7th January - 11th January

7th+8th January = 7th8th January

Visit to Hester.  Visit to Post Office.  Visit to Morrisons. Completion and emailing of pattern design to Art on Fashion.  Events either to distract and avoid responsibilities or to connect to the proper routine.  My world can be integrated into common place activities and I tend to find these things help to process the plans into concrete successes.  Too much dedication to a cause can detract from the humanity of my host and lead me to obsessive inward looking repetition.  This would lead to circling the same things over and over and expressing the same null void between emotional nothing and everything.  Writing this 5 days after the day means that things are forgotten and things are elaborated or missed out.  Though through the imagery above there were lots of highlighter pens involved in my activities.

9th - 11th January

Processing very slow data at work gave me the opportunity to listen to a very long 4 part Youtube lecture on Soren Kierkegaard - this was quite inspiring but my quandary of the weekend and perhaps my entire life is not so much developing a personal and spiritual philosophy but how to moralistically fit that into my inter relations with other people.  It's difficult to contain feelings and thoughts that might cause harm. These days I usually don't bother and just say anything I like all the time which is quite liberating and seems to make people appreciate me.  Appreciation is not enough though, what is required is a method to never hurt anyone ever again and perhaps never to be hurt by anyone ever again.  If this requires lies and cover ups then perhaps that's the best way, after all what is wrong with a little lie here and there if the rest of the time you are completely honest?  Or are you completely honest if you let yourself believe the lies that you tell yourself?  How mutable is the truth and how often do we actually tell the truth.  Can words actually be accurate when they are describing intangible feelings?

Can words make the intangible tangible or do they distort it into something that wasn't either there in the first place?  A PROBLEM.  SOLUTION?  In order to stop myself from hurting anyone else I would have to contain my feelings and to contain who I am, to never say anything to anyone,  would that be a moral thing to do?  This is why feelings must be filtered through diplomacy.  That way there is a compromise.

As an introverted extroverted introvert extrovert I require other people's validation in order to survive in my infinite messy singularity.  I get validation but it isn't enough.  Why?  Because of trust.

I didn't manage to get all my tasks this weekend.  A rather late one on Saturday due to a friend's birthday but all together lots of nice events have happened to give me the excuse to not bother.  Also my thoughts are such a tumble of things that I always get something worked out.
There should be no confinement for anything inside myself.  Not if I am going to be free.  How much easier would my life be if I went entirely onto some automatic self trusting autopilot?  How much more entertaining?   Though it seems that through expressing myself in this blog, my day to day thoughts and activities, that there will always be ommissions despite me not editing what I type.  I worry that this diary/blog excercise could become a very tiring and constant project.  Very repetitive to read too.  Also you have to question why I would share all of this?  What is the point?  Does it make me a bad person?  Vain, self indulgent and so on.

Time to stop asking questions.  Though when you do data entry for 7 hours a day then asking questions is the best way to amuse yourself.  Is that a vital aspect of my development?  The fact that I contain so much thought and mental energy over 35 hours of the week?  It is never time to stop asking questions.  My life is so hectic what with this cat to cuddle all the time.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA -  I am trying to be FUNNY.

January 1st - 6th 2015

In order to use my blog more often and also to keep the production of art and ideas developing at an observable rate (for myself more than anyone) I am keeping a 2015 diary and posting the pages and developments on here.  I will also be interspersing this with Facebook posts of mine that I feel are developmental and relevant to my conquest over myself, you, others and everything.   This sort of self absorbed project is either an unhealthy or positive activity for a young(ish) but promising egomaniac.  

31st December - 1st January:

A choice of outfit that was unusually subdued but perhaps my hair more than made up for that.  Wore my own pattern so I almost felt that I couldn't go into the usual pattern/colour overload that I normally would. \\\\\\\\\\\\Superficiality?////////////  I was told a long time ago at the lowest peak of my confidence and sense of self worth that the best way to avoid cruel and judgemental people is to frighten them away by looking like an alien.  

