ARTISTS TALKING

# 20 [30 April 2008]

After attending a talk by Hew Locke about his work, at the Liverpool Bluecoat Gallery this evening I feel reinvigorated and re-confirmed in my plans for the "7 Giants" exhibition that I am building to show at St Luke's.

I was beginning to think that perhaps I am crazy to plan to build a whole installation, of really quite large dimensions, out of cardboard...

But now that I have seen some of Hew's work, which he made in the 90's  I am positively vibrant with excitement to continue on my mad quixotic venture..

So "7 Giants" there will be..

My god, I do have to say I love Hew Locke.  He was a bit on the guarded side, but if he is that inspiring on a day that appears to me not to be his best then I can only say" WOW.  Can someone please make sure he gets all necessary funding, so that I can follow his progress... And give him enough money to allow him to fully spread his wings. There is life in the artist and in his work.!

Am feeling very happy to have had an opportunity to hear him and shake hands, too.

(A handshake is an important barometer for all kinds of personality conclusions.. and Hew has a handshake that I sincerely approve of.)

Bravo to the Bluecoat for commissioning such an exciting artist.

Speaking to Brian Biggs I also hear that Alec Finlay may be back for a reading this summer. Oh, yes, please...

But back to me, me , me.. The life of the artist has gone mad in every possible way but I am pleased to report that somehow I seem to have become weather and life-hurricane resistant and am holding up quite well. And am still simmering the ideas and project development pool.

A particularly strategic friend of mine today did a grants search on my behalf and found a few leads that may promise some future. I love practical friends. I love some others, too. But practical ones are extra special at a time when life is throwing bad weather at me.

So if the rain could please stop (in both the literal and metaphorical sense) then I can start building my Giants.

I have to say I am very genuinely impressed with the performance of the Bluecoat today. They did so well and I left as one should always leave a gallery/ arts centre: brimming with inspiration, drive and gusto.

# 19 [26 April 2008]

A sisyphean day of 30s... having freelance work at the FACT centre to earn £30 only to find a parking ticket to pay £30.. 

... now that was today. What do I gain from the experience? A pat on the shoulder for having tried my best. That doesn't quite seem satisfying.

A brief meeting with film-maker gained me a confirmation that he is up for filming for nothing much more than the covering of the actual expenses of doing so. Oh thank all heavens for that. Now I am short of one assistant and then the camera can roll... I think we will schedule the weekend for mid-late May or mid-June, alternatively.

All my applications came back rejected. I am an artistic reject. Let's see if I can't turn that round by 180 degrees in the next 12 months. Can I become the equivalent of hot-cake instead? My other collaborator said this: Turn towards the light... And so I shall. As spiritual as that sounds. But what is wrong with spirit? Now I have 30 days to make the structures for exhibition in St Luke's and perhaps I can find a follow on exhibition for them, too.

The 7 Giants will stand tall and proud, strong a watchful in the ruin of St Lukes which was severely damaged in WW2. The church remains a memorial to lives lost, fates suffered. Not that its presence often stops anybody in their tracks anymore to contemplate the past and it's lingering echos into this presence.. But there it stands nevertheless, a memorial. In it I will place 7 bird hides / forester's hides, standing tall on elongated legs. watchful. Whether they are friend or foe remains open. 7 giants on tall legs viewing over the space. 7 because that is the great number of fables, tales and belief.7 to indicate the quality of my thoughts and search for expression.

My project is not a statement, not a conclusion or answer but a search for truth, abstract notions of truth of who we are, us, these humans. My art work really is better described as a journey not a conclusion. To ask what my work is about is to ask "What has moved you in the past year, 10 years or in fact since you became aware of anything moving you at all." And just how does one give an answer, a concrete solid answer with brevity..? It's "always" that is in the art work, it's not the isolated moment that is in it.

A life philosophy becoming visual, tangible, solid. A sharing of intimate concerns and searches, that is what the art is. Of course I have no expectation that it is that to you, to the audience. But I hope it shows. A section of the inside of my thoughts, on exhibition in St Luke's. From the 30th of May for 2 weeks only..  

My spelling makes me laugh: a wether is a castrated ram... (wether = ram; whether ..) 

# 18 [18 April 2008]

I am still busy collecting cardboard. Like a womble...

Tonight I sat here looking through old images that I took to draw from and I got carried away altering them, getting ideas from them. I sometimes feel like an ideas-factory. Let's just hope it's a good, stylish, chic, italian one, not a cheap chinese one with slave laborers..

I found out about a great website. I think this is where I clearly have a few adulterated genes in me... I started getting very excited when I heard about this site... A website selling hardware like nuts and bolts.

Cheaper than those dreadful chain DIY stores.. Oh, I shouldn't be mean, one of those is currently my life-saver.. Oh dear..

So re-phrasing : I very much love the chain-DIY store, it is my life-saver, yet, my wallet loves the online store more.

I hope that is suitably diplomatic?

If you want the name for the site then please contact me somehow. I can't type it here, because it sounds dreadfully dubious.. (Just apply your imagination as to how dodgy a site for nuts and bolts could accidentally have been named...So as I would prefer not to end up in someone's bad books for advertising a site that sounds like it contains nudity... but doesn't.. well, you get the picture. Contact me and I will give you the online-diy-store details).

