3W88_EIGHTY FIFTH POST

Ah, the elusive eighty fifth post. The final show is all sketched out on the back of an envelope. I think it will be all right. It will contain some new work; some stuff from the last two years and a crucial part of the exhibition will be to encourage the public to take part, to respond directly on some aspects. This isn’t the neatly packaged summary or the beautifully framed show that you can buy. I’m not even sure it will be an indication of what you can expect from this bright young thing as he finally enters the real art world proper, post education. It is for me, for now.

It is an ending. I never really considered if there was going to be an ‘after’. I have an art career, if you can call it that. A lot of the time, the MA has seemed almost incidental. It is becoming clear to me that this is it, the final part of a something. When I think of the months ahead beyond July, I feel a twinge of joy at some imagined liberation. No one will be watching. No expectation. I know I will continue with PEEP!, the gallery aspect. I might even make more zines. I will paint. I will write. I am trying to get a joint writing project started now, before the end.

There is the temptation to do very little for a while. I don’t really know what ‘time off’ is but the school summer break might be a good excuse to potter and dabble, ready for a relaunch in the autumn. By then, the gallery project in Halifax will be over. I have a solo exhibition pencilled in at a local venue for November which is supposed to be a new body of painted work; nothing too exciting really, not in terms of anyone noticing. The work might be interesting. I might even suck arts council cock and go against all the previous ranting about funding in order to expand the PEEP! empire, with the sole purpose of being talked about in the Guardian or reviewed on the a-n website. I know; I aim high.

The most likely scenario is that I will retreat to my studio and write a bit, paint a bit and be happy with that. I find it hard to see art in any career terms or know what a logical art move might be for an unsure purpose. I do this to make stuff, for that moment. Not a very brilliant mission statement. I am therefore I do.

At the end of June, the studio is hosting some Israeli artists. Some of the studio members will be working with them on a joint project for two weeks, ending with an exhibition of the work. I am involved, not normally something I would be interested in; I’m not interesting enough, I make silly drawings. And I don’t do social events. And I don’t do well meaning art projects that have little to do with my idea of what art is, thinly disguised with stock phrases and mock platitudes concerning the purpose of this international exchange. As it is, I have been fortunate to be matched up with someone who is intelligent and perceptive enough to be able to smell the bullshit too. We have a lot of common ground, it’ll be fun. So, I am really looking forward to the two weeks, the experience more important and potentially more satisfying than the end result. Ah, it’ll look good on the CV. The CV that no one reads.

You have to try new things and challenge your own preconceptions; you have to grow and develop, be open to the new. It could have been a very dull project with a different ‘partner’ but already, before any work has been done, this interaction with an artist from another culture, with this particular artist, has proved to be rewarding, invigorating really. For the moment, this is all I will say about this project but I sense a beginning of something and the timing, right at the end of the MA, is fortuitous but significant. I know this.

I wanted to do an audio recording for the final show. PEEP! stand up. I can make it in time, I think. Whether I should, whether it is just padding, I need to consider. I am sitting on this material for a different project. I don’t think I need it for the final show. I’d like to include it but then again, I’d like more space; I have a kitchen sink that I could throw in.

I had a good tutorial today. That is all I have to say about that.   

I’m sorry this isn’t an exciting entry.

795 words

3W88_EIGHTY FOURTH POST

The full symposium text

PEEP! is a project with one mission: change. We need change. We have to change or perish. We have no divine right to exist. We are nothing but sophisticated bacteria.

PEEP! can make a difference; it is an evolutionary and continuous process of questioning. We aim to encourage the people of the world to come together, united in opposition to the current system of governance that perpetuates the oppression of the people, by the people, for the benefit of a few people. Life does not have to be shit. 

PEEP! does not have all the answers. We think that creating a dialogue and fostering the desire for a new way is more important than imposing a doctrine from above. This should be a fun process! We have to laugh in the face of adversity, a much better plan than keeping up the pretense that all will be well in the end; that science will mysteriously provide the answer. You’d be better off trusting in God.

PEEP! is an attempt at offering solutions. We have to reevaluate what is important. Making money isn’t. A tiny minority benefit from that scheme. Most people struggle to enjoy the rewards of their labour. By the time you own the house, you’re practically dead. Just about managing every month, peppered with the occasional ‘treat’ isn’t living; it is existing; stuck in the same cycle. Let art into your life!

Art has been significant since the beginning of humankind. We need to claim it back from the artificial system we live in. Art can heal the world. We live in a world saturated with visual material; we need to infiltrate this culture to begin to make a difference.

PEEP! has one aim; to make the world come together, united in opposition to the many evils that oppress the masses. The masses being most of us. Many of us are poor, even those who are fortunate enough to live in the prosperous West. In the West we have a good education system and healthcare for all, generally. We are able to eat and have shelter. And we have television. We have the light in the corner of the room that offers the truth. The truth that we have it quite good and we should be grateful for that. We haven’t been murdered, raped and we don’t have to queue for handouts. We don’t have horrible diseases that make our children die at a pathetically young age and when we do have some nasty threat, it is usually short lived and perfectly balanced by post-traumatic care and compensation. Money heals. Time only adds an extra nought to the claim.

People die and people are born. People kill, are killed and wish to kill. Fuck everybody else. There is no society. The world is full of whinging scruffy cunts who add nothing to the gene pool. You are a walking inconvenience who has to be managed and herded for three score and ten by a world government that is trying to find a lasting final solution that we won’t notice. We are at a tipping point in history. If we continue along the current path, we are fucked. The next generation will be even more subservient. Fatter, thicker and even less interested in humanity, let alone the people next door. Shut off, occupied; entertained. Ignorant of the truth. The news will be nothing other than a fake reality show, even more so than it currently is.

