Rising from the Ashes

Less than 2 weeks to go, and there’s still a daunting amount of work to do for the midwinter celebration. Given the winter darkness, I need to source an outdoor floodlamp – my neighbours definitely used to have one, hopefully they’ve still got it.

Although I’ve completed the script for the nativity play, I now need to focus on the rest of the event – music or song for the initial and final processions, and somebody to lead them – poems for the introduction and finale – drumming for the pyro bit (I think I’ve got some Samba players on board) … and I need to work up some ideas with Lady Gaga, aka my friend Cassandra who is a big fan.

Work on the Wheel of the Year is going well, fitting in a few hours here and there between computer work and family duties, cutting back drastically on relaxation time, hence getting progressively more stressed. Second coat of paint finished, still needs a few tweaks, but the bulk of the remaining work involves appropriate fire-proofing and addition of pyrotechnics. Some of the fuses have already arrived, I’m expecting the rest, and the fire-proofing, tomorrow. Other pyro chemicals are sitting quietly in the shed …

Chris has been continuing to help with the Wheel of the Year – she’s generated some great ideas as well as taking the pressure off by joining in the making.

The ceremony focusses on considering the future, and by far my biggest future concern at the moment is my pension.

As successive work-and-pensions ministers erode pension levels and raise entitlement ages, it’s looking less and less likely that I’ll receive anything sensible from the state by the time I can’t work any more.

I’ve been putting by a small amount from the computer business, a large chunk of which I found myself bound to hand over to my childrens’ mother. Is it worth investing the rest, or will the existence of a small pension scheme simply reduce my ultimate state pension entitlement? Should I just spend it on a round-the-world holiday with the children? A friend summed up the situation succinctly: “You’ll be OK if you’re very rich, and if you’re very poor you can still get by on benefits (just). But if you own a modest amount: you’re screwed.”

I’ve been looking at ISAs and stake-holder pensions and even tax-efficient off-shore investment schemes. But few beat inflation, and those that do are taxable, which brings the return below inflation again.

Add to this that economists across the world are agreed on one, and only one, thing: governments of industrial nations can’t pay back their debts, and will have to rely on rampant inflation to “make the debt smaller”. Rampant inflation is simply a tax on cash, so effectively this means governments across the world are going to be plundering the savings of their more thrifty citizens to pay off the huge debts.

The message seems clear: spend now.

Then I sat down and calculated the margins for buying a house to let. Any qualms about being an evil money-grabbing landlord or a capitalist bastard vanished into a haze of pound-signs. The only problem is, how to buy a house that’s big enough to rent out, secured against my paltry savings and my meagre income.

Enter onto the scene a new mortgage product brought out by Barclays a month ago, making it possible for the first time in decades for someone in my straitened circumstances to borrow unfeasible amounts of cash.

Needless to say, they were inundated with applications, and clearly shaken by the Greek and Italian economies going pear-shaped at the same moment. So a week later, they stopped accepting further applications.

But not before I got my application in … now approved, a loan for a sum of money I can’t ever hope to pay back. No wonder this kind of thing brought the global economy to its knees in 2008. I guess the continuing appetite for people such as myself for borrowed money will help to keep the global economy on its knees for years to come.

This little letting business will generate nearly the same income as my IT business, for a fraction of the working time. It’s immoral. It’s exploitative. It’s damaging for the domestic and global economies.

Do I care? Not now I’ve got my pension sorted out. Whoopee! Let’s get on with life!

Carting this flippin’ canvas round with me everywhere I go, just in case I get an hour or two here or there to work on it. First coat of paint now applied and dry, last worked on it last Saturday, next opportunity will be next Monday.

Son’s school has just announced that it wants to become an academy. Why? It’s listed as one of the best (added value) state-funded schools in the country, why does it need to change? They reckon it’s going to mean a higher level of funding. What they don’t mention is they can unilaterally vote unlimited pay rises for the senior management team, and ditch union recognition. It also involves a massive transfer of public land and buildings into the private sector.

How can this be stopped? Apparently it can’t be. Another headache to distract me from all the things I’m supposed to be doing, like earning a living.

Invitation finished for the midwinter celebration. I can’t say I’m that pleased with it, but it does the job of communicating the essential information. It has to be invitation-only for insurance purposes.

