Murakami takes us to to Canterbury where we get issued with a parking ticket and enjoy the Gerard Caris Exhibition.

The book business is a bit of a strange one, once in some halcyon days my main function as a bookseller was that of smoothing the passage between the writer and the reader. Wrong words, I know, but I just can't help it.

Trying again, there is a relationship between writers and readers and theoretically, historically, wosisname, this was populated by, publishers, booksellers, critics and drunks, no that's not write, ah but it shows why I don't get paid for writing.

There is fiction and within this category of book are sub categories, romantic fiction, westerns, crime, science fiction, horror, phantasy or fantasy, children's fiction. This is going across, if you like, but going up and down is something like the British class system, trash, pulp, bodice ripper, pot boiler, classic, literary.

In a bookshop like our one in Ramsgate where there are books priced between 1/- (five pee) and about £500, this isn't anything to do with how expensive the book is, but something to do with it's aesthetic quality. you know how it it is - if it's painted by say JWM Turner then you are probably safer saying. "I don't understand it" Than saying. "I don't think this painting is very good."

Now at the moment I would say that if managed to sober up 100 wossisfaces, literary critics, university students studying fiction, people teaching literature at an advanced level, well that type of kidney, then some of them would probably say that the most important fiction publishing event, this month, is the new Haruki Murakami book called "Killing Commendatore" it came out this week and I tried to buy it in Ramsgate.

Now if you were to go to the butcher and ask for a really tender piece of steak because you were cooking it for someone important and the butcher were to say. 'I'm sorry, guv, mate, wosisname, I'm a vegetarian.' You would what? Be surprised, in a supermarket, purgatory, some place anyway.

New books were sold by booksellers, I used to be a Charter Bookseller, we had a small chain of four independent bookshops and back in some forgotten time, separate reality, or something, I would have already been given a proof copy of the the new Haruki Murakami book called "Killing Commendatore" read it, decided how many copies to order.

He has painters block at the moment and the book at page 48 seems to be going ok and is looking as though it will be a good one.

 Underway, still in harbour but yeas looking very good

 We eventually managed to pull the purchase off in Waterstones in Canterbury

The car park was interesting we parked in Kingsmead car park where about half of the car park has white lined denoting spaces and about doesn't and we parked where there was no linage or the lines had rubbed off. It's very hard to tell, when we got back to the car about a quarter of the cars parked outside of the designated linage had parking tickets and about three quarters didn't.

The fine was £50 and frankly for anyone like me who works for a normal sort of wage it just isn't worth arguing, I shall just pay the fine. I would however warn others to be careful, we certainly will.

Projecting Pentagonism: The Aesthetic of Gerard Caris 10 Oct - 1 Dec 10:30am - 5:00pm Sidney Cooper Gallery

'Projecting Pentagonism is the first UK exhibition of veteran Dutch abstract artist Gerard Caris (b. 1925). Renowned for his experimentations with pentagons, a philosophy he refers to as ‘Pentagonism’, the exhibition will feature a selection of works spanning over 50 years including abstract, geometric paintings, drawings, and Caris’ unique relief sculptures built up of hundreds of hand-cut shapes meticulously assembled into three-dimensional panels. Born in Maastricht in 1925, Gerard Caris saw military service in the US, Indonesia and Malaysia before embarking on a successful engineering career which included work on the Telstar Horn Antenna at Andover, Maine, US. He subsequently studied art and philosophy at the City College of New York and between 1964-69 and completed a BA and MA at the University of Berkeley, California. There Caris worked and studied alongside Elmer Bischoff, Richard Diebenkorn, David Hockney and the neo-expressionist painter, R.B.Kitaj. The works in the exhibition range from Caris’ earliest acrylic paintings made while studying in California, through the development of Pentagonism, and includes recent drawings and small sculptures, demonstrating a studio practice that continues to be vibrant and innovative. This exhibition is co-curated by Dr Katie McGown, Sidney Cooper Gallery, and Dr Grant Pooke, University of Kent. It has been made possible through the generous support of the Mondriaan Fund.'

