Catalogue ÂŁ10
SILENT VOICES
the language art of
Martin Wenham
goldmark MMXIII
‘Art is about experience, and that experience will reveal itself only when the viewer silently contemplates the piece’ Doris Salcedo
SILENT VOICES
the language art of Martin Wenham
Written language is all around us in the present-day world. It is a major contributor to our visual environment, yet up to the present it has played only a very marginal role in the development of art in Europe and America. Letters, numerals, words and even sentences have been incorporated into paintings but with few exceptions they have been used in what could be called an applied way, for example to establish a visual context (Picasso and Braque), provide the basis for a pattern or decoration (Demuth and Johns) or to convey a social message rather as a graffito might do (Hockney). In the era of conceptual art, which claimed that the ‘true’ work of art is an idea rather than an object, written language was more used by artists, but none of them explored its visual properties, even though it can bring together the art object and ideas in the most direct way possible. A major reason why lettering and language have played only a minor role
in Western art is because fine artists in training were never taught to design and draw letters in the same way that they were taught observational and figure drawing, and until a century ago there was no continuous cra tradition of fine lettering in Europe and America on which a language-centred art might have been based. In the early twentieth century, the revived cras of handlettering and calligraphy concentrated too exclusively on self-consciously historical forms to contribute to modern art. Even Eric Gill, whose sculpture is now regarded as pioneering and who designed some beautiful and influential type-faces, used his formidable skill in carved lettering strictly as a crasman, and did not explore its potential as an art-form. It is, however, no coincidence that David Jones, the most successful of the very few artists who did attempt to use lettering in a more subtly communicative way, lived and worked
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45. Embraced
with Gill at Ditchling and Capel-y-Ffin. Jones was no lettering crasman, but from his experience with Gill he learned enough about lettering and its visual potential to make what was, in effect, an entirely new art-form out of it. He went further than any other twentieth-century Western artist in making written language into a visual art, and the best of his work in this field suggests that if such an art is to succeed at anything more than a superficially decorative level, there are two requirements. First, the words must have a deeper significance than is apparent on a first reading, and which can lead to multiple meanings and interpretations. Secondly, the shapes of the letters combined into words, together with the spacing and layout, must be capable of opening the door to these deeper meanings for a viewer who is prepared to spend time and effort in questioning the work visually and thinking about what might be learned from it. To do this, the work may have
any combination of a wide range of properties. It may please, amuse, intrigue, puzzle, challenge and even exasperate, but in one way or another it has to engage the viewer in ways that a plain, legible and neutral text cannot do. e point of language art, as I see it, is to bring together and fulfil two objectives which until very recently have been viewed, in Western culture at least, as entirely separate: visual exploration and verbal meaning. is requires the artist to use the shapes of letters, the spaces between them and other visual elements such as form, colour and texture in a visual and tactile conversation to create an object which in turn can be explored by the viewer. At the same time, if the work is to be fully successful, it must communicate the deeper meanings which the artist has found in the words used. In this way, lettering art at its most effective is literally a kind of
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12. Second Coming
poetry, but one which is visual as well as verbal. At a superficial level it is usually obvious what the words mean, unless they are in an unfamiliar language. Language art gives the artist and the viewer the opportunity to investigate what else they might mean, for each of them personally. e work of the viewer is to find out for her or himself, and the work of the artist is to enable this process of discovery to be pursued. To achieve this, as David Jones’ work clearly shows, the overall composition has to be based on a synthesis of opposing qualities (expected and unexpected, unity and diversity, tension and repose), which is characteristic of effective art in any medium. To the language artist, language and its written forms are the primary subject of her or his art just as, for other artists, landscapes, flowers or human faces and figures might be. is is not as
unfamiliar and exotic as it may sound: it is simply an extension of the kind of graphic communication found in everyday signage and in some modern novels and poetry. For example, large capital letters ‘sound’ much more loudly in the mind than small lower-case ones: PLEASE SIT DOWN is much ‘louder’ and more peremptory than Please sit down is points to a more subtle but still familiar variation in written language: words in upper-case (’capital’) letters sound in the mind as if they were announcing or giving orders, whereas lower-case (‘small’) letters are more conversational. Quite oen one needs the visual equivalent of a tone of voice somewhere between the two, and this can readily be achieved with handdrawn lettering by using both kinds of letter in each word.
