Annual Review 2020

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2020

Pale tree

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Travels

There was one long trip to central Chile.

The Chile trip was a bit strange. I was mostly unhappy for mysterious reasons. Perhaps, because of that I didn`t miss the travel restrictions that Corona virus brought (though as I type I feel a sudden strong melancholy urge to be in New York, where you feel quite free in a way I don't sense anywhere else).

Anyway, I did a few good paintings, including these:

Melipueco, Chile, with itinerant, oil on card 25 x 22 cm

Gardens, Villarrica, Chile, oil on card, 20 x 22 cm

I had intended to do Patagonian Chile in January coming, but that is not possible. 

I had an exhibition at UDESC, the state university, but it was closed after the first few days due to COVID. The exhibition itself was badly managed by CEART, who did everything at the last minute in a a slapdash, even contemptuous fashion. There is a lot of fuss being made about cuts to arts in Brazil, but if this agency is typical, and I fear it might be, then they do not deserve to receive public funds.  

With COVID, the automatic clamouring for public funds among artists was incredible. It seemed inconceivable to  many artists, who eagerly signed ´petitions demanding state assistance, that they might work doing whatever was required to pay rent. Many appeared to believe that society should treat them as essential labour in the same level as police or medical workers.

 I worked very steadily and efficiently in Florianopolis, on the island, increasing the size of paintings, the brightness of their colours, and, I feel, using social isolation constructively.

On the way to Cacupe, settlement

 oil on card, 24.3 x 29.7 cm

The dunes, a rise, oil on card, 20 x 25 cm

I am very happy with this one (above).

Trees by a lake, Winter, Lagoa, oil on card, 28 x 25.8 cm

Above Lagoa, early July, 2020, oil on card 26 x 28 cm

I started to visit the rocky coastline on the south of the island. It's fairly quick to get to on the new road:

Rocks, sea, sky Armacao, oil on card, 26 x 28 cm

I also occupied my time with taking photographs, and writing short essays.

 Thus, the year passed.

 I like being alone and did not suffer as much as I usually do. I found the empty streets pleasing and the silence calming. I don't like shopping or crowds so their absence made me happier. I enjoy thinking and I resolved some things about where to live and what to do with the next bit of my life.

I am 51 and it seems that I am entering some other life phase, one characterised by greater self assurance and settlement. I also realised something very obvious, which is that much of what happens to us is arbitrary, and we have only some control over how much and how we interact with this. Ergo, there is little sense in getting too worked up about anything much, though it is wise, of course,  to take precautions.

You will quite possibly think how platitudinous and I daresay you might have a point, but personally speaking, until recently such banal truths were never as obvious to me as they ought to have been and they do therefore have some consequence for me.  

And, slightly wiser, I advance into 2021.

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Social Media

Flickr

I'm not a member any more and I can't post new images as I have reached their non-member limit. 2.3 million all time views. I have 952 followers: a slight decrease from 959.

Blogger

There are 84 people listed: the same as ever. Why does this never increase? Presumably because my Blog can be tracked in other ways, and it isn't necessary for followers to declare themselves. 

Looking at the statistics page with its graphs, for the last 12 months I see: 25,700 visitors, with a peak day on 7 August with 426 views. 

Top countries in terms of percentages are Italy (32%) USA (32%); Russia (4%); UK (4%); Turkmenistan (4%). In absolute numbers: Italy (8.18K); USA (8.15K); Russia (1.16K); UK (1.07K); Turkmenistan (930);

It is surprising how low the UK is, and how high Italy.   

Instagram

There are 287 followers, up from 221. This site is very good for introducing people to your work. It is very easy to use, with excellent editing functions and keywording so you can link your work to that of others. 

I also have an Instagram Account dedicated to photography. It has 46 followers: tderegowskiphotos

Twitter

I have 238 followers. Down a little from 247. I never use this site as I find it dominated by an unpleasant style of discourse. In any case, it isn't really for showing pictures.

Saachi and other sales

There were no sales with Saachi. There was one sale this year, of a Moroccan painting.

A lane, Marrakech, oil on card, 16 x 15.5 cm   SOLD

Facebook

I continue to use this excellent site to talk about art and photography. It is a very good site for artists to use, as through it's "pages" you can create bridges between your personal and creative existences. 

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The future

I move house shortly and, that resolved, and the vaccine available, normal life can perhaps resume. For me that means going at some point to the UK, most likely in late Spring. Then, if at all possible, a visit to Andalucia. But that is in the hands of the Gods.

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Annual Review 2019

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2019

Travels

There were two complete trips: to Peru and to the UK; another will begin on 26 December, to Chile.

