i return quickly to add another reflective post because i’ve realised the importance of helping others to understand what it is i do.
there is a slight paradoxical situation here. for the wider audience i’ve already set myself out as someone keen to let them see my work for what they think it is. my current statement on my current website is nearly all encoded into qr images.
i do this in response to wanting to be able to be myself without being criticised for what i do or reflected upon by those who wouldn’t attempt to do what i do.
the qr images also show how i like to discover things that i didn’t realsie i didn’t know. the natural world is full of beautiful and interesting things waiting to be discovered.
there have been passages of thought where i wonder about using a blog on a n to speak more openly about what i think and do.
however i do seem to be regularly coming against something in my sub conscious that really makes me uncomfortable about doing this. it might be connected to the earlier point about not wanting to be criticised.
part of my education into art has shown me how the criticism of it is very much an integral part of what makes it flourish.
so if i’m to be criticised i think i need to be happy with myself and what i’m doing. i will after all need to square up to the criticism if it and myself are to be considered in wider circles.
so the new blog will be about me, my practice and those things that i consider and have reactions towards. it’ll also be about things i like to play with, like arduino and isadora. both of these are environments in which programming happens to realise an idea.
so what of my ideas?
ummm…
what of my life ?
i went for a walk this afternoon.
i get out when i can, to walk the dog and think about my some current thoughts. i enjoy taking photographs on my smartphone. i have a dslr however i don’t take that out very often.
i’m as good as a being the step father to three children and on the brink of something legal with my partner whose children they are. all of them are inquisitive and needing small amounts of things to be done that often interupt my thinking.
we all live in a house that is in the early stages of renovation. this is something i’m on the front seat of making happen. i’ve seen how the first phase of jobs has had a massive positive impact on the children and our relationship. we have the next phase at the planning stage. i will make the house things happen alongside all the other things that i do.
while studying for my degree in fine art i somehow missed out the period of art history in which abstraction started. mathew colling’s documantary on abstraction helped to open my eyes to it’s beginnings and i wonder how the initial time of abstraction sit in our culture today. i know from my facebook interactions with collings that he has very little respect for me, however he knows me by another name. i am after all not a particle physisicist.
i’m not even sure if i’m an artist. i’ve had many people describe me as an artist and i’ll not argue with that. it is though a dilema that has been with me for sometime. it was mostly driven by having worked with other artists including tony oursler, isaac julien, moataz nasr, steve mcqueen, and emily jacir. my dilema was how can i be an artist, i am not at the same level as these people. my anxiety to the word artist has recently wained alot.
when i reflect further back to the things that i have made what do i remember? i remember the shock and amazement of discovering m king hubbert’s peak oil theory. it was so preposterous at the time, it got him sacked.
my reaction to it was to make a video. this started my interest into the issue of how as a species we accept and adapt our evolution based upon how our evolution is affecting the way in which the planet upon which we live is evolving and this being in a manner that could theoretically affect our living upon it.
so in turn i’ve become interested in how groups of people living upon the planet attempt to tell others about this evolutionary paradox.
my current state of thinking about it all has got me to the cup of tea challenge, a collaboration with transition belper. it’s the first activity in something we call the big energy project.
i used to be afraid of saying what interested me and what i explored as i was anxious that it wouldn’t be a significantly high enough intellectual level. the paradox of this anxiety was what ever it was, it’ll be criticised anyway as that’s what happenes. so really is this about taking on intellectual heavy weights in a grossly out of balance contest ?
this leads me to the snee snaw of three years ago and more recently something that has a current working title of snee.
the new blog will also take into account some aspects of training that i’ll be taking in early 2015. one is for pleasure and one for cpd. i’m going to take an introduction to listening skills for counselling in january. my attempt to become an art therapist didn’t get me as far as starting the course. with counselling i’m hoping to get a little further. the other course is for fun and considers how to make a game app for the android platform.
i’m looking forward to being me on the new blog.
i’m looking forward to what i can acheive in 2015.