I don't meet very many cruel or judgemental people.

A stylish photograph of an insect in a taxi with a snazzy camera filter.  A photo of some form of odd tree in the front garden at a house party.  Assessment of house party:  usually I enjoy staring at people's book shelves but in this place the book shelves were a gulf.  So I had some interesting if confusing social interactions and also enjoyed the spooky quality of this strange tree.  

 

The rest of my New Years Day involved fragmentations, problems, conjoinmentations and plenty of drama some of which I came out of victoriously..... A knowledge of self control and resistance and of being an almost full grown version of myself.   Everything is always so important but I realize that Everything is not the boss of me.  Lucky.  Until I run out of Everything and have to go and buy more of it.  Then it's time to go to bed.

2nd January - 4th January 2015 - Three days which are (pretty much, but not pretty) a process of recovery... a cognitive mess played at the wrong speed.  A diary is made of exagerration and omissions.  Theoretically.  #######( #Please note I am leaving my grammatical errors and spelling mistakes as intact as possible. #)#######  In ommitting and exagerating you are able to convey are more distinct and concise narrative, perhaps even a mythology.  Also you leave out information that may hurt other people.  The truth is a mutable thing and not to be completely trusted {{{{VOICE OF REASON speaks "What makes you think that anyone is going to read this anyway?  Why read this feedback loop of self analytical text?  You're not even writing it properly, you can't even be bothered to go back and check your spelling or grammar or punctuation.  This whole thing is self absorbed, pointless and you're eventually going to find it very time consuming.  This project will be over long before the year is out.  This is just self aggrandisement directed at yourself, something to fuel the delusions of your own self built mythology that only you are paying attention to."}}}}}}}  Shut up VOICE OF REASON you are not the boss of me or anyone.

5th - 6th January:

I am now back at work doing my lovely data entry and filing and all the lovely managing of lovely emotionless unchallenging units.  I wonder if I should approach life from an administrative perspective.  Though I also wonder what would happen to my emotions if I were to limit them into filing cabinets.  Perhaps an administrative approach would stunt all creative efforts and all efforts of interpersonal connection.  Perhaps with an administrative approach I wouldn't have the friends I now have and despite all the bad things I think people say about me usually people only say nice things. ((((((((((((((IDLE UNIMAGINATIVE PONTIFICATING... SOMEONE ELSE MUST HAVE SAID THE ABOVE BETTER THAN YOU)))))))))))))  

I have had it in my diary to drink more water.  4 bottles of water a day.  Oddly I do feel rejuvenated.  My skin seems to have a healthier glow to it.  Also I'm taking lots of zinc.  I love zinc.
((((((((((((YOU DO NOT LOVE ZINC NOR DO YOU HAVE A HEALTHY GLOW)))))))))))))

Had an art evening on Monday with my friend Ana and drank too many cups of tea and ended up being awake in my bed until 2 in the morning.  Whilst I lay awake I had many life defining thoughts

((((((((((((DELUSIONAL)))))))))))))))

Tuesday was a day of action creating more pattern designs for a company called Art on Fashion.  Hopefully this year will be the year that I break into full self employment.

((((((((((((DOUBLE DELUSIONAL)))))))))))))))

My 2015 horoscope sounds very promising and indicates that all my dreams will come true

((((((((((((HOROSCOPES!!!!!! PAH!))))))))))))))

The analytical self critical thoughts in my head are becoming less and less eloquent

(((((((((((WHAT ROT!)))))))))))))

And they even seem a lot quieter

(((((((((NO WE DON'T!!!!!!!)))))))))))))

Perhaps they are drowning in all the water I am drinking

(((((((((((((((YOU'VE NOT HEARD THE LAST OF US GARTH SIMMONS!))))))))))))))))))))) 

VIDA now launched

I've been fairly active on my Facebook group promoting these but have somehow my blog fell by the wayside so I'm just updating you (whoever you may be) on all progress since my last past.

