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.
Trigger Happy
A few weeks earlier I got my burstinng portfolio and went through every drawing and piece of paper in there and chucked a load in the recycling paper bank.
I been sweeping my workshop floor and chucking out stuff. All this is a kind of ritualistic behaviour pattern with me when I think there is some sort of transition taking place. Making way for something new, starting afresh in the right way.
Yesterday I took my circular saw, and cut up some wooden sculptures I made nearly a year ago. I watched the blade go through the gold leaf that I spent so long putting on. I asked myself was this the right thing to be doing…yeh.. just rip em up Rob, are you going to organise an exhibition to show them…No..and the’re on the fire-wood pile now and just look like more split logs.
I filled a skip with paintings in 2000 as a millenium celebration, riding myself of the notion that these would be useful to me one day. ‘Thats the end of painting for me pal, fcnikug waste of space’. I dont regert chucking them either.
I know I am making room for this series of mosaics, but I think its more than that. Frustration that I ca’nt start them yet…yeh a little. But really a little shift in how I work, things have been physical and sculptural recently. My latest proposals have mentioned working with storey tellers….I dont even know any…or stories.
May be thats why artists are such lucky people. A door opens and you can walk through and explore a new world.
A Suspended Sentance:
I was expecting to have begun my time in ‘the cooler’ by now. But as is often the way, these things grind to halt due to circumstances no one foresaw till the eleventh hour.
So I am filled with mixed emotions.
Really pleased with the design concept for these mosaics, but whey will technically challenge me more than any previous mosaics I have made. I’m already looking forward to them completed in my portfolio. The content really reflects my interests at the moment.
On the other hand the physical and mental commitment to constructing and installing them is weighing heavy on me. One does fear for ones own sanity on these large long term commitments! Its been 5 months so far and I hav’nt stuck a single tile down yet. The waiting magnifies the feeling of being overwhelmed with whats to come.
I feel like ‘Hilts’ who knew another spell in the cooler was always round the corner. I have decided to include a video of him as he proudly returns to the cooler again after the ‘Great Escape’.
PS. could’nt upload video from Utube, so I’m whistling the theme tune instead!
