28.8.12 - 1.8.12

28.8.12 - all my work is nicely bubblewrapped, mirror plated and ready to take away tomorrow hopefully not smashing underneath the coach as it travels to Leeds.  Probably not to sell any of it at all.

27.8.12 - spent my Bank Holiday with my girlfriend working in her charity shop - it was more of a visit than actually working there - but it's interesting to see someone else's frustrating job and reflect on how much you may actually prefer it - and then realize no - not at all... because I wouldn't get paid as much.

26.8.12 - started making some designs for an installation I've been invited to do in a few months in an exhibition of Matisse artwork.  Quite looking forward to it because my methods if not my subject or the final product is actually quite Mattisse like.

25.8.12 - the green light doesn't change the surface of the red due to them both being completely separate and the green having no way to emanate light and the light is just me calling it light.

24.8.12 - spinal columns support architecture of the skulls and ignore organs.  This is my last day at work as booked a week off to get ready to do more artwork for the Leeds Gallery - all the work has been done at this point though so planned pretty badly - probably just have a week of tidying and getting stuff bubble wrapped ready for transport. 

23.8.12 - little cut outs of notes made during calls can be found throughout this month - and bits of instructions on how to operate my handset, again I'm finding some use for the basic instructions that are handed to me on paper.  Ignore and destroy all instructions.

22.8.12 - claws grow from seed pods scratching the concrete barrier mutable and nowhere - unlike myself.  Now.

22.8.12 - disassembling drawings of circles into an image that looks quite astrological.  The nowhere spaces are hard to slip into and never permanent... yet.

20.8.12 - not something you'd want knocking on your door - if you can tell what it is.
Made loads of preparations for my exhibition at the Leeds Gallery - bubblewrapping and putting stuff into easily carried bundles.  

19.8.12 - the growth of change and the ideas of how to make things change.  Let there be change.
Everyday there is some idea that things could get better even though there are also moments of Sunday evening wall staring all worrying about going to my very suddenly rubbish job... sorry if I'm repeating myself but life seems to be doing that a lot at the moment.

18.8.12 - more spheres, more orbs and a set of pens taken to work that repeat themselves over most images this month.  This one is some double horizon - the green would probably be better in red and the red would be better not being there at all.  

17.8.12 - I have no idea what this was going to be.  A drawing started whilst my brain was melting under the assault  of an angry parent asking when his or her child would be getting their school place even though they'd only applied a day before and whilst the schools are closed.  After the conversation I must have avoided going back to it because I honestly have no idea what I'm meant to develop here.

16.8.12 - more red vines move up through the core until resembling carved bones of data.

15.8.12 - this was assumption day and it was safe to assume that today would be very similar to other days.  Except with a lot more overhanging globdules of doom in the air - unseen barriers set up by unseen everythings feel more prominent perhaps not on the 15th of August but more on the day I'm writing this - except not.

14.8.12 - had a one to one return to work meeting after my sick day - spent a good ten minutes issues in my new office that I felt were worth pointing out and subsequently managed to turn the whole meeting from me being told off to me complaining.  Didn't want to collage over this list just in case I need it for future reference - and also because I think it's quite funny - except for the bit about the blue tooth ear piece... they're awful. 

13.8.12 - feelings of incompleteness continue - phoned up work and said I wasn't going in because I was stressed out... this didn't go down well and was asked to explain myself further - in terms of sick days honesty is probably not the best policy but then I didn't try hard enough to think of a proper excuse or lie because I don't care about my current position.  

12.8.12 - this day was a busy day of tasks about the house leaving this image incomplete even before I finished it - the day felt incomplete and finished too soon.

11.8.12 - in some ways the unfinished pages have better composition - perhaps less is more - this page looks slightly like a wooden horse.

10.8.12 - some of the collages in this diary were only half done in August due to just not getting round to finishing them. 

9.8.12 - repetitive similar nodes repeat through cells - they join and spin and get attached through little tunnels that lead to mirror images all twisting into a spire going into itself.  One touch and the touch becomes part of it and just goes on and on for little purpose that's worth it - until fictions build up in your brain and those fictions become people and those people become real and real becomes repetitive similar nodes repeating through cells.

