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A Walk With Cosmo.
By: Rob Turner
Cosmo:
Walks once a day,
Can't remember where he buries his bones,
large fury and 'Apricot' in colour,
and does not molt.
He is a standard poodle crossed with a golden retriever.
Rob Turner
Cosmo is a 'Golden Doodle' and well, this it is the most important part of his day and we share it together.
I am a visual artist who walks with Cosmo every day, rain or shine. This is the only time I have to just let my thoughts go where they want and reflect on things.
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'Firework Night'.
# 47 [5 November 2009]
Firework Night with a fish supper.
I was looking forward to a dog walk as I am just beginning to get really busy again and wanted to just chill and let things settle in my mind. I have already just made a stupid timetable/availability mistake. Something I described as an administrative error in an apologetic email.
But; it is firework night and Cosmo gets what you might describe as 'excited'.
So I let Cos off the lead and he legs it at full power across the grass towards the sea. Barking. Just barking at bangs, wooshes, bursts, frazzle sounds, glitter, coloured lights and popping noises.
Total full on, out and out wreckless barking at the top of his voice. He got that off his chest as it were and we settled into the walk.
Next thing I know he's nowhere to be seen and I'm calling him, whistling and that.
The tide is out and he's down on the beach amongst the groins. I know whats going on and walk towards him. Illuminated by the moon light there is a dozen or more glowing white underbellies of these kind little shark/dog fish all washed up on the beach and I'm treading on them as I realise what they are.
So now I can smell Cosmo at 5-6 paces and I'm marching home with the hump. Then we meet a Wrottwieler on heat and now we are home he's barking again.
He smells too bad to get close to him in his distress.
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'Our journey to the litle blue hut.'. A drawing showing me and Cosmo's journey along the sea front to collect the keys for my residency. And my thoughts for the project as I was riding back.
# 46 [17 October 2009]
Dogs Have 3 Gears.
Humans have two. Walking and running. A jog does accelerate into a run, but the action is the same.
Dogs have both walking and running (or galloping), but inbetween these two is this other gear, a sort of trot where they are not walking or running. This trot is where their feet hardley come off the floor but they can go quite fast and keep this up for along time.
I am now artist in residence at 'The Little Blue Hut'. I rode my bike gently along the sea front, to pick up the keys. It was very windy. Its about 4 miles or so. Cosmo kept up, trotting the whole way there and back.
It did knacker him though.
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Thanks very much for your encouraging comment Rob...coincidentally just been offered another exhibition in Austria. Smartie, my Sealyham terrier is looking forward to more apple strudel!...we like your blog...seeya, Graham Swain
posted on 2009-10-18 by Graham Swain
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'My phone has drowned'. Make sure your contacts are saved to the sim card and not phone memory.
# 45 [9 October 2009]
My Phone has Drowned.
The other night me and Cosmo got very wet. It rained so hard it would'nt have made any difference if I had walked in the sea.
My feet were sloshing around inside my wellies and all I wanted was to get home. Cosmo was unpreturbed and still wanted to sniff this and that and was happy enough. He didnt seem uncomfortable!
He looked like he had just had a perm. I was very grumpy and kept reminding myself that it could be worse. I might have been press ganged into the navy, and the Bosun was telling me to climb up the rigging and get the top gallants down.
When I got home I realised my coat pocket had collected quite alot of water for a pocket and my phone had drowned.
I bought a new phone today thinking I would put my old sim card in and all my contacts would instantly appear.
'NO CONTACTS' I must have changed some kind of defalt setting and all saved to phone memory not sim card!
Which is a bit of a bummer.
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Comments on this post
Thanks Don, It is nice to get get feed back and such a simple comment is very encouraging. I should comment on other peoples blogs more. It is funny as I regularly read posts as they appear (yours included in that by the way), but more often than not dont leave comments! Way back on post 19 Andrew Bryant suggested I look at series of books published by photographers. One was about dog walking with Kodak a golden reteiver. Publishing is an area I dont really know much about.......how to get money for costs etc. I enjoy your drawings and your prints which very often grab my attention with their raw compositional power.
posted on 2009-10-10 by Rob Turner
Rob, I've been a fan of your blog for a while and think it would make a great book.
posted on 2009-10-10 by Don Braisby
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'Twin Oaks'. The missing piece in a puzzle for folk singer Martin Simpson.