Culture; manufactured consumer trends with built in obsolescence. Sponsored by the multi-nationals, funded by the government; state approved art. At the top level, hand in hand with private finance, banking and wealthy businessmen and at the bottom the continuous struggle to make work and retain the belief that you have something of value to offer, not monitory value; meaning. Hoping for some recognition without crossing the line where you sell your soul for a quick fix. The system is designed so that you have to belong to be of value. Well, turn away from the corporate whores and the money men. Join the paupers. Revel in poverty. Make your work and make it seen.

Disclaimer: None or all of the views expressed in this piece are necessarily those of the author, nor any of the author’s imaginary associates.

700 words

3W88_EIGHTY THIRD POST

I am waiting to see what space I will have at the final show. I was hoping for a room but now I think I’d be just as happy with a long wall space, possibly happier as the rooms in the basement seem….crowded with wires and other weird objects. Stuff they need to function, I know this. I’m not being fussy or moaning; really, I can work with anything. Yes, there are ‘perfect’ spaces; smooth walls, brilliant proportion and so on, good light but I do wonder why such an institution can’t provide a dedicated, semi-professional space for the use of students. It would be better, even if the ‘gallery’ was off-sight and shared with the other partners of the ULA. Perhaps they already have good spaces.

I have a room

So the challenge is to make work to go in a room I have never seen, properly. Time seems to be running out before I have started. I know what I want to do. It will be a PEEP! gallery presenting the recent work of Bob Milner. The website will hopefully expand on the whole PEEP! thing. I need some audience participation in the show. I’m not sure if I can be there to act as ringmaster. Even if I make it down, I’d only stand in a corner frowning and slowly getting pissed.

I have a desire to make better work

I am a little tired of the process I am used to. I make work made to measure. I want this MA to be over with so that I can concentrate on making work that is self indulgent and my personal gift to posterity. I don’t care if I sound an arse, perhaps I am an arse.

Time and again I tell myself, I am a tuna fish.

I want to play and explore and create some painted surfaces that I feel I need to do, get out of my system and so on blah blah. I think I have wrote of all this shit before but ever the one for repetition, I will say it again. I need to paint. I need to make the kind of work I want to. I do like the silly drawings, the written prose that is a bit rantish, the piss take work. I do like it. It is a part of me. I don’t ever allow the other, more painterly, more studied, more thoughtful, sensitive side out. I should, I need to be more in touch with the effete, the cultured. Fuck it. Why not?

I’m writing the jingles not composing the symphony.

I’m doing articles for Reader’s Digest not writing the Great Novel.

I’m pigging out on crisps rather than eating a meal.

I’m googling rather than reading.

I’m paddling rather than swimming.

I’m wanking rather than making love.

I’m carrying on with this inane list rather than accepting that the one person who reads this shite has got it already. I need to move on. Oh, never has such a passing thought carried so much symbolic emphasis. If only you knew, dear reader.

Yeah, so. Yeah. PEEP! In a room. Some work.

Extract from the symposium text that I left out

“We tend to think that the visual arts are in a healthy way. Twenty thousand art students are ejaculated each year from the fecund bell end of higher education. Most of them wither and die in the fallopian tubes of paid work. A few push on, determined. Once in a while and not very often, one lucky sperm makes it and an art star is born. And that is if you are lucky, if you even end up in the correct orifice. Those that work in advertising and marketing are clearly the product of anal sex, destined to end up as a flaky crust in the undergarments of posterity.”

 645 words

3W85_EIGHTY SECOND POST

I doubt I will reach that elusive one hundredth post before finishing the course. That means my average has fallen to less than one post a week which is fairly shocking for someone with my ego. I can waffle at a semi-professional level. I should be on post two hundred by now, possibly even higher. My recent lack of interest in all things MADA hasn’t helped. I will carry on posting beyond the course; this will become ‘my blog’. Not a MADA requirement, just the assorted ramblings of a neurotic mind. I never felt it was a necessity for the course really. I haven’t worried too much about that.

 

I hope I pass. It will be a total pisser if not. I don’t expect a bouquet of flowers and a shiny tiara, looking radiant in my Miss Digital Arts sash and matching two piece. (If you set up the tripod John….)

 

I am getting excited about the final show. I have some work to do for it and a long drive of 196 miles, taking three hours and forty one minutes, according to multi-map. It will be odd being in the building and meeting people who up until now have been names in a virtual landscape. Will it smell like a proper art institution? I am impressed they have a life drawing class. I might pose in my birthday suit with nothing but a cup to spare my modesty. (If you set up the easel John…) If it helps me get that pass.

 

I have spent the evening at work scribbling notes about the show. It is all coming together in my fractured and occupied mind. I imagined that the room I wanted had a door, which it doesn’t appear to have when I looked at the images on the wiki, so that aspect of the plan will need a tweak. The whole place looks like a bunker. Cue footage of RKO cockerel and fast talking American voice: “Berlin, 1945 and enthusiastic hobby painter A. Hitler makes his final preparations for a major retrospective of his technically proficient watercolours. Herr Hitler welcomes the prospect of an influx of Russian visitors to the bunker, eager as ever to make a sale. Everyone is hoping the opening night goes with a bang, followed by a traditional roast.”

