The Cooler King (part 2)

I was in the dentists 4 days ago and the dentist’s assistant said to me, ‘I hear you’re an artist?’

I smiled and said, ‘who told you that then’

she said, I have well informed sources!’

I said , ‘I’ve been rumbled then’.

she said, what sort of art do you do?…..painting?

Why does every one say that, ‘do you Paint’. Is it because that is what they think art is?

I did not say that, but said, ‘No…I used to paint, but I always work in public spaces now like parks, or town squares, nature reserves or train station type places’. And waited to see what she said.

I don’t think she was interested and wanted to tell me about her daughter who was an artist and went on to list the colleges or universities she had gone to and some places where she had exhibitions.

I said, ‘she sounds like she is busy then’!

I then had more information about her most recent exhibition currently on now and something about shipping her work to Australia and I wondered inwardly who might have paid those shipping costs, I think these shipping costs were in the future, but as I had just received quite a lot of information I was a little muddled and didn’t quite know what to say next.

What I should have said was ‘Where about in Australia?’

What came out after what seemed like just slightly too long was ‘I don’t tend to do exhibitions’. At this point And I was expecting to have to open my mouth and be unable to speak….But

She said what do you do then if you don’t have exhibitions of your paintings?

I explained that I responded to adverts in the trade press where artists were paid to make commissioned work using lottery funding or some kind of public funds.

This triggered a response ‘she doesn’t pay for the petrol or the gallery hire….no guess who pays that’? I did not have to guess because I knew it was her family. ‘No it is difficult’ I said. What am I supposed to do at this point in the conversation….I was starting to feel a collective guilt on behalf of all artists….burdens on the families who support them, and responsible for spending scarce public funds on art that is misplaced, not wanted and up itself. I was actually relieved when the dentist loomed over me and started poking long thin pointed things in my mouth, saying ‘have the antibiotics worked?’

On the same day as the dentist I heard about an interview by Jeremy Paxman with Russell Brand and I have to say ……how good is this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnV0ihSk690

I can’t imagine I will ever take a general election seriously ever again.

Jeremy Paxman and an impassioned Russell Brand talking about our political system I think it might be even better than Greyson Perry.

Apparently according to a PM listener on radio 4 there used to be a piece of graffiti in west London that said ‘don’t vote….it will only encourage them’.

Dare to think of another way and not feel guilty about being an artist.

The Moment when you realized you were interested in Art.

Grayson Perry yesterday suggested that most artists will have had a crux event in their early lives where they can self mythologize about when they became an artist. He went onto describe when he was 9 and had been naughty at school and had to work with the girls and wear a tight blue plastic apron and he made his first coil pot.

I can definitely pin point an event at school in exactly the same way. I was probably 13 or so and I’m going to self mythologize that my interest in art began then.

It was the ‘single maths’ lesson during the last period of every week on Fridays.

Our maths teacher was called Mr Pimenter and he realized that the last lesson of the week before the weekend was not when the class were at their most receptive. My class was renowned as difficult and after one particularly riotous lesson he announced that from now on we would not do maths on Fridays, but instead every Friday we could go to the back of our exercise books and colour in the squares and make patterns ……He went on to outline that he was a Muslim and creating patterns in this way was a special experience!

So while every-one else was, fighting, swapping football cards, flicking pellets with elastic bands and writing graffiti on the desks, bags or the backs of their own hands. I was the one colouring in the squares and making patterns having the special experience while everything else was kicking off around me!

From then on I loved this lesson and looked forward to it, it was my favorite lesson of the whole week.

Remembering that today, I went and bought myself a pad of squared paper and I have been in the cooler most of the day using squared paper to generate a mosaic design for Southwark Council.

It has influenced the design, though I can’t really describe it as truly geometric?

Tomorrow after I have emailed my designs off, it’s back in the cooler cracking rocks and being alone and solitary. I am actually looking forward to it.

It will be the calm before the storm.

It’s about managing expectations!

and a tour inside ‘The Cooler’

My commissioner is again asking about the installment of the mosaics completed so far?

My next client has programmed a large series of workshops for me very soon.

And a returning client has raised money for second project and wants to start work on a fairly large mosaic for completion by the end of the financial year.

It’s all about managing expectations and negotiating extended deadlines but at the same time doing the urgent non movable stuff. Its alot of balls in the air and I’m going to drop a few.

Be interesting to see how many blog posts appear here next month?….

In the mean time while I procrastinate from accounting and ledger work, I thought a view inside ‘The Cooler’ would be an interesting distraction.