So here in this post is a photo I took of myself for my drawing practice. The image has nothing to do with my current main project, but could easily evolve into one of my next 'sideline-projects'.

Good night. 

# 17 [14 April 2008]

taking stock in case I am confusing everyone:

I am working on:

'Dungbeetle and Sisyphus'    

'Giants' for St Luke's, Liverpool

'Devotional Choreography' for Bridewell Gallery, Liverpool 

and am working with Steve Boyland on a variation of Devotional Choreography "Khoreia".

And I am devising a new project based on Idioms. 

Yes, it's a lot to co-ordinate and sometimes I feel fuzzy. 

# 16 [14 April 2008]

Now I have 7 huge stores collecting their cardboard for me.. 

It occurs to me that I could easily accumulate enough to build a warm shelter in which I could live when I move to London.

Tomorrow is a big cardboard collection day. I decided to collect a bulk load before starting the constructions.

So this thursday I will go down to London and spend a few days between galleries and friends. I have been barred from my usual habitat down there which makes the prospect of living in cardboard dwellings all the more tempting..

I am looking for an assistant to work with me from next week. On 4 long afternoons a week. (5-6 hour sessions) It would be acrazy amount of work to try and construct all of my cardboard hides/watchtowers on my own.

# 15 [12 April 2008]

Listening to the theme tune of my teenage years: Tom Petty's "Learning to Fly"..

The progress today: I have been to several DIY shops, sellers of technological gadgetry and a bed-supplier. And all are enthusiastically promising to save all their corrugated cardboard for me to collect weekly until I have enough to build all 7 large forester's houses on stilts.. I struggle to explain them in English.

You will see soon..

The exhibition for St Luke's has now been confirmed for the 30th of May, I am trying to negotiate a starting date of 3-4 days earlier than that. But there is some time yet. But for now the dates will be 30th of May to 13th of June. Just 2 weeks, not 3 as I originally hoped. So much work and then just 2 weeks.. In future I will have to make sure to negotiate a certain effort to exhibition period ratio!!! But this is good. A solo show in the centre of Liverpool in a venue that is busy and accessible to all types and shapes and sizes of people.

Bingo!

# 14 [7 April 2008]

I am inching my way closer to a clear view..

This weekend I attended Markus Sokoup's Binary Jam at the Static Gallery, which I arrived at really quite late, but still I think I deserve points for crawling out of the comforts of my warm home. It was good to see some locals (Sam from the View Two Gallery, Virgil Shakira who has made much experimental/abstract soundworks although he may hit me for probably mis-describing what exactly he does... Jay Yung who just closed her Paradise Stories at Riba, and a few others... Good to see them.

I went to hear Steve Boyland and Magie Nichols perform their improvised voice work at the Bluecoat on sunday. It was inspirational to see them work and encouraging to see such a strong audience. 

As about my own progress: I have had a meeting with a friend who is practical and we worked out how I will construct my '7 Giants' in time for the exhibition in St.Luke's in Liverpool. I am looking forward to it now and am actually just about to to and get a few of the necessary materials and some advice from the DIY centre. (I am constructing all 7 "giants" out of corrugated cardboard, which I will laminate until I can make 2inch batons out of it for the legs of the giants and 1inch or so sheets for the sides... I promise a drawing soon to clear any confusion I am causing you...)

Hopefully tomorrow I will have a meeting with Ambrose from Urban Strawberry Lunch about dates and then the show will finally be 'in the bag'..  

Which leads straight to the project that I propose for Cologne: I have been invited to do a performance and I am planning a project on idioms and how people say what they don't mean in order to say what they do mean and how this can be confusing at the best of times but how it becomes potentially humorously confusing and tangled up when I bring other country's idioms into the mix...

How exactly this will become a performance I can't tell you, I am having a little stage fright when I think about it. The original concept was for a photography and film piece, not a performance. But I spoke to Steve Boyland about it today and we are considering to work on this project in collaboration. With his voice work potentially being the exact perfect link to tie together my ideas for the project.

Now I need to appease the man who invited me by sending him a better project description, he is cross with me for having responded with such delay..

Rightly so. I deserve a slap and half an hour in the corner for that.

I will go now and clean my toilet while I repent.

# 13 [3 April 2008]

I posted my proposal to 'Fred' in Cumbria and am quite pleased with myself...

A light anticlimax took grip of me around 4pm but I beat it down with a swift panini followed by New York cheesecake..  

Tonight I will sleep and know that it is well earned and tomorrow I am sure is another arm-long list of things to do and follow up.

More inspirational stuff when I rise from, what I predict will be a 14 hour long, sleep... 

# 12 [2 April 2008]

Finally here is a partial project description, it is for FRED the exhibition in Cumbria to which I am sending a proposal tomorrow.:

# 11 [2 April 2008]

Project:

Drawing room intervention with Rick Creed at the Tate Liverpool next week. 

9.30am-12 and 1pm-4.30 

come along...

contrast between life model, long poses and the resulting marks with short, sometimes flowing movement between postures you (VERY) rarely get a chance to draw.

Contrast the mark-making between  the static model and intervening artist who offers reversed/contracted/acrobatic body shapes that can at times lead to an abstract, at times be in fluid dialogue with the model.

Come, explore, come, think about your approach to drawing. A fresh lively class, with Rick Creed one of the most inspiring and positive teachers I have met, and with myself offering headstands, splits and unusual backbends, twists and more...