remembering the present

I was doing some research into the culture of Luxembourg, i'm planning on applying for an art residency there, god knows if i'll get it. but i came across this website - http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=1538&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html - Memory of the World... kind of sounds like it's already gone. "To guard against collective amnesia"...

"..to guard against collective amnesia calling upon the preservation of the valuable archive holdings and library collections all over the world ensuring their wide dissemination."

it's interesting to see what has been included so far, it's relatively new only being established in 1992, so not as many things as you would expect are included yet. I went straight searching through for films, these are the ones i found -

Metropolis
The Wizard of Oz
Los Olvidados
Neighbours by Malcolm McClaren
Lumiere Brothers
Ingmar Bergman archives
The Battle of the Somme, a documentary record

palestine refugee woman cut off from her home by the "green line"

There are 3 bullet points under objectives -

• To facilitate preservation, by the most appropriate techniques, of the world's documentary heritage. 
• To assist universal access to documentary heritage.
• To increase awareness worldwide of the existence and significance of documentary heritage. 

Now, i have to go get ready, picking up mihaela from heathrow at 5:)

clearing snow

there's a view from outside my window, i've not noticed it for a while. Jules and Crispin is halfway finished, and the book should be finished soon. i've started wrapping presents, and will have to visit people too. the dvd's are carrying on burning, the post is still not here. i have to go to the job centre on christmas eve,and pray the snow is more manageable by monday. i have to put £25 in to the bank, before i get charged for an overdraught. have cleared the snow off the drives, so the car doesn't slide as you try to get in. I owe £320 for my dog's teeth, she had 7 or 8 out. everytime i start firefox, 'learn indesign' starts unnanounced. my brother and his girlfriend are coming for a visit overnight. i might be working in the new year, clearing out old unwanted junk. i was going to go to the pub today, but i don't have the money to go. but it's better than being a greedy swine, although there's no guarantee i ain't. gonna finish reading adrian mole, and restart linda nochlin. must go and do something productive. must start painting again soon.

no more ankles

it almost sound like it's cut out and formed from Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music. The video does go well with the song.. but i can think of other images that could go with it - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr0KkzbbqPI. Quickly edited together images of death and bombs and murder is kind of an obvious solution, placed alongside this almost fairytale like song about orphans running through bloody snow. It's not very subtle or useful, and seems to just respond to the almost mindless punching of the guitar, but there's more to the song than that, how bout those words for a start - "Little Orphans running thru the Bloody Snow, Little Orphans running thru the Bloody Snow, Little Orphans running thru the Blood thru the Blood thru the blood. No more ankles and no more Clothes, Little Orphans running thru the Snow, Little orphans in the Blood in the Blood in the Blood."



and there's more, more to discover both here - http://www.lydia-lunch.org/ - and here

love of painting

I love painting, i love drawing, most of the time i'm not satisfied unless i'm working on something, only when i'm with m. But i can never finish anything, that was always my problem, you have a great idea that you're all worked up about and then it just fizzes away, you move on to something else, it's difficult to gauge what's worthwhile and what isn't, especially before you do it. It's hard to know whether you're turning your back on something for the right reason, or whether you just can't sit still.

In a few weeks i'm going to put an ebook on my website, it's not gonna cost very much, and you can download it instantly, leave comments etc, it'll be my first, hopefully of many, so i'd appreciate it if you reading this, you who stays quiet and hidden, would respond, comment, buy the book. After the ebook i'll release it as a proper, paper, hold-it-in-your-hands-and-smell-it book. And hopefully will be able to feel like i've done something that people will own, i'll have sat still for a little while and finished something.

My website is - www.wastelandnumberseven.com

ill and weird

i think i've caught something, i don't know how but i feel kinda cold even though i'm sweating, beginnings of a sore throat, slight headache.. great.

