Tom Burtonwood

Pattern Recognition, pastel on paper, 14.5 x 16.5 inches, 2009

This is the second drawing in the new series.

Permutation, pastel on paper, 2009

First drawing in new series of work (95% finished).

Permutations (unfolding pyramid), pen and colored pencil on overlay paper, 2001

This is a pseudo-isometric drawing from 2001 showing a pyramid form emerging from a cube. this piece went on to be developed as a 2 foot square sculpture in card board that has been lost . I plan to remake the sculpture asap. It was a complicated piece with a lot of math to get the angles right but i loved it because of how something so complex could “transform” into a simple cube. each section unfolded to reveal the pyramid. for me i was interested in the idea the that something could unravel infinitely to base materials and still reassemble itself to an original memory driven form.

this piece was drawn on “disney” overlay paper purchased at MGM studios back in the late 80’s. you can see the cut outs at the bottom of the page to attach to a light table. there is also a little disney icon that unfortunately did not fit on the scanner bed, i will photos separately.

p.s. posting has been light of late. first we were on vacation, then we had to get caught up post vacation. now i realize that getting caught up is perhaps a misnomer but i do need to get back on the wagon as there’s a lot more stuff to upload. part of the problem is that i’ve started “making” things again, as the animations that have gone up attest to, but they are but one facet of a four ring circus, i’m also working on drawing again, which really is a first for me in the last decade, and i’m working on some new wooden constructions. the fourth ring is WHAT IT IS, our project space, we have an opening next week featuring Andrew Rigsby’s video work so there’s that all to do too!!!

but i’m also concerned about both the look / feel of the site which i need ot stamp with my creative persepctive and the organization of the site and this archive which is admittedly a little scatter shot a little to random but i’m stil lnot really clear if i want to post thing chronologially as that’s too mcuh of a calendar, so i need ot come up with a way of slotting the disparate posts into sections that work. !!!

This sequence is missing a section from the end, where the cube will re-form from a spinning plane– will post this l8tr

Permutations I, time line, sketchbook page. June 2009

Working on a new project, Permutations, an animated sequence showing several variations on a unfolding cube. Sketchbook page sequence below shows a range of possible final unfolded outcomes, currently i’m working on the “master” drawings for the first full sequence. hope to have these complete by middle of week in draft format. really excited about this direction, eventually the final animation will have an audio component too.

Sketchbook sequence. June 2009

Animation sequence below shows first 7 or 8 frames from the upcoming Permutations piece….. can’t wait to get all this done and start playing with these “Containers” and adding some content!

Permutations, opening sequence, June 2009

It’s comedy friday again, time for some really really bad high school pieces from around 1991, that at the time i thought were really cool and “right on” but now i gotta say it’s pretty rough stuff, both conceptually and technically, enjoy….

i guess i should really make an effort to be less haphazzard with the posts, and try to upload with more cohesion, however things have been pretty hectic so i grabbed two images from my hospitalfield studio circa 1998– nothing too exciting, but i like them.

Studio, Hospitalfield House, 1998

Studio, Hospitalfield House, 1998

Unfinished construction (most likely destroyed), Dirt and paint on panel with wooden elements, 1998

wow. i found this photo today. and i’m totally thrilled about this work again! i gotta get in the studio for sure. sad thing is i don’t have ANY  of this work anymore. it either got trashed or gven away. i f anyone has any of these pieces please let me know they went to a good home! totally crazy.

another essay, again no reference as yet as to what i am writing in reaction too. i know bad form. will make amends soon. UPDATE: T. J. Clark, selection from introduction to Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973 (ISBN 0-691-03982-8 pbk): pp. 10-15.

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Clark silently delivers his message. Presumably a deliberate ploy as introduction and method. Who could begin a book stating one’s case explicitly?

His method is to leave details unwritten and prompt confusion. Clark writes that “it is easier to define what methods to avoid than propose a set of methods for system~tic use.” Clark removes the social history of art from systematic academic discourse because society is not a rational organism. It is prone to irrational behaviour, general attitudes, archetypes and stereotypes. Clark writes that it is im~ortant to discard those elements/methods w~ understand as conventional. Negation constructs the unwritten idea.

Clark is asking those who would seek to interpret the socially historical impact art to put their ears to the ground and listen to the public in its yarious manifestations. Social history might only be understood at ground zero away from the pie-chart Marxism.

Clark presents his thesis in three key areas of text, on pages 11/12/and 13. Thes ideas are corroborated then with evidence plucked from the 19thCentury, France. He focuses on Parisian intellectuals and their political thinKing with regard to the 1848 revolution. The avante-garde were estranged from popular revolutionart thinking because their aesthetic drive was entirely a PLAYTHING OF THE wealthy classes.

At the bottom of page 11 he notes the”hypocritical discourse” of artist and criti that precludes the public whose lack of education means they cannot enter the deb . He differentiates between public and audience, etymologically audience is close to author in structure and also intent. The public is quite different. This point is made clearer by the Freudian analogy which indicates something psychological that requires treatment. When the convention of criticism breaks down, when the artist gives something that does not present easy or clear interpretation this is the point at which the public can enter the discourse. On page 13 clark writes th the purpose of social history is to find the “general nature of structures,” that the artist encounters in a random fashion, and to “locate specific conditions of such meeting.”

What Clark does not say or write is that a social history of art requires the reaction of the public to the artwork in question. This reaction need not be prof und, no·r need it lead to the barricades. A social historical reckoning has to foc on society, its currency will be the interaction of art and life. Academics can analyse the origins and futures of society but Clark suggests that it takes socie to voice its opinions before we can be clear as to the social history of an artwo The artist works within a society, he/she is framed by their relation to their neighbours, therefore the issue of social hisotry is contained in a moebius strip that has no begining and therefore no end.