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18. Chainsawn 1
Beyond these familiar beginnings, however, designing lettering for more subtle communication becomes much more varied and complex. Do the words suggest movement, for example, and if so, of what kind? Are there rhythms in the words (read them aloud to find out), which might need to be conveyed visually? e possibilities are endless, and so are the games that lettering artists can play to solve the problems of meaning and communication which the words present. However much some artists and art educators dislike being reminded of the fact, all art of lasting significance has its roots in knowledge and cra: knowledge of the visual language used to create images and objects, and the ability to use materials effectively in order to achieve one’s aims. One progresses from cra to art when one moves from a skilled but largely familiar process whose end-point is
planned before the work begins, toward a more creative, open-ended and exploratory process whose outcome at the start is at least partly unknown and may be entirely unexpected. Over forty years ago I carved my first letters in wood, and most of my work is still in that medium, though I also use a variety of others. What began as straightforward crasmanship has gradually become more varied, more adventurous and much more risky. e majority of my work is done on quite a small, domestic scale, using scrap or found materials from beaches, woodyards or the workshops of other makers. In most cases the workpiece is not simply raw material on which I impose a design, but is itself a major contributor to the design process, quite oen suggesting the text as well. Sometimes wood is kept for years until the right words arrive; at other times the situation is reversed and the words have to wait for a piece of wood which
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35. Blessed Rhyme
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23. The Sea,The Sea
performance, an act of communication. is means that people with whom the artist can communicate are an essential and not merely an incidental part of the artistic process. In Western art a myth has grown up that art is practised by, and is somehow expressive of, isolated individuals. At a superficial level this is true, but at a deeper level art is produced by, and for, communities. If you need me to make the artwork, I need you to look at it and, hopefully, to comment on it, enjoy it, learn from it and help me to learn from it.
can enable them and their meaning to be communicated effectively. Letters are, in terms of visual language, simply shapes we read, and when designing a new piece of work both they and the spaces between them can be freely manipulated, in experiments which are at times much like the exploratory play of young children. I both design new alphabets and use familiar ones in experimental ways, oen using colour as well to communicate a deeper sense of what the words might mean, but it is the mark of a successful outcome when viewers find meanings in a piece of work very different from what I had in mind when I designed and made it. is points to another important aspect of art in general and mine in particular. Even though I work alone from day to day, as most artists do, I cannot work in isolation. All art, and language art more than most, is in some measure a
Considered as an activity, all significant art is a process of exploration which aims at discovery. As Frank Auerbach remarked, to do a painting that one knows how to do is not art. What artists investigate are the parts of the visual world, both real and imaginary, which interest them most. For many, this means that their work is centred on material things such as people or landscapes, whereas my work is centred
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37. Object and Image
on ideas, the words which express them and the shapes, spaces, colours and forms by which these can be communicated. Everything I do is a record, but it is the record of an encounter with language, thoughts and materials. It is less a product and more an account of an investigation; the story
of a journey, rather than the description of an arrival. My artworks are not destinations: they are, rather, signposts I leave behind for others to follow, hopefully with a sharing of my experience in making them.
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Martin Wenham 2013
41. Summer Beach
7. Musik 1 Buy Online >> [ 13 ]
26. Arise 1
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43. No Decay 2
CATALOGUE 1. Wordsword - Eartheart
of Whitwick, Leicestershire cut down a mature rowan tree in his garden. Knowing how rare the wood is, Tony acquired it, cut it exactly through the middle and ‘bookmatched’ the two central boards to make this workpiece for me. e words are a latin palindrome, probably mediaeval, which some people think describes the behaviour of moths: ‘We go round and round in the night and we are consumed by fire’.
(1995) 122.5 x 62 cm
John Blunt, the owner of Staunton Harold Estate in Leicestershire commissioned me to carve an inscription for one of his tenant farmers onto a piece of oak from the Estate saw mill. Half of the wood was used for the inscription and this is the other half. It is known as a butt plank - from the bottom of the trunk. e words are the same as those used later on Earthwords (see 29 below).
2. milagro de la Primavera
(Miracle of Spring) (2006) 87 x 113 cm
e wood is a branch of wych-elm, cut from a dead tree whose roots had collapsed into the Menai Strait. Because the piece is fixed to its base and the branches are rather slender, I had to design an alphabet with no ascenders and descenders so that the words could be read fairly easily. I first came across this quotation in a scientific book, Elm by R.H. Richens. e words are from the poem A un olmo seco (To a dry elmtree) by Antonio Machado. An approximate translation would be: ‘My heart expects also, towards the life and towards the light, another miracle of spring’.
3. Palindrome (2006) 117 x 51 cm
e neighbour of my colleague Tony Walker
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When I first started to play with this design I thought it would be an exercise in symmetry, but it’s quite otherwise: reversing the order of the letters means changing the spacing, so that almost nothing is symmetrical! e letters are painted with hand-ground paint using a natural earth pigment from the top edge of Cwm Bochlwyd, near Ogwen, Gwynedd.
