ARTISTS TALKING

# 31 [17 July 2009]

I think our stars must be badly aspected at the moment. (thats mine and Cosmo's)

I've got feckin tooth ache, Gordon Bennet, Jesus H Christ I've got tooth ache.

Cosmo was surrounded suddenly by about 4 dogs on the beach and it developed into a bit of a tear up with a Beagle. These make short work of foxes, and it must have mistaken Cosmo for a large yellow fox (retard) and it attacked Cosmo really bad. Do you remember Bjork attacked a cameraman in an airport, it was on the 10 o'clock news years back. This apparently was because she felt her child was in danger with all the Paparazzi in its face, so she took out a cameraman with a rush of protective adrenaline...some story here, I ran into this pack of dogs picked up this Beagle and threw it belly up, head height into the air. This stopped the fighting and we walked off, some woman came up wearing a wet suit and took her beagle away, she did not say a word. Cosmo later I discovered was bleeding from a bite on his ear and by the time we got home he was soaked in blood.

When were up the woods he also had a run in with Sid the Schnauzer, who charged 100 yards (ignoring his owners call to heal) to confront Cosmo, went all kind of flat and low and the inevitable happened as I expected, Sid was out for revenge over the chicken incident some while back now. I could hear his owner shouting out 'if he gets aggressive kick him hard'. Again I had to separate fighting dogs.

What's going on here, I am a responsible dog owner?

other news is my wild flower seeds are a disapointment, but some are growing in a bucket in my garden.

I am slightly frustrated as I had wanted to read more about Emile Durkhiem, and totemic societies, but that will have to wait. I have noticed over the years that interests and research for art is often truncated and goes in steps, with other stuff happening in between. The current example of this is my work with maps, been interested in maps for a several years now and have made about 4 large scale mosaics using maps as a theme. I will probably have to make a 5th one soon. This means picking up dormant map ideas (if I have any) and going back to maps. Over the years a body of map work has built up, just that it doesn't flow in a joined up line. This is a result of of working only on commissioned projects. I dont think there is anything wrong with this, only you can't strike while the iron is hot, if you see what I mean. Compared to gallery artists who can work in straight uninterrupted lines on their ideas, or can they? blogs show the same pattern due to commitments etc.

So totemic exploration will have to wait untill my 'little blue hut' residency later this year.

# 32 [23 July 2009]

It's one of those parralell walks, Cosmo's in his world and I'm in mine. Just following an unknown path in the woods. Paths in the woods are a bit like paths  in real life.

Feeling overwelmed, small, grumpy and anyoyed that I have got to answer the same old questions, those same old questions for every job application. You know the ones, those ones you can never answer because you dont know the answers, yet you've had to answer them loads and loads of times before.

'outline your ideas.... and how you might approach this..... and why are you interested..... how will you fulfill the aims....... how do you meet the person specifacation........outline relevant experiance and show evidence of interest in this project? 

I've gone all sulky and I'm walking in the woods saying..... Well...I dont know do I, because I've never been there have I, I havent met anyone there, I dont know how the dynamic between the stakeholders works, and I dont know what people living there think. I dont know whats interesting yet or how I'm going to do all the stuff you want to know. I'm not sure whats relevant and I think your person spec sounds like an administrative position and I dont know how to show you evidence of interest in this project either. Is'nt an application evidence of interest, what sort of questions that?

Now....do some peole who think in logical organised processes have generic systematic answers to all these questions and they apply a formula to cover the range of stuff required. Can they invent hypothesis and systems they are going to use, without knowing what they are going to use them on.

me.....I don't know how I'm going to do it, and when I write what I'm going to do, when I get there I might need to change it, as I can see a better way of doing it, as there are other intersting things i didnt know about before. But I can do it, I just cant tell you yet!

Not much good sending that.

So in the end you just write something and dont agonise over every paragraph cos who ever reads it does'nt know you agonised over it and you really tried hard to answer the questions and it took a day to choose the things you wanted to show them.

or

you just cut and paste from the last two or three applications you made, selected several nice photos and sent the whole thing off before 10.30 in the morning?

So what are the best questions to ask then?   oh .... It's allways about writing, it frustrates me and I'm not in the mood for it. Just get on with it and DO IT, anything, it does not matter, so what if it misses the target. Next time move he target and you might hit it.

These woodland paths widen, narrow, open out, take you to places you dont know, become impassable, lead you into sunny clearings, or go all bumpy. Metahors for life really.

# 33 [28 July 2009]

The Bird man of Alcatraz shows Bert Lancaster is a ‘lifer’ who gets up every day to tend his collection of birds; he feeds and nurtures them lovingly. He cures their illnesses and becomes an expert on them.

