composition (built up and sure)

Improvisation (start on a point and take it where it will)

The devil in the pack is glorification - trying to redo something magnificently and similarly. Your moods are going to change and you would be better off on spending the time on presentation. There has to be another goal attached, you can't start with a conclusion.

Curatorial

- by organising artists

Phil Gray's Allsorts

My old friend started a thing on facebook about the sweets you used to eat in the 60's and what they did to you. I think he could almost write a book on the subject, here are two of my more anecdotal comments on that post:

I had a penny arrow, sitting in my desk.
You were not allowed sweets in school, I was saving it for the walk home
- I wasn't going to eat it, I was only seven.
But the girl I shared the double desk with couldnt wait for the class to settle down for the afternoon and out came "sir, Martin's got a penny arrow"
This was the first time my trust had been betrayed by a woman.
I still remember Margaret Little!

and-
On the home run, we stopped at Toogoods cafe for sweete on Fridays.
The lad involved in this anecdote's name was Robert Hookham and out of desperation he invaded his sister's savings box and bought up a whole box of bubblegum. There were 144 inall, I know, I counted them.
We stopped eating bubblegum after a while and never started again.

Embellishing the Masters

I happened to come across some files that had gone missing from a group of e-mails I sent out a few years ago, I think they would make a good page (later) in the Loons side of the blog and a good album in Facebook.
A chance to beef the older ones up, add some new ones and present them in a coherent format.

https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=10151054909721424&set=a.10151039599841424.491659.707526423&type=1&theater

From Minster to Shellness

(Back from)
Another stretch of coastline, quite wild in its own scruffy informal way.
All branching out and eroded.
Almost like supporting its own little universe.
A lot of Kent countryside and incredibly so close to London.

On the North coast of Sheppey from Minster right along to Shell Ness - a name that haunts me with its simplicity and directness: you won the whole beach and its muddy dunes.

Artist as Hero

I will not cease from mental fight

 

 

Bring me my bow of burning gold

Bring me my arrows of desire

Bring me my spear: oh clouds unfold

Bring me my chariot of fire.

 

Hill Bill x Ben Billy

Hill Bill x Ben Billy

Chamba 11.4.81

One of the chaps that i went through the art college experience with was Richard Butler,

who later went on to front a band called the Psychdelic Furs.

During our last year at college, from time to time we returned to the topic of what part of the world we may end up in during our oncoming formative years.

It took me six or seven years to finally end up in India.

On this occasion we were sat in a shanty town restaurant in Chamba

- a meeting of the ways.

All the drovers pass through on their way to higher grazing grounds.

It's a bit of a frontier town, or was anyway.

We were treating ourselves to a meat curry.

We had met up with a couple of blokes who had spent the winter up in the mountains.

One of them had brought a compendium cassette of relatively recent rock tunes

and put it on the rare cassette player that the establishment possessed.

I cant remember the exact words but it came as quite a chilling surprise

when the Furs filled the mud floor with

"hello India, this is America"

Link to Wooden Om Page

http://loonsencyclopedia.blogspot.co.uk/p/wooden-om.html

Just Daydreams, Tom

Riding with the wind, floating in the breeze.
Only, just daydreams.
Only, lots of them.

Little Wing

You enthusiastically commented that my work seemed to be on a roll in face book a week or two ago. In some respects, it is.

Since last autumn, I have had idea upon idea, one after the other, they don't stop.

The problem is that the only ones that seem to be successful are the ones that stay with me.

As soon as I try to involve other people they seem to take off for a short while and then slowly, but surely, the wheels fall off.

I cant help but think (in some instances) I may be scaring people off. I mean, how scared are people going to be about getting their programme hacked into in a powerfully maverick way?

In particular:

There has been a "peoples" art gallery/set up in which a colleague and I were aiming to set up a particularly large art show in September which has slowly fizzled out due to their lack of commitment. They either don't want us, or are incredibly inefficient.

There is an outdoor project in which I have expressed interest since it first got started last September and whilst being very friendly haven't been able to fit me into their scheme of things. Although I do find familiar faces cropping up here and there - jobs for the boys as it were.

