Six Weeks In:
I have been in the cooler over 6 weeks now and have not finished the 2nd mosaic yet. I haven’t been too intense about it and taken thing things quite slowly. I am still enjoying making it and it looks like each one will take me about a month at this rate.
I have had to stop now as it got to me physically. Leaning over to reach something slightly beyond reach, has made my knees hurt. Standing with your center of gravity not above your knees like the guy on stage with magnets in his shoes to enable hime to lean over without falling over is how I have been working. I think I will sit cross legged like a pixie on the table when I get back.
I have done two foxes which I really enjoyed doing and kept two back for later otherwise I would have done all the good bits too early and it would be tedious till the end. So I am keeping 2 of them back to enjoy.
The Trickster and cunning is the symbology associated with the fox (like the wolf) and stories of foxes are well established in folklore. One of my foxes is a serious fox who is the protector of all foxes.
When I looked back this morning at the photos I took on my initial site visit, I was surprised to find one of them was of a fox which had been run over by a car right at the site entrance to this development. This busy road A41 has been the central issue to the way this commission has unfolded. These mosaics were designed for a very different context (a ‘shared space’, where people and vehicles are equal as is common in Holland and some places in the UK Ashford in Kent being one). Sadly this development will not be one of them and my designs for the ‘shared space’ have not been implemented. The motorist has won and my designs for the ‘new vision’ I thought I was contributing to and wanted so much to champion has been waved aside by the city council.
Somehow the Fox has presented itself to me as a symbol of how the natural world has been moved aside for ‘progress’, and the pedestrian coming 2nd to cars and convieniance again. This again brings me to the views and writings of Joseph Beuys.
My Fox is guarding his domain and you will have to get up early in the morning if your are going to take it off him.
Coyote:
Well fox really, I have x4 fox heads to make in this mosaic. It is called Foxey Leys Copse a small copse which will be left untouched, kept as it was on the new property development, buildings will surround it, but left as part of the biodiversity plan for wildlife on the site. My mosaic highlights the species found in this copse.
But the strange thing is my fox in this case represents the Animal Kingdom in my mosaic, and is an ambassador for the natural world.
Joseph Beuys was the leader of the Animals Political Party which according to him was the largest political party and when I think of Joseph Beuys I think of the coyote he spent x3 days with in an art gallery/room together.
When I think of the Coyote I think of the esteem it was held in the eyes of Native Americans…..My fox is playing the same role. And I see foxes and Coyotes all over the place now. Even the way napkins are stuffed inside wine glasses, there will be a Coyote head..in the clouds….in your coffee grounds…tea leaves anything….there they are again.
As a result of this invasion I have been reading about Joseph Beuys Leader of the Animal Political Party and as you might expect he is completly loopy…………or is he?
or am I the loopy one for giving this tosh the time of day. Shaman he says now, social sculpture and an ‘Energy plan for the Western Man’…. Eh… art as an agent of social change. Then all this myth about the Tarter tribesmen pulling him from his wrecked plane and saving his life with fat to keep him warm and felt to protect him. Then it turns out he was actually treated in a german field hospital……Bob Dylan fabricated a life story and it seemed to elevate his profile as well.
So whats your story, who are you and from where have you come?
Me I can’t live a lie, I grew up in London suburbs in the black and white days. I even remember people still living in ‘prefabs’. My schooling was a new experiment …. comprehensive education. The best lesson of all was Maths on Friday last period of the week. Our Muslem math teacher gave up teaching on this period as kids were just rioting by then. He said you can just colour in the squares at the back of your book and make patterns. The class room was a battle field but I loved this lesson because I did make patterns and colour them in ….art and I didn’t even know it!
I thought it a good idea to show my clients ‘mosaic progress’ and e-mailed a photo of the first completed one………
‘a bit worryingly, I can’t read the words… Don’t seem to match up to the words in your design (attached)?’
This was part of a slightly concerned reply from my commissioner who was showing me this was not as the agreed design.
Who is completely right, it is double dutch and does not match the agreed design.
The real subtext and really more conerning is who the *&$ӣnghell wants a mosaic that no one can read and cost loads of money?
So I reversed the image in photoshop, reminding my client this was the reverse technique and all would be well when the paper was washed off.
I got a reassured reply and noticed a CC on the address.
Had I lost my mind completly? must have been the question……..
not yet that comes a bit later after a few more thousand rocks have been cut.
For some reason I decided not to sweep up the chippings and see exactly what the waste product looked like and how much of it there was. I thought I would keep each mosaics waste chippings seperatly and make another series of 7 somethings with them at later date.
But:
Chippings were penetrating through the soles of other peoples slippers, geting in the turnups in my jeans which latter became scattered over the bedroom floor, causing barefoot surprises. They were embeded in the kitchen floor lino, travelling in on the soles of peoples shoes. I even noticed chippings over the dogs testicles where he had laid down on them.
So I thought I’d better get a grip, and just throw the stuff out and bring peace back to peoples lives.
The Cooler then:
My sentance was suspended for two and a half years, while things were sorted out.
About 6 months then, for 7 mosaics for completion early in the new year.
Done one month so far.
No shorter sentance for good behaviour, only cracking rocks for the foreseeable.
I finished the first mosaic yesterday. I really enjoyed making it and I am very pleased with it.
6 more to go then.
Mentally: that seems a large commitment to me, and I am still preparing for it.
Todays work will be cutting it up ready for storage and transport.
My last order for black tiles has arrived in the last few days and the tiles are a little thicker than I am used to and require a bit more preasure when I cut them.
But: Lighten up it’s well paid, big and the idea of using the developers ecological report to inspire the designwork is great.
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