A Bid For Freedom
Here’s my plan: havn’t got long as Von Luger’s search light comes round every 1mins and 35 seconds.
We are opening up Tom (tunnel No.1) and pushing it beyond the tree line. We have a final briefing from the S.B.O. on Tue 1500 hours. On Fri at 0700 I shall pick up my partner Sue the forger and make a bolt for it down the A3, catch the 10.30 ferry at Portsmouth disguised as artists and arrive 40 mins later in the neutral free zone on the Isle of Wight a free man.
RV the county record office in Newport to be briefed on the Hampshire Museums Outreach Project.
Capt. Hiltz on parade and spitting his dunny out Sir!
I kept my end of the bargin and did the design modifications and just emailed them off. Yes assurances of invoice payment and contract have been given….but they still seem to be around one of those awfully long corners.
It’s an emotional headf**k as your mind is there in work, but the paperwork isn’t. I’m not prepared to invest time, energy, emotion and my resources into this.
However – other clients have paid my invoices and all you can do is transfer your energies ……let go of those particular interests and energies and refocus ideas, approches and research for the next job.
I feel like a gladiator in the arena with wild animals on every side and all I can do is systematically face the one directly engaging me.
STOP PRESS
email asking for location plans for these mosaics
Grrrr…Bears..Lions….bring them on.
I have looked at my designs for this series of mosaics today. I have to modify the lettering which I will start tommorrow. I am looking at them and thinking they will challange me big time. It’s so easy uploading drawings to cloud computing sites and creating links and saying this is my next project. Really looking at them and trying to think of ways of interpreting what is drawn using tiles is a little scary. What is of most concern is the scale I showed my neighbour Geof today these designs and he asked me how big they were? ‘1.2m square and there are seven in the set’, I replied. ‘They are big’, he said ‘how long do you think it will take,?
I dont remember my reply, but I do remember thinking they’re not big. I specified the size as well. The classic dilema where less than seven would not have the impact on the site. Seven is a lot so I cant make them too big with the budget avilable. I dont want make it an under paid job..But now I wonder if I had made them bigger would they be a lot easier to make?
May be over the years I have become formulaic with my style and approach and these designs will actually force me into creative interpretations and translation techniques? I feel nervous and wish the contract thing was sorted. I need the money for the design and concept work completed so far. This is not comfortable and my sentance is hanging heavy around my neck today. I know for every day lost at this end I am unlikely to be able to add on the wasted time at the other deadline end of the project. I am restless, resentful and cornered.
On a day with flash floods in many uk towns including Ashford not that far away from where I live where the roads were temporarily rivers.
OMG
May be OMFG, says it better!
The blockage that is holding up this project does appear to easing and I have been told to expect a contract next week. I have also been asked to submit final designs to be signed off for approvals. This means the rearrangement of some lettering, no great shakes there.
I feel Von Luger’s posse hunting me down, but I’m still free for a little while yet.
This news arriving on the same day as the offer as Lead Artist on a fantastic project that I so want in my portfolio. I really won this job with submission and interviews and its just a dream come true working with Hamshire + Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. It’s a no brainer as portfolio and career development go and I said yes that’s marvelous news and recieved a confirmation letter today.
2 days after the death of Col. Gaddaffi and the stability of Europe again top of news….and anti-capitalist protesters still camping outside St. Pauls Cathedral. These are interesting times we are living through and it’s looking like I’ll busy busy over the winter and into next year.
Blast from the Past.
This issue of things past has just majored in my world.
My spell in the cooler is no nearer being resolved and the ever presant detail of money presses harder; so today I will sign a contract to work on a Renaissance Museums Changing Lives Outreach Project. Working with Future Creative and Hampshire County Co.
But, the real reason for this post is another storey:
My long time friend since primary school needed to clear the loft of his late fathers home, he asked me to help him in this conciderable task.
This is the rub: He found the piece of wood that we burned together in primary school lessons. This was during the late sixties when we were about 8. We were featured in the local paper while doing this (sadley article lost). But this has been a long standing memory for us both for 40 years. So to see it again was like an archeological relic to me.
I had no memory of its visual content whatsoever. Only the feeling that the main task was to colour (burn) the shapes that were drawn on the wood. I dont remember in any way how the content was agreed or if there was any kind of storey unfolding etc. I remember the feeling that my magnifying glass was small and not as powerfull as my friends and his was more suited to the task I was doing. I seem to remember even asking my mother to buy me a more powerful magnifying glass. I dont think she realised the significance of this and I did’nt get one.
My friend’s memory of it was that he thought the picture was burnt on top of some kind pattern underneath? The reverse side of the wood had been used as a paint pallette with mixture of different colours, which may account for this?
Mr Holloway was our teacher and he stood out from other teachers at the school, as he played his guitar and I can now see with hindsight he was a ‘Hippy’. I particularly remember other classmates being very jelous of us. I remember them running up to me at playtime quite aggressivly saying ‘You lucky lucky batsrads you missed a spelling test last week doing that, and we’ve had so much maths to do this time’.
Thank you Mr Holloway, that was a very powerful event for me.
