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Winter / Spring update 2024

Posted by admin on February 11th, 2024

New Year – new artwork

 

As you are probably aware, for the last few years I’ve been working almost entirely on larger paintings that are accompanied by sound. I’ve had a lot of fun developing this collaborative work with sound engineer Graham Byron and the last show (which ended just a few weeks ago) ‘Painting with Sound – Short walks along the West Coast of Scotland’ at the Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine, was probably the best exhibition I’ve had.

Painting with Sound exhibition, Scottish Maritime Museum, Irvine

The final configuration of the visual and audio elements, using QR codes to give a very immersive experience, proved very successful and I will now be looking for venues in which to exhibit and sell this kind of innovative landscape work. Watch this space!

Painting with Sound exhibition, Scottish Maritime Museum, Irvine

Of course, this audio-visual work has taken a huge amount of time to develop and even doing the large 120 x 120 cm oil paintings has been very time consuming, with each one of the 11 such pieces in the recent show taking anywhere between two and four months to complete……and that doesn’t include all the hours Graham and I have put into creating the soundscapes. As such I have done almost none of the smaller acrylic and pastel paintings for which I became known and which sold well enough to pay for the upkeep of my studio over the years.

I have therefore decided to get back to painting some of these smaller pieces and now have three new 76 x 23 cm acrylic and pastel paintings completed:

478 ‘Towards Glen Sannox, Isle of Arran’

 

479 ‘A passing view from near Crianlarich, January’

 

480 ‘An afternoon in December, Creag Meagaidh’

 

 

Something completely new

 

In the past I have only ever used oil for the larger paintings but have really enjoyed building the oil colour for these in thick layers. I have decided to try and do this on a much smaller scale, creating small, (20 x 20 cm) semi abstract landscapes in thick choppy oil paint. I have been doing these small pieces quite quickly in just one or two sessions. I’m quite pleased with them as they are a nice cross between the smaller acrylic & pastel paintings I have done in the past and the more recent larger oil pieces. Here are images of several of these new pieces, I hope that you like them:

463 ‘Luss Hills sketch, early winter’

 

473 ‘An early winter afternoon, Glen Lyon’

 

474 ‘In the Drumochter Hills, early spring’

 

475 ‘In the mountains above Glen Shiel, winter’

 

476 ‘Above Glen Ogle, Febraury’

Finally, if you run a gallery and would like to exhibit and sell some of my work, please don’t hesitate to contact me:
Email: keith@keithsalmon.org or
Tel: 07568 380552

Posted in Artwork of the Week, Exhibitions, Information Updates Tags: , No Comments »

Autumn Report – 2018

Posted by admin on September 7th, 2018

Autumn update – September / November 2018

Well then, it’s a fair time since I updated this homepage and a lot has been happening. I’ve spent much of the time since the “Painting with Sound” exhibition at the Barony Centre, simply painting and trying to catch up with all the paperwork that needed to be done! Over this period a number of exhibition opportunities have arisen and so the main focus of this new blog is to tell you about these shows.

 

The Biscuit Factory Autumn Exhibition – September 8th – October 28th

As you may know, I have over the past few years, shown some of my paintings at the fabulous Biscuit Factory in Newcastle upon Tyne. Back in the spring the gallery once again contacted me and asked if I’d like to show some more work with them, this time in their Autumn 2018 exhibition. I of course accepted and during the summer have been working on several new pieces specifically for this show. One of them is this new 80 x 80cm acrylic and pastel painting based on a walk we did in Sutherland back in May. The hill, Meallan a’ Chuail, is quite rugged and although only 750m, is a far more interesting summit than its slightly bigger neighbour, Beinn Leoid ….which was originally our target.

10 'A Sutherland landscape, Meallan a' Chuail', Acrylic & Pastel, 2018 80 x 80cm RP £2500

It really was an enjoyable and quite exhilarating day and we had the hill to ourselves. Even as we made our way up the ridge, I was thinking about how I might make a painting and I had started it within a few weeks of returning home to Irvine. As an aside, the folk at the Biscuit Factory have also asked me to give a short talk about my work and in particular, about how I have in recent years, started to use sound alongside paint. Sound engineers, Graham Byron and Drew Kirkland who I have been working with now for several years, will be travelling with me to Newcastle to set up and exhibit the Kylesku Project, our first audio painting, so that people who attend the talk will also get the opportunity to experience this new more immersive form of landscape. This event is planned for Sunday October 14th at 2pm. For further information and to book a ticket, please contact the Biscuit Factory.

1 'A cold, damp winter's morning, Glencoe', Acrylic & Pastel, 2017, 80 x 80cm RP £2500

 

 

Moray Arts Centre, Findhorn – September 4th – September 23rd

Keith Salmon exhibition poster Moray 2018

Earlier in the summer I was also asked whether I would like to put half a dozen small paintings into a group exhibition at the Moray Arts Centre, for a few weeks in September. It’s a long way to travel but I kind of figured that we could make the trips to deliver and collect the work, into wee short walking trips …..taking the gear and the tent with us and then heading for the Cairngorms. That was the plan anyway, but just three weeks ago I heard that the three other people taking part in the show, had pulled out for various reasons ….and I was asked if I’d put a small solo exhibition on instead. After a short time thinking about this and checking what work I had available, I agreed. Nita and I did a flying visit about ten days ago to see the centre and to get an idea of the space and after a mad week sorting and wrapping the work, we went back on Monday to hang the show. We were very lucky in this as Graham and Tracy Byron kindly offered to drive up and help is with the installation. This made for a very enjoyable and stress free few hours. The show looks good I think and hopefully we’ll get a good few visitors during the course of the exhibition. Of course, with a car full of paintings, there was no room for the rucksacks and so no walking …but hey, you can’t have everything!