(maybe its punishment for the last blog post, which was, if you didn't notice, an advert.. god, i disgust myself sometimes)

it's getting cold

apparently it's gonna snow the weekend, and i have this drama group i'm a member of, not much of a member at the moment, i don't participate that much, but i'm gonna be doing this thing at the Black Country museum, which is in Dudley, an old victorian era museum, and we all dress up in costume and sing carols. Only trouble is it's so damn cold, it's right next to a canal which doesnt help. Back in bucharest it's warmer, it was before i left anyway, now it's snowy. There are a couple of places i've been looking for warm clothes, there were these three i saw - 'machine jeans': http://clothing-and-accessories.become.com/machine-jeans-co 'jimmy jean clothing': http://clothing-and-accessories.become.com/avirex-jimmy-jean and 'bikers denim vest with patches prices': http://www.become.com/denim-vest

anyone has any ideas which they think is best, or what they'd choose please let me know.. I'm leaning towards the jeans on this page, look kinda sturdy - http://clothing-and-accessories.become.com/machine-jeans-co  - but then there's this - http://clothing-and-accessories.become.com/machine-jeans-co - which has a lot of good prices too - and i really like the cowboy looking denim waistcoat on this too - http://www.become.com/denim-vest - kind of reminds me of back to the future 3...

now i'm tired, really must go to bed, more work tomorrow! less internet.

thanks..

illegally downloading long ignored art

While i was in Romania i did a lot of downloading, mostly on films that are unavailable, like Angelopoulos films, here's a list -

the travelling players; suspended step of the stork; voyage to cythera; landscape in the mist; the hunters; dust of time; en rachachant; films of jiri trnka; mr klein; blood of the beasts; las hurdes; lola (both fassbinder and demy); bay of angels; fear eats the soul; the outlaw and his wife; peter and the wolf; the unknown; waxworks; cria cuervos; the celebration; jigokumon; tale of tales; hedgehog in the fog; kriemhilds revenge; chimes at midnight; night and fog; la regle du jeu; the southerner; five women around utamaro; sisters of the gion; ugetsu monogatari; the phantom carriage; from the life of the marionettes; day of wrath; gertrud; the bigamist; van gogh; the man from london; bonjour tristesse; dinner at eight; partie de campagne; violette noziere; raise the red lantern; shanghai triad; the story of qiu ju; fires on the plain; hotel terminus; the tough; mortal storm; il grido; wr mysteries of the organism; the switchboard operator; man is not a bird; innocence unprotected; fists in the pocket; the big clock; criss cross; chats perches; le tombeau d'alexandre; the bitter tears of petra von kant; l'amour l'apres midi; floating clouds; a time to live and a time to die; la religieuse; lonesome cowboys; la notte; marriage of maria braun; the mother and the whore; truly madly deeply; wit; late spring; floating weeds; buster keaton shorts; masters of russian animation; a century of animated shorts 1, 2 and 3.

and i think that was about it. The majority of which are brilliant films, and are unavailable so far. Last time i checked, the only angelopoulos you could buy were the beekeeper and weeping meadow, the only sjostrom was.. well, nothing. Same with makavejev, and yuri norstein, and jiri trnka..... and the list goes on. I fail to see why sharing such things (as great art) should be frowned upon.

all the splendour of the job centre

Made a new claim at the job centre this morning, and things have changed. Took into a room with 5 other people and given a presentation on what 'signing on' entails, what's expected of me, and what i should expect of them. I am of course, expected to look for work, and record my lookings, attend the job centre every two weeks, attend another crappy place called 'future skills' every two weeks, and not take part in any fraudulent activities... like not declaring work, or volunteering.. or getting an education.

I, in turn, can expect them to make me feel like giblet in a chicken factory; pressure me to apply for work that should be behind me, or is completely alien to me, or work which i'd rather live in sedgley woods than do. Today, for instance, they have hooked me up with the following 'opportunities' - working in a warehouse, demonstrating kitchen implements, and a delivery driving job. I, of course, will follow them all up, because a) they'll stop my money if i don't, and b) almost any bloody job is better than signing on (except teaching, which sucks).