4. Dan y Celynnen
(Under the Holly-Tree) (2007) 80 x 9.5 cm
Holly wood le on the woodland floor in Menai Woods, Bangor aer scrub-clearance, until the bark had decayed just enough to be peeled off, but the wood had not begun to rot. e words are from an englyn (a four-line Welsh verse in strict metrical and alliterative form) by T. Llew Jones. Translation: ‘Peaceful and without anger be your dwelling, under the happy green holly’. e stressed vowels are emphasised by red colouring, and the piece is made so that it can be hung open to show the
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5. After the Wreck
words, or closed to show the beautiful markings le by the decaying bark.
mostly commercial artists’ acrylics, with gold and palladium leaf. e words are by Beethoven: ‘Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy’.
5. After the Wreck (2008) 11 x 136 cm
is piece is from a wrecked boat that I found on a beach. e words are the motto of the town of Sandwich in Kent.
6. fallacy of nostalgia (2008) 50 x 29 cm
is is one of three works painted on partlydecayed plywood found on the shore of the Menai Strait. e wood was dried, wirebrushed and then stabilized by treating it with diluted waterproof wood-glue, which soaked into the surface, hardening it. Apart from drawn black lines and white, all the colours used are hand-ground natural pigments from earths, rocks and shells. e words are as near to a joke as I ever get in my work, but seemed to me to have a deeper significance than mere wry humour. ey are spoken by a character in the novel ird Wish by Robert Fulghum, but also appear in other authors’ work, so that I cannot be sure of their origin.
7. Musik 1
(2008) 45 x 27 cm
e wood is from the same source as Fallacy of Nostalgia (see above), but the colours are
8. Musik 2
(2008) 40 x 26 cm
Another version of Beethoven’s observation, perhaps a little more ‘classical’ in feeling, painted in acrylic with gold and palladium leaf on fibreboard (mdf).
9. Here, Now, Always (2008) 15 x 131 cm
Wood from an ash sapling felled beside a disused railway line at Treborth, Bangor during scrub clearance. e stem was split down the middle, de-barked and the round side split away in sections to give a rough board, whose contours follow the grain and thus the growth of the tree. e words are from the last part of Little Gidding by T.S.Eliot. I had long wanted to superimpose a band of small letters on much larger ones, and this wood and words together offered an ideal opportunity to do so. e design was surprisingly difficult to develop, requiring the ribbon of small letters to be moved up and down, and placed very precisely, to preserve the legibility of the larger ones. I hope the design also communicates something of the
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14. A Work for Poets
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13. Mensaje de la Playa
11. Gweithio
apparent paradox in Eliot’s vision of the ultimate goal of human endeavour.
(Working) (2008) 12.5 x 80 cm
10. Magnificat (2008) 213 x 22 cm
e wood is a pine (or spruce) board, found on the shore of the Menai Strait, complete with bent nails. e design and painting are simply a celebration of Mary’s reply to the Angel of the Annunciation, usually translated as ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord’. I wanted
When I was teaching letter-carving at West Dean College near Chichester, students would sometimes ask, referring to the rectangular boards on which they were learning to carve, ‘What can we do with these boring pieces of wood?’ is is one answer: paint the wood with acrylic paint in any way you like, draw the letters on and carve into the pale wood beneath.
11. Gweithio
‘Magnificat’ to be the visual equivalent of a triumphant shout, while ‘anima mea Dominum’ is cooler and quieter. ere is an extra little text on the edge, from the mediaeval Latin Hymn Crux Fidelis, which could be translated as ‘None of such a kind does the forest bring forth. Put forth leaves, flower, sprout!’
is is a lighthearted treatment of a line from a very serious poem, Pa beth yw dyn? (What is man?) by Waldo Williams. In the poem, it answers the question, ‘What is it to work?’ and translated reads: ‘making a song of the wood and the wheat’.
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33. Dropping Slow (Dawn Sky)
12. Second Coming (2008) 107 x 42 cm
My son and I found this wood, completely waterlogged and very heavy, on the beach at Dinas Dinlle, inshore of the treacherous Caernarfon Bar, where many ships have been wrecked. It had been washed ashore in a storm, but could not float. It is pine, from a very large tree and free from knots, which means that it is almost certainly very old. e way in which it had been fractured and sawn off at its base led us to believe that it was part of a ship’s mast. It appears likely that it was cut off hastily, possibly to relieve the hull from the drag of wrecked rigging, sank to the sea-bed and came ashore a long time later. Aer drying it out and cleaning the inner face, I designed an inscription based on some beautiful brush-lettering by Susan Leiper, the
Edinburgh calligrapher. When it was finished and painted, I hated it! It was put outside in the garden for two years, and then the colour washes were added to the weathered surface. It worked! But keep it indoors from now on. e words are the final lines from East Coker by T.S.Eliot. ey, the title and the history of the wood explain themselves, I think.