Keith Salmon - Moray Arts Centre

 

Moray Art Centre Exhibition

 

The Seagull Gallery, Gourock – September – October

I was also recently invited to show a couple of small paintings in the Seagull Gallery in Gourock. The gallery has a rolling and constantly changing exhibition and there is a wonderful variety of work on display. For us living here in Irvine, it is just under an hour long drive up the coast and so made a very pleasant wee trip out when we went to deliver the paintings.

 

Courtyard Studios Group Exhibition – Harbour Arts Centre, Irvine  – September 21st – November 4th

We are once again holding a group exhibition of work created by the artists working at the Courtyard Studios in Irvine. The exhibition which will contain work by 17 artists, will include paintings, drawings, prints, jewellery, hand bookbinding, ceramics, leatherwork, photography and textiles……so something for everyone to enjoy. Things have been such a rush for me recently that I’m still not entirely sure which pieces I’ll be showing in this show! I have a new 80 x 80cm painting completed and another on the go ….so maybe one of these. I’m also working on a new large graphite drawing and so this might be a candidate if I get it finished in time.

 

Courtyard Studios Open Weekend – Saturday / Sunday 6 / 7th October, 12 noon – 5pm both days.

Entry free, all welcome:

This will, I think, be the 14th year running that we’ve held this event and it’s proved quite a success over the years. It’s a great opportunity to catch everyone in their studios at the same time and to see all the new work that has been done over the preceding 12 months. Many of us have been working at the Courtyard for a good number of years, but artists come and go and this year we have three new tenants and so there will be completely new work to see in their studios. As usual, everyone is welcome and of course, being right on the Harbourside, there are many and varied places to eat and drink during your visit. As well as a big selection of paintings and drawings on show in my studio, I will also be exhibiting and playing the Kylesku audio painting again ….so if you missed seeing and hearing it at the Barony Centre back in March, you’ll be able to catch it as part of this event.

 

Well, that’s about it for now. I do hope that you can get along to one or other of these events.

Posted in abstract scottish landscape paintings, Artwork of the Week, Exhibitions, Information Updates, New Artworks, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , No Comments »

February Report 2018: Kylesku Project & “Painting with Sound” Exhibition

Posted by admin on February 27th, 2018

There has been a lot happening since I last updated this home page back in November. 

The most significant happening, although not really art related ……. was that after just over 30 years of being together, Nita and I finally got married!  That was back at the start of December and we spent a fabulous week away staying in one of the old lodges in the Brodick Castle estate on the Isle of Arran.  We had magnificent weather the whole week and actually arrived as snow was falling.  We managed to get several good short walks done, enjoying the cold crisp weather and the amazing views of the snow covered Arran peaks.  Since returning to the studio, I’ve completed several new 30 x 30 cm paintings and one of them tries to capture the scene looking into Glen Sannox….see below.

'Glen Sannox, a December morning', Acrylic & Pastel, 2017, 30 x 30cm

“Glen Sannox”

 

'From the Devil's Staircase, winter', Acrylic & Pastel, 2018, 30 x 30 cm

‘From the Devil’s Staircase, winter’

1s 'A Coigach landscape, January', Acrylic & Pastel, 2018, 30 x 30 cm

‘A Coigach landscape, January’

1 Towards the Arran mountains from Brodick Castle ground

Towards the Arran mountains from Brodick Castle ground

Of course, much of my time has been taken up with the larger and more experimental audio paintings.   As you know, the first of these, called the Kylesku Project, has been on the go since the summer and in October we were able to test out the partially finished piece for a few days in the magnificent space at the Barony Centre in West Kilbride.  The work was only up for a few days, but it gave us a chance to assess how effective the 5.1 soundtrack was and how well it worked with the 120 x 120 cm Kylesku painting.   We were all very encouraged by this first test and especially by the response we had to the work from visitors and staff at the centre.  It was so positive that we have been invited back to the Barony for a full exhibition early in March.

 

The exhibition, which we are calling, “Painting with Sound”, will open on Monday 5th March and run until 22nd March.  Below is the exhibition poster with all the relevant details:

A2 Painting with sound poster 600px

“Painting with Sound”

“Painting with Sound” is an exhibition of work by Ayrshire artists and sound engineers, Keith Salmon, Graham Byron and Drew Kirkland.

The focal point of the exhibition is the “Kylesku Project”, the trio’s latest audio visual collaboration.  Created from a series of sound recordings made on the shore of the sea loch near Kylesku in Sutherland in May 2017, the work consists of a 120 x 120 cm oil painting, produced by Keith Salmon and inspired by a 30 minute long 5.1 surround-sound track. Engineered and installed by Graham Byron and Drew Kirkland, the sound track will be playing throughout the exhibition and contains sounds from the natural Kylesku environment, sounds recorded as the painter works in his studio and a unique selection of computer generated tones.  As a viewer looks at the painting and moves in front of it, different elements of the soundtrack are heard through the five surround-sound speakers.   The Kylesku Project is the first in a series of evolving and uniquely Scottish sound / landscapes.  

 The exhibition will also contain around 25 of Keith Salmon’s Scottish landscape paintings, along with drawing, text, video and projected film footage that will plot the development since 2014 of this new and exciting Ayrshire based audio visual collaboration.

 

Although we are only just about to exhibit the Kylesku Project for the first time, we have already started work on our second audio piece.  This will also focus on the dramatic coastal scenery of Sutherland in north west Scotland.  A week after New Year, Nita, me, Graham and his wife Tracy, headed up north, aiming for the Stoer Head lighthouse that is situated on the prominent and rugged Stoer peninsular about 10 miles to the north of Lochinver.  It’s a wild spot at the best of times and Nita and I had visited it on several occasions in the past.  On one such trip last year, we had seen a notice at the lighthouse saying that the two flats adjoining it were available to rent.  Now, just for instance, if you wanted to make sound recordings of waves breaking and crashing against huge cliffs…..where would be better? So that was our destination….. both cars arriving at this lonely spot just as the light was fading and the lighthouse was doing its business.  It was quite amazing unloading our gear and carrying it up the spiral staircase to the top flat….. with the sound of the waves crashing below.