In a way I see this is a romantic parallel to the expected life of an artist with a ‘true practice’!

My wife says that my life as an artist has been more like the Great Escape. I have worked to commissioners briefs, tried to define my practice and jumped through more hoops than you can shake a stick at. But still working inside the defined parameters of the brief I have explored a huge range of areas of interest to me. I have emptied many many hidden bags of soil into the commissioner’s plans and schemes without them knowing, right under their noses.

These bags of soil from the hidden escape tunnel of my artistic ideas and values have been distributed all over the country. I have explored and researched new mediums, new materials, new subjects, colour schemes, ways of working and topics I’m really interested in, just the same as non commissioned artist investigations. The difference might be I have had to wait some time for the opportunity to follow on with a subject which had formed part of an earlier work. Over a period of years and years revisiting certain ideas or techniques builds a body of work in that area. If you have lots of these little ideas following their own pathways simultaneously then you are always ‘finding yourself’ as an artist even though you are working to a specific brief. My training as an artist taught me to follow ideas in a straight line. My working life post education has taught me to meander, wait, work with other people’s ideas, work with things you never expected you would ever think of and work quicker than perhaps you want to.

The constant pressure to define my practice is intimidating and the use of language used by those who want to potentialy work with me or know more about me is creative, but it does not make me feel confident or able to talk back and allow me to sound like I know what I am talking about. I am sure me and many artists want to work as artists within commerce, education, local government, services and industry. Are artists expected to converse in the same language, and if they can’t, is their work rubbish? I feel intimidated by this and worry that if my letter of application or my expression of interest doesn’t use their language or their kind of visioning, if my ideas are not razor sharp and clearly described to reveal some kind of Blofeldian master plan, that I must be below the standard they are looking for.

Perhaps if I could describe that I didn’t have a deliverable concept yet, in a clever enough way that would be good enough and they would take me seriously.

# 34 [6 August 2009]

I've been feeling pants lately. I should'nt. I've got more work than I can keep up with and several oppotunities which look worth applying for. But I still feel rubbish, but did have a break through today. Drawings: my drawings are usually about, designing something to be made in a different material, showing some one else an idea or how to make something.

Todays drawings I did two of those three things, but  I was creating little worlds that I inhabited and walked around as if I were inside a model world.

The other thing I wanted to say was someone actually contacted me to paint a mural, did you hear that PAINT a MURAL. Not print something digital onto sheet materials, paint. Brushes favoured over spray cans.

The economics of painting a mural are problematic because you have to go there and do it day after day racking up pertol and labour costs. Is it really true a painting is viable in todays digital high speed world, does it have something other media dont have, thats worth paying for.

Painting, that is where it all started for me years back and I love it. Enough to work with teenagers and a site hoarding bloody miles away. Well we'll see?

Cosmo is a little too hot in this weather and he's booked in for a hair cut next Tue.

# 35 [12 August 2009]

I turned the mural job down. It was a long drive at the start and end of each working day. They were not going to include any expences outside the fee. I just thought I dont need to work that hard.

I have had my foot right hard down on the gas pedal for what seems 18 months or more even. You cant keep that pace up indefinately? I still have stuff to do but just with more time inbetween them.

Now, Cosmo has no problem with leisure and active time. He chills out during the day and makes the most of his active walk time.

I'm finding it hard to relax in the spare time. I should be reading, drawing, relaxing and reflecting on things. Reviewing my promotional material and approach, enjoying not working so hard.

But there is a little nagging feeling says 'you should be earning money, there's a recession on. You should ern all you can, you berk.

I think I'm punch drunk if you know what I mean! I am taking my lead from Cosmo and making an effort to chill out for fecks sake.

So here are a couple of drawings from todays Walk with Cosmo.

# 36 [17 August 2009]

We got sort of half lost on today's walk. We walked through corn fields with hay bales in for a while, needed a bit of guess work, but never really that lost. I dont think Cosmo knew we were lost he was very exuberent.

Sometimes I try to test him to see if he knows the way? Oh..he makes out he does, boldly goes off in one direction. But then coincidentally discovers the trail of a squirell or rabbit which takes him on a long wide arc back to the junction where I let him decide which way. At this point he waits for me to either carry along the path he chose, or go back to the junction and pick a fresh one.

Now I noticed a blue flower in my wild flower bucket yesterday, turns out it is a corn flower. An endangered spieces. Named so because it's habitat is corn fields. But with modern farming techniques these 'weeds' are eradicated with chemicals, pesticides and stuff.

This is the first flower I have ever really grown. I have told other people to plant flowers and that, but I never really bonded with those flowers.

# 37 [25 August 2009]

I dont have much to say but here are some dog walk drawings.

# 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.

# 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. 

# 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.