The Cooler King

Trigger Happy

A few weeks earlier I got my burstinng portfolio and went through every drawing and piece of paper in there and chucked a load in the recycling paper bank.

I been sweeping my workshop floor and chucking out stuff. All this is a kind of ritualistic behaviour pattern with me when I think there is some sort of transition taking place. Making way for something new, starting afresh in the right way.

Yesterday I took my circular saw, and cut up some wooden sculptures I made nearly a year ago. I watched the blade go through the gold leaf that I spent so long putting on. I asked myself was this the right thing to be doing…yeh.. just rip em up Rob, are you going to organise an exhibition to show them…No..and the’re on the fire-wood pile now and just look like more split logs.

I filled a skip with paintings in 2000 as a millenium celebration, riding myself of the notion that these would be useful to me one day. ‘Thats the end of painting for me pal, fcnikug waste of space’. I dont regert chucking them either.

I know I am making room for this series of mosaics, but I think its more than that. Frustration that I ca’nt start them yet…yeh a little. But really a little shift in how I work, things have been physical and sculptural recently. My latest proposals have mentioned working with storey tellers….I dont even know any…or stories.

May be thats why artists are such lucky people. A door opens and you can walk through and explore a new world.

A Suspended Sentance:

I was expecting to have begun my time in ‘the cooler’ by now. But as is often the way, these things grind to halt due to circumstances no one foresaw till the eleventh hour.

So I am filled with mixed emotions.

Really pleased with the design concept for these mosaics, but whey will technically challenge me more than any previous mosaics I have made. I’m already looking forward to them completed in my portfolio. The content really reflects my interests at the moment.

On the other hand the physical and mental commitment to constructing and installing them is weighing heavy on me. One does fear for ones own sanity on these large long term commitments! Its been 5 months so far and I hav’nt stuck a single tile down yet. The waiting magnifies the feeling of being overwhelmed with whats to come.

I feel like ‘Hilts’ who knew another spell in the cooler was always round the corner. I have decided to include a video of him as he proudly returns to the cooler again after the ‘Great Escape’.

PS. could’nt upload video from Utube, so I’m whistling the theme tune instead!