Water Talisman.
We visited Tamsin Cunningham’s beautiful Art Studio on the west coast of Scotland as part of ArtMap Argyll’s open studios, and I was immediately transfixed by her miniature Water Talisman prints. For Tamsin they are mediations on water, it’s flow, drift, float, current, storm, torrent, wave and ripple, and are of a size that allows you to carry them with you, portable art that can act as a talisman and provoke reflection. I immediately brought 5 of them, and ended up returning later on the same day to choose another 4, with the help from Tamsin’s pendulum which she kindly allowed me to use.
Tamsin is an architect, artist and writer and you can view her fascinating work on her website www.tamsinghislaine.com
One of the aspects that first captured my interest, was how laid out together on the table, they reminded me of Tarot cards, and brought to mind Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies card-based method of promoting creativity by the random chance drawing of a card. In a similar way, Tamsin’s Water Talismans could act as a Liquid Compass (Tamsin’s evocative phrase) for meditation, which would then guide the intuitive patching of a modular synth. For each of these pieces I deal out the talisman face down, select one at random, and then meditate on the artwork for a while before starting to build the patch. Each piece is recorded in one take without any editing.