VIDA was launched last a few weeks ago and seems to be going pretty well with plenty of press attention etc.  Though to be fair they are selling some very lovely products not just my own.  It's all very exciting and strange for me to be entering the glossy fashion business but it's also very enjoyable and enriching.  

I got an exciting email today alerting me that the first design pictured has been listed as one of the top 30 products to gifts this season in Fashion Times - scroll down to the third image, just below the torn up jeans and the gold watch.  There it is.  The same image you can see just below. 

For simplicity if you are wanting to buy any of the currently released products I've tied a link in to each image so just click on the image your interested in and it will take you straight to the product. Alternatively feel free to view the full collection here http://shopvida.com/collections/garth-simmons

VIDA prelaunch

VIDA are launching this month and there website is currently in it's prelaunch phase.  So you can sign up to the website and if you share the website with your friends you'll get free credits with which to buy lots of cool products (like the t shirt in the image).  It's all looking very snazzy and polished so far and it's been a very interesting few months watching it develop without having to take much action myself. 

VIDA are already creating quite a buzz in the fashion industry and have been featured in Fashion Times, Apparel News, Fashionista, Wall Street Journal, Tech Crunch, amongst others.... also VIDA has been funded $1.3 million from the likes of Universal Music and Google Ventures.... so it's all suddenly starting sound very pretty impressive. 

I've not much more to add at this point but there will be more news coming up soon when VIDA launch properly later this month.  You should certainly sign up to their website in the meantime and share with your friends.  With each friend you recommend more money goes towards teaching literacy to residents of third world countries.  So I'm not just promoting this for selfish reasons.

Until next time here are a few zoomed in segments of some of my upcoming products.

VIDA scarf design launch

January this year I started to make a concerted effort to turn my art into pattern design.  It was during a week when I was bedridden with bladder stones and a very long and particularly debilitating migraine.  At the time I didn't really imagine much would come of the patterns, I was probably too delirious and in pain to actually think at all.  Anyway in my feverish Yeats like death-delirium (''can I please see Isabella one more time before I die?'') I managed to produce vast amounts of patterns, all derived from the various collages and drawings I've been producing over the last ten years.  I've been really surprised and pleased with the amount of opportunities my week long migraine has produced. 

The large amount of interest and the amount of productivity has now been verified in physical form by the complimentary scarves I received in the post a few weeks ago.  They are sample scarves that I designed for a new company called Vida who are based in San Francisco. Vida are a very nice company who's objective is to sell printed fabric designs using artists from a wide variety of countries, giving them a worldwide cultural aesthetic.  Also they are very generous and caring and ethical in regards to their workers in Karachi and Pakistan where they are teaching them literacy courses and skills leading towards better career opportunities.  Anyway it all sounds very nice and you can read more and look at all the other scarves here: http://www.shopvida.com/ - at the moment the website is in preview stage but you can request a code very easily and still make a purchase.  Also you should like them on their Facebook page. I'll be posting more on Vida as it occurs.  

Onto the actual designs themselves:  this first one is derived from a notebook drawing I made whilst working at the Manchester City Council's contact centre (quite a loathsome place). The drawings are very architectural but also very, biological, medical and tooth-like.  I like that it has been drawn on graph paper and you see the subtle outlines of squares within the pattern.  So it's like the mess of our lives is all organised into some painful hell like geometry.....  Hmmm....  perhaps a normal person would have a nicer way of analyzing it.  

This next scarf is derived from a section of a collage produced from my own notebooks interspersed with colored card and highlighter penned sections.  It's a very sharp and fractured image.  All the text is completely cut up which allows for new meanings to emerge in a very counter cultural collage fashion.  Despite this the pattern itself somehow intuitively takes the shape of a junkyard or perhaps the ruin of a building, you can see the skeleton of a support structure poking out through the wreckage.  Or perhaps it's a broken bridge leading nowhere.  This one does look outstanding on the actual scarf and what is very striking on the physical product is the way it inverts halfway up the image.  It's a very startling and eye catching contrast when seen in print and I wasn't expecting it to be so bold but the wonderful thing with collaboration is that it opens up all new pathways of surprise.