And,

There was the large billboard project, last autumn, that was set up by someone I have worked with on large things previously.

I actually helped to set up this thing "E.C.Arts" as a viable thing in its early days. I was encouraged to go for the projected which involved covering billboards all over Birmingham and spent weeks putting proposals together for three billboards, all of which were rejected by the "committee".

I have since learnt that others have been granted billboards who hadn't even initially applied and some even knew that they had the commission before the thing was announced anyway.

And last, but not least, I was working on my own pub sign extravaganza which was quite forcefully knocked into the long grass following a very significant change in the position of the goal posts.

Fuck me again, I'm a poet!

My main problem, is probably its time to go public again.

And I seem to be failing on finding suitable venues.

There seem to be be far too many curators and organisers around, maybe people who feel they have more to offer than the actual artists themselves, seeing as they have organised the actual event.

They actually do M A courses to learn how to go about it in a text-book kind of way.

The underling currant at the moment, the hip way of approaching your art work is: just get on with it - don't think about why you are doing it. Work that out after you have completed it.

This has been one way I have approached my work all my life. One way, not the only way.

I look around and I see places and empty spaces and I think "I could be there"

Maybe its time to create my own bulldozer to jump aboard and plough forward with my own art quiver and maybe invite my own friends to come along.

Man x his Man

The phenomenon of Man and his Man

A couple of rocks in space

From the Perranporth side.
I never really fathomed out what the title was about from St Agnes as the rocks near enough merged into one.

Part of our fortnight stay in Little Orchard Village (again)
I believe we are becoming a pair of those sad people that seem to return to the same spot, year in, year out.
I had a bunch of notes that I was going to add to this picture but the the car got broken into by the dunes whilst we were out dog walking and the bag that I had stupidly left on the front was swiped as they smashed the front window. I will never leave anything that seems to be valuable in view in a car again - honest.
Anyway it was nice to do a group of small pictures apropos of nothing, without any ulterior motives.

A little red number.

The Byrds-"Eight Miles High"-3/3/67

A comment on the view from a high and dangerous place in the previous blog

Galloping George

I am not doing as much painting as I should at the moment.

Hard to believe I havent finished the pub signs yet.

Having returned from a week in the lake district.
This is a particularly complex post (for me). I need to lay out what I am up to.

*The Icon"

God for Harry, England and St George.

LANGDALE
We stayed in Langdale with the pikes in view from our front window

Aydin and I went on two particularly gruelling walks,
the first was around the Langdale Pikes,

The long and winding road.

Troughton Beck

Mind the memory of it becomes rather fuzzy after the second walk around Scafell Pike, which I was told was the highest mountain in Britain.

Path up to Scafel Pike

The Pike itself

View from the dangerous bit around the corner.

We missed the path turnings twice which would have made it comfortable.
And ended up climbing over a dangerously steep and high ridge, having two large dogs made the whole thing more frightening and more awkward. Toffee nearly fell backwards on me up the first climb - thankfully, he trusts me and didnt struggle when I caught hold of and supported him. Wilson panicked when Aydin lifted him up about five feet and nearly knocked all of us down a very steep incline.

I am working at present of producing C.D.s of music I mainly made with Phil Gray and Colin Browne in the seventies.

I am collecting a group of waterfall images - looking for info on how water splashes onto, through and around boulders. Also how small trees root themselves to the boulders in amidst the falling water.

I am hoping to use this information in relation to the watermills at Bharmor and the cascade paintings started a few months ago.

I have recently joined a web site linked to images linked to words found in the english dictionary.
Images of signs are used of words found in nature (both rural and urban!)
These words also require explanations: an aspect I plan to thouroughly explore, giving account of my unfolding life!.

Part of what used to be a walkers pub in the lake district but now has become familyised like going into somebody else's front room.You can see from the image where the extension was slapped onto the existing bar.

http://thevisualdictionary.net/

And finally my dog Toffee has just had the snip, to relieve prostrate problems. He seems old all of a sudden, and is far from happy at the moment..