# 44 [1 October 2009]
Twin Oaks
Sometimes I get rather full up with art all the time. I think as an artist one does tend to try so hard, never waste a day, got to promote yourself or do something? I'm waiting for a decision from a commitee.....still.
Yesterday I just thought I'm full up with all this art and went for a dog walk instead. Cosmo was alittle confused as it was not his usuall dog walk time?
The acorns and sweet chestnuts are falling off the trees now and the single track paths in the woods are covered with acorns.
This reminded me of a story on the radio ages ago, told by Martin Simpson. He said he had been asked to finish someone elses unfinished song! He discovered this twin oak storey. 'If you ever see twin oak trees growing side by side, (this quite often happens in hedgrows apparently) it is because Gypsy, travelling families had the tradition that if a young baby died, then an acorn was placed in each hand and the baby then buried by the side of the road under the hedgrows'.
This provided the end for his unfinished song, I wondered if it would start someting for someone else, as I can't think of a way to use it, but it is a lovely idea.
I'm thinking about art when I'm supossed to be not thinking about it.
Why do we do that?
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Comments on this post
Hello Deborah, The joy of thinking and preparing for 'doing art' is huge when the time has been carved out for it. Does art just become, just another job if you do it all the time? Who else apart from writers, musicians etc get that never switched off 'arises with the flow thing' Do the 'Dragons' in their business worlds walk around a market on sat morning with their family and go 'I know'! 'Thats it! I expect they probably do. It's about associations I think, how your mind links things together. I am sure this is not exclusive to artists. But as an artist I think it is an essential process, for people in other jobs there may be no outlet for their minds meanderings. But the burning question is, did you buy a copy of Martins Simpsons new album as a result of that radio interview with the acorn storey? I thought about buying it, and if I serendipitusly see it one day.... next week or next decade I probably will buy it.
posted on 2009-10-02 by Rob Turner
Hi Rob, I remember that story on the radio it is lovely I was quite taken with it too. I am thinking about art now when I should be re organising reference files at work. I think about it when I should be giving lots of other things my attention. I do think there is a difference with the practical thoughts of the business of being an artist and the inspirational thought that can lead you in your work. The latter cannot be switched off as at best it just arises with the flow of things.
posted on 2009-10-02 by Deborah Ann Graham
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Ghosts Calling.
# 43 [29 September 2009]
Ghosts Calling,
We went to the woods this evening. One of the usual walks you know. Cosmo is a gun dog as he is part golden retriever I dont know if poodles are french gun dogs they might be? Anyway Cosmo is solid gone man....that place he goes..those places in and out the undergrowth, through the bushes, looking, investigating, checking things out, going back and and checking them again. Looking for stoats, birds, squirrels or foxes. I will never know, but he's really focused in his searching.
Then an acorn hits the floor!
He stops dead, he's heard it at 30 paces ears slightly raised and head movements like Tango Dancers on Strictly.
Whasat?......er ......
nothing but
......there's............a feckin ...........rabbit been over here and I'm leggin it after him. He dissapears.... rushes into the woodland..... and 20 seconds later he's trotting down the path towards me.
Nah......no sign of it now.
And so it goes on. Never catches anything, never dissapointed, allways looking though.
Me, I got my head phones on Listening to my favourite track. I've only got about 5 tracks in there. But this one is special. Ghosts Calling. You could describe it as orchestral...its abororiginal didge, a snare drum with wishy washy sound and these clicky sticks. Fantasic in the woods. It is just totally fluid and I'm solid gone an all. The noises from the didge are the animals Cosmo is looking for and I'm flicking my fingers in time with the clicky sticks. It fits with the woods perfectly, if I made videos it would be the start of something. If you played it in Picadilly Circus it would be rubbish, it needs the woods.
Then smashing in my head at higher volume is Rock Star by Nickelback, the contrast is unbearable. And the culture shock between the life styles that relate to these two types of music is shattering me.
stop
back
tracks
open
staiway to heaven
play.
