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.