Saturday, October 24, 2009

Peter Schmidt journal and sketchbooks...

. Peter Schmidt
. Patrick Hourihan
. Watford School of Art
When in London a few years ago, Esme, Peter's wife loaned me a journal and several of his sketchbooks. At the time, they had more information than I could process, due to the fact that I was very unfamiliar with his body of work(there were only about 40 images in our archive at that point). After shelving them for some time, I had another look with a more informed overview. I've found them to be a rich valley beyond the mountains. The materials now have a relationship with the paintings and processes he used to get to the point of actually sitting down and working. The journal has a section on Peter's personal finances(as he was on sabbatical from Watford, his only income was from selling his work, it was a tough time for him, this section will remain obscured), a section devoted to his poetry, and a section of sketches for paintings intended for future realization(the pages are 17cm x 9.5cm). The sketchbooks explore Peter's interest in the "flip book" concept, of which there is now a video of his only published work in this medium, "Flikker Book 7", in the website's Publications section. Each "flip book" comprises of ever evolving drawings on the subject at hand. I'm thinking about an appropriate way of presenting these.
.
Over the next few weeks, I'll post to this blog(and eventually to PeterSchmidtWeb), the images of his handwritten and typed poetry(much of which became part of his and Patrick Hourihan's book, "a secret in stone"), and the sketches, pointing out where evident their connections to paintings. The journal was created from February through June or July of 1979, and the sketchbooks are circa 1975.
.
Many thanks to Esme for entrusting these materials to me.
.
.
.

No comments: