Greetings,
I have failed to update this blog for a rather long while due to being unimpressed with wordpress or rather being more impressed with other servers. please move your self over to my Behance site for recent work.- http://www.behance.net/paulaitchison
Best regards
Paul.
Commissioned illustration rejected by the KTM Post for fear of upsetting ruling Brahmin caste
Seven illustrations for seven stories written by Nepali’s of Bright Horizon children’s home
Published @ http://himalmag.com/
Published @ http://himalmag.com/
An old man, followed by many ghosts, stalked and adorned by a dark history, writes a poem, honest unto himself to lighten his heavy heart. Gunter Grass, a German writer, has proven to the world that a poem can shake the very foundations of our political minds and teach us to speak our own thoughts regardless of social price, for our own thoughts are all we have.
In a world such as the one we swarm; it has comes to reason that points of view are made with actions; sanctions, guns and wars but not so often words. It is seen as sane when we walk where we are told as the planes fly over our heads. We ignore the whirling, flashing signs, the signals of a twitching momentum because we believe that this is just the way of it.
It should give us confidence, then, when words written by one man do the work of the moon and move the tides. It comforts me to see that we can still, beneath the monolith of media, project our thoughts and thereby cause the masses to think clearly about the politics defining of our time. Do you see the politicians rear up on their hind legs in the face of art as if it were the launch of a rocket? Let us savour this moment.
This isn’t a “fuck the system” statement, but the reaction of a writer inspired and encouraged once again by the power of words. I remember the first time I read a poem in public, at a little bar in my home town – The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock by T.S Eliot. I was nervous as hell, my hands were jittering and the book I held was vibrating. It’s a very long poem for a first read, and for my sake I should have chosen a shorter one, but it had captured me in such a way that it was my only option, I pushed through. A few weeks later, on returning to the same bar, a young feller came up to me to say how he enjoyed my “honest” reading of the poem, how it had become his favourite and encouraged his writing. In such moments you can hear the still reverberating echoes of the moment, the big bang, of the creation of language.
I do not whole-heartedly agree with the content and political points of Gunter Grass’s poem “What Must Be Said”, but that is beside the point of this article spark. I am, however, heartened by the reach of Grass’s personal thoughts and the way they have scared some thus empowered many. It should not be dimmed nor hidden, deemed invalid or disregarded though you have every right to disagree as Grass has to express, is this not democracy?
Behind the rims of his glasses and the billowing pipe smoke, I believe Grass feels himself at peace, that he has set his final force to rest and although now deemed unpopular, his poem embodied his life’s goal – the goal of all writers – to make a written stand in defence of his beliefs that will echo through the minds of many, and to change the world with words.
Article written for/published in ECS- Fr!day Magazine (Art Issue)
Many times throughout my career as a chef and now as an artist I have found myself having the discussion- is or can “food” be art? Well I have never fully agreed that food is art in its self though I think it can certainly be approached in the same way. After all it is said that we go about the process of eating in three stages, firstly with our eyes, then our sense of smell and finally with our taste buds. It’s rarely that we take such a physical approach to art but we start in exactly the same. On appearance we judge the chef as we do an artist, the visual aspect of things that we involve ourselves with can completely dictate our mood and emotions. You could serve someone the same plate of food twice but presented in a different way and it could appear more or less-appetising and even course that person to think it taste differently.
During my years as a Michelin chef the importance of presentation was forcefully drummed into me again and again until every plate was perfect. Though presentation isn’t for me what it may be for many; that nouvelle cuisine of the 70s with all of its twizzles and drizzles up to modern-day gastro swipes and pyramid jellies! No, I hate all of that. I get off on a simple, smart display of good grub, when home cooking meets sexy. Now, coming back to our art connection; the visual arrangement of colour and shapes. All should be clear on a plate of food, you should be able to see every aspect of the dish and not question what is in it, and thus the arrangement must be simple and clean though not necessarily neat. The word “rustic” is common place in modern cooking; the home-cooked style is being adopted in professional kitchens throughout the culinary world. New twists are being applied to traditional dishes like stews and pies witch have no real typical attraction when we thick of food in terms of art. Though done in the right way (for me) there can be nothing more sexy that a big bowl of stew, simple but carefully plated. There are a few rules of composition when plating food, as I mentioned before every part of the dish should be visible and at the same time be one rather that looking like a divorced couple in the same room. Height is very important especially with something like salad, it’s really not nice to see a salad spread flat on a plate. Odds are more attractive than evens, just as the prettiest faces have a little something… strange about them. And good food must be framed well, but I don’t mean square plates or frilly plates or brightly coloured plates, no, the “food” should be doing the sexy thing the plate should simply deliver the food- in a white t-shirt, worn by a friendly looking chap.
The defining reason for food being uncategorised as art (in my mind) is that food is an essential part of life and fundamentally used by everybody every day and art is fundamentally useless. More comparable is the cook as an artist, a creator, a labourer, the dedication spent on craft and character is surly the defining notion of an artist. Although he may act like an artist in his approach and his feeling, in his passion and creativity; the product is not art in its self, it has been produced in an artistic way and indeed is created to give pleasure to another as is art, though its practical use can never be ignored and it fails to deliver any message or emotion from the artist.
I think it’s a shame to try and push food into the realm of art, food should look edible, pretty, perhaps even (god forbid) be worthy of a photograph but let’s never take it away from its basis, its necessary standing in the world and our unbreakable connection to it. It would be easy for me to express the same feelings toward art generally. As is the way of the world; food and art move on with the times, like fashion, like the wind they change. I hope never to see the day when food evolves into something we just look at and art comes to lose its meaning. As it is, with all my rambling, in the end like all art; all food is just a matter of personal taste.
Published @ http://himalmag.com/
PAUL AITCHISON 