 

We stayed there for a week, each day heading out, armed with a variety of sound recording equipment and cameras.  While Graham organised and set up each of the recordings, Tracy filmed everything so that we had a record of this part of the work for future promotional material.  It all worked very well and we were especially lucky with the weather, it not only being dry all week, but also not that windy.  On the Wednesday and Thursday it was very nearly calm….. but with a big swell rolling in that made for some great sound!  At the end of each afternoon we would retreat to the warmth of the flat and then spend several more hours checking through the sound and film we had recorded.  Beer, good food and conversation added to the enjoyment and the week raced by.  Before long it was Sunday morning and we were packing the cars for the journey back to Ayrshire.  Only then did the weather break and we had to battle our way around the side of the lighthouse in a howling gale to get to the cars!  It was certainly a dramatic departure and my final sound recording was made of the wind howling in the stairwell leading down from the flat.

We got some very good recordings from the trip and Graham has already edited the film footage Tracy took, into a series of short clips which we’ll be projecting onto a large screen as part of the “Painting with Sound” exhibition.  I do hope you can get along to both see and hear our work…. it will, I’m sure, be a very different and hopefully, thought provoking experience.

Posted in Exhibitions, Information Updates, Mountain Photos, Personal, Sound Art, Sound Recording 1 Comment »

Happy New Year! – A short review of the last few months

Posted by admin on January 9th, 2017

 

If you are one of those long suffering souls who have been reading my blogs over the last few years….. well, there are changes afoot.  I’ve written close on 300 blogs over this time and for the most, I’ve really enjoyed doing them.  I tried to write a new one each week and for quite a few years did this with very few breaks.  Over the last year – 18 months however, you will have noticed that they have appeared less regularly and indeed, during the whole of 2016 I wrote only 19 blogs I think.   The reasons for this are simply that I have become increasingly busy but at the same time, my little bit of sight has deteriorated further and this means that everything takes even longer and is more difficult to do.  In short, the writing of my weekly blog and ‘artwork of the week’, was taking more and more time to do…..on average, I guess it is taking me almost five hours a week.  With the increased work load now that I am developing the audio visual projects as well as my usual paintings, I just can’t do everything ….and something has to go.  Five hours a week doesn’t sound that much, but over a year that adds up to a huge amount of time which I could better use to produce more work, or promote and sell the work I have.  So then, I’ve decided to update my website less regularly this year.  I’ll be updating it about eight times over the year.  The blogs will become more like reports of what’s been happening over the previous couple of months and the home page will show one of my most recent paintings.  I hope this will still be of interest. Anyway, without further ado, here is a little catch-up on the last few months.

A large part of 2016 was, for me, taken up with The Oregon Project.  This is the large audio visual piece of work I did in collaboration with Microsoft researcher Neel Joshi, Ayrshire sound engineer, Graham Byron, and independent Seattle based film maker, Dan Thornton.  The work finally all came together in mid October when the work was installed as part of the big “9e2” Art, Science and Technology Exhibition in Seattle.  I’ve written much about this project as it developed and so I think the best will be to add the following links.  These will take you to an article and very short video that were commissioned by Microsoft to help promote The Oregon Project. 

article: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/keith-salmon-oregon-project/

video: https://www.facebook.com/Microsoft/videos/10154184382973721/

As you will see, this was a huge project that required many months of almost non-stop work.  As such, I had little or no time to do anything else during the period May – end of October.  This meant that for the first time in almost 18 years, we didn’t do any serious hill or mountain walking during the summer.  Not only had we rapidly become unfit…. we had both put on a few pounds too!  So, on returning to Scotland from Seattle we’ve started to get out walking again.  We’ve only done some easy and fairly short walks but the legs are starting to feel a bit better already.  Our latest outings included a fine little tromp up and over the Dumyat on the edge of the Ochil Hills, just before Christmas and a fine wander up Cairn Table near Muirkirk, a couple of days ago.  Of course, it’s not just the fitness I miss when we don’t get out, it’s the ‘being out in the wild’ bit that I really miss and this is such an important part of my work.  On these two short walks we experienced hugely different conditions.  In the Ochil Hills the light was extremely poor with thick dark low cloud sitting on even this little 400 m hill.  On Cairn Table however, we had almost cloudless skies with very bright low winter sunshine that made the winter colours really glow at times.  I will probably not create paintings based on these two walks but I will draw on the memories of the differing light conditions, at some point in the future. 

I’ve also been working hard on getting back into the actual painting.  The Oregon Project was all about drawing and sound and so the painting got put to one side.  It’s been great getting back to sticky oil paint again and I’ve completed one painting, (see the artwork of the week) and have another three canvases well under way.  I haven’t given up on my smaller acrylic and pastel work either and managed to get several new pieces completed. 

Work in progress

Exhibitions have been rather limited this year too, but I was lucky enough to be invited to show some work at both The Strathearn Gallery in Crieff and Scotlandart.com on Bath Street in Glasgow.  Looking ahead, I will have work showing in an interesting exhibition of contemporary landscape painting taking place in Halifax during the summer.  I’m still waiting final details but will post these nearer the time.

