ARTISTS TALKING

# 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. 

# 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.

# 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.

# 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?

# 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.

# 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.

# 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.

# 48 [11 November 2009]

Scyliorhinus Canicula

(small spotted catshark) a bottom feeder that likes shallow waters.

More commonly named the Lesser Spotted Dogfish, more colloquially known round here as those FCUKNIG FISH that get washed up on the beach.

I did a pre dog walk earlier to check out the beach and could see crows and seagulls were still working, where there were still some remains of washed up Lesser Spotted Dogfish.

Later, on the walk Cosmo's lead was attached a good 500 yards before this particular section of the beach (which is his favourite at the moment!).  

Once the hazzard was passed I was able to remind myself that the glue I was using to make my mosaic had gone rather watery. I make my own glue for this purpose and had made two jars. The unused one, stored in an air tight jar was still all jelly, but the one I was using was open to the air, and over a period of about a month it had broken down and gone too runny. It is making the paper too wet and buckling is a problem. Also I noticed that the paper had got so wet it had soaked through and was well on the way to sticking itself to the table top. As it is so watery it is taking a long time to dry in this damp weather. another problem it would cause would be when I need to cut the mosaic into sections with a scalpal the still slightly damp paper will tear rather than cut. This is to be avoided as well.

So, really  I was telling myself that for 15 - 20 minutes of time invested in pouring the glue back into a sauce pan add about another heaped table spoon of flour to thicken it up, a bit more salt to stop it going mouldy and boil it up for a few minutes would make the perfect glue.

This would be time well spent. Perfect jelly like glue enables the mosaic tiles to slide over the surface of the paper easily for accurate positioning. It also has less water in so dries better in these damp conditions and wont buckle the paper quite so much. 

The other thing that crossed my mind was that I have two schools projects coming up. One in a rural primary school with children who have started life with an advantage, compared to an urban secondary school where my 'transition' group of pupils are definately disadvantaged. I am looking forward to this contrast.

Cosmo is walking home with a slight limp?

# 49 [21 November 2009]

A Local Creation Story. (part one)

If you remember I mentioned I am artist in residence at 'The Little Blue Hut' and I've been spending a lot of time there looking at the wind farm from the beach hut which is the location for this residency. Even more time than usual, as I spend a lot of time looking at it when me and Cosmo walk along the sea front every evening.

For this evenings dog walk the weather is rubbish, its raining and the wind is bowing very strongly. But in the beginning there were only the winds, the East, the West, the North and South Winds.

For many years they blew all the moisture in the air to the same place to form the sea. All the dust in the air they blew into another place to form the land.

After many years the winds moved away, leaving behind them 30 children. These are the white wind turbines in the sea and they manage the surrounding sea and lands. The 30 children formed the birds from winds left behind by their parents, and used the birds to survey the lands their parents had made. The birds knew the sea, the cliffs, the fields, and the forests as they flew over the area. The Blean Forests grew with wild flowers and grasses, from seeds mixed up with dust that formed the lands.

After some while pieces of the land broke off and rolled back into the sea to form oysters and the other fish. In due course these Oysters formed pearls, and spat them out onto the land. The pearls then transformed into the first people,  our ancestors and lived as community by the sea, which became Whitstable. The people became known as the 'Oyster people'.

# 50 [28 November 2009]

Not a walk with Cosmo.

I didn't walk with Cosmo today beacause I might have had half a larger shandy with my new comrades and brothers of the 'West End Theatre Goers Collective', in the Russian Cafe in Shaftsbury Ave.

I might also have sung Stairway to Heaven on the careokee machine. I do seem to remember introducing the band midway through the song Jimmy Page on lead guitar.....John Bonham on drums ...........and John Paul Jones on bass!

To be a rock and not to roll...

Good night London ...!