13. Mensaje de la Playa
(Message from the Beach) (2008) 20 x 90 cm
Part of a small wrecked clinker-built boat washed up on the beach near Abermenai Point, Anglesey, with its copper nails cleaned and the wood painted with acrylic. e words are from Proverbios y Catares VI (Proverbs and song-verse) by Antonio Machado. Translated, they read: ‘Wayfarer, there is no road; only foam-trails in the sea’.
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15. The Gift of You
14. A Work for Poets
(2008) 37 x 27 cm
I found these three oak wedges cast up on Criccieth beach, roped together. Having removed the frayed plastic rope and some rusty staples, they were le to dry out for a year or two. en on the ferry to Stromness on Orkney, I saw these words etched on a glass panel, and spent the rest of the holiday reading George Mackay Brown’s poetry in his native landscape. Playing with the words (from the poem A work for Poets), I realized that the three phrases can be read in any order, giving changes in emphasis and rhythm, so the three wedges were a natural place for them. But I still wonder what the wedges were originally used for...
15. The Gift of You (2009) 41 x 24 cm
At West Dean College near Chichester, where I used to teach, they keep a big log-fire in the central hall during the winter, and a large pile of scrap timber from the estate, split into logs, to feed it. Sometimes the logs were far too interesting to allow them to be burnt so I purloined them, with the amused connivance of the security men, who saw the whole thing on CCTV. is piece of beech is one of them. e words are from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, and settled nicely on the three faces which could be carved. e fourth, convex
face was soer. Aer shaping it was painted with a wash of burnt umber, then rubbed back to reveal the pattern of the wood and the texture le by the shaping-tool.
16. Blue Valentine (2009) 40 x 30 cm
e words are a deliberate mis-quotation from the Dies Irae, a mediaeval latin hymn which was part of the solemn Requiem Mass. ‘Amor’ (love) has been substituted for ‘labor’ (travail) so that, translated, the sentence reads ‘So great a love must not be in vain’. e two active elements in the composition, the triangles, speed towards each other into the circle of the O; but they don’t meet. Hence the predominant colour is blue. Can they meet? Is lack of fulfilment inevitable? at depends on people, not paintings. Perhaps this is a caution, but see Ver, below.
17. Ver
(Spring) (2009) 40 x 36 cm
is uses exactly the same words and design as Blue Valentine (see above), but carved into antique oak, which was a gi from a furniture restorer. is time, however, the colours are those of spring leaves and flowers. Whatever the great love is which produces the spring each year, it must not be in vain. Again, that depends on us and how we treat the Earth.
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24. Verbum Tuum 5
18. Chainsawn 1
(2009) 46 x 14 cm
is and Chainsawn 2 (see below) are two parts of a beech board which I bought very cheaply, more or less as scrap, at a forestry fair at Westonbirt Arboretum. Using acrylic washes and then rubbing back with fine abrasives the texture and pattern le by chainsaw and bandsaw are made much more conspicuous; an example of anonymous, inadvertent art. e words are from e Land by V.Sackville-West.
19. Chainsawn 2 (2009) 14 x 85 cm
is is the larger part of the board used in Chainsawn 1 (see above). e words are from Schoepferische Konfession (Creative Confession) by Paul Klee. Translated, they read; ‘Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible’. e process of using white, colour washes and rubbing back does exactly what Klee says: it makes visible the varied and rhythmic cuts of the chainsaw. e letters, cut into the wood beneath, were lightly oiled but otherwise uncoloured.
20. All the Harvest that I Reap’d (2009) 57 x 37 cm
Using multi-layered washes and resist, it is possible to build up very complex surface textures. is piece began as a rectangle of
weathered plywood from Criccieth beach, so it had a strong surface texture to begin with. Aer building up a pattern of deeper blues and greens, the letters were drawn as patterns of masking fluid with a pen, before adding more layers of pale blues, white brush-strokes and spatters: a process of progressive improvisation on the visual idea of water and wind. e words are from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, translated by Edward Fitzgerald. e poet tells of his attempts to sow the seeds of wisdom with the philosophers: And this was all the harvest that I reap’d: ‘I came like water, and like wind I go.’ Hence, the title which I chose.
21. I Came Like Water (2009) 24 x 50 cm
is is made up of two small pieces of slightly figured sycamore, joined (‘book-matched’) and using the word ‘water’ to emphasize their symmetry. Carving italic on wood is always something of a challenge, and this piece was done just for the fun of it. Words and title are as in All the harvest… (see above).