I think that each scarf has managed to represent some separate and important aspect of my work over the last 10 years.  The first is drawing, the second the integration of written text and image, then this one takes on the qualities of work that I actually sell the most of - ie. work which has a recognizable landscape.  As in a sky and terrain and some kind of correlation between the two, but also a visual defiance and illogic so the images still portray in an intangible, unvisitable null space.  Voids reclusive of actual reality and therefore escaping the trap of being representative but also drawing in the viewer to build their own interpretation through what is prompting the imagination.....  hmmm.... this paragraph has probably been one of my most sustained and lengthiest attempts at ''art speak''. Although perhaps my longest and most sustained period of art speak has actually been the last 10 years of my life.  




Apologies that I've not as of yet taken any photographs of the scarves received.  The friend I was going to ask to wear them has been away on holiday so it's not something I've gotten around to.  The selfies I've taken of myself in them are pretty rocking but the problem with those is that I'm worried that my big, slack jawed head would likely detract from the greatness of the craftsmanship and designs of the scarves themselves.  Anyway as mentioned above I'll be posting more news as it occurs.

Front Row Society Contest

I've entered a scarf design competition for Front Row Society.  These online contests are mostly a popularity contest rather than being judged by the merit of the work itself, therefore I have to ask all my friends to vote for me through links I'll be posting on Facebook and on this blog entry.  I doubt I'll have enough clicks to actually win as I imagine there will be other designers on the website who will have more time to post links all over social media all day and everyday.  Then again, who knows?  There's no point in not trying and my hubris tells me I deserve to win.  

I'm going to do some more blogging but first I'd like you to click on the below images or links, one by one, and vote for each image.  Perhaps an emotional blackmail campaign strategy is the best way to win this contest... Here goes....  

If you don't vote for all my images then you are not my friend. So please vote. 

http://eu.frontrowsociety.com/boutique/m/contest/submission?id=14026&cid=93

http://eu.frontrowsociety.com/boutique/m/contest/submission?id=13653&cid=93

http://eu.frontrowsociety.com/boutique/m/contest/submission?id=13650&cid=93

http://eu.frontrowsociety.com/boutique/m/contest/submission?id=13651&cid=93

http://eu.frontrowsociety.com/boutique/m/contest/submission?id=13652&cid=93

So now that you've done that... or you probably haven't... or you might have done... though you probably didn't.... but you should... though you won't... not that it matters much.... except it does... but it shouldn't. Anyway now that you've done that (or haven't) I thought I'd write a little bit more about the images. I don't know if I best represented them with my writing on the Front Row website.  I said something about 80s sci fi films like Bladerunner being some kind of influence but that was simply a way of fitting in with the Modernist theme of the contest.  80s science fiction is the event horizon of modernism (though Event Horizon was actually a 90s sci fi film) bringing the lofty ideals and logic of early modernist utopias into gritty decaying dystopias.  

All well and good but really I'm not sure that it has anything to do with my work.  We are a product of our culture (or at least that's something we can use an excuse for being the terrible people) so perhaps by having a childhood steeped in science fiction did influence my outlook

and visual aesthetic... but if it did it only did it on a very subconscious level.  So in the description on the website I am effectively lying.  I didn't realize this at the time so when I typed it I convinced myself it was true, I was even lying to myself.  I convinced myself that it sounded good and that it would give people a context with which to understand it.