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Maybe a ghostly prodigal song would ease the tempo of your feet? Beware of sleeping stingers at this time of year, they hurt noses that try to snap at them.
posted on 2009-10-04 by Christine Gray
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fat felt pen and coloured pencils.. Cosmo goes to town.
# 42 [27 September 2009]
Cosmo goes to Town.
The town.....Whitstable. A town where the high street is so narrow a bus going one way and a car going the other can sometimes cause a bit of a cufufle. The vast majority of the shops are independant with seaside bricka-brack, baskets of stuff hanging everywhere, ice creams, 2nd hand books, cafes, unusual clothes shops with womens swimming costumes with German Junkers 88 with the bomb doors open printed on? Just a visual fest reminisant of Camden or Carnaby St in the old days. I saw a sandwich board on the pavement with a plastic crab nailed to it. Bright nylon fluttering kites, a cyclist wearing a very recognisable Heinz Beans 57 varieties shirt. People so big, I dont know how they get in their clothes, a woman following us wearing a pair of flourescant lime green crocs. Galleries, cds, sea food, and a plastic braclets for £13.
As it turns out all Cosmo is interested in are lamp posts! A small wooden planter on the pavement with a bush in. Corners of walls or buildings where the down pipe discharges water onto the pavement. The whole plethera of 'Stuff' just no interest what so ever.
Even a live Hank Marvin tribute Ghost Riders in the Sky belting out from the cafe over the harbour quay where I had the 'Famous' findus fish finger and tartre sauce sandwhich failed to have any impact and he waited patiently for us to finish our coffees.
Short changed or what.
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'Sid Lives Here.'. Basically we walk the back-to-front D shape, and often go inside this shape amongst the trees. Sid always gets us on the straight path back towards his house.
# 41 [23 September 2009]
Cosmo's Nemisis
Sadley, I have to say again Cosmo has had another couple of run ins with Sid. On the last occasion I found myself putting Cosmo on his lead as I saw Sid advancing. Sid tears in and I am trying to protect Cosmo, but really I'm hampering him cos he's on the lead and Sid is as mobile as he needs to be. Cosmo fights back and I can see Sids owner coming up. So I do my best to keep them apart.
Now Cosmo is making a wimpering noise I have never heard him make before as Sid is eventually put on his lead. What I wanted to do was grab Sid and let Cosmo do his worst, but somehow the unwriten dog ownership rules don't allow that. So I have to hold Cosmo back while Sid does his worst. A kind of showing the other dog owner that I tried to hold Cosmo in check.
Now Cosmo has been worn down by Sids relentless agression towards him. I believe the wimpering sounds were not because he was bitten or bleeding, but because he just wants peace, and the wimpering is a surrender signal.
This is Cosmo's retribution for running amock in Sids front garden chasing chickens.
I feel sorry for Cosmo, as this is like a constant ongoing fight with the school bully. Something I can relate to.
Sids owners were very appologetic and we disscussed it at some length. May be I'm over sensitive on Cosmo's behalf, but its spoiling my dog walks.
The woods are big enough to go somewhere else.
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# 40 [13 September 2009]
Thinking in words or language and thinking through making?
Have you noticed how Andrew Bryant drops these little incedurary devices into peoples blogs? (Not a critisism Andrew, an observation) made me think hard.
But can I just say: I thought about 'Little Hans' on the walk with Cosmo this evening and I dont believe 'Little Hans' needed the theory I think Sigmund Freud needed it!
Different types of thinking.
Claire says its joined up and the result is a finished creation, with which I agree ....and thinking when making is definatley different from other stages in the process.
'Thinking through making' does that actually make sence? Thinking whilst making does. Thinking when making is often a tactile thing...what consistacy is the cement.. too stiff? How much preasure is required to bend that...not enough pull it harder.. how dry is that now and how dry will it be in about 10 minutes? physical repsonces not words. Some kind of technical tacit knowladge is gained and automatic in its delivery. Testing things to see if they do what you want is what goes on.
