the great Paul Klee’s never ending reach
belatrova conga at the Open Day
So many of you came to our Open Days on Saturday 30th November and Sunday 1st December, that we ran out of coffee, white wine and mince pies. Although Unit 9 Bankside is a workshop, please feel free to drop by at any time, though a ‘phone call beforehand is a good idea, just in case.
belatrova squad
Those of you who came were able to see the exhibition of table paintings which we set up just for the two days, and this proved very popular. These tabletops are all hand painted, each one a painting in acrylic and then varnished over with a heat resistant lacquer.
With a big space dedicated to the tables only, most viewers took their own time to look at each individual piece and enjoyed the experience of a gallery-like atmosphere and the pleasure of looking down at paintings and walking around them. Try it at home, it’s so much more comfortable than looking up at paintings on walls. And you can put hot mugs of tea on them too.
One or two of you, having been to the Paul Klee exhibition at the Tate Modern, noted a connection between his painting and some of the tables. Well spotted. Klee is a particular hero of belatrova’s and every now and again surfaces in our work. Here are some Klee-like examples:
paul klee table
a bit more klee
The Klee exhibition is one of the best to be held anywhere, and even if you are not familiar with his work, belatrova recommends a visit (we’ve been twice already); he was innovative and always trying out new ways to make marks on a surface, and, seventy three years after his death, you can see how much he has influenced artists.
belatrova is not sure that Klee ever made any ceramics, but had he done so the results would have been as engaging as Picasso’s, though gentler. Here are two we made earlier with P.K. in mind:
two Klee pots by belatrova
Hello, Bela trova.Do you use the same kind of mark making / textures as Paul Klee in your ceramics?
no,Mr W.,but we’d like to try smearing the underside of, say, some grease proof paper with a mixture of nickel and cobalt oxide, place it face down on a biscuited surface and draw lines over it with a thin pointed instrument – the resuts might look a little like Klee’s drawings: fresh looking lines that pick up tiny bits of detritus along the way as they are taken for a walk.