ARTISTS TALKING

# 7 [23 December 2008]

Could'nt be bothered with with this today, history shistery who cares...?

spent too long tarting about on something else today to rework the design for this job.

I supose I better wish any readers a merry xmas, but dont enjoy it too much

Grumpmiester.

# 6 [12 December 2008]

I am going to have work on another project now and leave this one, as I have the time. The reworked design can wait a week or two.

The interesting thing is that the chosen design is the idea that was in my head when I was speaking at the interview.  The weaving thing became apparent during the research, the relationship between the mosaic tile and the weavers knot, that unit building block is not really worth exploring as it is outside the point of this commision.

I am glad I did not find the time to do the 4th design as it probably would have been the one I wanted to make and the one of least interest to the commissioner.

This is about subject and content that everyone can relate to as they walk by. It is 'Public Art' and it is very much about craftmanship, good composition, clarity. Something I can only describe as civic, this is not a derogatory term.  Citizenship is a very interesting area. (In fact it is also the point of my fish job as well).

It is not about me wanting to change my style of making mosaics. It is about doing them the same way.

# 5 [10 December 2008]

I presented my options to the steering commitee and I enjoyed discusing the way forward. As usual I need to rework one option. The town history and as I anticipated in one of my earlier posts their were several missing elements. These I wrongly predicted.

What's missing is a hat, a pair of gloves and the bull rushes are not indicative enough of the river which passes through the town and I need to draw it the other way up so the gound is on the outside of the circle, not the inside........narwattamean.

This reworked design will then be presented to the proper grown up committee of top jollies some time in Feb09. The architects also want the anti slip spec and tech data on the tiles, which I understand some of which is writen in french. I wondered if it was measured in french not english, ie two different measuring scales as we have with temperatures.

Anyway thats niether here nor there. Oh yeh I do have to put a particular building in as well. Its very tip toe, gentally does it this project.

# 4 [4 December 2008]

Contractually I have to produce three options for this job. This one I've just done is where I start working from odd feelings, intuition, untangible thought processes, those things you like but cant really be intellectual or elloquant about.

I like patterns, I like the the fact that the boarder is more prominent than the images in the holes made by the travelling boarder. I like rugs as I said.

This analysis dosent get you through an MA degree but ar'nt you allowed to work from a sub conscious level. Does the artist need to justify intellectually what they do. The answer is yes it seems to me ....well give us a break dudes and history can gfill the gaps, if indeed you feel there are any?

The commission is very formal in some ways and I may even do a fourth design if I have the time which goes away from representational images of buildings and machinery. I have to present these drawings and some other diagrams to scale and stuff. Time is running out as I am full of fish at the moment as well.

But weaving is an interesting thing and I would like to explore this process, actually see how to create a simple pattern. even better I would like to make the dyes and colours myself. But I am paid to make a history mosaic of an expanding town in the Cottswolds not tart about with coloured yarns.

And anyway I havent got a loom and thats a bit too long winded for me too make as well.

# 3 [22 November 2008]

As I said it is all about weaving which is what this town is famous for. Now weaving and mosaic have a stronger relationship than you might think. Each knot on a weavers warp is a unit, as is a mosaic tile.

I have spent my whole life doing mosaics wich make lines like a bag of worms (Romans called this vermiculatum and when it is over the entire mosaic they called it musivum). Now this weaving thing has blown that out of the water and I am very interested in this unit approach. Like resolution in pixels. Its about making patterns really and not trying to make images look real. It is more like writing with symbols which mean or represent something.

I have to try a design incorporating this technique.

# 2 [19 November 2008]

I have been working on designs for this job for a couple of days now. I feel progress is being made.

I was really intimidated by this historical thing. Much more than usuall, all of a sudden its judgeable.

Well.... does it depict the history of our town, does it do it properly? Have you included this episode and that event, those buildings and these people. er probably not.

I'm just going to have to do it the way it comes out. Its all about weaving really there's plenty of other stuff but weaving is for me at the moment.

# 1 [27 October 2008]

 I found this when I was googling rather silly questions about the value of history. It is writen by someone called William Lund. It was by far the best thing I have found so far! 

History is important because WE ARE the past: we are the sum of all the events--good, bad, and indifferent--that have happened to us. This sum product guides our actions in the present.


The only way we can understand who we are and how we got to be that way is by studying the past. Similarly, the only way we can understand others is by studying their past. If we don't understand what made them who they are--in terms of how they think and act--we will make all sorts of mistakes in our interactions with them. Think of how you treat people differently based on how you know them. The same is true for countries when it comes to diplomacy. Our failures in Iraq were borne of a limited understanding of who they are (because we haven't taken the time to truly study and understand their past).

"We study the past to understand the present; we understand the present to guide the future." -- William Lund