Henry Moore

The Henry Moore retrospective has much to offer the designer - in whatever field.  The pieces on show are relatively small - or, at least, were intended for indoor display.  There are none of the huge bronzes typically used in public spaces - the majority of pieces in the catalogue are carvings, in wood or stone, with a few casts in bronze, lead and concrete.

As a survey of Moore's themes and preoccupations, the exhibition naturally focuses on the human figure and especially on the Mother and Child motif that occupied such a central position in the work of this, one of the greatest sculptors of the twentieth century.

From the early years are a strikingly beautiful half-length figure with upraised arms and a shocking depiction of a suckling infant - latched on to a disembodied breast, the child seems to be in nothing less than a blind parasitic frenzy - the absence of the mother, beyond the breast, seemingly indicating the priorities of the young child at that particular moment, its focus entirely on feeding.  The great reclining figure in Hornton Stone, above, from 1929 clearly shows Moore's debt to the strength and massing of, especially, pre-Columbian art of South America - sculpture that was to have a lifelong influence on him from his first glimpse of the reclining Chac-mool in the British Museum.

The final room is devoted to the huge limewood carvings of reclining figures that Moore created over several decades - through them we can trace the increasing abstraction of the human (and, specifically, female) form as well as follow the changes in Moore's style overall.  Some of these are more successful than others, with one piece from the middle of his career perhaps making too free with the notion of voids piercing the body - as one visitor muttered, within earshot, 'too many holes...'.  The greatest though, are extraordinary essays in spatial arrangement, with fluid strength and a deep emotional charge.

It is the playing with space which is such an inspiration for designers - moving around these sculptures you are exposed to a changing landscape of caves, undulations, tunnels and waves.  The eye is led over and through the work, the rhythm exploited then suddenly halted by a change in texture or a sharp edge amongst all the organic softness.  These sculptures are object lessons in arranging a journey for the eye and as such are invaluable for those who are engaged in just this work, no matter what the particular field they work in.

The exhibition closes in August.

Paul Ridley Design

Objects of Desire 3

Leather bench

Strange where inspiration for designs crops up - this is the second time I have been moved to photograph seating in an airport or station, in this case in the new terminal at Toulouse airport on the way home from a very relaxed Easter break with friends.  I can easily see this shape, or something like it, appearing in a garden design soon.  I love the sinuous curves, the narrow blunted ends, the shallow taper towards the floor and, in this case, the gently ogival form. 

There were others - worm-like, kidney-shaped, amoebic - but this one caught my eye especially.  There is something of the sickle or the adze in its shape, and something too of the curves of ancient Cycladic sculpture.

There were plenty of great design details at the airport - squiggly metallic lines on glass screening, smooth cast concrete walls and beautifully finished timber screening that looked, at first glance, like random temporary cladding attached to the windows during construction, but which had a coloured glass joint at every intersection.  The benches were the stars though - all highly desirable...

Paul Ridley Design

Travelling Companion

It would be hard to conceive of a life more varied or punctuated with the eventful than that of the doyenne of travel writers, Jan Morris.

At her talk for the Oxford Literary Festival yesterday Morris decried the term, however, stating that she hated to be called such. And indeed the body of work which she has created is highly varied, although much of it is necessarily infused with her knowledge of and enthusiasm for the places and people of the wider world, knowledge gained in a lifetime of professional travelling.

She is one of my favourite writers. Deeply humane and seemingly based on Chesterton’s dictum that the three most important things are to be kind, to be kind and to be kind, the writing has for me an elegiac tenor, a barely-apparent regret. This quality is present in all her work, and I have tried in vain to locate the source. The nearest I have come is to conclude that, so all-encompassing is her interest in and passion for the people she meets, places she visits, that she longs to be able to hold all of them in view and mind at once. The regret creeps in as a result of the inability to do this.

And what things to keep in mind. As James, Morris was the Times’ correspondent accompanying the Hillary/Tenzing ascent of Everest. By subterfuge he was able to break the story on the morning of Elizabeth II’s coronation – the Times gave the stories equal billing on the front page and Morris’ name was made.

A prolonged sojourn in Venice led to the book of that title, 50 years old this year, which established Morris’ reputation for getting under the skin of a place, a reputation that has been justified in books on Manhattan, Spain and Oxford itself, among many others.

The key work of the 1970s was the trilogy Pax Britannica, an examination of the British Empire during the phases of its development, zenith and senescence. During the writing of this Morris made the most dramatic journey of her life, undergoing hormone treatment and finally surgery in Morocco in order to say farewell to the James she had been born as and emerge as Jan, the woman she had known she ought to be since a moment of blinding revelation as a small child, sitting beneath the piano at home. This most momentous transformation was shared in a sane and touching account, Conundrum.