 

Do I go on? I never know when to finish a post. I am reading ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’ by Robert…shit, I forget. He is dead. Old book….but brilliant. Tressell! Robert Tressell…..yes. Where would we be without fuckingoogle? Did life exist prior to the dawn of fuckingoogle? Here… it is a shit entry, but all the same:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ragged_Trousered_Philanthropists

 

I’ve had enough. I’m off to bed.

 

450 words

3W83_EIGHTY FIRST POST

Six long weeks have passed since the silent crit. I have the notes on my desktop somewhere; my main recollection was that the beer or prospect of beer took all the focus away from anything meaningful. Perhaps the flaw is that I don’t really understand what PEEP! is or should be, or that I cannot find a way to communicate what it is or could be to people.

 

It should be a culture within the greater culture, like a wart. A parasite that needs the host to exist but has its own characteristics. A sub culture then, a one man movement. A bowel movement, of a fairly light and spattered kind. A morning after the night before evacuation.

 

I think the longing to be off this course, away from the screen and the guff that goes with being a student at Camberwell, is pulling at me more strongly than any desire I had to be an MA. I thought I was being practical; I will do the work anyway, may as well get some kind of recognition for it. A bit of paper to file away. And in the early stages of the course I was excited about the international angle of it, the promise of new learning and vigorous debate. I could sense a whole body of work ahead of me that I was eager to make. Some of that has happened but the main story of the last eighteen months is one of coping with the disappointment whilst letting my art life carry on regardless of Camberwell.

 

I can tick all the boxes. I love my studio, I really appreciate being part of a very mixed group and the opportunities that have happened, would only have happened because of my involvement with Westgate. I get up and want to be there. And I go there. A few weeks back I spent the best part of three days drawing letters of the alphabet with ink and nib pen. Over and over until I was happy with each character I needed. That is not me. I cut and paste, I scavenge, pilfer, adapt. I can draw but who gives a fuck? Few people. Ok, no one. Not even me most of the time.

 

I am part of a gallery project, and I have my own gallery project and I am hoping to expand that. So, box ticked. The gallery box, an important box. Every two months we open the studio up to the public and I make work for those nights, a chance to do something. I take it, that chance.

 

I haven’t started on the new paintings yet for the ‘solo’ show in November. I haven’t fiddled with the PEEP! website yet to make something of it. We haven’t done a new issue of MTS for a few months. I have stopped looking for other gallery submission opportunities for MTS as we have enough on with the space in Halifax. A couple of shows are marked in though, so it ticks along nicely and that box can be ticked. MTS is not dead.

 

And the beer. The first batch was all right. A little too young really when it went out and the labels could have been a lot better. And my ‘marketing’ of the product and the concept could have been sharper, I suppose. If I were someone else, you’d have heard of my beer. It would have been in supplements, on art websites; talked about. I admit it, I am very low key. I am not mercenary enough or pushy about self promotion. I made the beer because I wanted to. I was once the kind of person who would sweat and bust a gut to push the marketing side, agonise over press releases and all the crap that goes with promotion. All that nonsense just doesn’t interest me anymore. It never really did but I thought it was something you had to do, that it was what ‘made’ you as an artist. Shit ideas, good PR. I now go for shit on all fronts and I’m happier for it.

 

On the subject of excrement, as this blog often seems to be, I did apply to the Saatchi search-for-an-art-star TV talent contest. As MTS not me, solo. There is no ironic posturing here. We won’t be selected; we won’t even come within spitting distance. I am sure there are at least ten thousand hopefuls all wanting a shot. If we were offered the chance, it would be great! Fuck it, a free studio in London for a few months and an experience you can’t pay for, except with your dignity perhaps but what does that matter? Everything is about learning and developing.

 

Aside from the small PEEP! gallery, the rest of the project is in a state of limbo. I don’t know what to do with the submissions. I am not an art agent. The publication has stalled because I don’t know what it is I want it to be. Not a miscellany of work by other people, not really. Who needs another zine like that? I can’t make it into a ‘proper’ book as I don’t have the money. I could try to chase the elusive pot of arts council money but if I did, and I don’t think I like the idea of suckling that particular teat, I would prefer to apply for the bigger PEEP! gallery project.

 

All this leads to indecision about the final show.

 

The other issue I am trying to resolve, which I can’t before July, is the purpose of doing any of this. No, the focus of it all. The purpose…silly; fun and why not, better than working for a living. The focus of it is the issue. And if I get that right, then the method of delivery will fall into place. The context is the unsustainable culture/society we have created. The whole of it, beyond this temporary financial crisis or concern for the melting ice cap, I am addressing the bigger, biggest picture. We are pretty much fucked as a species if we don’t make some serious adjustments. Even with serious and far reaching adjustments, we are going to suffer a great deal, there will be death and misery on an unprecedented scale, and it is coming. Not a Biblical end of days, fire and..hang on, there will be a lot of destruction. Not a God thing then but an inevitable consequence of the progression of the human race for the last, um, four thousand years. Like washing machines and other ‘white goods’ that come with a one year warranty; we, as a species, have inbuilt obsolescence. Our manufacturers guarantee is due to expire.

 

The question is how to prepare for it, what steps we can take to manage the chaos and possibly prevent as much mass death; what we have to do during the transition period from now to post-now, in whatever form that will be. I think we have reached or gone beyond ‘peak comfort’. It is, despite the ‘advances’ that will appear in the near future (mere cosmetic tinkering and more wealth accumulation for the minority at the expense of the majority) and the promise of ‘change’ and the coming together of nations in crisis after crisis, a downhill ride from here on in. These are, if you measure it in material ways, the best of times. Enjoy your trainers.