Smaller artworks

The next major event for me however, is the continuation of The Oregon Project work.  We have been invited to show the work at the Tent Gallery in Edinburgh University in April and so we are already planning this.  Unfortunately it isn’t as simple as it sounds as not only will we have to re-configure the work (the space is a different size and shape to the one we used in Seattle), we will also have to generate the funding to bring the work and the US team over for the event.  This is going to be the most difficult part as my limited sight makes it very difficult for me to do all the computer based work required to make applications etc.  Thankfully I’m not on my own with this though, Nita and Graham are both helping and so between the three of us we should get there with a bit of luck.  No doubt that by the time I write my next update, we’ll know quite how successful we’ve been!  More details nearer the time. That said of course, if you are part of a company who sponsor innovative projects, please do get in touch ….we need all the help we can get!  Thank you.

Posted in Documentary, Exhibitions, Galleries with Keith Salmon artwork, Information Updates, Microsoft Project 2016, Personal, Sound Art, Visual Disability No Comments »

Update!

Posted by admin on October 17th, 2016

The Oregon Project

For the best part of the year you have heard me talking about the big sound and drawing project I’ve been working on.  The work is nearing completion with the installation almost built in Seattle and myself and Graham Byron flying out to assist the final install tomorrow.  The work will open to the public on Friday 21st October  as part of the big “9e2” exhibition in Seattle.  Below is a piece I wrote last week and this should give you a good idea of how everything has come together over the last few years.

Background

I trained in Fine Art in the early 1980’s, attending Shrewsbury School of Art, Falmouth School of Art and Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic.  In 1990 however, my sight which had until then been fine, deteriorated rapidly and by 1998 when I moved from Wales up to Ayrshire, I was officially registered as blind.

Throughout this period though, I was determined to continue doing my art and have, over the course of time, developed new ways of working that allow me to continue to paint and draw.  I turned professional in 2009 and now work from my studio on Irvine Harbour side, exhibit my work regularly and received the Jolomo Award for Scottish Landscape Painting.  Over the last few years I have been involved in several international projects that have involved creating works in Germany in 2010, Brazil in 2014 and now in Seattle in the USA.

In 2013, a chance meeting with Seattle based landscape photographer and independent film maker Daniel Thornton, (during the preview of my exhibition at ‘the gallery on the corner’ in Edinburgh) led to us working on a documentary project together. The documentary looks at my work as well as the role the visual impairment has played in its development.  The documentary is built around a large drawing project I worked on here in Scotland in late 2014. I created a 5m long, 1.5m high graphite drawing based on Glen Rosa on the Isle of Arran, in the main gallery of the Harbour Arts Centre here in Irvine.  I produced the drawing in the public gallery as part of a bigger exhibition of my work.   I worked on the drawing each day and visitors to the centre could watch it develop.  This was I guess, more a kind of performance piece.  I also wanted the work to be more than a local event and as such arranged for each day’s work to be recorded on a time-lapse camera and then have it posted each evening on the Internet.   The time lapse recordings were made by the resident sound engineer /technician, Graham Byron.

Around that time, I had become aware that the very limited sight I had, was gradually getting worse and I started to wonder what I would do if it became so limited that my drawings became very minimal.  How would I continue to work as a professional artist?   One of my ideas was to use sound in some way to supplement the visual image, but I had no idea how I might go about this.  While talking with Graham during the big drawing project, I mentioned my idea for using sound and asked him how best I go about making the recordings.  He was very enthusiastic and kindly lent me some sound recording equipment along with some basic instructions on using it.  For the whole of 2015 I took the sound recorder with me on our regular walks into the Scottish Highlands and started to develop ideas for possible new work.

I had kept Dan Thornton up to date on this work and by chance he heard of an interesting project being developed by Microsoft researcher Neel Joshi.  The idea was to use Microsoft Kinect technology to create a system to help visually impaired people interpret two dimensional images with sound.  Neel had created a prototype and was looking to work with a visual artist who also worked with sound.  Dan told him about me and put us in contact.

The Oregon Project

After a good deal of discussion in late 2015, Dan Thornton and I were invited to join the team working on the project, which itself had been established in order to take part in the big “9e2” arts and science exhibition taking place in Seattle in October 2016.  A general view of the exhibition, its purpose and aims, can be found by visiting the website: www.9e2seattle.com .

My partner Nita and I flew out to Seattle in early May where we joined the full team to talk about the project, test the prototype and set plans for the work.  We decided to try and create something that was more than just a rather blunt interpretive tool for visually impaired people.  Instead we planned to try and create an art installation that was experimental, challenging and enjoyable for all concerned but that also had as an integral part of it…. an audio interpretive element that would allow visually impaired people to better interpret the purely visual side of the piece….. this being 3 large (8’ x 4’) pastel drawings.

Ever since first meeting with Dan Thornton, he had expressed an interest in seeing how I would interpret the NW American landscape and for this project he had organised a short artist’s residency for me at the Josephy Centre for Arts and Culture in the small town of Joseph in NE Oregon.  After our initial meeting at Microsoft we travelled down to Joseph where we spent 8 days exploring the stunningly varied landscape.  The plan was for me to gather as much information about it as possible and as such we were out in the landscape every day.  I did many small sketches, we all took numerous photos and Dan and his assistant Cindy Apple recorded the process on film.  We also made many sound recordings too.  By the time we had returned to Seattle we had formulated a plan for the work.  I would create three large pastel drawings based on three different views of the Hell’s Canyon region of Oregon.  One based on the view from the canyon rim, one from a position well down in the canyon and one based on the view we had at the river’s edge in the base of the canyon.

Hell's Canyon region, Oregon

Hell’s Canyon region, Oregon

Hell's Canyon region, Oregon

Hell’s Canyon region, Oregon

Hell's Canyon region, Oregon

Hell’s Canyon region, Oregon

As far as I understand it the Microsoft connect technology will recognise a person’s location within a three dimensional space.  We would use this system to direct sounds to a viewer and these sounds would change according to their position in front of the drawing ….whether they are close to or further back from the surface of the drawing .  The Kinect technology can also recognise a person pointing at different parts of the drawing and once again send a corresponding soundtrack.  We decided that the work would have three different levels of sound:

Level 3: Furthest away from the drawing.  Here you would hear sound tracks relating to the view depicted in the drawing and mixed from recordings we made out on location in the canyon.

