I have atached my CV as an image file to enable people to access it.
Tears in the Fence David Caddy has published my essay/review of Sonia Aarons ‘Timeless Man’ Sven Berlins biography in this issue.
Here is some of the back story https://tearsinthefence.com/ issue 64 is now available, it is edited by David Caddy who I will be working closely with;
To explore ‘Poetry’ in it’s widest and open sense.
I have been practicing as an artist for over 36 years, firstly as a painter trained by Sven Berlin http://www.svenberlin.com/ and Peter Cumings. As an angry young man I painted works concerning ecological and environmental issues of concern and challenges in crude surrealist form.
See http://www.mondaystudio.co.uk/
This was the start of my work in Socially Engaged Practice however moving away from object creation I returned to Arts University Bournemouth (Formerly BPCAD) to study Spatial Design, Site and Need based specifics in 1992-95 first as student then lecturer.
The work evolved into social Sculpture through live projects in contexts of ‘Regeneration’ culminating in work for and with Creativity|WORKS and Somerset Film
http://www.creativityworks.org.uk/
I first met David Caddy in 1994 when I joined East Street Poets and helped put on the Wessex Poetry Festival for a number of years. For me poetry and my own poetry has been in the background helping me to frame and edit my other written work and has been a useful discipline with editing funding applications or working my way through the labyrinthine process and criteria required by funders. However I am proud to have played a part, be it a small one and made a contribution towards changes we as a culture have made, some state driven and policy informed.
I have some previous see
http://www.mondaystudio.co.uk/Biography.html
I have also been in receipt of an Arts Council award and bit more since 2012.
And I am looking forward to spending some time working with David as an exploration of what a ‘Text’ means, purpose, intent and influence. I have a question about Nature. ‘If we are part of Nature not separate from it then the artefacts we create as humans are as much a part of nature and natural processes as anything else? Does our intelligence need to catch up with what it is to be human? And how do I as a socially engaged artist respond to the ideas sugested by the notion of the ‘Anthropocene’ and call for artists to contribute towards the challenges of ongoing and further impending ecological, socio-economic and socio-geographic crisis?
I had revisited my thesis that I wrote in 1994 ‘What is the importance of the ecological design movement’ my conclusion then was that ‘Whilst i still was a smoker I could not talk on the subject or really make any worthwhile contribution until I gave up’ This I finally achieved in 2008 on completion of a MA by Fine Art research practice at UWE. Where I used the process of giving up smoking to produce a new body of work whilst changing my own body and subjecting it to the process. I learned a lot about addiction and self image but put on 3 stone in weight. I am now loosing weight and the studies go on. I am working with Fringe Art Bath on a Joint Art & Science project with University of Bath
http://www.fringeartsbath.co.uk/science/2016/1/10/centre-for-health-innovation-and-improvement.html
I went to the first workshop with David Caddy on 2nd of April at Shillingstone Station where work is ongoing to restore this section of the Old Somerset & Dorset Railway. The subject of rail travel and a sense of moving on makes perfect sense to me.
Photograph by Lesley Burt
In exploration of what ‘Professional Development’ may mean to me on a personal and professional level the question of ‘How do I improve my practice?’ seems to emerge every time. I usually refer back to the first principle of reflecting on my own brief, this is the first port of call learned very early on in my career and reinforced through learning at Bournemouth and in professional practice. However I also am drawn to the work of Professor Jack Whitehead see
http://www.actionresearch.net/
and links to ‘Living Theory’ here the boundaries between practice and the academy merge and mingle with the different threads created by researchers feeding into this new body of knowledge and approach. This new way of thinking is gradually permeating into the heart of academies across the world PhD by PhD, MA by MA slowly transforming, making progress along desire lines and pathways through ongoing research and knowledge creation and validation. Thanks to Whiteheads work we can now ask the question ‘How do I improve my practice’ this question puts the ‘I’ into PhD level research out into Post Doctoral enquiry. It is the question most pertenant to the artist and in the field of Socially Engaged Arts of paramount concern as the arts have both the power to influence for good or ill. I need every now and again to check in my values and principles against stated intentions and ‘Living Theory’ research with others enables a forum within which to do just this.
I am also tempted by the ‘Duvet Days’ we refered to in common parlance at Bournemouth in the early nineties a period of re-creation, renewal and possible intended human metamorphosis.
I have now lost nearly 21lbs in four weeks thanks to the
https://thebloodsugardiet.com/
Beyond a project fundamentaly necessay for my own survival and at the core of my practice in dealing with change. If I can not change what would be my expectations of others if any?