 

1235 words

3W75_EIGHTIETH POST

“Crit Review”: Four questions for you to consider.

 

1. With respect to what PEEP! is or how you perceive it, what area would you consider to be the strongest and/or weakest and is there one aspect that should be concentrated on? Please refer to SEVENTY SEVENTH POST for the most lucid account yet of what it is all about.  

 

2. Should PEEP! develop a system to determine the relative worth of an artist, based upon criteria, examples of which are: technical ability, knowledge of art history, a critical understanding of contemporary practice, depth of creative ideas, inability to avoid bullshit in regards to art practice. Those failing to convince ought to be culled. Discuss.

 

3. Taking into account your response to question one, what kind of presence should PEEP! have at the final show? Would you concentrate on submissions and the curation of those submissions, expect more of the original work of Bob Milner; should this be virtual or actual or would it be better if PEEP! was not included at all?

 

4. If the final show was simply a PEEP! beer, hand made, delivered to the gallery etc. would you be pissed off because you couldn’t be involved? A jpeg would not do justice to the taste of my beer. A tasting guide would only hint at the wonder, the explosion of sexstasy of PEEP! beer on your palette. Is this a suitable end to the MADA version of the project?

 

5. Who is your favourite artist? One choice only.

 

251 words

 

Shit, I am a few words short. Oh bugger. Well, the nature of PEEP! is not adhering to any rules, despite the shortcoming and obvious flaw of being involved (however loosely) in mainstream art academia; education being too strong a word to use. I don’t think that it matters what happens today. I would like some response, which is why I made some questions to make it easier. Too often in the last eighteen months there have been blank screens and a lack of substance, so I don’t really expect anything different this time. Oh, we might have a full class, which would be good.

 

I’m pretty sure I know what I’m doing and it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks about the project. I do this because I want to and if the board or the external examiner is happy to assess it and hand over a piece of paper, brilliant. You won’t upset me, so please, shoot off. That would be great, some life in here at long last. I’m mute anyway!

 

426 words

 

Bastard! I thought I had it then, thought I was at the word count. I know it is crucial that I get it B for the Bang On. Or else. It must mean my mind isn’t as sharp as all the others. All those wagging tongues. I’ve told you over the months what PEEP! is all about so if you haven’t read it, tough. I’m not repeating it all just to take up space; not when I can waffle instead. Oh shit, gone over now.

 

513 words

 

www.peeep.co.uk

3W73_SEVENTY NINTH POST

The elusive one hundredth post seems to recede further with every addition. How can this be? I don’t know what form it will take but I look forward to it. Well, I have to as it is before us and not behind us. What is behind us we can never affect, unless you go to the dashboard and click “edit”. Imagine if in life we all had a dashboard and could click edit.

 

I am now in possession of the PEEP! website. It needs to be ‘sorted out’ a little, edited and so on. It is very much in the format specified when PEEP! was going to be a straightforward website. Now that I am going to shit all over my own creation, it needs to be looked at. Luckily it is not appearing on google yet so I can fiddle on my own.

 

I have not bothered with the course that much or this blog. Both are getting in the way a little. I remain committed to finishing the course, I may as well, and I will persist with the blog beyond the course but, the last few weeks, I just couldn’t be arsed with either. I have continued to work and make progress but I have to admit that my eye is on the whole year not just the next few months before I finish MADA. In a way, I just want it done with.

 

What am I excited about? Making beer. Drawing and painting. Not much else. Not MADA. Not digital art.

 

The key to this year is to have a series of projects on the go to run alongside my own painting. I am not sure what will happen with MTS. We are not over and done with but the eagerness seems to have waned. I have other interests and so does Tom. We did a lot in the last two years.

 

There seems to be no end to the random unconnected thoughts. A slightly stilted entry. I don’t feel chatty or inspired. I don’t know what to tell you about. I saw the Stanley Spencer exhibition, very good. The plans for the brewery are well under way; I have the first brew ready to go, a brewery name and beers marked in for the rest of the year. The new PEEP! gallery opened at the last open studio/artwalk with a selection of MTS work and DVD showing our films, seemed to be appreciated by the people visiting.

 

Should I be blogging the Halifax project? Should I be writing about every twist and turn in my continuing attempt to revive a painting career? I don’t know. I am enjoying what I am doing too much to worry about writing about it. I haven’t lifted a brush yet, I blame the snow.

 

465 words

3W70_SEVENTY EIGHTH POST

Carry On Sketching

Cast

 

Sid James                        Sidney Hirst

Barbara Windsor               Bridget Derriere

Bernard Bresslaw              Bernie Todger

Kenneth Williams              Dr. Barclays

Charles Hawtrey               Charlie Sawbotham

Jim Dale                          Jack D’lad

Jack Douglas                    Alf Ippititimus

 

 

Scene: typical art classroom from Victorian era, wooden floor, magnolia washed walls, many windows, chunky radiators. In the middle of the room is a platform with a plinth and cushions, surrounded by easels and groups of students chattering amongst themselves, sharpening pencils etc.

 

In the foreground, buxom young blonde woman in short tight pants, long legs etc is busily trying to attach a large sheet of paper to a board on the easel, with very limited success. Two men are stood back from their easels, watching with delight. Tall man, slightly balding, simple expression is using a knife to sharpen his pencil and each time that young lady drops the paper and bends over, he applies too much pressure to the tip, breaking it. Other man, seedy and wiry cackles with delight, approaching the young woman.