Level 2:  A position closer to the drawing.  Here we have added computer generated tones to match the main blocks of colour within the drawings.  You would hear the main colours.

Level 1: Very close to the drawing surface.  In this position the sounds you would hear would be made from recordings of the actual drawing process ….you would be ‘in’ the drawing. These sound tracks are really quite abstract and relate directly to the different types of mark used in the creation of the drawings.

On returning to Scotland in late May, I started work on the three large drawings.  I also spent many hours listening to the sound recordings Dan and I had made during our time in Oregon and selecting the elements that might best be used.  At this stage of things we invited Graham Byron to join the team and together the two of us created 18 different individual soundtracks for each of the three drawings.  I had no idea how we could mix these sound tracks and so it was great working with Graham who had been in the music industry as a sound engineer and musician for over 30 years.  In short, it was like drawing with sound ….quite amazing.

Dan, Neel and a colleague of theirs, Ryan (along with several other folk) have been working away in Seattle designing the technical side of this project and they will shortly be starting to build the installation.  Graham and I will be travelling out there on 17th October in time to help with the final installation ….adding the sound tracks to the work.  The piece opens to the public, along with many other installations and performance projects …on 21st October.

This is a very experimental piece of work created by 4  people with very different skills……

Neel Joshi: Microsoft researcher  ….this project was his idea.

Daniel Thornton: Independent film maker, landscape photographer and educator.

Graham Byron: Sound engineer and musician.

Keith Salmon: Visual and audio artist

This is a collaborative work and each element and area of expertise is as vital to the whole as the others.  This is also a very experimental piece and we will only know how well it works once the installation is complete and we start getting feedback from visitors to the work.  Hopefully everyone will be able to enjoy it.

Future plans

The Oregon Project is to return to Scotland in April 2017 where it will be exhibited in the gallery in Edinburgh University.

I think we are all hoping that The Oregon Project is just a start and that we will develop these initial ideas to create new and even more exciting pieces in the future.  We are very keen to create a large Scottish sound drawing in 2017.  Watch and listen to this space!

Posted in Commissioned Artwork, Documentary, Exhibitions, Information Updates, Microsoft Project 2016, Sound Art, Sound Recording, Uncategorized Tags: , , No Comments »

Phew!

Posted by admin on September 16th, 2016

You’ll gather from the lack of blogs and other updates that things have continued to be rather hectic this summer. This then is just a quick update on what I’ve been working on since my last blog.

The majority of my time has been spent working on the Oregon / Seattle drawing and audio project. I finished the third big pastel drawing a few days ago and actually signed all three of the drawings! So then, that side of the work is now complete and all I have to do is find a safe way to ship them over to Seattle. My partner Nita has been searching the net for suitable shipping tubes and she has found something that should work well. On the audio side of the project, we are getting pretty close to completion. Graham and I have been mixing the individual one minute long sound tracks that will go with the drawings and we have just six more to mix. Graham is arriving at the studio later this afternoon and we plan to have a long session in the hope of getting these final tracks finished by the end of the evening. I’ve bought in a fresh pack of coffee and the coffee maker will no doubt be working overtime too!

scottish landscape paintings

‘A freezing February afternoon, Beinn-an-Dothaidh ‘

“This image is now available as a gift card. Please contact the artist for more details”.

Of course, there is the other side of this project too ….the technical side of how to deliver the soundtracks to people viewing the drawings in the exhibition. This is all being done by our American team in Seattle, Dan Thornton, Neel Joshi and some of their colleagues. The work will be an installation piece and as such they will be having to build a purpose made space for the work and then rig it with all the technology and sound equipment. They are currently building a mock-up to test the system prior to creating the work in the “9e2” exhibition space. Nita and I will be travelling out to Seattle with Graham and his wife about a week before the “9e2” exhibition opens to the public and so we’ll be there in time to help with the final preparations. It’s really exciting although somewhat daunting if I’m honest. The “9e2” exhibition is a very big event with many teams of artists and scientists creating installation and performance works and so to be part of this is quite something. I’ll be posting links to the “9e2” website shortly so that you can get a better idea of what the event is all about. ….and if you live in or around Seattle, get some tickets.

Since finishing the 3 Oregon drawings I have been back working on a couple of new acrylic and pastel paintings. Both of these are in their early stages but are based on views Nita and I had when we climbed Beinn Odhair near Tyndrum last month. We were lucky to see the hills under perfect conditions that day and the paintings depict two very different viewpoints. One of them shows the view of Beinn Odhair from below, as you head north along the West Highland Way. The second painting is a scene looking from the summit of Beinn Odhair, across to the magnificent Crianlarich Hills. I’ll post images of them on my Face Book page soon: Keith Salmon – Scottish Landscape Artist.

scottish landscape painting

‘Below Clach Lethaidh, Winter’

“This image is now available as a gift card. Please contact the artist for more details”.