 Arequipa, a view from Ponte Grau, oil on card, 22 x 25 cm

The Peru trip lasted six weeks and was a good, extended painting session. One can really go forward doing two solid sessions a day, 5 times a week. I returned with as many as fifteen good paintings. The pictures were of a larger size than on previous trips. 

Green Park, London, Avenue, oil on card, 24 x 30 cm   SOLD

The UK trip was not a success in terms of making paintings because of bad weather. I hade been looking forward to doing paintings in Scotland's beautiful west coast. What a fool! How it poured down, and I even got a cold- in August.

 I will not gamble my time and money in this way again and instead when I go to the UK in 2020 I will also go to a southern European place where I can work happily and cheaply: southern Spain or perhaps Portugal beckon. However, the small exhibition in Edinburgh was well received and sold well. 

The work: travel painting

There was a gradual but definite scale increase and an attempt to use bolder colours and shapes. I continued also to produce black and white still life pictures. I continue to explore expressionistic approaches to landscape. I moved apartment and studio and with this had the chance to discard weak work. Over time one becomes more clearheaded about what is good or not. 

One the whole, the reasons for a work being a success are not technical but connected to the my psychological state at the time of making. A good picture arises from a balance between knowledge about the subject and it's novelty. If it is too familiar one becomes deadened, taking its peculiarities for granted. If it's too unfamiliar, one flounders.  The lack of seasonal variation here is unfortunate: seasonal changes serve so well to renew interest in a landscape through the year.

For this reason, attempts to criticise the works lead to consideration of the mental conditions in which a picture was made. Happily, satisfactory mental conditions arise readily, predictably: when I travel to new places. And happily, the world is very big. To maintain that balance between the familiar and the unknown though I tend to return to places I have at least some previous relationship with.

When I began travel painting the idea that I was telling some autobiographical story- the painter travelling diarist aspect- enlivened me, and I thought about the story I might tell about a trip and a place, and myself, through a series of paintings. With time, however, those stories lose their consequence and one is just left with a series of paintings, good, bad or indifferent. And, of course, the novelty of the activity disappears.

 But a sense of mission is surely vital in any enterprise, however philosophical one might be about the results years later. Without enthusiasm- joy indeed- one might as well stay at home watching Netflix.

In Brazil

Forest, December 2019, oil on card, 24 x 29.5 cm

My paintings here explored woodland and forest, to the almost total exclusion of other subjects. Woodland shade is so agreeable when the sun is blazing down. I explored mainly two places, in Santa Antonio da Lisboa and Parque Florestal of Rio Vermelho. It would be good to find other places to explore as eventually these will become stale.

Still life painting

The corner of a table, a book, my diary, a spoon, my wallet and part of a chair

oil on card, 16.7 x 15.2 cm

It can be said that still life painting is simply a diminutive for of landscape, albeit one in which artists have the God-like power to arrange its motifs as they see fit. I like to work in black and white on these, to have that starkness.

Exhibitions

There were two exhibitions, one in Lagoa and one in Portobello. The former did not sell, the latter did. There appears to be no almost no market for art in southern Brazil. This is not simply a matter of the appalling economy, it is about taste and values.

Social Media

Flicker

I stopped posting here. I somewhat regret this as it did connect me to some sort of community of more serious visual artists, albeit with a focus on photography. I may return, though I would say that the role of this site has for me been largely replaced by Instagram. I have 959 followers. No change.

Blogger

The number of followers is the same. 84. But there are other people looking regularly whose monikers don't appear. I don't write things as much anymore. That's partly becuase working larger I produce less.

Instagram

The number of followers is 221, up from 136. 

Twitter 

There are 247 followers. It is a bit of a waste of time using this site, for my purposes , except maybe to announce exhibitions.

Saachi

There were a few sales through Saachi. These are always a bureaucratic challenge.

Facebook

Following advice, I created a page to represent me.

In the social media world such numbers are extremely low. I don't kid myself oh they are few but very dedicated, as their comments are not many. 


  

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Annual Review 2018; social media

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2018

The year often had an enervated quality. I spend a good deal of time waiting. I was not bold with planning. 

Travels

There were three trips in 2018: Peru, Uruguay and the USA.

Ayacucho, a view across a gully, 21.7 x 17.7 cm

Peru was a success: the weather was kind and the work was often good. I spent a considerable time exploring Lima, a rich and curious city. The people of Peru are modest and leave you alone. The scenery is interesting as is their bizarre culture and it's blissfully cheap. I started working on a  a larger scale, a tendency I pushed across the year.

