Fisherman's Museum, Stade and Net Shops
Audio description
Medium
Ink, gouache and acrylic on triangular plywood
Date:
2010
Dimensions
2 x 75cm x 35cm x 40cm
Project/Commissioned by:
Creative Landscapes, English Heritage/Accentuate Residency, Hastings.
Exhibited
Coastal Currents House of Hastings
Dada South/Accentuate Upstream Showcase Brighton Festival.
Sale status
Available
Links to other web pages
www.sallybooth.co.uk/CreativeLandscapes/index.html
Contact link for sale and commission
www.sallybooth.co.uk/contact.html
Full description
These two triangular pieces were made out of the same piece of rectangular plywood, which was sawn diagonally across from end to end.
They were painted at the same time, but can be displayed singly or together with a small gap to form back into a rectangle and mirroring each other (as in the photograph). Alternatively, they can be hung at any angle, making them more jaunty looking. The triangles are a sail shape. They are unequal in length, with one very long side and one very short.
Picture one
This image shows the Fisherman's Museum (a converted church building), a net shop with a white mast in front, the "Half Sovereign" boat house and part of a boat and more net shops. The wooden panel was varnished with button polish and has been drawn with pencil and pen, and painted in indian ink and acrylic, with white biro in parts. Sally wanted to use the triangular form of the wood to reflect the shapes and the materials she saw around her on the Stade.
The buildings and boats are all squashed into and reflect the triangular shape of the picture. The shortest side of the triangle is on the left. It is the vertical side and meets the one right angle at the top. Tucked into this corner fits neatly the shape of the pointed bell tower with its bell at the top of the Fisherman's museum. The building is a rich ochre with a pitched roof which also fits snuggly into the angles of the triangle and is just framed by a contrasting bright blue sky. Further down the building there are two of three pointed church like arched windows, the outlines highlighted in white biro. The third window is hidden by a squat black net shop standing outside. There are a couple of white notices tacked onto the hut but with no detail. A white mast stands in front of the net shop but this seems for display only, as it does not appear to be attached to a boat. Next to the net shop and under the museum window is some sort of fishing buoy with a red triangular top. Next to that is the rounded shape of the tiny black wooden upturned boat called the "Half Sovereign" This little boat has windows and shutters. Behind are a couple more net shops and in the foreground part of the bow of a wooden boat leans insistently into the picture. It is painted in thick stripes of blue, red and white. The boat has the registration RX90 in white lettering.
All these buildings and structures are cropped at the bottom and sit on the long sloping side of the triangle, but the triangle itself is tilted up diagonally making everything look tipped over or listing.
Picture Two This time the longest side of the triangle forms the top of the picture where the sky would be. Crammed underneath this edge, Sally has put in a collection of net shops and an anchor. She swivelled round 180 degrees from where she sat for the last picture to do this one, so the viewer gets the Stade looking in the opposite direction. This image was drawn first with a few lines, leaving a bit more of the warm wood showing through, and then painted in gouache. This gives a more opaque and less bright finish than the first one done with acrylic.
From left to right From the acute angle of the left hand point of the triangle we move along the horizontal line of the bottom. A little way along in the foreground is part of an anchor, painted red and shaped like an arrow head or devil's tail. Behind the anchor is some blue and grey sky and a cluster of black net shops, getting bigger and more angular as they get closer to the viewer. The varnish of the panel is left to show through where the light from the sun hits some of the pitched rooftops. The net shops are leaning sharply, and the largest one nearest to the viewer is actually leaning in two different directions at the top and the bottom. This is Steve Peake's hut which has had to be stabilised in the past so it doesn't fall down. In front of net shops and behind the anchor is a boat, mostly hidden, but with a beam sticking out at an angle from the bow towards the right of the picture.
Sitting on its own at the end, and leaning steeply against the right angled sided edge of the picture is the now familiar sight of Tush Hamilton's fish roll stall. The curves of its upturned boat shape lead the viewer to the top corner of the triangle, and it is painted tar black.
In the foreground the shingle beach is left largely bare, with a gestural wash of grey fitting into the bottom right hand corner. Patches of paint indicating a more opal chalky sky, and a little net shop fill the background.