Countless articles, and many further books later, Morris was moved to write Last Letters from Hav, a spirited account of the geography, traditions and people of the state of Hav. All completely fictitious, it was followed by Hav of the Myrmidons, describing the changes wrought on this quixotic society by the Myrmidonic revolution documented in the first book.

The most valedictory of all her books is, however, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere. A late work, it takes leave of travel writing and beautifully describes this half-way city, its tangled history and mingled people. The city seems almost a metaphor for Morris herself – subject to transformation, mercurial, with a rich and salty past.

Born in 1926, Morris is now an elderly woman, yet to hear her talk about some of the individuals she has encountered in a long life filled with incident was to witness someone with an undimmed delight in the folly, humour, variety and, yes, kindness exhibited by people the world over.

paulridleydesign.co.uk

Making an exhibition...

I have put on small exhibitions of my collograph prints in the past, and have a few images on show in Oxford at present, but it never fails to amaze me how much time it takes to mount even a small exhibition of work.  Something that instinct tells you ought to be a quick, simple job becomes a huge tangle of things to resolve, all of which need to be achieved well before the show is due to go on.  Decisions on which work to exhibit were taken a while ago, for instance, but have been revised in the last week following my trip to the US and some new images that I really wanted to include.  The printing is in hand as of today, but then there is the question of framing to sort out, followed by the hanging, labelling, pricing...and this long after the publicity was organised and put to bed. 

With two exhibitions in May, of about 45 images in total, there is going to be plenty to keep me busy this spring - look out for further details in the next few weeks.

Chicago

Living in Oxford, I'm used to the antique, the restrained, the polite view.  It's what we do.  But there are times when it is a huge relief to just wallow in the modern, the unrestrained and unapologetically arrogant environment that man can create for himself when the kid-gloves are off.  This is why a trip to a big city in the US is always a thrill, and can always be relied on to dazzle with a constant parade of eye-catching design - whole buildings, plazas, malls, skylines and smaller fragments, as here.  Sometimes the juxtapositions are deliberate, more often they are unintended, but for those with eyes to see there are magnificent compositions at every turn.   The severely rectilinear habitat we create for ourselves in these places simply acts as a foil for any organic form, and the shivering images all around animate the environment far more than we imagine.  There is almost as much trembling movement from reflections in the glass curtain walls as we pass between them as there is under trees in a woodland, and perhaps it is this quality that enables us to survive in such unnatural surroundings, otherwise largely divorced from the soothing effects of contact with nature.

I loved the looping shape and vibrant colour of this Alexander Calder 'stabile' in the centre of Chicago - but what makes the picture for me is the corresponding square of red in the reflection from the neighbouring building.  A piece of red paper in the window opposite that completes my composition - although I was unaware of it at the time.

Progress

Interesting, the way in which new technology or tools can change the way we do things.  I have posted this photo, in a colour version, elsewhere, but the version above is one that I have earmarked for a future exhibition.  I have started taking photographs with a proper macro lens, and this wintersweet flower was an early favourite of the images I have so far taken.  The lens has made a huge difference to how I view the plant world, and is capable of delivering the shallow depth of field that fascinates and intrigues me.  I'm really excited by the prospects for future photographs. 

The other new departure is the use of a software package which is also changing the images I create.  I have always been a fan of monochrome photographs, and am enjoying using Silver Efex Pro to tone images in the manner of all sorts of film types, photographic styles and papers.  Purists will wail, but I relish being able to compare the results of several film types and tonings before deciding which suits the image best.

So, with new hardware and software, a whole new field of image-making opens up...look out for the results on a blog near you soon!

Objects of Desire 2

Beechwood Lemon Juicer

This is one of my favourite kitchen utensils, the pleasure in using it derived from the beauty of the object, which is entirely due to its function.  There are other juicers out there, but as soon as I saw this I knew I had to have it, and its predecessor was duly filed away in the ever-growing box of objects kept for that distant and probably mythical day when we have a holiday home to furnish.

It seems such a minor thing, but this implement shows that even the humblest object has the potential for great beauty if its functionality comes first.  Here, everything is gauged to work - the tip is sharp, as are the ridges for squeezing the pulp.  The head is broad, preventing the need to wiggle the juicer around in the lemon, but the most aesthetically attractive part of it is the collar, where the ridges meet the handle.  Beautifully sculptural, it gives the whole object an organic presence - there are echoes of seeds, pollen grains, plankton, in its form.  It's no surprise that it was made in Italy...