22. In Hoc Signo (In This Sign) (2009) 29 x 24 cm
is was a piece of pure experimentation, using layers of plaster filler mixed with dilute acrylic glue on fibreboard (mdf), with the aim
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of making the surface look like old stone. A letter P (greek rho), cut from thin card, was put into the wet surface and then pulled off when this was half dry. e letter X (greek chi) was carved when the plaster was hard. Colour and texture were developed using acrylic washes and rubbing back wet with very fine waterproof abrasive. e chi-rho is an abbreviation for the greek Christos and is a very early Christian symbol. In 312CE, the emperor Constantine is said to have seen a vision of it in the sky before the battle of the Milvian Bridge, with the message, originally in Greek, ‘In hoc signo vinces: In this sign, you conquer’- hence the title.
23. The Sea, The Sea (2009) 56 x 13 cm
is piece of oak was another brand saved from the burning at West Dean College (see 15 e Gi of You, above). Its form suggested a wave, and the use of a few words from near the end of East Coker by T.S.Eliot.
24. Verbum Tuum 5 (2009) 18 x 79 cm
A friend asked me to carve these words for her: they are from Psalm 118, v.105 in the Vulgate (119 in the AV). e whole sentence reads ‘Lucerna pedibus meis verbum tuum: A lantern to my feet (is) your word’. e original commission led to seven versions in differing
designs and media, of which this is the fourth. e letter design is a further development of the alphabet used in e Gi of You (see 15 above). e wood was intended to be a corner-brace for a timber-framed building, but it was cut too green and warped as it seasoned, so it was given to me. It grew in Bethesda, Gwynedd and is dark, hard, tough, thoroughly badtempered and perhaps the finest piece of oak I have ever carved (look at the sharpness of the edges and junctions).
25. Salad Bowl (2009) 11 x 26 cm
is bowl is an example of the way in which my work isn’t made by me alone, but by communities and networks of friends and colleagues. One of my lettering students at West Dean, Ian Ledingham, introduced me to the woodturning by a friend of his, David Gray, of St. Madoes in Perthshire. David turned some bowls for me to work on, of which this is one, made from spalted beech; that is, beech stained but not significantly decayed by fungi. At about the same time another friend, Helen Wilcox, was publishing her superb scholarly edition of the English poems of George Herbert. is prompted me to re-read a lot of Herbert’s poetry, including Love, the third poem with this title in Herbert’s collection e Temple. e words
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used here are the penultimate line of what is thought by some critics to be ‘one of the most beautiful lyrics in the English language’. us do things, words and people come together.
26. Arise 1
(2010) 38 x 28 cm
In trying to find out what makes letters and words recognizable, I have from time to time experimented with letters in which parts have been omitted, and others which have been fragmented in various ways. is is the first of a series of works in which I used fragmented italic and words from the Song of Songs (ch.2 v.10), which translated read: ‘Arise, my love; arise and come’. e idea came from the tenor aria Nigra Sum from Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers. e wood was given to me by a furniture maker who had been experimenting with steam-bent ash. ese were some of his rejects, cut into smaller pieces. I liked the visual pun of Arise! coupled with shapes which look rather like ski-jump ramps. is two-piece work has the advantage that one can play with putting the pieces in different spatial relationships to each other.
27. Arise 2
(2010) 41 x 42 cm
is uses the same words and basic alphabet as Arise 1 (see above), though the whole
inscription was re-drawn. e wood is apple; an offcut with a large knot in it, which is also spalted (stained but not decayed by fungi, long dead). It is an example of the interest which can arise when one uses wood which others have discarded. Re-designing the lettering to fit round the large knot was a very interesting exercise, and the touches of red and grey were added to emphasize the richness of colour in the wood itself.
28. Arise 3
(2010) 41 x 29 cm
Another version of the same basic lettering and words as Arise 1 and 2, though again re-designed, in watercolour on Bockingford paper.
29. Earthwords (2010) 23 x 11 cm
ere are a few words in English which have a very odd property. If the last letter is removed to the beginning of the word, a new word is
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2. Milagro de la Primavera
formed and the vowel sound changes. us, ‘words’ becomes ’sword’ and ‘earth’ becomes ‘heart’, and both can be read if the words are run together, thus: wordswordswords and earthearthearth. In this piece, each word is repeated running round a cylinder which can stand on either end, giving a multiplicity of different, and sometimes puzzling, viewpoints. e alphabet is basically a formal italic, but the letters are modified, with some overlapping. Where an overlap occurs, the superimposed parts are omitted, giving unexpected gaps, shapes and points of contact. e wood is holly. A friend turned it on his lathe, hoping to make a goblet from it, but it cracked a little so he gave it to me.