Credit © 2018 Canterbury Christ Church University

There is an area with this venue where displaying technology related art perhaps ("steam punk" got to be careful with words here) - perhaps merges is wrong here, but there is an overlap with the technology, wiring, plug holes, sorry sockets is on the edge and there are areas where some doublethink is needed to differentiate between what is exhibition and what is part of the gallery.

Phone photos for this waving about a proper camera in art galleries only leads to people assuming I'm an artists or something.

 Anything you want to look at just click away and it should expand

I paint in Canterbury, this is something between house painting and art this is a link to some of my painting in Canterbury photos, the discerning will realise painting although not art probably.

Photos taken in Canterbury today, I'm still using the Canon PowerShot S3 IS which is a bit of an antique as cameras go this is the link




 

Arabella Dorman artist, Canterbury Cathedral, Mrs Organ Morgan’s Dreams, old Thanet photos, cold weather, some sort of Sunday Ramble

 I am starting with pictures of the frozen sea at Ramsgate and Margate in 1963.

If you were a child in 1963 then the very cold winter with the very deep snow is something that you probably remember. Useful in a way as it serves as a definite time marker in childhood memories. I would guess the cold snap over the next few days will be the end of winter and I doubt the sea will freeze.

Canterbury today, my plan – which started reasonably well was to go to the cathedral and carry on painting my watercolour in the North Chancel Transept aka the martyrdom.

This really is a spot the difference as after not very long the organ started and the music being played was what I loosely describe as modern classical, the organ sound comes out of the pipes and the loudspeaker system – a wall of sound. When it’s loud people give up on trying to speak in the cathedral and resort to signals in the way they do in an iron foundry. Music isn’t something I understand and without a recognisable tune, I do a runner; which I did.

The visual artwork in the cathedral at the moment is hanging clothes.

I am a painter and my views on installation art are generally left like Mrs Organ Morgan’s dreams; silent. I publish plenty of pictures but talking about it is not my bag.

But this one is different as the clothing once belonged to refugees, mostly left on the Isle of Lesbos and so I concede that the exhibition works and is very much worth seeing, feeling if you can.

Here is the link to the blurb on the Cathedral’s website https://www.canterbury-cathedral.org/whats-on/news/2018/02/15/suspended-cathedral-to-host-unusual-artwork/

The artist can paint and draw too, here is the link to her website http://www.arabelladorman.com/work/

Some photos of this today on my camera card, here is the link http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/218l/id8.htm  

Cathedral entrance is £12.50 which if you gift aid it lasts for a year, alternately if you attend a service you can get in for nothing. The sung services 11am mass and evensong which is around 3 on Sundays have a very good quire. 

Next the rest of the old Thanet pictures 

The only one that said anything on the back was this one from 1909

 This is Grange Road in Ramsgate and I would guess from the hats Edwardian, late 1890s to 1915

These two after and before the shopfronts of York Gate in Broadstairs may interest some

I went out into Canterbury in search of noise cancelling headphones, but failed to get any - is powerful enough the right word?

Phone photos next

Canterbury once a week, for me and many other people who live in Thanet is basically because of Westwood Cross, which is the out of town shopping centre that devastated Margate and Ramsgate town centres.

So as I am essentially forced to go there so that my family can engage in shopping combined with an environment that is visually pleasing, the alternative would be painting pictures of Westwood Cross. I did try this for a bit - but you know how it is.

This really comes down to shops and particularly the chain shops being part of normal human leisure activity for a great many people.

Obviously working in a shop, as I do with the bookshop I am very aware of changes in retail, something that I think is very worrying is that during the last couple of years Canterbury has lost a huge amount of retail space, the two that most impact on me are the St Margaret's Street Waterstones which I think was the largest bookshop in Kent and Chromos which I think was the largest artists material shop in Kent.

For any dedicated followers of the bookshop here in ramsgate here is the link to the pictures of the books we put out Saturday.

On the tower pumper windmill front here is the conclusive proof that this is Margate the Google Earth link to the picture of the house in the photo, which is till there.