8.8.12 - plans are to escape as soon as I can - to fold myself into a different page of my story and made cut a bit of my future into my present to help speed things up a little and hopefully make it a bit like the past - but not so much like the past that's it's dull and familiar.  On the above you can see a not very interesting image from an uninteresting instruction manual - though to be fair perhaps the manual was really interesting.... it's not for me to say - I didn't bother reading it - I just scissored it up.

7.8.12 - the top spheres could represent the outside world penetrating the internal in the centre and the bottom of the image depicts a shell with it's innards scooped out and mpossible to replace.   

6.8.12 - Though Sunday hurtles with annoying trajectory Monday stops still forever like it's frozen in time - all morning the changes are like stone wearing away over far too much time.  Then I realize that employment of any form is completely wasting my time - that perhaps life would be better if I didn't have to make money to maintain my existence.  Even homeless people have a job of a kind - asking people for money looks loads tougher than sitting in a chair with a headset waiting for faceless people to talk to me.  When you're begging you have to talk to people face to face.  I don't really want to work where I do - in my last job I had the run of the building - I was a wanderer abouter with a variety of tasks - now all I do is sit and listen and speak - not quite like a statue but like a statue with a few basic movements and also a sound system.  

5.6.12 - since being 'ringfenced' into the horrible job at the Manchester City Council's contact centre Sundays have become a day of much self imposed inertia - slowing down time as much as I can - getting up really early so the day lasts longer and only performing the most average and dull tasks throughout - whatever slows down time best.  The above image - though quite half made - shows an inescapable trajectory towards Monday and demonstrates that no matter how restful and slow your Sunday is it still hurtles into Monday.  It hurts does the hurtling hurting.

4.6.12 - taking my diary into work enables lots of scribbling over diary pages that I've not collaged onto yet - usually my scribbles are just crappy circles and little rectangular shapes - perhaps i need to learn how to draw other shapes - or more 3D objects.  I worry a lot about all my art being the same... same premise, same shapes, same me.  Would like to become more mutable and more inspired.... the world has made me stupider as I've gone along - my intelligence maybe peaked at the age of 26 and now it's slowly dropping.  Perhaps my new job has made me stupid - also my reading material has gone a bit downhill... I've not read a proper book for a year I've mostly just been reading escapist science fictiony stuff.... my brain is far too escapist - it's escaping.

3.6.12 - Roger visited from London and showed me some amazing postcards he'd bought that can be seen here on his new blog http://theoddpostcard.blogspot.co.uk/   this makes Roger's birthday a lot easier this year - just buy something postcard related.

2.6.12 - first attempt to apply for working tax credit - held in a queue for half an hour, my entire lunchbreak.  Then somehow failed security because my address was different to what they had - even though I explained that I'd moved house.   Hopping into the future for this date a few weeks later I had an appointment in person where I got the form which I sent off immediately only to be sent a letter a month later that informed me that I was given the working tax credit award of NOTHING AT ALL.  Another dead end and a total waste of time - I want all those hours back so I can use them to stare at a wall in silence and slow down my subjective time and make my life feel a lot longer than it does now.

1.8.12 - the machine in which my life is strapped into for 7 hours a day - even when stepping away from it for breaks it keeps track of how long you've been away - it needs to be given a special code when I go to the toilet otherwise I'd be due for a telling off from my monitors.  The machine is probably really simple and cheaply constructed but linked to a vast network called the telephone system - the telephone system connects people through wires and speakers - speaking being the operate word as telephones rely on oral communication.  I have a headset attached to this machine so I never have to pick up the phone though it also means that I have the phone attached to my head and therefore I end up being the phone.  I also have to sit down which is bad as I prefer to use the phone standing up because I read somewhere that it makes you voice sound assertive and gives you a certain energy.  I don't like this particular phone - it doesn't have any good apps.

Frozen corrosive under planet

Here's an image I made in 2010 - it's one of ten acetate experiments... the image is created by a layer of watercolour a layer of collage and finally an acetate print of a close up of some of my photocopies.  The title and the image itself for me is suggestive of an alien world where physics don't really apply - not even a world in the traditional sense more a place where traditional sense is inverted.

I'm posting it here as I'm about to sell it on eBay - didn't actually think anyone would bid on it but as I'm typing this it's up to fiver.... quite a good result to say it's rather small and that I didn't think anyone would bid on it in the first place, and there's still a day left.  