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30. Falling Leaves (2010) 49 x 31 cm
is is another workshop offcut; oak stained a little by long-dead fungi. e words are a translation of a chinese aphorism, used as a book title by Adeline Yen Mah. Combined with the shape which was le when the unsound wood had been cut away, they gave me the opportunity to play with unconventional letter arrangements.
31. Mutation 2 (2010) 123 x 24 cm
Caernarfon. e words are my favourite halfline from my mother’s favourite poem, e Lake Isle of Innisfree by W.B.Yeats. I also carved these words on her headstone. e alphabet is yet another development of italic with letters overlapping (see 29 Earthwords, above). In this case, however, all the linecrossings and overlaps have been le in and developed as faceted shapes, making this one of the most complex pieces of carving I have ever done and, to date, the only one of its kind!
33. Dropping slow
I found this beautifully shaped and weathered piece of oak thrust into a barbed-wire fence in Galloway. It appears to be an offcut from a sawmill. It suggested revisiting a quotation I used in 1990, from a poem, Mutation, by Guillaume Apollinaire, which in translation reads: ‘and everything has changed so much in me: everything except my love’. Designing on this narrow piece of wood gave lots of opportunity for making things change: the orientation of words and the ways letters join, allowing them to fit onto the wood, different forms of letter ‘a’ just for fun, and surface texture and colour to emphasize the key word ‘tout’ (everything).
Using the same basic design as Dropping Slow 5 (see above), this watercolour was developed by dividing up the background, using a method I adapted from M.C.Escher’s work over 20 years ago. Edges and corners of letters are projected as lines across the background which is thus divided into colour-fields. ese are neither strictly patterned nor random, but have a rhythmic relationship to the lettering which gives coherence to the whole composition. Colours were used to represent dawn over the mountains which I can see every day when the sky is clear.
32. Dropping slow 5
34. The Wood and the Trees
e wood is sycamore, from a site clearance in
e wood is small half-logs of ash, given to
(2010) 41 x 19 cm
(Dawn Sky) (2010) 41 x 29 cm
(2011) 35 x 66 cm
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25. Salad Bowl
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34. The Wood and the Trees
me by friends in Pembrokeshire, who have a young ash-wood they are thinning, and a very efficient log-splitting machine. e words are from the poem Same Psalm by Philip Gross. I first heard them read by the poet and he kindly gave me permission to use them. e design reflects the way in which we oen come to an understanding: by looking at things from a particular viewpoint. Shi your viewpoint and the message falls apart or is indecipherable. It also emphasizes the point that we can understand the general only by first appreciating the particular.
35. Blessed Rhyme (2011) 45 x 28 cm
is beautifully-figured piece of oak is yet another workshop offcut. When the damaged wood had been cut away this intriguing shape emerged which seemed to want to balance, apparently precariously. e words are from the poem When you are old, by George Mackay Brown, which speaks of the vulnerability of love and its precarious nature.
36. Chalice
the words, running vertically, had formed themselves into a cup shape, and from cup to chalice was a simple transition.
37. Object and Image (2011) 23 x 26 cm
is uses the same words and letter-shapes, re-drawn, as Chalice (see 36 above). e almost triangular shape of the words allowed them to fit onto a piece of oak le over from a previous commission, but about the same time I had been looking again at the paintings of René Magritte. In his Portrait of Mr. Edward James seen from the back, the image in the mirror is exactly the same as what is seen in front of it (i.e. the back of the sitter’s head). is gave me the idea of realizing the same paradox, but in reality rather than as an imaginary image. is was done by carving the same inscription on both sides, but in reverse on the back, and standing the workpiece in front of a mirror. It oen takes viewers a minute or two to realize that what they are seeing is, somehow, rather odd…
38. The Seafarer (2011) 20 x 84 cm
(2011) 46 x 36 cm
Acrylic on fibreboard (mdf). is is another exploration of Surge, amica mea (see 26 Arise 1, above), this time taking the letters to pieces and moving these apart a little. During experimental drawings, it occurred to me that
e wood is sycamore, from a small tree which had to be felled in a friend’s garden on Anglesey. I have long been fascinated by Old English (‘Anglo-Saxon’) poetry. When I had shaped this wood with a power tool, it looked
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9. Here, Now, Always
rather like the surface of the sea. At the same time, I had also been trying to arrive at a satisfactory translation of these famous lines from e Seafarer (ll. 58-60a), so bringing the two together was an obvious step. e surface texture was developed with acrylic washes and rubbing back, then letters were carved into the very pale wood beneath.