Changing Priorities

Yellow Wagtail and a Song Thrush done and Whitelands Farm is finished. I have other things to do now and the fourth mosaic will not be my next task.

But I thought I would write a detailed description here of the ideas behind the mosaic, something I should maybe have done for the previous two mosaics as well.

So here goes:

The overall theme running through all seven mosaics is that they were inspired by the ecological report written for the developer of the site, and generally focus on the animals found there. The second consistant feature is they are all maps (exept one). Whitelands Farm is really the only development ever to have happened on the site in recent times. I found drawings in the local records office showing the farm buildings in 1897 and more buildings being added in 1921. The centre of the mosaic is a layout of the farm buildings in 1921-23. I have depicted animals and plants mentioned in the report as having occupied the site prior to the developing building works. The design uses text as well to list a couple of other species found there. The outer ring of text lists previous human activity on the farm site, which includes ancient burial mounds which I understand will be covered with soil and be in the school field. Finally each corner shows a bird mentioned in the report as the type of bird found on the farm.

So my next tasks are ever such a lot of accounting, preparations for a project in Southampton, a meeting in london about changing plans for a mosaic in Nunhead. And the other thing I really have to do is the painted map of The Wildart Trail.

My drawings for the interpretation panels on this woodland trail have been installed and this has prompted the finishing of this final piece of work. It is a map of the trail created by the visitors to the woods on a woodlandland festival day. I started it on the day but have been unable to finish it……Now I have to finish it as it is the last piece of the whole Blean Project Programme which is coming to an end.

The trouble is my head is so somewhere else, and my mind scrambled with other stuff. I look at it and it reminds me of a Breugal painting called ‘Childrens Games’ which has the entire picture covered in small isolated details. The members of the public who painted the images on each did something where there was a bit of available space to create this woodland map.

I have to get to grips with this somehow? And I love painting and so rarely do any…..but this is a corker.

All I can say is…… paint is a much more flexible medium than mosaic, so whats your problem num-nuts? GET ON WITH IT!

Shared Space:

That’s what this project started as…… ‘Shared Space’…. is a zone where cars, buses, people, bikes, vans and skateboards even, are all equal. I was so excited and thought what a fantastic progressive thing to have on your CV. The only model I knew at the time was Ashford in Kent but subsequently Kensington in London where the Museums are

see slide show here

http://www.flickr.com//photos/73419983@N05/sets/72…

has fairly recently been transformed into a Shared Space. I know I mentioned somewhere before that the plans for this were not agreed by the Town Council, though the District Council were very keen and commissioned me to draw up designs for the streetscape. Sadly not to be and a road with pavements in the tradional is the reality.

So I had visited Ashford to have a look at this ‘Shared Space’ to see what it was like, and I didn’t think it was as scary as it sounded and every one took to it pretty easily. If you don’t know its there cos you never been to Ashford before, it seems to be introduced by art lampposts and a general feel of the place being different as the surface of the road changes. I can’t remember if speed humps introduce it or not.

Now I just spent a few days in Amsterdam where the whole city centre is a kind of ‘Shared Space’…truly amazing to see the motor car at the bottom of the pecking order…a totally pointless way getting around.

I didn’t see a speed sign,

didn’t see a roundabout

or traffic lights

or many road markings painted on the road,

didn’t see many signs at all.

I did not see a single cyclist wearing a helmet though I saw tens of thousands of cyclists.

Apparently over 500,000 bikes in the city centre with an estimated 30,000 bikes at the bottom of the canal system.

Moped drivers don’t need helmets either, though motor-bikes do.

I saw what might be described as ‘near misses’ in the UK between cyclists and pedestrians going on constantly as routine road behaviour. A near miss in Amsterdam then ….lets say about 2inches …..and six inches is plenty of room. I never saw a crash or heard an accident.

I think we need to get a grip over here, the car driver as top dog needs challenging. I know we have pedestrian shopping zones, but this is different as all users are equall. I don’t know what it is like where you live? But cyclists are still relatively rare road users. Cycling does have a slightly higher profile, but helmets, elbow pads and day glow jackets, lights flashing…….all seems rather over the top in comparison to Amsterdam. Had the shared space on my project happened I would have liked to have organised a pop up ‘Free Running’ performance in the zone to promote it…

For now then I am back to cracking rocks again.

two more birds and then its three done four mosaics to go…..not even half way yet. It’s tough to get going again, its such an emotional investment creating a large work like this. My stamina is already being well tested.