Self Portrait c1994
Christmas Dinner
Fotonow have been assigned a project to archive the work of Robert Lenkiewicz. I have volunteered to help with the scanning of negatives of his paintings. Today I worked on this project for two hours in the Digital Scanning Room at the Art College. Dom was there to remind me how to use the scanner. He and Mike are overseeing the project.
Scanning of each negative took six minutes, at that rate we completed twelve in two hours. It is a long process as the negatives each have to be scanned at a high resolution. There are 200 negatives in total so it should take us a while to get them done. But we have until November to complete the task.
Most of the negatives of Robert Lenkiewicz paintings, are works that I have not seen before. I am not a great fan of his work and I find some of the pieces quite disturbing. But I acknowledge his talent and I am interested in the task. It is a privilege to be part of the archiving process of a local artist who is not only known to us here in the South West, but is known in many countries across the world.
Working on West Hoe in the 1980's I used to walk to the Barbican (where Lenkiewicz lived and worked) quite often during my lunch breaks. I saw Lenkowiecz many times. He would have coffee at the cafe on the corner of Southside St where I also frequented. He was a giant of a man with a mass of hair and bushy beard, there was no mistaking that he was an artist although he could have been mistaken for a tramp. His clothes were always scruffy. I never spoke to him though now I wish I had taken the opportunity to do so.
This task and the West End Project, together with the Stewarding I am doing at the Port Elliot Art Festival this month on the Martin Parr Stand, will go towards my Work Experience for the Work Based Learning Module next year. I am hoping that I can complete the two weeks Work Experience that we need for the Module during the Summer Break.
(Images courtesy of The Book Project http://www.lenkiewicz.org/)
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