Guests beginning to show an interest in taking part in the nativity play.

Found willing supplier of fire-proof varnish and fuses. Polythene tube and paper rope need to be explored next.

Also been having some fun with Photoshop and concrete poetry.

Hoping that tomorrow will bring the opportunity of doing some paid work, otherwise it will be 2 weeks since I earned anything. Bank balance beginning to look rather thin.

It’s been a while since I wrote here. Lots of things have been going on, almost all of them totally unrelated to art. Summer holiday in Devon with the kids. London to Brighton bike ride raising funds for Amnesty International (including hours – no, days even – training and raising sponsorship). Weekends in Snowdonia with the kids. Joining Sambassadors of Groove samba band. Daughter’s birthday – present-buying and general celebrations. Madly marketing, trying to find new customers, as business has gone through the floor. And suddenly half term is upon us, and another holiday, this time in Herefordshire. And woven in and out of all these, I’ve been falling in love. That’s quite a time-consuming process in itself, especially the writing of the love poetry.

This time I’ve had the good sense to fall for another artist. Another half-crazed soul who values the time and the freedom to create; values it more than X Factor, widescreen tellies and endless cappuccinos in Costa Coffee. No more arguing about why we can’t afford a long holiday on a Greek Island like all our friends do.

Phew! So things are a lot easier now. I’m beginning to appreciate the positive aspects of family breakup.

Back to the project in hand: Fire sculpture.

I need an event, a context in which to present a new piece. This is now decided: Midwinter Celebration, on the nature reserve behind where I live. Invited audience only.

Some elements are now falling into place:

A nativity play. The script has now reached second draft. Those watching will never see baby Jesus the same way again.

A rendition of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way”, by a devotee of said star. Well, there has to be a star in a nativity play, doesn’t there?

An act of solemnity: New year resolutions offered to the goddess of the Rotunda Anus, sorry, I mean Annus – the wheel of the year …

A fire sculpture, a depiction of the aforementioned goddess, with a surprise in her pregnant belly.

Documentation. My son now owns two video cameras, though one is rather poorer quality than the other.

I’ve always liked the idea of festivals. Since a school friend absconded for a weekend for the Stonehenge free festival, returning with tales of body-painted hippies on acid, druids worshipping the sun, a peaceful gathering of alternative folk with no need for regulation or laws or police … deeply subversive for a military school … it seemed like hope had entered into an empty world.

Brimming with youthful enthusiasm, I went along in 1982 with my girlfriend. We hitch-hiked and arrived at 2 am, and blundering around in the dark tripping over camp fires and tripping bodies, we found a quiet place to pitch our tent.

The next day was scorching, and there was only 1 standpipe at the festival with a 1 hour queue, and we had arrived with an inadequate little camping bottle. Since the music was still a couple of days away, we hitched into Amesbury to get a bigger water container, only to find that the only hardware store had sold out days before.

That night we bedded down early and prayed for cooler weather. Then at 3 am a chapter of Hells Angels arrived, and decided the place we were camped was a perfect spot for some motorcycle repair. It wasn’t clear why their machines needed to be tuned to perfection before daybreak, but it *was* clear that we weren’t going to stop them. They weren’t aggressive. They just ignored us.

Ask an old hippy about Stonehenge, and they will always reminisce: “Amazing, no rules, no police, people just doing their thing and getting on together”. Ask: “But what if there was trouble?”, and they will reply: “Oh, if there was any trouble, the Hells Angels sorted it out”.

The next day, I got to witness the Hells Angels sorting out some trouble for myself. Some shyster had been selling sugar pills as “Sulphate” (Amphetamine sulphate) and a fight started. The little group of motorcycle enthusiasts around our tent got involved. The poor sod was dragged to the little enclave of motorbikes, half stripped, beaten, had his hands tied together, was tied by his wrists to the back of a motorbike, and was dragged around the festival site.

The police may be thugs, may beat people up, and occasionally kill somebody. But I still think they’re far preferable to the Hells Angels.

It was another scorching day, and we were getting dehydrated, so we left and hitched up North. When we got home I had bad heat stroke, and some horrendous bug I’d picked up which didn’t clear out of my system for another 3 years.