I will be carrying on looking for work which i am actually suited to, like illustration, design, murals, painting, drawing, art, or anything else like that, but you don't go to the job centre with 'lofty' ideas like these. In fact the job centre tries to steer you away from any job which could be considered fulfilling or enjoyable, it wants you start at the bottom, that way you have more chance of finding work (making tea and sweeping) and can sign off quicker.

There is something about the job centre which sucks the life and hope out of you.

first day of bookmaking!

Just spent the last 4 hours attempting to edit a picture book together in indesign (for both print and web), it's getting there.. veeeery slowly. This is pretty good at making you understand the basics of indesign (and all their other programs) - http://tv.adobe.com/ - but it's still pretty tough going.

Hopefully will make more progress tomorrow. My main focus is the order and choice of the drawings i'm using. I want people to read through it effortlessly, not to have one image completely undermine the one before it in style, i want it to have it's own complete and watertight world.

And although i don't intend it to be understandable as a story, i do want there to be little hints and whispers that an ambiguous little tale is being told.

abstract movements

http://www.wastelandnumberseven.com/?page_id=496

A series of abstract drawings and paintings completed in the summer of 2008 ... all about moving, and stuff..

poem from a train for the night

The empty room,

the empty bed,

the unkind words we left unsaid.
So dark yet warm,
when anger falls,
when anger blinds with frequent calls.
I left my forest,
i exchanged my home,
the abandoned past where now i roam.
My snow-clogged boots,
my weathered hands,
have all succumbed to wasted lands.

Dog's love

I was looking through my old sketchbooks when i came across this drawing, i've redone it as the original was all crinkled and creased.. although maybe that would have been nice too?

Just found this in my sketchbooks

"I suppose the most interesting thing about my work is that it's collaged together from many different sources. It's part observed, part dreamed, part remembered, part photograph, part written."

Cinematecii Romane

Back in England, and i brought back with me a programme of films from the Romanian Cinematech, here follows a list of films to be shown in just one week there!

Vivre Sa Vie
Manhattan Murder Mystery
Bande a part
Les Carabiniers
Ciuleandra
Ministry of Fear
Siegfried
M
Fury
Topkaki
Western Union
Citizen Kane
Little Big Man
Despre Alta Mama
Escapada
The Ox-Bow Incident
Love Finds Andy Hardy


The prints are usually in a bad condition, i went to see a copy of Shanghai Express while i was there, and there were frequent dips in sound and odd jumps. But, that is a wonderful list of films, for any cinema, and most cities in England only have one cinema showing old films, and that's usually only once or twice a week, and they usually don't have very many people attending unless it's a classic like It's a Wonderful Life. In Bucharest the cinema was pretty full.

heading to home (no.1)

Have just packed and am now scanning pirate bay for any last minute downloads. Leaving bucharest at 7:10 this evening, arrive in Budapest tomorrow morning, Munich tomorrow evening, Paris on Sunday morning and back in England by Sunday afternoon. 5 trains in all to get back home, all being well. But i have some paper and a pen and i intend to draw some on the way back. The comic, jules and crispin, and something for a submission to a magazine.

Also have my ipod full up with stuff, and a couple of books - adrian mole, david thomson, where's wally!, and Sherlock Holmes.

Old Poetry

Earlier this year my poetry was featured in an online magazine based in Manchester, Blankpages. I'm still pretty pleased about it, and attempt to share it wherever i go, so here's the link - http://www.blankmediacollective.org/images/uploads/blankpages20.pdf

Please look and then come back here and comment/praise/slag me off:)
Enjoy!

New Comics

I leave Bucharest on Friday evening and arrive back in England on Sunday evening. Last week i handed the keys back to the studio i've been renting, since then, not being able to paint, i've been working on my website and comics/illustration work. The website being - www.wastelandnumberseven.com - the main reason for my dissapearance off here over the last few months. On it i've tried to include all my work over the past 4 years, which is taking quite a long time.

