THE SELF-ISOLATION RESIDENCY 25th September 2020: DAY 180

'The Constant Library',  Volume XI:
"Around the World in 80 Treasures." Dan Cruickshank.'

'The Constant Library',  Volume XI:
"Around the World in 80 Treasures ," Dan Cruickshank.'

"The idea for 'The Constant Library' follows on from a recent conversation considering which books had, and continue to have, the greatest affect my life in a variety of different ways. These are the books I can't live without and whenever possible I have a copy of with me wherever I travel in the world; my 'Constant Library."

As an artist, and particularly as an art tutor and lecturer, I have found myself over the years constantly telling students not to look at works of art in books, or in the 21st Century on the internet; which may seen a somewhat strange thing to say baring in mind that this post is about books.However, viewing a reproduced image, in whatever form, is never a substitute for seeing the actual 'object' itself; be that object a painting, a sculpture or a piece of architecture. There are no photographs that will truly allow you to understand how a Van Gogh brushstroke works, what the space inside Anish Kapoor's Ishi's Light in like or how feels to watch the sky through the roof of the British Museum's Great Court. All of these things have to be experienced in person and to do so we must travel.

When I was young I had very little opportunity to travel, but as my interest in art and culture grew so did my passion to experience the world first hand. And if I had ever needed to be convinced about the importance of traveling to experience an object Dan Cruickshank's enthusiastic and passionate writing in this book would have convinced me. For some the book could be seen as a 'list of 80 things to see before you die', but it is so much more. It's one man's "personal" journey to experience the world through these 80 objects. If I were to set out with a list of 80 objects to see I doubt that many of them would be the same as Cruickshank's 80,  but I would like to think that I would at least share the same joy of discovery as him.