Turner Contemporary art Gallery, the thoughts of a Thanet painter and snapper

 I have just read the Isle of Thanet News article about loss of jobs at Turner Contemporary

here is the link

As some readers of this blog will already know, in normal times, before the virus I spend several days a week working in the bookshop in Ramsgate and a lot of the rest of the time wandering around East Kent painting watercolour sketches, taking photos, buying books, visiting art galleries and of course recording what I do here and sharing it with anyone interested.  

I paint pictures mainly for myself to record and help me to remember people and places, there is a bit of art involved, like the detail above from one of my paintings done inside Canterbury Cathedral. Where I was trying to record. What? Something that isn't there. Something the camera can't see. I don't know really.

Normally though I am mostly trying to record what's there. along with a bit exploring shapes like the sketch above done from the Turner Contemporary Café.

This a watercolour sketch by JWM Turner of Margate High Street and to me he is just being a painter with this one, not an artist.

This Turner of Ramsgate Harbour, well it's a bit on the edge. a bit more than just recording what it looks like from a small boat.

This is a very well known piece of art at Turner Contemporary I took a photo of it, didn't think I needed to sketch it, in fact it is so valuable that the gallery attendants probably wouldn't have allowed me to get my paints out near it.

Like a lot of people I make notes with sketches that are hardly better than a doodle. 

These are a couple of Ramsgate pages from Turner's sketchbook, you should be able to recognise Pete's Fish Factory in both of them 

While Turner Contemporary is an iconic design, because it is made up of several small gallery spaces, it is very expensive to staff

This is a Turner watercolour of Margate 

this is a sketch of Turner 

This group of four Turners are all of Thanet and probably done when Turner was at school in Margate

I do a fair amount of this painting the view stuff. This is harbour Parade in Ramsgate from Wetherspoons painted by me last year.

This is Harbour Parade in Ramsgate from The Royal drawn bt Henry Moses in 1815.

I think Turner Contemporary says it gets about 1,000 visitors a day and the figures seem to say it costs about £11,000 a day to run. I am having some difficulty making these figures add up.

This is Eastcliff Lodge painted in watercolour by JWM Turner 

Me having perspective problems with the carpet in Canterbury Cathedral.

I suppose my main reason for including my sketches is I always feel on a bit of a slippery surface when I say anything about Turner Contemporary. The main reason for including Thanet pictures by Turner is really to point out that a lot of them are. What? Sort of what the contemporary art enthusiasts say art isn't.