Thinking before making, 'designing' is just pretty free-form in its conection from one thing to another to form ideas. It is a visual way of thinking using an eye that works in your head to produce relevant visuals but some about using words as well. Does it really become about words when you need to explain to someone else what your going to do. If you dont have to justify what your doing to anyone the language part never gets developed as the creator does not need to sharpen it, they can work with their instincts and intuition?
Another thing is: does language develop your ideas and take them further? yes I'm sure it does, but I think what really develops ideas are new experiences. Once you've perfected your language about what you do, time has gone by and you want to do something different and your stuck with your mantra. Change, new things, stimulas these are the things which create ideas.
Why did Marc Rothco commit suicide? Was it because he was forced to paint Marc Rothco's all the time?
Sorry if I'm rambling, it was an extra long dog walk this evening. To Cosmo's benifit if no one else's.
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Hi Emily, I have two or three times been told that my expression of interest or statement was 'too generic'. So I figure there is only really one way to do these things, and that is write something new every time, as most applications want something about your ideas or reaction etc. Its all very time consuming and sometimes I take it really seriously (like it matters), and other times I am rather throw away about it. Both have often failed and both have also yielded results. So I guess its as openended as art itself? I find it hard to write about my ideas, after the amount of times I've done it you would think I'd have got the hang of it by now. I hate it.
posted on 2009-09-22 by Rob Turner
That comment about time going by and being stuck with your mantra, I think that can be true. I sometimes feel like there is pressure to be understandable from the outside, like a neat package that you can see all the ingredients of. This means that I write statements (these help me understand what I am doing too of course!) and then I think I should update my statement all the time, but I don't. These days my statement is left fairly vague so I have plenty of room to shift about and still make some kind of sense (to myself I do at least). I love the language bits and I am very interested in writing, but sometimes it makes me question everything to the point of paralysis and I think it's better for me to make first, write later.
posted on 2009-09-14 by Emily Speed
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Scandinavia as it is at the moment.
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coloured pencil.
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# 39 [9 September 2009]
These are some of the places I walk with Cosmo. They need new maps because preparation for the arrival of the cattle has changed the woodland alot. 'Scandinavia' is almost unrecoisable now.
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'A wise man.'. Courtesy: tinternet. The white man knows how to make everything. But he does not know how to distribute it.Sitting Bull
# 38 [28 August 2009]
On this question of artists explaining/conceptualising/justifing what they do by intelectual juggelery to others. I am able to see it from a slightly different position because I can use time, looking back 20 years or more at this issue.
I remember being a recent graduate or emerging artist trying to establish their practice (how ever you want to describe it) and there has always been a focal issue as to why I'm not getting exhibitions/commissions/funding etc.
First it was that the art world was all about who you knew, not what you knew.
Then it was all about physical presentation of your work (I'm talking pre digital cameras). Could'nt afford to produce expensive laminated folders with printed inserted information sheets. How good were your slides?
Then it was websites did you have one yet, it showed some kind of status? Even though it did not portray you as you wanted to be seen.
Now it's this issue of how you think? Is it clever enough, critical, conceptual. The language has to be right. All these things are really just things to be cross about if you did'nt get what you wanted.
TIME is the key to all this anxiety. Its much easier to look back at a body of work which may have taken two years, more to accumulate after leaving collage. Look back after time and its is easier to see what you did and why you did it. The complex issues in everyones lives prevents the creation of artworks but artworks still come out. They take longer and have limitations. These limitations shape the type of work that is made. Half a garden shed or the kitchen table forces a type of work, as does only a computer.
The other thing is that: 'The Work' plus 'Something Else' is what may edge that funding or commission. What that 'something else is' is not nessacerily how good you are at writing conceptual critical intelectual justifaction for your work. It may be that you have completed a substancial body of work and documented it well so you can present it clearly to interested people. Which is a totally different thing.
I am trying to help when I say Rome was'nt built in a day. The last thing I was going to say is I think artists are made by the lives they live, not what they were taught in collage.