39. Stand Still (2011) 24 x 109 cm
During a visit to Portmeirion with my wife and daughter when the tide was out, I spotted an interesting form lying part-buried on the sand-flats in front of the hotel. Despite their protests (they should know me by now), I walked across and retrieved this oak branch which had come down the river. e words are from Lost, a North American elder story, rendered into English verse by David Wagoner. I wanted to give the illusion that, walking in a forest, one had come across a fallen branch, magically inscribed with a message.
40. The Wild Swans (2011) 17.5 x 66 cm
e wood is sycamore, from the same source as The Seafarer (see 38 above). When seasoned it suggested a wing, and with a little trimming the present shape was arrived at. e surface was cut with gouges to suggest
feathers and the whole surface was painted white, through which the letters were cut. e words are from The Wild Swans at Coole by W.B.Yeats, which I consider to be one of the great lyrical poems of the twentieth century. To my ear, these lines can be read only in an even, measured voice, so I used a slightly modernized version of classical italic, with no attempt at visual emphasis or interpretation.
41. Summer Beach (2012) 104 x 37 cm
is work, like so much of what I do, was born out of gis and borrowings. e wood, with its strong chainsaw cuts, was a gi from my colleague Gary Breeze. e textures and ridges immediately suggested waves breaking in shallow water and reminded me of these words, which I had seen in the home of my friend Sally Pudney, the landscape painter, who kindly told me the source, the poem Summer Beach by Frances Cornford. e technique used here was much the same as in Chainsawn 2 (see 19 above): white followed by colour washes rubbed back, with the letters cut through into the natural colour of the wood beneath. e design attempts to bring out the almost incantatory nature of the lines, by isolating and so emphasizing the repeated word ‘this’.
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42. Autobiography: Cretaceous to Cambrian
(2012) 30 x 40 cm
is wood is another of Gary Breeze’s gis (see Summer Beach, above), and the techniques used on it are exactly the same. e words are attributed to Picasso: ‘I do not seek: I find’. e piece is autobiographical in two ways. e words sum up what I feel I’ve been doing all my life, and the colours hint at where I’ve been doing it. I grew up by the cretaceous chalk cliffs of the English Channel in Sussex and now live in Gwynedd, within easy reach of the much more ancient but equally beautiful cambrian rocks at Portmeirion.
43. No Decay 2 (2012) 32 x 36 cm
is small piece of plywood, much of it eaten away by small marine worms, was found on the beach at Dinas Dinlle.. It was so ‘decayed’ that even aer stabilizing and hardening with dilute waterproof wood glue, Donne’s famous line (from The Anniversarie) seemed to be the only appropriate words to paint on it.
44. Metaphor and Reality (2013)
I have waited a long time to use this quotation which is from A Pastoral Dialogue between Alexis and Strephon by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. is was partly because I could not
39. Stand Still
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16. Blue Valentine
find its source, but also because I didn’t have a suitable piece of wood, with its bark, on which to carve it. Some years ago I rashly planted a wild plum sapling in my garden, which by 2011 had outgrown its welcome and had to be cut down. e main stem was just wide enough to be useful, and split with a beautiful clean spiral. When beginning to design the lettering, I began to imagine very different tones of voice for the two halves of the sentence. e first, describing in metaphor how the speaker thinks about love, is cool and rational; an ideal candidate for classical italic. e second reveals the reality of what love is doing to him: he is a bit off-balance, speaks much more loudly and more emotionally, with the words tumbling about. e hexagonal bases mean that the two pieces can be placed in a large number of different positions in relation to one another.
45. Embraced (2013) 39 x 21 cm
As is said to happen with buses, pieces of wood suitable for particular quotes fail to
appear for years, then two come along at once. No sooner had I begun work on Metaphor and Reality (see above) than I found another candidate for the same words, lurking in my wood-store. is is another, and the last, log from the West Dean wood-pile (see 15 e Gi of You, above). It is beech, and lent itself to a more lighthearted version of the quotation, centred on the word ‘embraced’, with a rather blowsy B and other letters clinging to each other. All is not amusing, however. Love, as Rochester knew only too well, brings pain as well as joy. On the back, the bark has been flicked with the chainsaw and the wound is red and raw. Just a little reminder, hidden away. e letters were painted with hand-ground paint made with natural earth pigments from the Menai shore and the north-east side of Snowdon.
