notes from the drifting spaces

Blair’s art notes…

The 2012 Natsu Basho (summer tournament) was thrilling to the last day, with an extra match needed – Yushoketesen – to decide the winner. Kyokutenhou, the 37 year old veteran from Mongolia (in fact the first Mongolian sumo wrestler), became the oldest ever Osumosan to win a tournament when he won against Tochiouzan today. The

Working on ‘TRACES’ – Artist’s Film

One of the projects I’m working on (and getting quite into) is my first venture into editing footage into an artist’s film. The editing can be a creative and fun way to experiment, much like painting… Working with landscape and machine themes, plus sculptural ideas, I’m trying to fuse the experience of the here and

Ozumo Update Tokyo Basho. 5 days to go – who will win?

It has been an eventful tournament so far and the sumo in the last few days has been riveting stuff! Very unusually, Yokozuna Hakuho has been having an unfortunate time, losing four matches whereas Ozeki Kisenosato has been doing great, with nine wins and one lost. He won today against the Bulgarian Ozeki, Kotooshu (usually

Drawing and walking through the cityscape

In the last week I’ve been wondering around the urbanscape continuing and trying to develop my recent series of more free drawings. The Sketchbook Monster is on the loose. The semi forgotten and overlooked, overgrown spots with the combination of the tattered British infrastructure dynamics, weeds, foliage and graffiti provide an excellent outdoor workspace. Quite

The May Grand Sumo Tournament on in Tokyo

The Natsu Basho is up and wrestling! I’m quite into the whole Ozumo experience and have been watching since it started on Sunday. There are six tournaments per year, three in Tokyo, plus Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka in Kyushu. This one is in Tokyo in the imposing spaceship like architecture of the Ryogoku Kokugikan, the

Drawing through the factory floor and beyond

Down with the pens for a day and had fun experimenting with tablet drawings! Working partly from memory but keeping in mind a factory visit I drew at. Looking for rhythms, negative spaces and colour too. These are a few fast studies. I’ve also been looking at the photography I made there and considering developing

Inspiring artist: Per Kirkeby

When I visited the Danish National Gallery (Statens Museum for Kunst) in Copenhagen in 2010 I enjoyed seeing the work of the great Danish painter and sculptor Per Kirkeby for the first time. He was in good company, with powerful examples of Baselitz and Munch nearby and powerful examples of Danish expressionism. The building and

Bruce Peter’s Grand Ferry Tour of Japan

My good friend Bruce Peter (academic at Glasgow School of Art and design and maritime journalist) is recently returned to Scotland after three weeks of travel in Japan, sailing on 31 ferries and other ships (even the typhoon couldn’t dent his packed schedule), and taking some cracking photos in the process. He has started to

Mountain poetics and sculpturing forms

These exerpts are from my recent trip to Rannoch Moor, working a bit more abstractly with the forms, all practice that I plan to keep developing… and will aim to bring in a different sound element. This is all unedited but may become part of the growing mix of work, including drawings and paintings too,

worlds within worlds