Written musings on making art and the results. Life in the slow lane
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Valley of the Shadow
I went in to have my biopsies take under general anaesthetic. “Ha” said the anaesthetist, “you’re the artist aren’t you, we’ve seen you before”. I said “that’s right – I’ve had four operations recently, I get a fifth free…” Mirth all around. I’m still laughing… I am working on another in the ‘Andreas Daisies’ series.…
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Disintegrating Daisies
We all belong. When chaos and disorder threaten or, even, occur, then change results. Current events show how those oppressed by rules can use the orderly rule based process of the state to change the world. The demagoguery of politicians or individuals of conviction can still change the world unpredictably. This process I mirror in…
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The Wrong Shoes, eh Gromit?
It stands erect, ringed in red and white. The dark wilderness of its base set aside from the billowing white up swelling of the chalk cliffs behind it. Thrusting upwards in public warning, its tip glazed and different to its shaft, it stands out by day attracting the attention of thousands who come to gaze…
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Aftershocks Continue
Once more I experience that feeling of dread, but not as intensely this time, just a frisson of fear. Now too I have a programme of work stretching ahead with both camera and the studio which will sustain me, distract me and give me a range of creative problems to worry about. Life is taking…
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How to become an Artist or Designer – a quick Guide for a young person
Many look at the glamorised television shows and think ‘I can do that’. Like being a footballer, anyone can kick the ball, but the level of skill needed to rise to the top is considerable and beyond the capabilities of many people.
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Picking Daisies
how the decision making with the lower daisies challenges just as much as those at the beginning. The balance of dislocation of the image colour against the line drawing, edge versus surface, constantly hovers on the brink of disintegrating into chaos – which is ,of course, largely what I want. If the viewer feels uneasy,…
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Collecting Artist Prints
In art college, I began looking at collecting the work of other artists, starting with work by friends like Geoff Turpin. This expanded into trying to buy the work of established ’names’, underpinned by the feeling that the only way I could hang my work on the same wall as, say, Patrick Caulfield, was to…
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Art Student to Artist
“the shock of the outside world will have been a douche of cold water, as it was for me when I sobered up. Surviving this shower to establish a practice and a studio is sometimes impossible, and the shower can become a bleak torrent when competing against finding employment, marriage etc.. “
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Aftershocks
Making art is a performance, and like any performance it seeks an audience. Performing on canvas can be just a terrifying as walking on stage – rather more detached from the audience reaction, but I have experienced those newspaper reviews that disparage the artist with an incomprehension on the part of the critic about the…
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An African Gem: Bushmans Kloof
I have been to many places had many adventures, few compare to the delights of Bushmans Kloof. Asked to sum up my visits by a friend, I said “Simple, this is a little piece of heaven come to earth”.
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Traumatized
No memory, or at least only a vague memory, of coming around after the operation, which lasted well over 4 hours. “Are you alright” he asks anxiously, as I had apparently complained of chest pains in recovery. Probably due to the tight strap they had wrapped around me during the operation. He says the removal…
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What do you paint?
Classic question, isn’t it? Everyone’s response when you say you paint, occasionally bitten off halfway through when the questioner realises the foolishness of asking. “I do flower paintings” is my standard riposte to this question. An answer as misleading as the question is unanswerable verbally. How to describe in succinct words my use of colour…
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