Finally, I just wanted to give warning that I have decided to stop writing my regular blogs. For a good number of years now I have been writing a blog almost every week …… indeed, I’ve written over 290 blogs since starting. It has for the most part, been very enjoyable. More recently however, with the continued slow deterioration of my bit of sight, I’ve found that it is taking longer and longer to do. Now, to write the blog, source and send photos and to write a weekly “Artwork of the week” for the homepage…..well, it usually takes me over 4 hours. As everything else is also taking much longer to do, I’ve decided that I need to prioritise. The 200 hours I spend each year writing blogs should now I think, be spent promoting my work in more direct ways. So then, I’ll be writing a few more blogs up until the end of October but after that I’ll just be writing 4 quarterly “What’s been happening” updates. This isn’t great I know, but it is just a case of adapting to my circumstances ….which is what I’ve done ever since my sight started to deteriorate back in 1990. I hope those of you who have followed these blogs over the years have enjoyed some of them …and haven’t winced too much with the bad grammar etc.. For those of you who use Face Book, you’ll be able to follow the day to day development of the work, on my business Face Book page: Keith Salmon – Scottish Landscape Artist.

scottish landscape painting

‘Memories of a winter day, The Cairngorms’

“This image is now available as a gift card. Please contact the artist for more details”.

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Art and landscape – a short trip to the American North West

Posted by admin on May 24th, 2016

This morning before leaving home for my studio, I had another quick look at the map of the United States of America. I looked at the state of Washington in the far North West and then across and down just a little bit to the state of Oregon. It looked just a short distance on the map until you glance at how much more …much, much, much more of the USA there is. The journey we made from Seattle to the small town of Joseph in Oregon seemed long and the landscape amazingly varied and huge and yet the map says there is so much more. It really is a very big country.

In reality of course we caught just a tiny glimpse of its beauty and grandeur but it has quite taken me aback. I wonder now why it has taken me 56 years to get to see some of this amazing country. Probably something to do with being an artist and always being skint I guess. Strange then that art was the reason Nita and I were over exploring this stunning landscape but very exciting and rewarding.

art trip to Oregon

Wild flowers at Buckhorn, Hells Canyon, Oregon

As you already know, I am taking part in a collaborative art and science project with a small research team working at Microsoft in Seattle. The piece of work we are creating will combine 2 dimensional visual arts with an audio system that delivers different levels of audio / sound interpretation depending on the proximity of the viewer to the artwork. The purpose of the two week long trip was two fold. Firstly, we went to meet up with the team I’ll be working with. We needed to fix the basics for the work and to start planning how the audio and technological side of this piece might work. In short, we had two full meetings at one of the huge Microsoft buildings just outside of Seattle and two more informal meetings in restaurants in the city.

Art trip to Oregon

In the Hells Canyon area of Oregon

The second part of the trip, lasting for 11 days, saw us driving down to the small town of Joseph in Oregon where a week long artist’s residency had been arranged for me at the Josephy Center of Arts and Culture. The main emphasis of this part of the trip was for me to explore the very varied and rich landscape of this part of Oregon and to record as much information as possible about it in order for me to create three large (8’ x 4’) pastel drawings on my return to Scotland. We also needed to make a large number of sound recordings while out in the landscape in order to support the audio side of the artwork. We made the journey with film maker and photographers, Daniel Thornton and Cindy Apple, Dan who is the lead audio artist for the project and Cindy who was making a photographic / film record of the trip and work.

As I say, the landscape in this region of Oregon is incredibly varied and has three main areas. The small town of Joseph sits at a little over 4000 ft and has the huge 10,000 ft peaks of the Wallowa Mountains rising immediately behind it. In the opposite direction lie two very different regions, a huge area of high prairie and an even larger area of deep canyons known as the Hell’s Canyon area. All three of these very distinct geological regions are stunningly beautiful and are very individual. We needed to visit all three areas on our arrival and with time so short, I had to make a decision as to which area I would base my drawings on. The mountains and prairie were amazing but I decided that I’d work on the canyon area ….it is so different from the landscape I’m used to.

Art trip to Oregon

Nita and Kendrick, Hells Canyon region, Oregon

We were very lucky to be guided on three occasions by a local botanist and wildlife photographer called Kendrick Moholt and he took us to some amazing locations within the complex region of canyons. On the Monday we drove to Buckhorn, a view point over looking one of the huge deep canyons. When we arrived everywhere was in cloud (we were at around 5000ft) but as we waited in this high and quiet place, gradually the cloud started to break up and lift and the scale and depth of the canyon became evident. It was quite a breathtaking scene. The following day saw us way down in the canyon driving along a dirt road to reach a magnificent viewpoint where I spent several hours drawing. The canyon at this point dropped steeply down to the river but also climbed high above. Finally Kendrick took us to the farm of a friend of his, situated right in the base of the canyon next to the river. It was an impressive situation and once again I was able to spend quite a while drawing and recording. The final large works will I think be based on these three locations and I am hoping that the sound recordings we made will convey the different positions within the canyon.

Art trip to Oregon

The Columbia River Gorge

We got back to Scotland yesterday morning and this is the first day back in my studio. I’m planning to start work on some preliminary studies in the next day or so and will also be starting work on sorting through the numerous sound recordings we made.

It was a really amazing trip and the people we met were so friendly and helpful. There is a huge amount of work to be done for this project over the next four months but it is very exciting. When all is complete we’ll be exhibiting it as part of the big “9e2”project in Seattle in late October. After that, we are hoping that the work can be shown in other locations and with a bit of luck, brought over to Scotland…..hopefully to be exhibited alongside a large Scottish audio / drawing work that I’m planning. As they say ….watch this space!

Finally, my thanks must go out to Dan who has done so much to put this project into place. …. I look forward to working with you and the others on the project over the next few months or so.

Posted in Documentary, Information Updates, Microsoft Project 2016, N. America, Sound Art, Sound Recording Tags: , , , , , , , , No Comments »

Drawing from the past

Posted by admin on April 28th, 2016

A couple of weeks ago I received a message on Face Book, from a chap called Kit.  He had sent this photo of a drawing ….. and asked whether I could confirm if it was one of mine.  He had picked it up in a charity shop and it had a label on the back, saying that it was by me.  As you can imagine, it was a bit of a surprise as on first inspection, it didn’t appear to be anything that I had done.

