Accident | Kate McCalmont-Woods

I’m now playing catch up, tying up all the loose ends from the summer, which now seems an age away.

Once I’d seen Bourgeois’ ‘Maman’ I had a wander around the rest of Tate Modern.

I don’t know what it is about this painting, but I always find myself standing in front of it. It’s a self-portrait by German artist, Christian Schad, in 1927. Having previously been influenced by Dadaism, after returning from Naples he started painting in a smooth, realistic style as part of the New Objectivity, a reaction against Expressionism. He also created Schadographs, which I may have to have a look at. Maybe I’m drawn to it because it was painted at a time of decadence in Berlin and Vienna, or because of the narcissistic symbolism, or maybe it’s just the way he’s painted that really sheer shirt.

This is by British modernist, John Tunnard in 1942. It is an abstract landscape painting of Tol Pedn near the Lizard Peninsular, where Tunnard served as a coastguard during the war. The two small chesslike objects represent the two artificial landmarks on the coast warning ships to keep away from the Runnel Stone, a dangerous reef. I like the areas of texture which contrast with the flatter paint, and the overall balance of the composition.

I particularly like the aerial view feel of this work. It is Nocturnal City, by Maliheh Afnan made in 1987 – wax, crayon, oil pastel and ink on paper. She is influenced by the written form, in particular, Persian manuscript paintings. She ‘writes’ her paintings layering materials in which she explores, memory and places. Text has appeared in some of my work, and I like the effect of scraping into the surface to make marks, something that I do a lot of instinctively.

I had a look around the Emily Kam Kngwarray exhibition: she started painting in old age and made a mind-blowing 3,000 odd works in just a few years. I enjoyed looking at the mark-making and the colours, some reminiscent of mapping.

And then I saw an actual map in Richard Long’s Cerne Abbas Walk (1975) in which the sculptor/ land artist documents a six-day walk at a well known Dorset landmark, detailing his physical interaction with the landscape. I couldn’t help but stop and spend quite a long time just looking at his 8 metre wide Norfolk Flint Circle (1990) which creates its own extraordinary landscape.

I didn’t make a note of this next work which is frustrating as I was intrigued by the holes and layers beneath.

Then it was on to Do Ho Suh’s Genesis exhibition. Lots of transparent layers, grids and threads, all of which appealed to me.

Some wonderful Giacometti’s in the Tanks, emerging from the darkness and given form by the wonderful lighting.

An accidental slip of the phone, but an interesting image.

I brought in my one remaining pinhole camera the other day. It was really disappointing – although it had captured some good trails of the sun, it had fallen sideways (my bad) and the constant switching between really hot and cold weather recently must have caused condensation to form inside the can. It’s a shame because it seemed to me to be a good way of capturing the passage of time in a static image. Never mind, I may try again.

I’m not very techie and when I was converting the original image into black and white on my phone before I got into bed last night, I accidentally created a sticker. I’ve never really paid much attention to the white line which cuts out the sticker before, but on an abstract image it was fascinating to see where it went and what it chose to cutout. I decided to screen record the process, add some filters and play around with the replay speed.

I particularly like the one above – it reminds me of paper burning around the edges.

I used the image from What Was I Thinking? as it has both curved and straight lines amidst the multiple figures, and I was interested to see what path the line chose to follow.

Finally, I wondered what would happen if I tried an image which has a myriad of shapes within it and a white line of its own, so I used an image from Carbon Dating.

I had a great time experimenting, but when I finished an hour later my brain was still trying to process it all and thinking of how I might be able to develop it. It’s proving to be a tiring day today.