I’ve tried festivals since – more sedate affairs like Womad and Wood festivals, but there’s still the plague of drummers who play all night and then sleep all day. And the ever-present risk of heat-stroke. One Womad I spent two days lying in the river Thames to keep cool instead of enjoying the music.

I persevered even after having children. Another Womad I spent an entire day at the helter-skelter with my 4 year old. I passed one entire Wood festival in the childrens’ activity tent … desperate to listen to the great music just across the field. Intensely frustrating.

Last Saturday, failing to learn from years of repeated disappointment, I took the children to a tiny local child-friendly festival. I’ve been there before, and I remember abandoning the festival for the playground opposite, but I thought: “Well, the children are older now …”

It’s cheap – £1.50 per adult, children free. Lovely food available, made from vegetables grown on the allotments there. So, feed the children, and then chill out to some music.

Ha ha. Pizza for 3 plus a bit of candy floss came to £25. We had a stroll round the kids’ activities, but it was all “Nooo, we did that last year”, and then it rained. As we left we passed the stage where a jolly band was playing, but the trumpet was excrutiatingly out of tune. So glad to leave!

So, we went home and made another little experimental fire sculpture. 100 times more fun, a tenth of the cost :-)

The simple rope design was a collaboration by my kids. So sweet.

I was at a wedding last week. My own experience of marriage, back in 1983 aged just 20, made me realise the power of ritual. I wasn’t keen on the idea: for me, weddings should take place naked at Stonehenge at sunrise on a solstice, but as my fiancee pointed out, nobody would come along from our families … and probably few of our friends would have attended either!

It was financially convenient to get married, so I went along with the view that it’s “only a bit of hand-waving and singing” that needn’t really change anything.

I don’t remember much of the ceremony, apart from its rich beauty: we were married, by special dispensation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, in Trinity College chapel, Cambridge, where we were both undergraduates. (Since women had only been admitted for a few years, we were the first such couple). As it was the middle of the Summer break, the wedding party had the whole place to themselves.

I always felt like I’d ended up there by mistake: radically anti-establishment, anarchic and angry, parachuted into the heart of the establishment, due to my enthusiasm for equations and skills with a slide-rule. I didn’t fit in – by day, lecture theatres full of anorak-clad geeks, and by evening pissed dinner-jacket clad toffs without any trousers.

I am lucky to have two passions in life, and enough aptitude to pursue either of them at graduate level: science and art. But only one student grant. I nearly left Cambridge to pursue Fine Art (there’s no art dept. at Cambridge), but then I fell in love and decided to endure another two years of anoraks.

Back to the power of ritual. Neither myself nor my wife felt magically transformed by the wedding; but I soon realised that all witnesses to the ceremony, and their friends too, *had* been transformed. At first it was the little things: women friends ceased to flirt; single friends stopped calling round, while we started receiving surprise visits from couples; members of my family, who I had spent years avoiding, started taking an uncomfortably close interest in my affairs, as did my in-laws; landlords and university started having higher expectations of our behaviour. We were no longer just students. Now, we were *married* students.

Eventually, the combined expectations of two conservative families, a conservative university, a cluster of conservative self-appointed friends, and conservative employers and colleagues, brought the relationship to collapse. The chief expectation being that I would behave like a properly married Cambridge chap, work ridiculously long hours within the profit-sector, and earn immoral amounts of dosh. It was not to be, and when I left my wife and dropped out to join the Oxford Writers and Artists Co-operative on the dole in 1989, I broke many more hearts than my wife’s.

For years I found weddings almost unbearable. Watching innocent young people drawn into the minefield of implicit, unstated expectations, of which they were broadly unaware. Until I realised that most people seem to enjoy the life of meeting other peoples’ expectations, and I was just unusual in my single-minded pursuit of what I felt was a vocation. Then I started to enjoy weddings again.

So, last week’s wedding was a great party. The greatest joy being my children sat next to me, the only difficulty being their mother sat next to them. Someone remarked later how “grown up” to attend such an event together, given the circumstances. It didn’t feel grown up, it felt hopelessly mixed up and f****d up.

Another joy was that the couple had sent out luggage labels with the invitations, with the request that they be suitably decorated for the wishing tree. Last time I tried post-card art I tried something experimental, and wound up with an object that looked like it had crawled out of the land-fill bin on a wet day. So this time I did what I know I can do well. Lovely colours …