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I don’t really like New Year.

There’s the regulation jollity thing. Actually I find it depressing. Quite often I just want to be left alone, its passing just another day into night into day.

Drunkenness depresses me. Hangover pride depresses me more.

I am reminded of people for whom jollity, regulation or otherwise, is not an option. it makes me feel not exactly sad, but perhaps a little flat.

I also hate the whole resolution thing. If I want to make changes to my life on November 26th, I’ll do it then. Why wait? Resolutions, brought about by a sense of societal requirement and guilt are doomed to failure. Then more sadness and a sense of disappointment and lower self esteem… because we need that, right?

 

Do I sound like a miserable cow here?

I don’t think that I am. I think I am actually generally, quite a positive person, I find joy all over the place… it is what allows me to survive as a professional artist: I have few material needs, and get overly excited by soft old fabrics and pencils arranged in colour order.

But what I strive for is an evenness of joy spreading, not this huge investment (emotional and financial) in one week of the year that will make us feel better and put everything right.

I don’t like Valentine’s day either. Love me all year round or fuck off.

 

However…

 

Due to the planned end of my Arts Council funded project period being 31st December 2015, I am finding myself in a natural state of review and assessment. Coincidence I assure you. I include as part of my practice, regular, possibly seasonal, reviews of practice and progress and planning which involves large pieces of paper and a variety of brightly coloured felt pens. Laugh if you like, but it works for me.

 

I will have to officially review my project for ACE… but then I expect I will wait until I get a new studio to do the next Big Paper exercise. I’m keen to get on with it.

 

This morning I have made an appointment to go look at a studio…

This can’t go on forever…

(I keep trying to upload a photo of my studio packed into boxes, but it won’t load… but you know what stuff in boxes looks like, so just imagine that…)

By the end of February I would like to be in a new space, or if not in a new space, at least know where it will be… Time will tell eh? Life has a way of scuppering plans. But what I have found, because I am getting on a bit now, and have lots of experience, is that the problem with planning is you only plan what you can conceive of. If you leave things open, you find that life chucks stuff at you that you could never have imagined, let alone planned for!

 

What I do know (hope?) is that 2016 will include lots more songwriting with some great people. This is a joy. Not a small joy either, a HUGE joy… Andy, Dave and Ian, I thank you for letting me share in your talent, knowledge and passion over the last few months. I can’t believe what we have done already!

There will also be drawing, and there will be chairs, and there will be stitches…

 

I’ll let you know if anything else turns up!

 

I did think I was going to write a sort of review of the year, as that seems to be the done thing. But then I realised I just couldn’t be arsed. It was a bloody good year, I got given a big wheelbarrow full of unexpected money by the Arts Council and I spent it doing the most amazing things with other artists and musicians. Pretty damn good. There’s only a tiny bit of it left out of the initial payment, and at some point soon I’ll get the final 10%.

Everything I have done has turned out even better than I thought it would be. I come out of it with more skills and a clarity of vision about what happens next.

I’m grateful ACE said yes, humbled that they thought my project worthy, that I was worth the risk. The after-effects of having that money will be felt for many years to come.

I won’t have a studio after December 31st, but I am at last able to see this as a good thing, and that moving out of the other space was required for my practice to move on. A steadier, calmer approach to finding a new space has sort of been thrust upon me, but pragmatism has taken over… it’s all ok.

I am often frozen by inertia. I am held fast by my comfort blanket. Although the world seems to enjoy throwing stressful changes at me… I have had enough of them over the last couple of years to make me realise that they are the catalyst for me getting my bum into gear. So this is the latest… I have various options… Starting small or throwing caution to the wind…. which?

In the new year, I am going to look at a few places, some cheap, some expensive, some that might be able to generate income, some that won’t, some I can share, some I can’t… some close to home, some daringly close to the city centre… there will be weighing up of possibilities.

But I think it will come down to the first thirty seconds. It will come down to that unquantifiable thing that makes your hairs stand on end.

 

 Apologies to those who like my Audioblog… the house is full of noise and people at the moment. When it goes quiet I will catch up – promise!

 

Audioblog – Please click here

Drawing can be an intimate act.

I’m now feeling desperate to start the task of drawing my chairs. When I think about it my heart beats a little faster and my pupils dilate.

There is a part of my brain connected to my eyes and my hands that can’t let go. I need the ink to flow in steady lines beneath my fingers. I want to feel the texture of the papers… Tracing paper… Layout… Tissue…. Anything that lets the light and truth through…

If I close my eyes I can imagine the lines appearing as my hand sweeps across the paper. Cool fingers make creases and smooth them out again. Caressing the tissue into a smooth plane for the ink to flow across. The line is even. The line has a slow rhythm. I have to keep the ink moving… If I stop, it blots…

I imagine the close surface of the layout paper… Ink gliding across gracefully, there’s no grab at the ink like there is with the greedy tissue… The touch is sleek….