Cabo Polonia, Uruguay, sea, oil on card, 21.7 x 27.7 cm Not for sale

In Uruguay, a pleasant country for which I feel considerable affection, my trip was ruined by sickness and I spent a week in bed in two hostels. 

This is the risk inherent in shorter journeys, that a mishap or a bout of sickness renders the whole trip worthless. Short trips might be considered a waste of time and money. No sooner have you unpacked then you are off again, and the cost of flights weighs more heavily when taken as per day cost. But such trips do break up the ennui induced by teaching...

Chicago, view down from an apartment on Madison Avenue

 oil on card, 23.2 x 20 cm unavailable

I did some nice pictures in the USA  but the trip was not enjoyable. 

There's a disagreeable atmosphere in the USA: a lack of true spontaneity in relations and sometimes boorishness. It doesn't take a great psychologist to see that there must be something profoundly wrong with a people if they feel the need to elect someone to tell them how great they are all the time. This combination of insecurity and boastfulness characterizes much in Chicago. There is a rarely quiet ease there, a considered pride. Big and brash is best. 

 Despite it's reputation for gracelessness, New York is better but it's often a tired or angry place. I didn't sense that people have much fun in either city.

The work

I worked with fair discipline and the pictures became steadily bigger.  I worked small on some still lives, but moved up to a roughly A4 size for landscapes. I attempted two different approaches.

In the first I tried to push a sort of "Chinese" style- economical and rapid and intimist. The second  style I refer to as "blocky"-  using large squarish marks to delineate simplified forms. The colours are usually bright, rarely tertiary: extrovert. This style works satisfactorily with buildings. There are various crossovers between the  two approaches.

In Brazil

Rua Luis Pasteur, Trindade, Florianopolis, looking down

 oil on card, 20.5 x 22.5 cm

I did a run of pictures in this neighborhood. I also explored architectural subjects. This went nicely and  I didn't go to the mountains at all nor visit other places in Brazil. There are reasons for this. So much of much of my work is concerned with architecture and there is very little architectural variety in Brazil. And what there is is often poor, and poorly integrated into nature.

The landscapes are often very inaccessible because of the way land is closed off by landowners. It is not always easy to find a trail or place you can walk to get views. The rights of way you get in the UK are unknown here.

Exhibitions

There as a show at BRDE. It went well. It sold well and functioned as a review of the last few years and some of the Peru work. There was also work on display in Scotland. There was supposed to be another show here but it never happened because the gallery was messing around. 

Social Media

Like many, I suspect, I am unhappy with social media. It simply does not seem to fulfill much of its promise. Like me, I once thought it would be a means to connect with like-minded people internationally, and while of course this does happen, too often it seems to be a forum for banality or unpleasantness..

Of course, as with all media, one can say what matters is how one uses it, and the user is to blame for the world they inhabit with a specific medium. However, each medium does seem to bring certain emphases, and this medium seems to emphasize transitoriness and celebrity-narcissist culture.

I also dislike how social media- usually Instagram or Whatsapp or Facebook- obtrude, their use determining how social situations develop, with silly set-up photo opportunities breaking the flow of conversations and justifying bossiness on the part of those taking pictures on their mobiles and imposing fake behaviors on the subjects. I dislike how the mediated, parched world of social media is now a substitute for real exchanges and experiences. I see people in galleries taking photos of each other in front of exhibits without even considering the exhibits themselves.

In contemporary art the use of social media is closely related to advertising, especially through the development of easily recognizable visual catchphrases and interjecting a chummy personal aspect.  One should take photos of ones home, situation work in progress and so forth, as well as one's finished work in such a way as to create an image, a brand, and henceforth a following.

Most artists can take a bit of this, and might even enjoy it. They understand that people wish to get to know a bit about them and where they are from and what they objectives are and that this helps in the understanding of their work. But many artists don't want themselves to be focus of their practice. They want their artwork and the things they are developing using art to be the focus. 

Well, all this is a roundabout way of describing my unease with using social media.

Flickr

I am annoyed with the site management for messing with the site. I consider not using more but as it now contains a readily accessible catalogue perhaps that would be unwise- though that catalogue is also available on Facebook. I have risen from 937  to 959 followers. 

Blogger

The number of followers has hardly grown. There are 85, up one. 

Facebook

The site is a good place for showing work and maintain contacts but I sense that it is being used less and that people are transferring to Instagram. I have a "page". It has 82 followers, a good hike up from last years's 3 and connected to my exhibition and some reluctant efforts I made.

