Then and now
each slice of life slashes experience like a knife
Streaming past, fast,
elusive, ephemeral,
unable to grasp
Data, images, history, time,
moulded experience, subjective – mine
Yet patterns emerge,
like a haunting musical refrain,
gnawing at the edges of your being,
a dull and piercing pain
Powerlessness and collective guilt,
rumbling, grumbling, tumbling waves on the shore
converge, subvert and obliterate what went before
And what is left, the dust and residue
hangs in the air, an incomprehensible cloud
hiding behind the here and now
We breathe it in and blow it out
It’s the start of a new year and the start of new art work. Currently I am visiting my repository of photographs and cropping these in different ways – fragments of fragments in a sense and seeing how I alternatively view and present these. I am trying to apply an emotional neutrality, as if my take on things is simply a fleeting, temporal glimpse much like a photo on the move, before my attention focuses on to something else.
At the moment I am printing these off on Japanese paper which is meant to be suitable for an inkjet printer, although so far, the printing is not entirely successful. I’ll need to think about what to do about this. I will be collaging and painting within these – applying iterative processes but with different outcomes.
There are various other things I want to think about. One of these is how to use recycled material to print and paint upon, use as a base or frame within, whether this be old cardboard, scraps of wood, or alternative materials such metal scraps. Any suggestions welcome! Also I want to introduce new mark making mediums to my exploration and continue to play with and develop my art writing.
Distance
I have been doing something different this month; working in the hospitality sector to bring in some extra money and also to shake up the focus of my observation and experience. It came at a good time. Just before I started I was a victim of common assault as I was on my way to my studio. This altered things – the place that I looked forward to going to be creative and experimental changed to one of fear and unease. I hope with time that this will resolve itself but it has been a shaky old few weeks and of course all swaying on the uncertainty and stress of these Covid times.
The making of art currently seems a long way away, but it does not concern me. I know that as soon as I am ensconced again within my studio, the ideas will start flowing, fuelled by the last month’s going-ons. There are things I know I want to play with. These are mainly to do with process and materials; experimenting with different papers, collage and print transfer. An art friend and I are also going to be putting together a proposal for an exhibition so at some point we will be sitting down, gathering our thoughts and trying to put down in writing our research interests and ideas.
It is important to me that I carry on with my creative art writing. It is hard to know how to continue with this, so I will occasionally use this blog as a space to experiment and share. It won’t always be about my visual art practice.
Once thing I do feel (which I suspect is the same for many people) is a certain level of exhaustion where I don’t want to think about anything, question anything, reveal anything. I just want to be and to hover over the facts and statistics and continual murmurings of stress and outcomes.
Cool water.
Reflective, impenetrable.
It reluctantly catches the limpid light.
But I can still feel the cold seeping, creeping.
The rats.
They gather together by the banks.
Trembling amongst the paper cups and crisp packets.
Sheltered from the damp of the wild grasses
and the rising river woe.
The lights from the screaming retail outlets bounce off the water’s edge.
They join forces with saris, hoodies and acidic trainers
And pink fluffy unicorns with long matted manes.
Colourful slashes breaking the grey.
Yet there is a perceptible dragging and a weighing down
More than just shopping bags, lumpy and distorted
More than the carved out and disappointed grimaces
Heavy with the knowledge that it is what it seems.
The manager is playing hooky and his gang has left the building.