 

SID:             ‘ere, you need an ‘and with that darling?

BABS:          Whatever do you mean?

SID:             You seem to be ‘aving a little trouble keeping it up.

BABS:          You some kind of authority on that subject?

SID:             Lets just say I know a trick or two (cackles)…

 

(Babs stretches with paper on full tip toe, exposing a full chest to the delight of Sid and Bernie)

 

BABS:          Well I get it in the right position, I just can’t

                   seem to hold it steady….

SID:             (cackles)

 

(Bernie, being very tall and a gentleman, steps forward to take the paper from Babs)

 

BERNIE:       ‘ere you go love, let me help you. Sid, I’ll take this

                    end, you grab the bottom.

 

(Sid cheekily chases Babs around the easel as she squeals)

 

BABS:          (Giggling) ‘ere, you keep them ‘ands to yourself!

 

Cut to the door of the class opening in a majestic fashion, as in strolls the class master with an air of authority about him, stack of books and papers under one arm, gesturing to the air with the other.             

 

BARCLAYS:   Good morning class!

ALL:             Good morning Doctor.

BARCLAYS:   Good. Well, well. Start of a new term, we can

                    pick up where we left off….

SID:             (Glancing at Babs) Just what I was thinking!

                   (BABS GIGGLES)

BARCLAYS:  (Clapping hands) Come, come, quieten down

                   everybody. We have a lot to get to grips with…

BERNIE:       (Wiping brow, furtively looking over Babs) You don’t

                    say…

SID:             (Whispers) ‘ere Bern, we play our cards right with

                    this one, we could be up for some very interesting

                    home study. See that one over there…

 

 

(Cut to shot of sultry dark haired ‘arty’ type)

                  

                    …it only turns that her and Babs are bunking up

                    together this term, small place off the High Street.

 

(Shot of Bernie looking like a love sick puppy. Barclays shouts over at Bernie, bringing him back with a start.)

 

BARCLAYS:  Todger! Pay attention! Is everything stretched and

                   primed…

BERNIE:       I’ll say.

BARCLAYS:  (Double take) Yesss….well….come now, eyes to the

                    front…

SID:             (Cackles)

BABS:           Cheeky!

BARCLAYS:  Today we shall be studying the nude.

 

(Cut to shot of Alf Ippititimus who nervously fumbles with his art supplies to the cry of ‘Phwaaay!’ dropping most of them, knocking over his easel. Barclays continues regardless.)

 

BARCLAYS:  The human figure has been the subject of drawings

                   since prehistoric times and while the studio practices

                   of the artists of antiquity is largely a matter of

                   conjecture, that they often drew from nude models

                   is suggested by the anatomical sophistication of

                   their works….

 

SID:             Bernie my son, we are in for a treat!

 

(Cut to shot of a screen, discreetly positioned near to the platform. A silk robe is thrown over the screen from behind as the model prepares for the class.)      

         

BERNIE:       I did wonder why you were so keen on signing up

                   for this class.

SID:             You stick with me Bernie me old china.

BABS:          (Suspicious of the boys) ‘ere, what kind of an artist

                   are you anyway?

BERNIE:       Oh, Sid? He’s a conceptual artist…means he thinks

                   about it a lot.

BABS:          I bet he does!

SID:             (Slaps Bab’s rear and cackles.)

BERNIE:       (Glancing at the dark haired student) Don’t we all…

 

 

(Cut to shot of Jim, attired as a typical ‘artist’, beret etc. Young and serious about his art, almost to the point of being pained by it.)

         

JIM:             Dr. Barclays, can we use any medium?

BARCLAYS:  My boy, you are free to use any tool close to hand.

ALF:             Phwaaay! (Twitches, losing paper, crayons etc.)

BARCLAYS:  (Addresses the screen) We are ready for you now.

 

(From behind the screen appears a rather thin and nervous looking man with glasses, shot of top half only.)

 

CHARLIE:     Oh, hello! (Babs screams.)

BARCLAYS:  (Shocked, does double take) I say! (Glances down to

                   lower half of model) What the devil is this? I

                   specifically asked for a female nude.

CHARLIE:     Oh, charming!

 

 

(Charlie is by now seated on a chaise longue on the platform)

 

 

BARCLAYS:  Stay calm everybody, there has obviously been some

                   terrible misunderstanding. I’m sure we can get to the

                   bottom of it…

CHARLIE:     I say!

BARCLAYS:  …of the PROBLEM, the problem! Would you kindly

                   put something on!

 

(Pandemonium as Babs seems to faint into the arms of Sid. Bernie rips a large piece of paper to fan her. Students are hurriedly leaving the class, Alf twitching and ticking in his usual fashion. Jim rushes from his easel to grab the robe, stumbles at the platform, ends up on top of Mr. Sawbotham on the chaise longue.)

 

Next Week: Carry On Gagging.

 

Haven’t decided if this one is set in a comedy club or a whore house.

 

945 words

3W70_SEVENTY SEVENTH POST

Life in a Virtual Northern Town

I am ready to hand over my entire life to the digital. Give me a comfortable cell, wall-to-wall flickering screens, information on hand 24/7, news streamed in one ear, music in the other and virtual art packages. A touch screen, multi-platform virtual reality wet dream. I would love it.

 

We can be fed via a pipe into the stomach and waste material can be collected in a bag. I have seen various USB attachments such as pretend fish tanks and spinning disco balls, so some kind of USB “wank-a-ttachment” should be possible for both sexes. ‘Plug and Tug’ (c) Bob Milner.

