Monday morning and I am running late. Might have something to do with the Wimbledon finals and us being on the other side of the world (it started at 1 am in the morning here).
This image here is called Down the road from the fairytale garden. People who know my hometown, know where it is. It is really down the road from the fairytale garden.
This image was taken on an island in the Baltic Sea, called Rügen. I think every German knows the scenery, it has been made famous by the romantic painter Kaspar David Friedrich. Even though the scenery is engraved in the common German memory, I don’t think that quite as many people have actually seen the white cliffs in nature. The island belonged to Eastern Germany when the country was still divided. It was military territory and therefore out of reach.
It is a mystic place, I could not describe it any differently. We went there in winter (summer might be a different story), and we had the place all to ourselves. The image I had in my post Friends!? was taken at the same place, but at the bottom of the cliffs.
When I look at this image I can hear the silence of the place and feel the protection of the trees all around me. I can feel the springy layer of humus under my feet and smell the damp moss. It is a huge problem I personally have as an image maker in that only I have all this additional information that went into the image and everything comes back instantly when I look at it. My images are always personal memories and this is the reason why I am hesitant to share them. They might evoke emotions in other people, but what the viewer feels will always differ from what I felt.
Of course we all know that advertising imagery is build on the common memory. It is never-fail generic imagery that evokes feel-good moods. But what is going to happen when we sit in front of the computer day in, day out and never learn what damp moss smells like. Will these images still work?
Yesterday I told someone a very personal story: it is one of my favorite ones, a brief summary on how I came to form my perspective. I thought I would share the story with everybody:
The pride of my hometown is a huge palace with beautifully maintained gardens. When I was a child, one of the main attractions in these gardens was a couple of swans. It was a big deal when the swans laid their eggs in spring and I wouldn’t be surprised if even the newspaper reported when the young ones hatched. Exciting stuff! However, what totally eluded me was that these swans were black-neck swans, a species native to South-America and very rare in Germany. For me they were simply the only swans I knew, so I just assumed every swan has a black neck.
When I got my first job, I moved away from my hometown. One day I went to the shores of a lake with a friend. And there they were, the beautiful white swans. White from beak to tail feather. I exclaimed: “They don’t have black necks.” My friend laughed at me and said: “Don’t be silly, swans are always white. They don’t have black necks!”
Then I moved to New Zealand and… the first swan I saw was black, entirely black. I can’t remember when I last saw a white one. I wish I still had my friend’s phone number :)
This is a much better image of a Tui bird, than the one I took last weekend. I have taken this one seven years ago. I remember clearly, there were no cats on the premisses… It makes a huge difference.
Staying with images of eyes, with this photograph I always had my difficulties. It is a straight shot, not manipulated in any way. The image made me realise that our cat is blind, not clumsy. The vet later confirmed, there are no clumsy cats. She tricked us for a very long time. It was amazing how she still found her way around the house, though she didn’t want to go into the garden any more. It was a dangerous world for her.
With this post, my self-imposed seclusion is coming to an end. I am back to writing my blog as part of my daily routine. I had a very, very strong urge to remain silent for a while. I was surprised though, how much I missed writing, even though I am only doing it for a bit over two months. The artworks I have created last week are as private as my thoughts and won’t make it onto the blog.
I am reluctant to put my paintings on this blog as they can be pretty scary. Painting is an amazing leveller of moods for me.
It’s not so much the outcome, but rather the process I am enjoying. I go through all possible emotions while painting. When I am reasonably happy, I have to hide the work for a while – otherwise it will get painted over the next day.
Last week was frantic and I am so looking forward to finishing one of my puppets today. The Sad Puppy. It only needs its skin.
A very nice side effect of this book project is: my skeletons seem to have moved on. I always thought I am good friends with my skeletons, but now that they are gone, I don’t miss them much.
I have a couple of obsessions. Maybe obsessions is too strong a word – Recurring topics might be better – Barbed wire is one of them. (I am sure, a psychologist would have something to say about that. I haven’t asked one yet.)
Last year I had a few images on display in a cafe up the road. It doesn’t count as an exhibition in my books (and how it came about is a funny story in itself). It was put together rather quickly and the photographs were chosen by their mass appeal rather than artistic merit.
The feather was one of them. I personally like this photograph, as for me it has a specific meaning. I am pretty sure, if you search through a stock library you will find heaps of images of feathers on barbed wire, some better resolved than mine.
However, I have been asked countless times, whether the feather was already there or whether I had placed it there.
Does it really matter?
dedepuppets 