I looked at the image closely ….or as closely as I can these days and although there were certainly some similarities in some of the marks, the broader ink lines didn’t seem like something I’d do…….certainly not now or any time in the last twenty years.  That said however, there was something about it, something that seemed familiar, somewhere back in my memory.

rocking horse drawing

Newcastle drawing 1984

In the end however, I decided that I should get back to Kit and say that it probably wasn’t by me and if it was, then it was an early piece done sometime after leaving college in 1983.  I explained that at the time and indeed for a good number of years, I had very little money and could not afford to photograph virtually any of my work …. no digital cameras then, just expensive film and processing.  I was working as a sculptor in the 1980’s and doing a large number of drawings and very little of this work was recorded.  I also said that I sold very little work in those days but did give pieces away at times. If it was one of my drawings then it was probably one of these pieces and done when I had a studio in Newcastle upon Tyne or a little later when I was based in Shrewsbury.  More than that I couldn’t really say.

Kit got back to me to say that this actually started to make a bit more sense as he was based in Newcastle.  I looked at the drawing once again ….. and I started to think that I did recognise it, although quite how it had got to be in a charity shop in Newcastle after all these years …… I had no idea.  I asked Nita to take a look and she suddenly said that it appeared to have an vague image of a horse in it.  My gut reaction was that it couldn’t then be something by me ….I’m not or never have been a ‘horse’ person.  But there was still that familiarity about the image.  Then I remembered.  One of the first pieces of work I made when I set up my studio in the old Exchange Building at the side of the Tyne Bridge, was a piece of sculpture based around the idea of a rocking horse …..and I did a lot of drawings at the time…. this would be one of them.

The thing that clinched it however was when Kit said that the drawing appeared to have been done on some strange kind of paper ….it had an orange plastic backing and a soft yellowing kind of surface.  Sadly not a specialist kind of art paper or anything ….in fact, the complete opposite.  As I said earlier, I was completely skint at the time and could barely afford to pay my studio rent and could certainly not afford to buy purpose made and expensive art materials.  All my sculpture was constructed out of the contents of skips and on one occasion as I walked down one of the city centre roads towards my studio I spotted a skip full of lengths of old vinyl wall paper.  It had been stripped from the walls as part of a big refurbishment and when I took a closer look, it had a wonderful soft paper backing …..perfect for drawing on.  I spent a good time pulling all the strips of paper out of the skip and carefully rolling them.  As it turned out, there was enough to last me several years and many of my drawings were done on this recycled paper.  While I was pulling the paper out of the skip one of the builders came up to see what I was doing.  When I told him that I was an artist and needed materials he promised to put anything else of use to one side for me.  He was good as his word and over the next month or so I picked up plenty of timber for my sculpture.

So then, this drawing, created over 30 years ago, has re-surfaced.  It’s kind of nice to think that it has survived all this time and that Kit has not only found it but got in touch with me and reminded me of the work. Hope you continue to enjoy the drawing Kit.

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An art and science collaboration in Seattle

Posted by admin on April 17th, 2016

As you will know if you’ve been following my blogs over the last year or so, I’ve been starting to experiment with the idea of using sound with my large drawings and paintings. The original idea developed as a result of further deterioration in my sight over the last five years and although so far, this gradual deterioration hasn’t affected my ability to paint too much, I am aware that there may be a point sometime down the line where my work becomes more and more minimal. So then, I’ve started thinking about how I might continue working as a professional artist if this happens. My original plans had always been to return to making sculpture in a purely tactile way……I trained and worked as a sculptor right up until my sight started to fail back in 1990. I decided instead, however, to see if it is possible to create works that combine drawings or paintings with sound ….with the sound helping to convey the subject depicted in the two dimensional work.

I first mentioned this to Graham, the then sound engineer working at the Harbour Arts Centre, back in December 2014 when I was working there creating my large Glen Rosa drawing. He was very keen on the idea and lent me the use of one of his sound recorders. Since then, I’ve been taking the recorder out with me on our walks into the hills and have just been experimenting with it.

abstract landscape painting

Beinn Dubh drawing (Section 2)

This new work is progressing slowly and I have in the last few months been starting to work on my first drawing / sound project. I want to create a large multi section drawing based on Beinn Dubh in the Luss Hills. This wee hill offers great views and a range of different terrain. Although generally grass covered, the shortish climb from the village of Luss to the cairn marking the top at around 650m, takes you over or past a variety of ground. In places lower down, the path is stony and eroded and picks its way under broad leaf trees and then out onto open bracken covered hillside. Higher up, a level section is in places extremely boggy and waterlogged with tussocks of grass and reeds. To one side are conifer plantations and higher up small rocky outcrops. This not only offers rich visual material but also rich audio material too. Nita and I are heading back to Beinn Dubh again tomorrow to collect more recordings but I’m still not too sure exactly how I’ll use them with the drawings yet.

abstract landscape painting

Beinn Dubh drawing (Section 1)

Right then, with this work starting to develop, another angle has just opened up…..and a very exciting one too. You’ll remember that over the last three years I’ve been working with Seattle based independent film maker Daniel Thornton to create a documentary about my work. This project is still on going and as such I’m in regular contact with Dan and have been keeping him updated with the new developments. Well then, a few months ago he put me in contact with a small research team working at Microsoft in Seattle. They are currently working on a project to create a system that will help blind and visually impaired people better interpret 2 dimensional images ….paintings, drawings etc, using different levels and types of audio interpretation. They were keen to work alongside an artist and when Dan explained that I was an artist who was starting to work with sound and drawing, and that I was visually impaired too, they got in contact.