The comic i'm working on (alongside the ongoing, 'as weekly as possible' www.julesandcrispin.com that i create with Mihaela Precup) is autobiographical, although attempts to play around with that idea of memory. Its about my first trip to france, a day trip.. and so far is called The Ferry, the Nipple and the Beer. I also have ideas for other projects, but it's difficult without any money coming. I've been trying to get to grips with certain design packages like photoshop, illustrator, indesign, and try and apply to jobs and competitions and commissions. I keep on being told i need to make artist friends, form alliances, but i don't know, i've never been great at that.

Here's a couple of examples of recent work from Bucharest,
enjoy!:)

The Jitters

ahem.. cough, cough cough cough. it's been a hwhile.

Landscape,

window,

painting,

photograph,

film,

computer.

i mean i guess there are other things with screens, animation, but that's similar principles to film, mobile phones, but that works on similar principles to computer's, so i tried to pick just the bare essentials. Because knowing what painting originated from is a good starting point into making original work. so i tried to pick all things with frames, and screens, i was in two minds about whether to include theatre as well, as it has a kind of frame, that being the curtain, and i could include it, i'm not attempting a definitive list, just something which makes me think... but theatre seems to me more attuned to film than painting.

So, the Landscape - the actual world out there. Windows - still able to see the world, but now it's slightly removed from you. Mirrors - now you can see yourself, and your place in the world. Painting - you can attempt a faithful reproduction of the world, or get lost in the paint. you can alter the world, copy it, attempt to improve it, or express it, and yourself using a mirror. the world becomes a world. Photograph - a near perfect visual reproduction of the world, only not where it's supposed to be, and not the same size as it's supposed to be, and it's not moving.. and although it doesn't want to admit it, it might not be as faithful as it first claims. Film - a photograph that moves, the world somewhat removed from where we are being in the midst of the blackness of the auditorium. though if the film world is reality, then why am i sitting with complete strangers? trying to hear it over their crunching of popcorn, and whispering, and groping. Computers - like the photograph and unlike the cinema i can hide it away, it's mine, all the things on it are in my personal space. i can see the world through it, see many worlds on it, travel into deepest space, it turns mirrors the right way round via a camera, i can watch films, talk to friends, if it started to breathe for me and i could feel through it as well then i mightn't miss this world at all. this has it's own laws, rules, reality , in which i can express myself, or a different me, accordingly.

Painting does seem quite a way down the evolutionary ladder doesn't it, but i try not to think of it like that, rightly or wrongly. painting is different, there isn't really a betterment, each step is simply different to the last one, comes with alternate ways of viewing the world, new pros and cons.. painting allows you to express yourself, a computer allows you to organise your week, a mirror allows you to comb your hair, not only do each of them work on different levels, they are almost unrelated in day to day life, except for this, admittedly quite flimsy, idea of the frame and screen. But the point is it makes you think, for instance, frames, a window, what do you do with a window, if a painting was like a window, or a door? would that painting take you places, allow you to see far off lands without actually going there? or would a mirror best suit your way of painting, do you reflect yourself, expressionistically maybe, the world as your world, altered. or finding your place in it.

painting is for me a way of summing up. thats why i think it's important to look into different subjects, like science, language, cinema, dance, opera, pop culture, geography, history. painting isn't just about painting, to me it's taking life, every single aspect, and displaying it, talking about it. The idea that a painting can 'sum up' life is stupid, at the very least. But that's the way i think about it, as a sort of binding together of different ends, good ideas come from pushing two already formed yet opposing and far reaching ideas together, nothing else. it's a fake, you're not creating something out of thin air, just responding with pre-formed elements. It's a jigsaw, as is everything else, which gives a general air of creation, but it's not really something new, you've just rearranged things.

and if you don't see any of this in my paintings? why should i care. these thoughts are here to help push my paintings along, the next paintings, i don't constantly stew over what i've already painted. i reflect of course, see if i can steal an idea from my past self, redo something better. and as this constant reflecting and redoing and researching goes on, you hopefully find a few strands running through the work, things which you can identify, or someone else identifies for you, which is yours. which comes from you. and you will have made your mark. but you borrow from everything, without worry, without jitters.