Does this mean that everything I ever write could be a lie?  Am I telling the truth about what I'm writing right now?  Is that actually possible for me, or for anyone?  Is the truth so mutable that it can only define one moment therefore making all promises into lies?  What was true isn't anymore.  Soon the truth will be something else.  Therefore I need to know what is actually reliable?  I can't even rely upon myself to be able to define exactly what it is I'm thinking or what it is that I actually want.  Sadly it goes much deeper than that... MY truth is something in a different language that only I can speak but I've completely unable to understand.  I'm dislocated into a fiction.  I've gotten to a point where all my dreams are actually just shapes and colours.  People don't factor into anything anymore. 

You'll notice that there are images images interspersed throughout my pitiful ranting.  These are close ups of the scarf designs.  You can actually click on these and vote for me in a contest (as mentioned above).  Perhaps if I win then the truth might become much less mutable for me.  Life will become a little more solid and reliable and I might stop telling lies about Bladerunner.  

At this point you might be reminded of an X Factor contestant talking about his/her dead relatives or the fact they have to work in a dead end job and live in a really rubbish flat.  

Well guess what?  I have dead relatives.  Very dead relatives.  I also work in a dead end job and live in a very rubbish flat.  I have a cat to feed as well.  He is called Claude and by caring him I demonstrate that I have the ability to love and I that I am not a scary psychopath.  

I think if you have not already done so then you should vote for me.  All five of my images. I irrefutably deserve it what with me being so hard done by.  I can tell you another reason why I'm hard done by, and this one will put you on a real guilt trip and have you desperate to vote for me.  The main reasons that my existence is so wretched is YOU. It's actually all you're fault.  Every last one of you.

Though don't stay in your guilt trip for too long because guess what?!  I forgive you all.  My weakness is my strength.  My compassion is me and I will heal you all with my love and empathy.  But only if I win this contest.

So after reading all of this then you should realize that voting for me in this contest is possibly the most important thing you could ever do in your entire life.  All your mistakes and missteps so far will be just fine if you click on the links and then click like... also I think you have to log in to the website using Facebook.  Anyway what are you waiting for?  Stop reading this and get clicking on those links.

Have you done it yet?  Come on.  It's free to vote.  There's really no reason why you shouldn't and every reason imaginable as to why you really, really should.  God is watching and he thinks that you should vote for me.  I think he's right.  You think he is right too.  Don't you?  Yes.  You do.  Well go on then.  Get voting. For me.

(It's worth noting that this contest is a legitimate contest and not actually just a popularity contest, so that means that even if I don't get to the top by voting I am still in with a chance of winning via selection of the staff at Front Row Society.  Though that's not an excuse for not voting).

The unquantified non process

I have been working in a new temp job for the past 4 weeks where I was answering calls from schools who were uploading the results for their National Curriculum Assessments.  It was an incredibly quiet job so I got lots of time for incredibly productive daydreaming and drawing.  It's the most I've ever been paid to sit around and doodle and daydream.  I've compiled these drawings and daydreams into a kind of psychological narrative, and also colored them in digitally.  I wouldn't call it a comic or a story but more of a historical scroll.  Anyway see what you think and please don't take it too seriously.

Society 6

Recently uploaded some images onto Society 6.  Which is an interesting idea, basically I upload old images and website pays for them to be printed onto merchandise like cups and phone cases and prints so I don't have to make the effort or put any of my very lacking finances into printing costs and materials.  You'll notice I'm experimenting with an advert banner at the top of this blog, I may get rid of that if I start to find it aesthetically irritating.

I think this could be seen as selling out but then I didn't have anything to sell out of in the first place. My dignity, ideas and general individuality isn't at all damaged by being on this website and if I start to make a bit of extra money to pay for cat food then that's all well and good.  It's early days yet so this is just a little experiment although admittedly I do think the merchandise does look pretty cool and that every household should have a Garth Simmons tea mug.  That might sound slightly egotistical but for the people who know me it's the exact attitude they would likely expect.  In this business you have to constantly bolster your self confidence, passion and determination otherwise you become all flailing and mournful.

So buy my things and then my self confidence might not feel quite as misplaced as it does when I think about it rationally.