In short it has been agreed that we will collaborate on the project and all is arranged for Nita and I to fly out to Seattle in a few weeks time. We will be visiting the team along with Dan, for a day when we first get there, to see the system they are working on. Then, Dan, Cindy, Nita and I will be driving down to Joseph in Oregon where a short residency has been arranged. The point of this is for me to explore the surrounding landscape and to gather as much information, both visual and audio so that on my return to Scotland I can create a new large (8ft wide x 4ft high) pastel drawing. Before heading back home however, we’ll be visiting the team at Microsoft once again to look at the material we’ve collected and discuss how we use it to interpret the new large drawing I’ll be creating. Wow!

Back in Scotland, I’ll then have until the end of August to create the new drawing and as it develops, we’ll all be working together to create the audio interpretation to go with it. At the end, the work will go back to Seattle and I’ll be heading back there too to help present it as part of a much larger art and science project taking place in Seattle in October. I’ll be giving more information as the project develops and I should be able to post regular updates while we’re away in May.

Finally, I’ve been doing quite a lot of work on the sound for my new Beinn Dubh piece and so with a bit of luck we’ll be able to get something for you to hear soon……..listen to this space!!!

Posted in Documentary, Harbour Arts Centre, Information Updates, Sound Art, Sound Recording, Visual Disability Tags: , , , No Comments »

An interesting week

Posted by admin on November 22nd, 2015

Finally, after almost three weeks of dark, wet and very windy weather here in Irvine, today has turned out bright and sunny and cold. It’s really beautiful here on the Harbour-side this morning and it makes for a good end to what has been a very good and interesting week.

My working week actually started with a day off!! Can’t be bad eh? That said however, I did feel like I needed one as prior to Monday I’d been in the studio every day for the previous 2 weeks. My day off did include a working lunch however! You’ll remember perhaps that back in the summer one of my paintings, “Breaking mists, on Mam na Gualainn”, won the Probus Club of Irvine Prize at the North Ayrshire Open Art Exhibition. The club, formerly the Rotary Club of Irvine, kindly invited me to join them for lunch at their weekly meeting and asked if I’d give a short talk about my work afterwards. It was a really good deal as on Monday I joined them at a local hotel and enjoyed a fine lunch with them all. I’d taken the winning painting with me, along with two other pieces and after coffee I told them all about my work. It seemed to go down well and I managed just to keep within the time limit! Nita had warned them beforehand that they might need to bop me on the head with a mallet as I tend to talk too much. Me? Talk too much?!

Tuesday included a trip down to the Waverley Gallery in Prestwick to collect nine of my prints which I’d had framed ready for a couple of pre Christmas exhibitions that I’m taking part in. One of these is at “the gallery on the corner” in Edinburgh ….details of this “Winter Print Show”, at the end of this blog.

The other show is a local “Affordable Art Fair at the Harbour Arts Centre here in Irvine which will include work from many of the Courtyard Studios Artists and which will run from December 16th . Until January 8th. Full details slightly nearer the time.

Wednesday was a full day of painting and although it started badly …I completely wrecked a small 30 x 30 cm acrylic and pastel painting that I’d spent about 20 hours on, the remainder of the day went well. After the disaster with the acrylic and pastel piece, I went to work on a couple of my larger oil pieces ….and by the end of the evening at 8pm, I had developed both pieces quite well and I left for home feeling good.

Thursday was something a bit different as Nita and I had been invited along to the Opening of John Lowrie Morrison’s new exhibition, “Jolomo at the Mitchell”. The exhibition was to be officially opened by HRH the Princess Royal and so Thursday morning found me wearing smart clothes…..and a tie! The exhibition is in the magnificent space of the Mitchell Library in Glasgow and I have to say that the work looked great in the fabulous space. We had plenty of time to see the exhibition prior to the Royal party arriving and it all made for a very interesting, enjoyable and for Nita and I, very different kind of lunchtime. I think that the show is only on for another week so do pop in to see it if you are in Glasgow over the next few days. Look out for painting No 47 ….a fabulous piece of work I think.

Friday was another day spent painting and I finally finished one of my canvases and moved another one quite close to being finished. I’m really starting to enjoy working with oil at long last and am starting to think that this will be the way forward in the future.

305 'Breaking mists on Mam na Gualainnt', Acrylic & Pastel, 2013, 80 x 80 cm

‘Breaking mists on Mam na Gualainn’

Yesterday was a good end to the week as I had some visitors to my studio who purchased the “Breaking mists, on Mam na Gualainn” painting. The lady and gentleman (Nettie and Ted) had earlier this year bought one of my small pen sketches at a charity auction in Ipswich and had then gone on to check out my website. A few weeks ago, Nettie contacted me to say they had seen the Mam na Gualainn painting on the website and really wanted to buy it ….but also wanted to visit my studio and collect it in person. As they live in Essex, it meant an almost 450 mile drive and they rather heroically made it despite their car having a major breakdown in the north of England and it having to be towed back to Essex. They however were determined to get to Ayrshire and so hired a car to complete the journey. They arrived yesterday afternoon along with their five small dogs and we had a very enjoyable couple of hours together. Nettie is a painter too and we had agreed a part exchange of work. We now have one of her beautiful wee paintings on our wall and to cap it all, Ted presented me with a copy of a book his father had written back in the late 1930’s I think. He was an established British climber and with two of his colleagues they produced this fabulous book called “British Hills and Mountains”. I’ve only had a short while to look through it, but it’s full of wonderful black and white photographs….. many of them of hills Nita and I have climbed over the years. What is really interesting is that many of these photos are of angles I’ve not seem before. Wow ….in my element or what! Sadly I can’t see print any longer but Nita has said she’ll read the book to me. So then, a big thank you to Nettie and Ted who, as I type will be driving back to Essex. As I said at the start of this blog ….it’s been a very interesting week.

Print show in irvine

Winter Print Show, Irvine

-o-o-o-o-o-

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    E-mail: keith@keithsalmon.org