4 new paintings

apple head, back packing man, reminded me of a painting by bacon, of a painting by van gogh, destroyed in the war. of van gogh wandering through corn or wheat fields, carrying his easel and a bag on his back. Whispering, confiding in fruit, lost.

a woman, appearing to be an old woman, but not intended to be. At first it was a young woman, a lovely young woman, but once i'd started to draw the folds of material draped over her neck, i just couldn't let go of the age or the plumpness. Staring through a camera at a blank, white space, as if projected, like a cinema screen.

pain. a man drives a gardening fork through his foot, and stares down at it while touching, rubbing himself. Not many people have noticed the rubbing part. I doubt i wanted people to notice it, but bright colours do tend to set up a precursor or a rhetoric of how something should be viewed.

i don't know why i painted her blonde. I don't know any blonde's (i just wondered "that can't be true!?" but actually it is, i can't think of any blonde's i know). But the colour seemed to fit in with the rest of the painting, the whiteness of the dress (a bride?) she was lying flat on her face at first, and there was a snowy landscape around her, with square red houses in the background, atop a hill. But this makes me feel better, her inside, the space is more manageable. and her fingers pulsing through her hair.

inner landscapes

I have less words to write now i'm happier

It goes something like this

likeness, expression, and harmony.

In likeness you paint it to make it look like something else.

Expression is using the colours and quaLITY OF LINES to make it express a feeling, however subtle or cliched (red for anger, or red in a ironic way amongst a pattern of happiness)

Harmony is the aesthetic principle. The attempt at balancing colours, picking colours for the purpose of harmony and of what looks right and beautiful.

I have no intention of painting abstract, so likeness is important to me. All three are motivations, and it's difficult to pick one over the others. Do i paint the jumper green because it expresses something only green can do? or do i do it because there's a really nice red there in the background which would set it off nicely.. It depends, usually it won't matter what the colour of the jumper really is; i'll pick a better colour. So likeness is probably least of my concerns when dealing with colour. But Likeness is definitely important, without it the harmony and expression would have no meaning. What would red mean if it didn't have a jumper or a tree or a landscape to cling to? It would mean nothing specific at all. And if it's an attempt at grandiose generalisations about the nature of man or art, or whatever, it usually blunders into cliched territory, so no, i'll stick to specifics.

In picking colours, harmony and expression don't necessarily fight it out amongst themselves, as compromise. That face needs to be shaded with red, or black, or blue, because that expresses (not what i feel while painting it, but) what the character or landscape or still life is meant to express. So maybe it needs a red outline, but because that red is there, it means i'd like a light orange over here next to this green, not because that orange expresses something, but because it helps make the complimentary "one-two" of red and green less obvious.
It goes something like that.

you have your reasons

"You have your reasons for which pieces you like most, I'd never try to change your mind (the creator knows best). But, had I the chance to buy a piece of yours in the future (which I really hope to and I'm not blowing smoke), this would be high on the list. Though I don't come from a city with an art scene, (other than the one my friends and I are attempting to create) I've had the chance to visit galleries all over the U.S. and some in Europe, though mostly only the big name ones, I've seen shit and movement art which is all fine and well, but painters that paint for the love of the craft with such a broad spectrum of works and talent are few. You, my friend, are such a painter."

He was talking about this painting;

Of my own work it's not my favourite, though i may admit it has something, some viciousness to it which i like, which i harbour and cultivate at times. But the comment was perhaps one of the nicest i've ever received, mainly because it's exactly how i would like to be viewed. TO have the work free from constraints, transcending money worries, not pandering to any particular audience. Just being, from me, to whoever wants to see it, you.

This was today's work, that is all.

unweaving the rainbow

Read the first chapter of Richard Dawkins River Out Of Eden. A science book, a biology book which goes into other areas of science and technology, and even grasps at poetry and philosophy (with an underlying claw at organised religion).