 

You can maintain friendships via e-mail, messenger packages and the like. Real friends and virtual ones. Work and family is a little more troublesome. I don’t have the solution to that one unless we breed kids in jars and turn them into pliable model citizens from birth. Technically you might be a father but you don’t actually need to interact with your progeny, except via messenger.

 

The exciting part as I see it and we don’t need to wait until these fantastic circumstances are present is the virtual art package. Here is how I see it working. It is based in a role playing virtual world thing. I don’t know the exact geek name for these things but the kind where you make an avatar and roam around chatting and doing tasks and so on. Except that the graphics are brilliant and the world is this world. Not a unicorn in sight. The real world but with perfect weather, and nice people. As a player and this need not be limited to ‘proper’ artists, you have a studio and you make art and people buy it and art galleries use it and the world is one big canvas for you to legally work on.

 

You can turn up in any city centre and inflict your public art vision on everyone. Scale, materials, funding issues and suitability are all removed and all that is left is pure artistic love; whimsical, incredible creations. Of course, I could do this now via Photoshop and some techno wizard might be able to ‘animate’ it for me to make it look more real but I want this art to live, to be added to or changed by other users, possibly even respected and left intact. There are no storage problems or transportation issues. No money is involved. No environmental impact. I know, you might think it cold and awful that you can’t touch the work or see the drying paint, spot the early mistakes and so on. One day the technology will be there to give you all these experiences as well and when that time comes, we have to question the nature of reality itself. I will be ready to play.

 

On Painting

 

I had the most fun painting. Fun isn’t the correct word to describe it. It was fun but it was more than that; fulfilling. I could paint for hours and I was rarely unhappy doing it. I would look back at the finished piece and be indifferent to it mostly. There was the odd section that pleased me but as a whole, not really but it never seemed to matter. Most of them were destroyed or left behind.

 

I keep thinking of returning to making painted work. I really have something to paint, some stuff to get out of my system and the wonderful thing is that I don’t care too much what the end result will be. If I am satisfied, great. This isn’t about breaking new ground or redefining the medium, it is all about me doing something that for my entire life I have wanted to do, properly, but never have. Giving time, devoting energy, to some painted surfaces.

 

Before the degree, I was starting to follow this route, sketching in really. On the degree, it didn’t seem appropriate and the excitement was in learning other ways to communicate, opening up possibilities rather than being blinkered. The momentum of the degree continued with MTS and then on to MADA; I created this way forward, I decided to do all this and I have loved it but now I want to continue with all this but add something new.

 

Partly I am haunted by the decade of lost opportunity after the foundation course and before the degree. Think of the work that I could have done! I did dabble occasionally in projects, drew stuff on scraps of paper and wondered why I couldn’t be arsed to paint the large canvases that I wanted to. It wasn’t the right time. I didn’t know enough, hadn’t lived enough, wasn’t prepared to commit to anything like it and the distractions of starting a family and other minor recreational past times was too great. I don’t mind, there is no regret. Time is different. It alters, over time. It condenses, quickens, and appears more solid and tangible. I am not immortal.

 

Urinal Blues: Reading Signs in the Patterns of Piss I

The end of one year and the beginning of another is always a great time to feel movement. Or make something appear to move. I love the concept of a new year, despite the fact it is a continuation-merely a false construction for the retail giants, well no, I suppose we do have seasons, around which the calendar is placed, so it is real after all. There is a chance to become something new, better by implication. I don’t make resolutions, not formally. I will encourage myself to finally put into place something that I have spent all the previous year avoiding; the list is endless, there are too many examples. This year, I want to make more work and more of my work. That is the broad framework; the particular is painting/drawing and brewing.

 

I am trying to look beyond July, beyond the end of the course. There will always be MTS but I don’t think that is enough. Quite by chance, as I tucked into my second hot dog at Ikea, I noticed that there is going to be an exhibition of work by Stanley Spencer at York Art Gallery. It opens at the end of the month. I usually find out about exhibitions after they have finished; this one I can plan for. I am very keen on Stanley Spencer, always have been. I wrote about him on Foundation. This is perfect timing as I begin my painting career.

 

http://www.yorkartgallery.org.uk/Page/ViewNewsArticle.aspx?ArticleId=19

 

I see that as a sign.

 

Thought for the Dray

I like beer. In another life I would have become a junior drayman at a brewery and slowly worked my way up to become head of supping (department of nettles) and after being discharged for taking my work too seriously I could have opened a pub, there spending my dotage (ages 40-53, died prematurely in a whisky related bed fire) pissed, chasing young women and taking medication for the gout. Ah, the parallel world. Time is apparently like an endless sliced loaf of bread, each slice being a moment in time, so really they all co-exist and yet are separate.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbrewery

 

This year I intend to ‘open’ my nanobrewery. Or zeptobrewery, I haven’t decided on the scale yet. Run from my studio, I will produce limited editions of beer, bottled, labelled. It is an art brewery; is it art, is it beer? I don’t care. It should be fun, and I will enjoy drinking it. If you want to think of it as an artists’ multiple, do so. No problem, up to you.

 

I made one back in 2005 for the second year show on the degree course. It was all right. I want to combine two of my interests, beer and art. And humour. Three of my interests; beer, art and humour. And jazz…four…of my interests. In time, I may do brewery tours with an accompaniment of Coltrane, Davis or Monk. Not live. Obviously it would have to be via a CD player. It would be a short tour but the tasting could last for hours.