46. The Tenth Beatitude (2013) 39 x 21 cm
I first saw a version of this quotation on a friend’s tee-shirt and tracked it to its source: Groucho Marx! A few weeks later, on a pile of debris where logs had been cut up, I found this nicely split piece of wood, which I think is poplar. Rather unusually for me, I used uppercase letters throughout, but this is an ANNOUNCEMENT, so they are needed. It’s a jokey text, but like most of Groucho’s sayings,
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46. The Tenth Beatitude
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31. Mutation 2
merits serious consideration. e way to significant advancement in any field oen looks crazy and is rarely widely-accepted at first: new ideas and practices usually run counter to a lot of vested interests. According to Matthew’s gospel, we were given nine beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount: I like to think this may be one he forgot, hence the title. e letters are painted with hand-ground paint, made with a natural earth pigment from the top edge of Cwm Bochlwyd, near Ogwen.
47. Recycled
(2013) 60 x 39 cm
is work is literally made of thrown-out materials. e back panel is made of a weathered sowood board le over from fence repair, and the plywood mounted on it is driwood, very much soened by its time in the sea. Neither was really suitable for carving, so the letters are a bit ragged in places, but together they seemed to have something to say about our throwaway culture: we could use and re-use a great deal more materials than we do at present. is in turn suggested the words, which I’ve used several times before in different contexts. ey are the final words of East Coker by T.S.Eliot.
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6. Fallacy of Nostalgia
MARTIN WENHAM 1941 1941-47 1947
Born at Andover, Hampshire Lived at Larkhill, Salisbury, Wiltshire Moved to Newhaven, Sussex; early interest in lettering through playing with my father’s poster pens. Mid 1950s Met the author and illustrator C. Walter Hodges, who contributed crucially to my visual education, teaching me how to look at art and starting my understanding of visual language. At school, specialized in biology (art wasn’t a mainstream subject). 1959-62 University College of North Wales, Bangor, reading botany and forestry, which included a large amount of very accurate observational drawing. 1962-63 Land Use Survey, mapping mountain plant communities in mid-Wales. is was highly visual as well as scientifically technical, as it involved observing complex shapes and patterns on 3dimensional land surfaces and translating them onto 2-dimensional maps, as well as very fine discrimination of texture and colour in the landscape. 1963-66 Research student at Aberdeen University, studying the development of 3-dimensional forms in growing woodcells; again a very visual activity. Renewed interest in lettering and contact with professional calligraphers
1966-67
1967-89
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Research fellowship at Forest Products Research Laboratory, Princes Risborough. Learned the elements of letter-cutting in wood from Harry Spring, a professional carver who had been made redundant from the furniture industry. Began carving simple inscriptions, much influenced by Eric Gill’s work. Teaching in comprehensive, primary and special schools in Leicestershire, at the same time doing increasing amounts of letter-carving and developing it as a medium of expression and communication. Began to design and carve my own alphabets, and increasingly, to use scrap, discarded and found wood as an integral part of my designs.
44. Metaphor and Reality
1984
Exhibited at a group exhibition in London for the first time; invited to demonstrate at Art in Action, Waterperry, which continued annually until 1995. 1992-2011 Taught letter-carving in wood and lettering in watercolour at West Dean College, Chichester. 1989-98 Lecturer in primary education at the University of Leicester, specializing in science and art; continued lettering work in a wide range of media, participating in many group exhibitions. 1994 Participated in e Woodcarver’s Cra, an exhibition at the Cras Council, London; work selected and purchased for the Cras Council’s permanent collection. 1996 Published Understanding Primary Science, a handbook for teachers and parents. 1998 Published 200 Science Activities, a handbook for teachers; retired from the
University of Leicester on health grounds. 2001 First solo exhibition, Language Visible, at Goldmark Gallery; moved to Bangor, Gwynedd. 2001- 2011 Participating in many group exhibitions in North Wales, including the Royal Cambrian Academy, Conwy. 2002 Designed and carved the Roll of Vicars in the Second Millennium for Bosham Parish Church; published Understanding Art, a guide to visual language for teachers and parents. (e title was not my choice). 2006 Solo exhibition at MOMA Wales, Machynlleth. 2007 Solo exhibition at Canolfan y Plase, Bala. 2008 Designed and carved war memorial for the chapel of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. 2011 Two-person exhibition (with the printmaker Eirian Llwyd) at Denbigh Library.
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inside front cover:
42. Autobiography: Cretaceous to Cambrian back cover:
30. Falling Leaves
Catalogue to accompany an exhibition at Goldmark Gallery in September 2013 goldmark Uppingham, Rutland, LE15 9SQ 01572 821424 Text: Š Martin Wenham 2013 Photographs: Š Jay Goldmark Design: Porter/Goldmark ISBN 978-1-909167-05-6 goldmarkart.com
14 Orange Street, Uppingham, Rutland, le15 9sq goldmarkart.com