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Claire its great to understand what people find interesting, just basic feed back about what you do and thanks for grounding me again. I think andrew has picked up on your comment about different types of thinking while making and preparing or writing stuff etc. I think that will generate the content of my my next post. Pointing and preteding to know as David says is something I have to hold my hands up and admit guilt.
posted on 2009-09-12 by Rob Turner
Rob When people ridicule things by referring to what supposedly immature beings can do, they simply demonstrate a lack of sympathy for reasoned argument. I suspect that the same people would argue that the 11+ is a good idea. We might as well believe that given enough monkeys and typewriters, one of them would write King Lear. Gardner’s, speculation about ‘intelligences’ is just that. Although Gardner may not have intended it in his work, the notion of intelligence is loaded with connotations of status. It’s one of those words which points to something and pretends to know what it is. It also helps justify separating out the ‘monkeys’ and putting them in with the typewriters.
posted on 2009-09-11 by David Minton
Freud's case study 'Little Hans' is a story about a boy who needed to have a theory, even if it made no sense, he needed to have one because it enabled him to master his fears. Do you think there is a difference between thinking through language (words) and thinking through making? I would say there is. When you make things you can think things you would never think by just thinking.
posted on 2009-09-11 by Andrew Bryant
Hi again At the risk of thrashing this one to death, I'm still not sure why in the context of art practice we keep splitting thinking and making or making and thinking or living and thinking ... or writing and thinking or even writing and making. Going shopping isn't cooking but generally you have to do that first before cooking a great meal. Anyhow, I love the Walking with Cosmo blog and wish that I too could walk and reflect generally when out walking my own dog. I can't because he is a bouncy labrador that thinks he's a spaniel and is pretty uncontrollable at the moment despite hours of training! So when reading this blog, I imagine walks I might make.
posted on 2009-09-11 by Clare Smith
David, thats funny about Howard Gardener, as I rather liked the cut of his jib. His theories explained my shortcomings and made me feel more confident about my own abilities. Failing my 11+ I felt I was on a garbage heap and had missed a ticket to a grown up life with opportunities for great things. You could also argue that for the general public, art which is particularly academic is the kind of art that gives art a bad name! You know when people say to you, ' my nephew could have done that and he's not even nine yet'. I do remember replying to this by saying, 'yeh could he sell it for 35 grand though'?
posted on 2009-09-10 by Rob Turner
Rob, your reference to Howard Gardner is interesting, in that he was criticised by his peers for the arbitrariness of his categories and use of the term ’intelligence’. His work is arguably the kind of academicism that gets the academic a bad name.
posted on 2009-09-10 by David Minton
Now thats a really interesting one Kirsty, cos it lands right in my court: I only ever apply for work that has a budget attached to it. I have spent my whole career. working to publicly funded commissions, I have done this full time for 20 years. And your right my practice when I left collage used to be painting is totally redundant. I can't tell if this is natural development of my practice as an artist, or out and out mercenary behaviour. The renaisence workshops worked to patron commissions, and yet they transend that mercenary label, but that is what they are 'guns for hire'. But I have earned a living, brought up a family (my wife included of course who has more than pulled her weight) and 'I have lived a life' had a few bumpy rides and really enjoyed every commisssion. This blog walking with cosmo is really about my inner world which is not paid for by someone else and anything in here is unpaid and me looking at my inspirations out side of earning money.
posted on 2009-09-10 by Rob Turner
I'm sorry that I gave the impression that I was 'anti-academic', Andrew. I'm not - although I do have issues with some of the language used to describe art. I think there's a huge amount of value in writing, reading about art and going to private views. As a working artist, I do all those things all the time and I'm currently considering going back to do an MA. But what I was trying to get across is that it's just PART of making the work NOT a substitute for it. It doesn't matter how good you are at writing funding proposals if your own practice has ground to a halt. I often meet artists who are so consumed by all that stuff that they hardly seem to make work any more.
posted on 2009-09-10 by Kirsty Hall
David, yes I agree spades are spades as it were. Are we asking if it is poor, good, or exellent spade. Like a rubber one may be poor. A shovel or a spade for moving loose materials? Then the shovel would be exellent. Quality the is watch word. How do you measure that one ? By asking the gardeners with hands on experience, a scientist, or a manfacturer of spades, a philoshoper, or a dragons den celebrity. Help? Interesting about the class system emerging there, grammer schools and tech collages. Ken Robinson says academic intellegence is only one kind of intellegence. Howard Gardener tell us there are 7-8 different catorgries of intelegence. and in our make up we all have different combinations of these.