 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=I_n-gRS_wdI

 

Art Today

 

The new year didn’t do much for my enthusiasm for PEEP! The tutorial has suggested a way forward. I am not as excited as I think I should be, it will mostly be a burden to get the work done and it will be created in an atmosphere of very little confidence about it.

 

1. Website

 

This is due any day. I need to be able to update it and link it to other sites such as the vimeo one. This is the core activity of PEEP! I need to learn how to PDF documents. Initially the material will be from contributors and gradually be replaced by my own, with further contributions placed via the wiki, I hope. The website should act as a ‘living shared sketchbook’ to an extent. I don’t want it to be a dead portfolio or pseudo-agency for crap art.

 

1.2. Chat

 

Alongside the visual web presence, The Tutor suggested a text based aspect-actually it was my idea, all right in truth it was a powerful confluence of the thoughts of two vast intelligences, like the joining of the mighty Euphrates and the Tigris, heralding the birth of civilisation.

 

PEEP! could be topical/controversial and use chat medium to invite debate/critique/slagging off and the resulting idiocy be published as is, on-line. Beyond using MSN and somehow getting people on it, I can’t think how to do this technically and it would be something that would probably start in a small, limited way.

 

2. Films

 

Small features of PEEP! creatures. I don’t want to elaborate on this. It is such a vast potential project, potentially, that I couldn’t possibly project the future potential of it with any clarity or alacrity.

 

2.2. Adverts

 

The interesting bits in between the main feature. Would mostly involve smashing products with hammers and setting fire to them. I don’t know. I could see some kind of embedded thing, like MADA TV (http://brutjunk.com/?page_id=700), which runs a series of these filmed pieces or invites other contributions. I don’t know, I think there has to be a limit to audience participation. A bit, a token gesture (as opposed to a Tolkien gesture, which is the arbitrary placing of a midget into the piece) of it is good; I am an unpaid professional and sometimes my voice should be heard above all others. Again, unfinished business from the degree where I ‘had’ Channel B, an unmade television channel. I had scripts and a short filmed piece which was shit. Oh, oh, a deconstructed television channel! Yes! I like it. I won’t do it. I never do!

 

I want to say something nice about John Williams but that isn’t my thing, really. He should be more recognised for his ideas.

 

3. Paper

 

Sporadic appearance of paper versions of PEEP! in many formats that will support and corrupt the on-line version. Text from the chats. Essays from the edge of reason. Found images. And so on. A collage thing.

 

4. Gallery

 

Showing stuff.

 

 

1,852 words

 

 

2W68_SEVENTY SIXTH POST

I am fresh from a session with The Tutor, that mythical creature who inhabits a mysterious world of dark magic and obscure reasoning. Assessment time. I wasn’t too happy at first with the feedback I had but all that has passed now, the pulsing vein on the temple throbs no more. Apparently the percentage mark for the first two units doesn’t even count toward the final crunch of numbers. If I had known that, could have done less work! Don’t fool yourself; you would have done it all the same. It feels like a time for reflection of some kind, must be the end of year shite.

 

I am so tired of all the people who go on about how commercial fuckingChristmas has become. It used to be a handful of enlightened souls/miserable whingers (delete as applicable) who would chunter on under their breath about the waste of paper and the empty nature of this celebration and how Jeebers wasn’t even born on December 25th and so on. Now it seems to be the stuff of the masses to prattle on about it and yet, still take part. You could admire the stoic with his doubts about the festive period as he (very few women pass up the chance to spend money/spend quality family time) often backed up the muttering with action or rather inaction; no card sending, no expensive gifts and no turkey. These Primarkians (the collective noun for the masses as this particular shop seems to span the class/income divide) just moan.

 

“Our Josh is wanting a new Xbox and a PS3 this Christmas and he needs a new bike, not that he ever rides it that much; well, you can’t let ‘em go on their own to school these days with all them paediatrics on the loose, you just don’t know where they live and I said to him, we never had all this stuff at Christmas-well we didn’t, we were lucky if we had more than half a dozen things to open and most of that were clothes, you know stuff you needed-fancy games things and aftershave and whatever. I’ve managed to get the Xbox on the divvy and our Jack is working double-treble overtime on top of his usual shifts so we can get the PS3 and all the stocking fillers….”

 

There is something in the air that is leaving me in a foul mood. I am all right if I ‘give in’ and watch endless TV, nibbling at the kind of snacks that only seem to appear at this “festive” time of year. Which cunt invented liqueurs? I love chocolate; I love alcohol and especially a good single malt. Together, I hate them both. It should work but it doesn’t. The only way to get through a box is to bite the end off each one, drink the contents and then eat all of the empty chocolate vessels as one lump. It still isn’t satisfying.

 

I had a quick scan of this blog and much of it seems preoccupied with moaning that ‘art’ is shit and that the art I do isn’t ‘doing it’ for me. I think that is a fair summary of all that waffle. And right now, at the end of the month, awaiting the New Year with an anticipation that you wouldn’t believe, the same problem is even samier and deeper than ever. I might have to resort to some kind of allegory to explain myself fully. Some kind of sex based thing will do, although it might metamorphose into a food based thing with a touch of the animals thrown in for good measure.

 

While I am here, please look at these people because I think they make some sense http://www.emmabiggsandmatthewcollings.net/ideas.htm I might change my opinion of them eventually, I can do that. I can turn on the edge of a spinning coin in the fraction of a second it takes to switch on a light, I really can. And I will if I like. I used to think it was a flaw, some lack of substance but in reality I don’t think anything is fixed, or should be. Yes, murder is wrong but there are times when it seems right. Or less wrong. What killing has to do with art I will explain later on in the text, please keep awake and take notes as questions will be asked of you later. 