Instagram

I started using this and found it rapid and easy. Now I think it it is just another invitation to waste time peering into a tiny screen. There is desolation in all this. I have 136 followers. 

Twitter

I went through a phase of posting stuff here but then gave up as there was so little interest it's not really a site designed for visual arts. There are 253 followers.

Saachi

There was one sale on this site. Sales usually necessitate endless phone calls with the an appalling courier service called DHL. 

Tumbler.

Occasionally I posted here but it opened no doors. There are 31 followers. 

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Thanks

Thanks to the BRDE, especially Prisclla Gobbi,  and Vikki Debden, who helped hang my show, buyers, my ever supportive parents and random strangers who made trips more agreeable.

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2019

The year will begin with Ecuador, a six week trip, then to the UK in July, or perhaps August, for at least three weeks. I want to do more work in Scotland and as ever there is the question of where to stay there that isn't cripplingly costly.

I read things from time to time about travelers who have such and such adventure when their four wheel drive loses a wheel or two in some ravine or other and they seem secretly pleased about this when it happens. But my mindset is essentially bourgeois, though I like the nicer youth hostels as they can be agreeable social spaces.

A pond at a ranch, oil on card, 15.5 x 17.5 cm

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Annual Review 2017: Flickr, Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, Saachi

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For believe me! - the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge! Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer! At long last the search for knowledge will reach out for its due: - it will want to rule and possess, and you with it!  possess, and you with it! 

Nietszche, The Joyous Science (1882). Sec. 283

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Travels

A view from Jefferson Avenue, Brooklyn, oil on card, 16.5 x 18 cm

I went to New York and painted a few fine pictures plus a few duller ones. It was especially nice to work on the big art deco buildings in Chinatown or nearby. But I was unsurprised by New York, this itself unsurprising as I had been there just a year before. 

 Street before Carnival, Banos del Inca, Cajamarca, oil on card, 14 x 16 cm

I went to Peru and loved it again, that one of the most strange and alluring places. So I will go again in January 2018. At very least it is cool unlike here where one rots over the summer months becoming progressively more and more irritated with everything.

Homestead, late afternoon, between Urussanga and Orleans

 oil on card, 18 x 16.5 cm  SOLD

There were a few little trips within Santa Catarina- always a delight too. Above is one of my happier paintings.

Near Berwick-upon-Tweed, fields, oil on card, 16 x 15.8 cm  SOLD

I also went to the UK which was, as ever, a bit thin for painting, though Berwick and Melrose were fine.

Flickr

This marvellous site continues brings me new followers and many are quite serious and thoughtful artists. I went from 917 to 939 followers.

Blogger followers

I continue to publish here though with less frequency. That`s partly because I have less and less that is new to say, a trend which is likely to continue. Also I have been working slightly larger and with less frequency.

 There are 84 followers, and 26 Google+ followers.

Facebook

I started, on the advice of n art sales expert, to create my own page. He argues that the regular profile is insufficient as people who don`t know artists feel uneasy approaching them through their regular profiles. So I have set up a [page which contains enough to get an idea of what I am about. It has one, solitary, follower.

Fruit, paper flowers, oil on card, 12.5 x 14.5 cm

Twitter

I tried using this from time to time, but have never managed to get beyond 260 followers and few of them are really interested. It is a pretty awful site for image sharing, and it seems users use it mainly to insult and threaten each other. This time last year there were 256 followers.

Saachi

I maintain this site, going through all the work removing some and updating it. But I don`t sell that much work, perhaps I sold one painting in 2017. I think the market isn`t that big.

Tumblr

This pointless site brought me nothing.

Thoughts

I find my self in a satisfactory place with my work. I didn't sell that much but the quality is there. I went through a lot of old work making sure it is properly stored and if it wassn`t good enough, discarding it. Often some time has to pass before you can really see that a piece is mediocre.

Overall 2017 wasn`t a bad year but it wasn`t a great one either. I rarely surprised myself, which is perhaps like saying I never took risks. So the moral is to follow Nietzsche, at least some of the way as, of course, he went completely coocoo in the end

Red and yellow and white flowers, oil on card, 17.5 x 15 cm

Plans

I will go back to Peru in January. Ecuador flights were so high that I couldn't go there.  I suppose I should think about how to get to Europa. Perhaps this time I bite the bullet and fly to Athens or Corfu. But when I did the research it didn't seem quite right. In June, the cost of flights to Ecuador seems lower. Then there is New York, again. But perhaps it would be good to wait a little before returning there? We shall see.

Thanks

Thanks John, Lady Alison and Fred in London, to my parents in Scotland and to Mark and Jane and various others who helped and encouraged me.



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