Ten Images
Writings on a sequence of moments
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Gabriel Orozco talks about using his camera as a ‘way of awareness’ while walking. He describes how not having a studio means he’s confronted with reality while in the creative process. During the summer break, spending time away from the studios in Oxford, I’ve been finding the ways that work for me to stay engaged and thinking about ideas. To stay observant. I’ve been taking either my sketchbook or my camera with me when I go out, to record the moments, objects, and architecture that speak to me in some way.
It’s been helpful for me to reflect on imagery that has stood out to me by writing too. My favourite writing prompt from Suleika Jaouad’s ‘The Book of Alchemy,’ is called ‘Just Ten Images.’ Ash Parsons describes recording ten images from her day in her journal as a grounding exercise. I like that these lists exist as a series of contained moments that, as of yet, I haven’t come back to since writing them. I’d like to build up this bank of material and see what common themes emerge, and to bring them into the world in some physicality - to find the shapes and forms associated with these ideas, and for them to become pieces of a puzzle for me to play with when I return to the studios.
I’d like to share 10 recent images, their writings, and maybe some forms that come to mind when I reread them now.
The diagonally positioned image on the front of the theatre book that I’ve been cutting up for collage. White background, dark, defined, diamond of an image, ochre at the bottom, sinking like it has mass.
The dark green corduroy that I bought for Matthew’s jacket as a sheet hanging on the washing line. Changes in the pile direction where it has been moved around in the wash, and its overall flatness as it dries.
Things hung by wires; picture frames with tiles inside them at Angelsey Abbey, light fixtures set against the matrix of shelves at the V&A Storehouse.
Ink puddling at the end of marks made by a fountain pen, and my dad’s handwriting - the letter ‘D’ as he writes his name.
A small mammalian animal, the size of a field mouse, burrowing and nesting with its young, as in Eve.
An extending labyrinth of rooms in The Big House on the Corner. A dark, moving nest of rooms and corridors that have a fixed central layout, outwards from which they pivot and shift.
Wax pooling over a graphite or oil pastel drawing or printed photograph, cooling to become matte and milky.
Graphite drawn hands that hold the collaged lace bat as it takes flight. Return.
A second horizon in the fold of the white cartridge paper.
The purple moors.
Rowan Briggs Smith sketchbook page
Rowan Briggs Smith, Byland Abbey
Rowan Briggs Smith sketchbook page