I've quite a few smaller images from 2010 all in frames so I'm gradually going to put the rest of them on eBay and if it does become a good money spinner perhaps I'll produce a lot of very new smaller images and try to make a little bit of extra money out of it - perhaps enough to pay my council tax every month.  I do have the replenishable materials to mass produce and a technique that allows for every piece to be diverse and different so the idea of producing lots and lots of new small work whilst selling older work does appeal at the moment - whether my aspirations and targets are realistic is something else all together. 

Anyway here's the link to it just in case you may be interested - one more day left.

Leeds Gallery exhibition opening

A couple of sneaky pictures taken at the opening of my exhibition at the Leeds Gallery.  Nice thing about exhibitions is that you don't have to announce yourself at all and take any ownership of which work you've done.  Which is quite nice for a while but in this case - due to being there on my own - I got a bit bored and ended up speaking to people, which leads to the inevitable question "who do you know that's exhibiting here?" which I answer by "I did those six over there."

It is often easier to remain anonymous; hide in the corner or slink out after ten minutes or sometimes not even turn up at all... but I think there are definite opportunities to be had if I'm there to be spoken to.  Like just in case someone decided to give me a load of money.  The benefits to being anonymous though is that you can gauge people's reactions to your artwork and even take sneaky photos of people whilst they look at your work.  The couple above look like rather well to do art collectors.  Even though they probably aren't.

Wasn't able to capture the wild gesticulations of the young boy in this photo though it's nice to know my work does appeal to younger people.  Exhibitions seem to be mostly frequented by the mid to older age range.  Going to this opening in Leeds where I don't know anyone was of benefit due to being able to see some actual honest reactions from people who I don't know and who initially didn't know who I was or that I was even there.  Most exhibitions I've been to have mostly been attended by my friends or friends of other artists so the criticism of your work is at best biased - also it's not that there isn't any value in hearing your friend's perspective on your artwork more that you've usually already heard it already because they've saw it when they came round your house a few weeks before.

Never sure how much I actually want to exhibit sometimes - my work tends to be purely motivated by something interior to myself and I get the most reward by making work rather than by exhibiting it.  I think that I'm exhibiting mostly in the attempt to make some form of income from my artwork so I don't have to do anything else aside from my artwork... so my real motivaton is not to exhibit but to make my work better all the time in order to create a more unique and personal vision.  What is interesting however when I do exhibit and when people talk to me about my artwork (and this includes friends) is the amount of interpretations there is for the work that never actually occured to myself.  Do these interpretations submerge themselves into my subconscious and actually become a part of the inspiration for future work - even if it's in 3 years time?  Slotting into place finally after years of suspension.

Anyway the Leeds Gallery exhibition ends on the 30th September and should be open most days of the week - visit their website for more details.  Only a section of my work is featured on this blog post due to me mostly standing around one area of the room so there's a whole other two corners not featured in the photos.

Projecting elements of disassembling head

One last new canvas to go into my exhibition at the Leeds Gallery.  A lot of it's texture was taken from my least favourite image of the last few years though it's mixed in with a lot of darkness which builds in some much needed definition.

Another texture I used in this image can be found here - something I made ages ago hoping to implement into my installation last year but never finding a way to do so.  Its good for me to mass produce an idea forever and ever even if it's not going to be used for another few years.   Think I have a big phase of mass production coming on soon as I'm quite interested in formulating myself a lot of other patterns and textures for images so my work can develop more.

This picture has a point of focus and the impression of a face.  An eye or some other detachable sphere can be seen shooting away from it in the top corner - though in all honesty I imagine the eye has some independence of it's own - like a detachable bionic eye.   What I was trying to do is create both the impression of implosion and explosion at the same time.  Besides from the eye there isn't really any other tangible organic part except for the teeth - which are all eschew - the rest of the face could be anything because it's caught in motion and a standstill, it could be either falling apart or it could be falling back together.

Problems with interpretation of art is that after describing one idea of what the image is about there are also multiple other interpretations I have about what's going on in that particular image, the whole task of putting an image into words is tricky but that's the main reason i started this blog in the first place.  The main issue is that there is no absolute interpretation to put down in writing in the first place but more of a series of interpretations.  So writing about an image can be as elusive as the image itself.

Setting down one clumsy interpretation after another could be good fun.  Perhaps making a picture based entirely on interpretations would be good - looking like a vast hieroglyphic of interconnected clumsy shapes which all conclude in nothing.