Disposition of the Organic

I've not done any work of any real tangibility this last month - not that I have a "creative block" or anything just that it's all mostly been scribbles, writing and designs in my little red notebook.  So in the spirit of my last blog post this is about another photocopied booklet I made back in 2006.

With the slightly overdone title: Disposition of the Organic.  This was a smaller book than Nightmares About Teeth - I wanted to half the cost of photocopying and also the amount of time spent putting it together.  The title sounds like some sort of vague metaphor of life - as if the cross hatched office doodlings inside were somehow illustrative of all our existential concerns and questions and that between the lines somewhere there are answers palpitating themselves through the abstract and the not quite as abstract.  Or as if I thought the book was bleeding some pained confusion.  Whatever effect is had on the passers by I gave it to I doubt it effected them as profoundly as I thought it would.  I did get an exhibition by handing it out - though it was one of those free for all Autonomous Art exhibitions run by rich kid revolutionaries in a squat in Manchester's Northern Quarter.  I'm glad my creative career has moved on a bit since then.

I drew most of these whilst working at NTL - I had a little notebook I kept during my training - many Customer Service jobs give you three weeks of sitting in a class room getting paid to sit and doze off whilst your supposed to be learning computer systems.  The picture to the right is a futuristic building complete with glass domes and a bridge connecting one end to another, underneath the bridge you can see the shadow of someones normal house - not sure if I was trying to illustrate architectural growth - how the past is left hanging around even in the most inconsequential ways. 

I think I was probably stabbing in the dark at nothing in particular, just passing time and building up areas of shape and pattern - my target whose face was made up of anyone and everyone... except it wasn't an aggressive stab, just carving at the mid distance colours with a rubber knife.   I think I was probably just beginning to to articulate what myself and was moving away from the underside of a cloudy fog of prescribed medicines.

There was little chance of me socialising in NTL as I just didn't want too - the illustration to the right shows I was sliding introvertedly into snide aloofness.  I was even enjoying my lack of communication with my work colleagues - like it actually made me better than them - I was developing a secret confidence which was projecting itself right at the people around me - I was actually manning battle stations and getting ready to create barriers between myself and the normal people that like to sit around the office talking to one another.... This was a long time ago and I don't think I actually felt quite as disturbed as it sounds but there was a less than secret egotism and superiority developing in me at this point.  The seeds of such were planted in school by all the people who didn't like me.  I programmed myself with a "I'll show you all and make every last one of you pay" attitude from a very early age.

So like some caged throb in a dark place the deathly strangeness grew and became unapproachable and alien - I had to come up with ways to camouflage it - one of which was self deprecation... so every time I say I'm great I somehow contradict it straight afterwards with a self directed insult.
I've started to wonder if that's the best way though - am I at a stage now where I don't need to do that anymore?  Is it time to kick the self deprecation habit - enjoy that I'm actually doing well and if I can carry on making artwork and following my heart I may actually end up making you all pay after all.

Thing is though arrogance is likely one of creativity's greatest obstacles, I did this drawing and obviously felt so big headed that I thought it was interesting enough to put into a book.  It's not a bad picture as such but it's not that great either - none of these pictures are that great and maybe I was never convinced they were.  I went through a two year stage of producing paintings that were just large circles stuck to each other.  I got very obsessed and drawn into a very basic and boring method of painting that didn't in reality look very good after it had been done.  I also made a few jerky animations that took me months to make. With clunky editing and sombre and over done monologues.  When I think I'm some kind of genius - things start going wrong.

So it's actually really good to keep myself in place - otherwise I end up wasting my time building something that I over hype until it ends up becoming disappointing.  Though the failed projects have all ended up being useful in some shape or form.  Even this booklet has ended up being useful in future collages, animations and also it's been something to write this blog post about.  It's allowed me to type all of this and allowed me to think about things out loud through a keyboard.  Blogging is odd because it's not just thinking aloud to yourself your also thinking aloud to pretty much anyone who happens to sit down and read this.  How many people - who know me, or don't me - have sat down and read this and thought very negative things - or maybe just laughed at the fact I exist - or got bored after reading the first few sentences?

Feel free to write something horrible at the bottom of this by the way.  The internet is pretty good for supportive compliments but I don't get much harsh name calling.