The tracing paper has to be a virgin surface. I use gloves sometimes… And I remove a sheet from the Middle of the pack. If I get greasy finger marks on it, ink resists… I need it clean…

My brain, in that state of flow keeps the line almost continuous. Errors in observation of line only matter if I falter and stall. What matters is a confident line…

I can keep the line going for hours once I start. I forget to drink and eat.

A sigh escapes as I finish… A deep breath… I close my eyes and put down the pen slowly… As if commanded by the FBI at gunpoint….

I put up my hands… Surrender…

Fantasy drawing porn……
Is it just me?

 

Audioblog – Please click here

I had a gentle afternoon with a fairly newish but very lovely friend Sarah Goudie.

 

http://sarahgoudie.com

 

We had about two hours of earnest conversation over pots of tea and assorted things to eat.

We have enough in common to understand each other, and enough differences to make life interesting.

 

Being Earnest is a good thing. I like the word earnest. It implies trust, honesty, seriousness, but not stuffiness I think.

 

We had a few laughs, certainly. We talked about studios, work, earning a living, students and teaching, and what we would like to get out of this artistic life we both lead. We didn’t talk of ambition, but the ambition was implied. We are both striving for something. The something might be fairly modest in the scheme of things, but it is there nonetheless. We discussed mutual support, crits, outings, and generally making time to let other people into the processes. It is important to share, to express, to hear myself saying things out loud is vital to discovering what the work is about, and what I am about.

 

I’m hoping, as I mull over this conversation, that I didn’t totally monopolise it… I can remember talking about Sarah’s work too (which is beautiful by the way, do go and look) Sorry if you feel harangued, Sarah!

 

We talked quite a lot about my impending lack of studio, and how this state can be “handled” so that I can feel positive about it. I also talked about the stage that my work is at and how that can easily be done at home. Until voicing my concerns out loud to another artist, I hadn’t actually realised that I have quite a lot to do with these chairs before I need a studio. I’ve been going on about how I need to spread them out in a line, together, in a real space… but actually, I’m a way off that yet… I will need it… but that need isn’t imminent! Once I had actually said these words, another little weight lifted, another bit of sensible calmness settled upon me.

 

My previous post talked of the danger of containing the work within the sketchbook. Little drawings, with notes and plans of installation is one thing, but taking the drawing out of the book and into the larger space is another…

My intention, as I did initially with the bras, is to document the chairs as they are. I will perform a sort of archaeological dig on them. I will draw, using a similar method to the bras, on translucent papers, layering up details and different views. Gathering the information. Record them as they are, as they came to me. I can’t do this within the confines of the sketchbook. it’s different:

As I spoke to Sarah, I came to understand more deeply the importance this part of the process holds for me. My relationship with these found objects, be they garments or furniture, starts with this. This close observation establishes my position as care-giver. Call it arty-bollocks if you like, but I feel it is part of my responsibility to do this before I begin working on them.

I have four chairs. That’s a lot of drawing. So these first couple of months of the year I can spend at home in the warm, drawing. Meanwhile, looking for the right studio space, for the right amount of money, in the right place… without the mad panic.

 

My afternoon of earnestness was joyful. I’ve talked before about certain people who charge my batteries, enthuse me, inspire me, challenge me, but also reassure me… Sarah is one of those.

 

 

Merry Christmas, thank you for reading.

Audioblog – Please click here

If you’re not careful, practice stays imprisoned in the sketchbook.

Because of the impending “no studio” situation, and the fact many of my things are packed into boxes already, visits to the studio are not now about practice. Until I move everything back home just after Christmas I won’t have a space to get on with what is in my head.  I am intending to re-appropriate the dining room…. But things have changed in the intervening two years, my practice (and equipment) will no longer easily be contained on the top of a four feet by five feet table. I’m going to have to set it up properly, because I don’t know how long it might be for.

Meanwhile… My sketchbook exists to remind me of these thoughts I have about the chairs. These four oddly proportioned chairs are drawn over and over…. Placed in order in a line… My intentions drawn upon the line drawings in a different colour…

The problem is, if they stay there on the paper too long, they may reach some sort of conclusion, some sort of resolution before I make them. It won’t be right, necessarily, but right enough for the paper, and I will move on. The resolution reached will be that which concerns drawing. It will be about the lines, the colour, the forms depicted and composition. These are the wrong resolutions. I need to constantly remind myself that what I’m looking for isn’t a drawing but a relationship.

The relationship between these chairs is a little bit Goldilocks. One is too small, one too tall, one is wide, but low down…. One is the right size, but not comfortable. My plans for them are about the relationships with each other and the people who might sit (or have previously sat) in them. This work can only be done in the physical world, with my whole body. It’s not an end of arm with pencil thing. It’s not proper to confine it within the pages.

So I write this blog to remind myself that I might be able to move on in terms of the sketchbook, but I must return.

I have to make the chairs how I want, in order to leave the gap for the chair that isn’t there…