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Writing as Creative Practice

May 09

2023

Art Writing, Class Matters, Fairy Tales, Writing as Creative Practice

The Shark Prince

Laurence Figgis, The Shark Prince, 2023, Watercolour and pencil on paper, 21 x 21 cm

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I want to tell you about an acquaintance of mine—old Princeps Squalus.  Do you know him? And his wife, the Princess Ahreal. Do you know them? Have you been to one of their spoken word events? Have you been to their home? Did I tell you about their wonderful [BONE BROTH] [ALMOND MILK] [LANA DEL REY] [MUBI]? (You should see the size of their [MUBI]!  It’s enormous!) Did I tell you about my [SUPERSOFT DRESSING GOWN] [LONGER FLEECE] [LEMONS UNWAXED]? Did I tell you about my [AUTHENTIC SELF]? Did I tell you about the Shark Prince?
Read more →

Nov 01

2022

Art Writing, Autofiction, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, Writing as Creative Practice

“Near and Deep as the Thunder Crashed”: what the lyric does to the biographical in fiction

In a 2008 essay, ‘Why Lyric,’ Jonathan Culler goes as far as to argue that the lyric form is opposed to narrative and should not be confused with it. After lamenting what he regards as a prevailing tendency to treat poems as dramatic monologues, aligned with the novel, Culler goes on to state: 

 

“…it is deadly for poetry to try to compete with narrative—by promoting lyrics as representations of the experience of subjects—on terrain where narrative has obvious advantages” (Culler, 2008: 202).  

 

Culler does not openly state the fact, but we can only assume; it must be equally “deadly” for novels to try to compete with poems. What role, then, does the lyric play in fiction – especially biographical fiction, a genre that would be seem to be directly involved with the lived experience of “subjects”? Read more →

Mar 19

2020

Andrew Kerr, Ekphrasis, Writing as Creative Practice, Writing for Other Artists

Bright Hook (excerpt)

 

[IV]

As for the light,
the light will not help you,
lyric it may be,
on the old wall,
in the nook where
the dust-clouds gather
(moutons the French call them‑
“little sheep”), the hissing
of these sad ciphers
at the end of “mist”
at the end of “dust”
will not help you either, Read more →

Jan 07

2020

Alfred Hitchcock, Art History, CASTRO Projects, Contemporary Visual Art, Jessie Whitely, Narrative Painting, Writing as Creative Practice

Jessie Whitely in Conversation with Laurence Figgis

CASTRO introduces Artist Talks: a nine-event series which offers the chance to hear from young artists through learning and discussing about their practice. The Talks aim to connect the practice of the artists currently on the Studio Program, external professionals and the public.

In conversation with a professional of their choice, each participating artist will discuss themes in their work as well as current issues in contemporary art. As all events in the CASTRO Public Program, the talk will open up to a round table discussion with the public.

Jessie Whiteley is a Glasgow based artist. Her current work is primarily painting, drawing and comics, as well as collaborative projects. Read more →

Jan 22

2018

Anachronism, Art History, Contemporary Visual Art, Fairy Tales, Writing as Creative Practice

Bad Retail: A Romantic Fiction (preamble)

[…] these quilted snatches are viewed as past moments – of clarity, beauty, civilization, and spiritual elation – that must somehow be retained and restitched in a sense, spliced onto the present, […] as if they were alive, as if they were types of intelligent, deathless energy, and this so as to allow the past, with a nourishing insistence, to feed the present.

(Oppenheimer 1998: 84, ‘Goethe and modernism’) Read more →