 

Right, what I have is a fairly ‘successful’ hobby as one half of ‘Milk, Two Sugars’. It isn’t a career as I don’t get paid for it. It is a hobby as I do it when I can but not as much as I’d like. See, it is a partnership and can only be as productive as the two in it want it to be or the one keeping it afloat can be arsed. It has been bobbing along in 2008 mostly at my insistence; I was reluctant to see it sink. This isn’t necessarily the truth, just my version of events. It might have been wise just to let it meander really. I see inactivity as bad. I think we need to maintain a certain momentum. It is debatable what good comes from chasing your tail all year labouring under the pretence of being a ‘working artist’ but that is what I did. So far, we have had a nautical theme running. Now, the sex bit.

 

I’d like to think that on a good day, MTS is the art equivalent of ‘making love’ or at least ‘shagging’, yet I often think it is more of a quick one night stand thing. In reality it is masturbation. So yeah, good wank. All the wanking in the world, as fun as it might be during, amounts to very little. There is no love, no empathy, no other human being there to reassure you and not even a solid result like a disease or a child.

 

I don’t really believe that rejecting all that I do now and suddenly adopting a new way of working, finally making the ‘work’ that I think I should be making, will make a difference to anything. The crucial point is that I don’t have the confidence to really do anything. I don’t think I am any good. I know I can draw a nice picture if called upon to do so. I know I can write endless pointless sentences. I can parody things in a fairly clever way. I’m not useless. I have a few minor art skills; I am organised, and fortunate that I don’t have a very taxing work life. I lack some kind of drive or ambition to really make an effort. I think it is because I don’t want a tangible end result like money or fame so there is nothing to reach for other than personal satisfaction, which frankly I can get in easier ways than being ‘creative’. There, said it. I’m not lazy but I don’t have a thirst for this thing, not anymore. Not today at least and not for a while.

 

I want to retreat from any scrutiny of any kind. I am sick of working to order, for art courses and the private wanking sessions and the exhibitions that follow. I need some space to just piss about and not care what it is or what context and so on. Things are back to front; instead of wanting to make a book and then seeking the content, I should be making images and then wondering what to do with them and if the conclusion is ‘do nothing with them’, great. Leave them in a folder. I used to enjoy drawing and painting, cutting and sticking. I liked not knowing what was ‘out there’. When you see ‘success’ all around (define that in your own way) and then make the inevitable and biased comparison to your own work and with the way my head is wired, the obvious and usual conclusion is that ‘I am shit’. And then the equally irrational dissection of this and that; it all leads to inactivity and misery and I have had enough of that.

 

I am tired of being stuck in this loop. I don’t hate art, I love it. It shouldn’t matter to me that there is a lot of crap art and poor artists out there, some of whom make a lot of money or have a lot of fame, as I don’t strive for those things, I have to believe that I hope to make work that is worthwhile, if only to me. Well now, no. If I could, I would make a lot of money from writing. If I was a different person, I would perform. I lack the confidence to perform outside of a safe closed environment which is all right. I can’t change that. I do like some attention; I don’t think that is a horrible confession to make. I don’t know where it comes from, perhaps from a lack of it in childhood. Yeah, maybe. And the writing thing is about creating a controllable world, one that is worth the hours you have to put in. But to make any progress there I would need more than a random selection of words or riffing on a theme, or string of loose connections; I’d need structure of some kind and I just don’t like that. I used to be able to do it. I would do drafts and plan work, essays whatever but now that bores me. If I can’t toss it off, I’m not connected.

 

Kerouac and his roll of paper on a typewriter thing. Nah, he still had notes and reworked it. I could manage the notes, the reworking would kill me. So work with what you have.

 

I was thinking of starting a new blog for the New Year, nothing to do with art. I thought I could make it semi-autobiographical and anonymous. It would be therapy more than anything and at least I realised that much which is why in the end I thought I may as well do it but not on-line. I am looking for patterns. Grams of salt taken daily, number of units of alcohol and so on. Log it, make graphs, and seek patterns. Days in the studio; productive ones highlighted in pink, wasted days in lime. Low days and days when I could care less about any of this shit. Can you make yourself work, does that work? Every day I will write four hundred words and do two drawings. Is that a better method than doing what you have to when you need to? Keep it regular and methodical as opposed to intuitive. I don’t have any answers. I would guess that some middle ground would be best, plan for so much, don’t fret if it doesn’t happen, which is more or less how I work now. So again, I come back to not whether I should be making art or not but what art.

 

Studio Plan 2009

Today I will be Picasso, tomorrow Tapies. Today I will work on one painting; tomorrow I will make 100 drawings. The process is the important thing, not the end result. Every now and then, I will still spurt a new issue of MTS, send some cups off to a gallery and so on. Draw fruit, finger paint the walls, make a box and fill it with broken glass and stuffed birds, compose a landscape in oils, shit into a tin. Do all of it.

 

MA Plan 2009

Finish it. Pass.

 

When you consider that MA study is self-directed, it increasingly seems self-deceptive. I’m not trying to piss on the course at all or the work I have done, the effort I have put in. I can’t remember where PEEP! came from or why or what purpose it has anymore, or ever had. The only answer is to destroy what there is; take a selection of ‘art’ from people and abuse it visually and hope that in doing so, something vaguely wonderful happens.  

 

2008 words