posted on 2009-09-10 by Rob Turner
Being and doing. Whatever it is it can be done well or badly. There is no real split between the academic and whatever else (the practical?) There are only different kinds of practise. This academic problem seems to come from underlying class issues –clever people think, practical people ‘make’. But it is based upon a (sometimes wilful) lack of insight into the intelligence of ‘making’. Bridges, houses, music, ideas, all have to be well crafted if they are to make sense. Tosh is tosh whether it’s in the brain or on the wall. The difficult bit is understanding what is in front of you.
posted on 2009-09-10 by David Minton
hi Clare, What do accademics do ....travel to meetings all day ? In the words of Ken Robinson 'carry their heads to meetings' He has some interesting things to say by the way. Heres the thing; when you have passed your driving test you only then really start to learn how to drive by negotiating and expeirencing the jungle out there. Are we talking about different driving styles here. A driver who applies to the highway code, or one who makes instinctive decissions. No I think the word vocation is what this dissucussion is playing ping pong with.
posted on 2009-09-10 by Rob Turner
Doing an MA, going to private views, running arts projects, working in the studio, thinking about ideas and talking about them - all of that is life for me and makes up my life as an artist and is about making art. An academic life is a life or should one say that a life that includes academic thought is not not a life.
posted on 2009-09-10 by Clare Smith
Ah....I see exactley what you mean now. Does it look like artists are the only 'real people' with things to say? Which is a bit of an artish thing to imply! Or feeling insecure in one group and wanting to belong to a different group with more common views? There are 'ANTI ART WORLDS' and there are anti art worlds. I'm not 'ANTI ACADEMIA' but anti academic in the way I do stuff. I dont know if you ever read Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance. (put it on the MA reading list). Is this the classic / romantic split in personality types identified by the author? My mental powers fall short of answering how these approches meet and cross over. I can only associate them together, with this analogy. Some peoples make up may place them 50/50 in each side. I might even describe myself as a romantic classic or of 35-65 split, or this is complete rubbish. either way, its nice to have people me blog.
posted on 2009-09-09 by Rob Turner
I was really referring specifically to Anthony "What I did in college, apart from a few key ideas, bares no resemblence to what I have done since..", Kirsty "Having a studio, going to private views, talking about art online or filling out funding forms doesn't make someone an artist..", and Susan's refusal to do an MA, all of which combined seems to suggest an 'anti-academia' and 'anti-art world' sentiment in favour of a notion of the 'artist as real person'. I am suggesting that the two 'worlds' are perhaps not mutually exclusive...
posted on 2009-09-09 by Andrew Bryant
Being out there talking/writing about art is living and working. Do you mean that the conversations had are art? I guess that depends on how they are recorded and presented!
posted on 2009-09-08 by Rob Turner
Do MAs, private views and talking about art really preclude 'living and working'...?
posted on 2009-09-08 by Andrew Bryant
Reading thoughts like this, unfettered by the constraints of adhering to the current acceptable language of critical justification, - real thoughts - is what makes the interaction on these blogs so valuable. Looking around, I barely see anyone exhibiting who hasn't an MA after their name and yet I refuse to sign up for one (I've declined offers twice) unless I am convinced it will make a contribution to my work that cannot be gained through living and working.
posted on 2009-09-04 by Susan Francis
I love that line about artists being made by the lives they live.
posted on 2009-09-01 by Clare Smith
Rob, Totally agree. I have made a couple of references to this post in my latest post.
posted on 2009-08-28 by David Minton
I totally agree with your point about how we live our lives. Having a studio, going to private views, talking about art online or filling out funding forms doesn't make someone an artist (although all those things are often part of a contemporary artist's life) - making art is what makes someone an artist!
posted on 2009-08-28 by Kirsty Hall
Could not agree more. What I did in college, apart from a few key ideas, bares no resemblence to what I have done since. It is about the artist too, who we are, the whole thing. Life itself is our art. I try to just do what I do.
posted on 2009-08-28 by Anthony Boswell