NEW STUDIO/OLD IDEAS
After a year of working out of my front room I have taken a new studio.
It’s attached to a night club. Kind of an annex to the back room. It needs work; needs some walls building and some electrics. It is also built out of OSB which is, quite frankly, the building material of the style-redundant and the damned. I can’t help the sinking feeling that night club staff might’ve bitten off more than they can chew and simply don’t fully understand the needs of a working Artist studio. I don’t know if that will become problematic. I work mostly in the day so I think not. Also I met Mr. Scruff yesterday who was there to DJ, so that’s a thing and compared to some of the rat infested squats I have called my studio it’s pretty neat and clean. I am not neat, I like a messy sprawl so we’ll see how this all works out…
Anyways, this blog, dear readers, is an attempt to map my creative comings and goings. Chart the messy sprawl and hopefully, hopefully solve some other problems I have with my practice. Being brutally honest I have a few…
I have a problem with cynicism, with advancing age, with any sort of relevance, with keeping up, with giving a shit. I have fathoms low levels of ambition, I have no follow through with projects and works, I am secretive (or rather I use that as an excuse to not have to get into all this) I am unimpressed by most exhibitions I see, I don’t read enough, I don’t engage enough, I can be my own worst enemy and my own easy ride and I’m an anti-social and slightly judgemental Gobshite who has burned as many bridges as he has built.
But, here I am over ten years later still doing this. Does that count for something? I have seen things – trends, people, places – come and go and I am still here, still making things… Actually never mind that; I am worried that this has become a rather harsh and self pitying intro? I just want to write something that’s honest about my own practice, where it sits and what’s around it. I don’t think it’s gonna be pretty. Like I said: messy and sprawling and no short answers. From here though we’ll definitely throw out the self pity from here but keep the harsh…
Six weeks later and what to show for it?
Surprisingly, the book behind the glass case was worth ten million pounds. The hundreds of other books that surround it, all behind the glass cabinet doors are each individually worth thousands. The walls, doors, frames, skirting, the balcony rail are all ancient English oak, hand-sawn, placed & varnished by craftsmen. Even the floor itself, made from neat interlocking herring bone tiles (too light in colour to be oak) is irreplaceable. Why are we even stood here?
Any one of you – the various managers, the security, the maintenance staff – could’ve told me any of this before we started knocking up this MDF & emulsion wall. You could’ve mentioned this before the Artist turned up and started doing their thing.
I’m sure there’s some delicious irony in there about empire, about plunder, about layers & layers of a system telling of protection not doing anything of the sort, about refusal to take responsibility for the mess you’ve made that could’ve easily been avoided.
It’s always the worst Artists who want bigger subs…
I wrote this on the 1st June and didn’t publish it as I wanted to conclude it a bit more neatly, making some pithy logical point or something but life isn’t neat so here you go…
Still here, still working, not having time to get to the studio, this happens, live in the real world, pay your rent…
One of my jobs is as a steward in a music venue.
Obviously, with the tragedy that happened in Manchester last week security has been trough the roof.
I was outside the venue (my venue not Manchester) last night helping get people inside & quickly through the ticket scanners and bag searches; all the while there was a rental van parked directly in front of the building – a completely unassuming black transit van, one big white & red sticker on its side saying it was from a rental company in Leicester. It was there when we opened about 6.30 and was there when we crowds started to gather to go into the building maybe 30/40mins later.
It’s an odd feeling – one I admit to being slightly blase about for most of the time – of a rising suspicion that something might not be all that it seems yet it all seemed very real, very quickly. Security & supervisors were informed, police called, owners found & all was well.
The van was full of merchandise – it’s 50 years since the summer of love (last nights concert celebrated that as do another dozen events through the next week or two) – coffee mugs and t-shirts proclaiming all you need is love.
