Following a discussion in the MA group I've begun looking at Richard Long again, as his work shares sensibilities with mine. the use of clay/ mud from origin and the use of natural materials, clustering, bundling.
Historically I’ve not paid too much attention to Richard Long’s work. For various reasons I’ve felt distant from it. In all honesty I don’t have a lot of time for performance work or land based art. It felt like it kinda fell into a dated era in the 80’s and 90’s, one that I didn’t connect to. I preferred a greater level of narrative, even if only implied.
However on reflection of the work I’ve been making the past year or so I see a lot of commonality. His choice of materials being a key one, mud stone. The minimal and honest presentation of the work as a form of documentation or record keeping. It’s important to know what is and has been and contextualise my own research and outcomes.
In addition I also notice with his constructed a stone cross that it is very close aesthetically and follows similar rules to my drawing for imaginary bundles, the informal organic interlocking.
I do think we take separate paths when it comes to concept, he gravitated towards the natural, pattens, human presence in nature and it’s physicaldocumentation, where as I strive towards examining cultural passage through language, the unravelling of mystery, poetry.
Where as Long describes his work in this way.
‘you could say that my work is ... a balance between the patterns of nature and the formalism of human, abstract ideas like lines and circles. It is where my human characteristics meet the natural forces and patterns of the world, and that is really the kind of subject of my work’ (quoted in Richard Long: Walking in Circles, p.250)
I do like the scale of his mud drawing that is inspiring and looking at his larger drawings awakens deeper desires , and I do wonder how I too can get a chance to make on a similar scale. Again following the discussion with Jonathan my work needs to scale up.
Could I do that at the show? Fill a whole 6meters of board with a clay slip drawing? JK did say dream big…