I've always been interested in science, in school i wasn't interested in anything, i was bored, unimaginative, unhappy, and didn't get much in the way of comfort or inspiration from either teachers or students. And when i did i started to listen, and express interest, hence my favourite, and well graded school subjects are (or were) English, Maths and Science. Not art, which i have always had a skill for, not drama, which i have always leaned towards. But since leaving school, that's where i have learnt the most. The science books i've read are mostly popular, i've watched tv series on space and 'life'. And i always find myself feeling all homely. Maybe that has something to do with my dad always watching them when i was a child, maybe not.

But i fail to understand how other people (even other artists) aren't inspired by science, by something which attempts to understand and express what we are. Many of the artists i do know are much more interested in spirituality and supernatural occurrences (which possibly explains why they also have an interest in conspiracy theories.) No, at such times i don't feel like i fit in with arty types at all. But maybe i just don't fit in with crafty types, maybe i just havent met many real artists yet. Leonardo, there was an artist, and a great scientist. Lately i recall (for my 21st birthday) my dad taking me to Elgar's house in Malvern, i remember on his shelves, there was the complete works of Shakespeare alongside an amateur chemisty kit..:)

I feel like science is what i should become entwined up in, the direction i should take my artwork. After all, painting is like alchemy, it is definitely chemistry, and when we apply it to canvas the shapes we make and the attempts we have to express ourselves, or to copy life, or to give impressions of life, that is closer to science than anything else. So i don't understand why artists feel they need to ignore it. Art spans out like a web, making connections between science, poetry, philosophy, love and memory. It span out to encompass anything, but these i think are my choices.

and i wonder, i do

Trying like a nursery rhyme sung by a soprano, a stick man by an old master. mixturing excellence with incompetence, with the good marks. The good points, exploited.

two sides

I made a painting a while back, around about the time of 'Pleasure Hands', which is the last female portrait i did (a woman in green). I don't think it's very good, but technically i suppose it shows a sort of skillfulness in depicting a specific scene. A house, some trees. An insignificant scene, bestowed with colour and fit in to a structured composition. I tried anyway.

I do quite like it. The colours are nice, the application of paint works for me. But that's all it seems to be about. It's kind of banal, possibly hinting at something, i mean if you focus on something long enough to paint it it's ultimately going to be suspected that it 'means' something. Even if it really doesn't.

Today i made my second Feather painting. I like it very much, though the picture i took of it does not do it justice, it does not reveal the many different shifts of colour, the two different yellows in the background, the much worked into feather itself. It works, it's an ordinary, unimportant feather, also bestowed with some sort of meaning, epicness, feeling, spirituality, while hopefully retaining that humble origin. The yellow, i enjoy, i enjoy painting patterns that are seemingly abstract, this was based on the pattern of stitching on the canvas, the different yellows were responses to the dappled light of the sun filtered through some leaves playing over the whole scene. Though you'd never know it to look at it. But hopefully there is enough there to see, without prompts from me.

What do i want?

I must know what i want because i'm quick to decide on what i don't want. There is a guide, even if i don't know what it is.

I want a place of my own.

I want the freedom to travel.

I want the money to live comfortably, and free from money oriented worries.

I want good friendships.

I want a loving, kind and humour-filled relationship.

I want to be able to work in art, film, animation... and be appreciated for that work.

hmmm.. for all my pretentious posing, and faux teen angst, my desires are remarkably ordinary and simple.

But then paint applied to a canvas is quite a simple act isn't it, while at the same time being a very difficult task, to do it well anyway.

Game theory

It's tiring weaving a pattern of nothingness.

Punctuating that nothingness with a certain peculiar language.

Which attempts to inspire in you, your own stories.

Yet they are based within me, within my past, within something which is both completely separate from you, in time, space and culture.

And yet which is ultimately a slice of life which we all have experienced, and contained in our memory.