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29 December: A shiny star called ....

29/12/2020

<<<<<<<< Twixmas in a pandemic >>>>>>>>

6 things to do on the twixy days

Wear the dreadfullest of Christmas sweaters and take a selfie with dog, teddy bear, or small child.
Take a sparkly clean, pretty jar with a lid to a serene park and bottle the air, making sure nobody with Covid symptoms is nearby (germs carry a long way in the cold). Take it home and sniff it.
Make a pair of thick socks into monsters you can wear, put your feet up and watch a classic Christmas film on TV between them. Photograph the scene between the monsters.
Wrap squares of ‘healthy’ dark chocolate in foil and hang on the tree. Unwrap one and feel how much good it does you as you eat.
Watch The Belles of St Trinians all the way through at least twice. List trivia which could come in handy in the event of a Zoom quiz with the neighbours.
Find out the name of the shiniest star you can see in the night sky. Drop a pin randomly in Google Earth or Maps and note the name of the place where it lands. Put the two names together to make your porn-star name.

Finally, compose a 6 to view collage of your achievements. It should be tremendous. Post it on social media.

May you find things to make you happy and rejoice, even if your plans are not as they ought to be.
<<<<<<<< Wishing all a happy and healthy 2021 >>>>>>>>

December 26th, 2020

26/12/2020

20 December: Christmas calling

20/12/2020

One of my favourite Christmas decorations, a phone box, seems appropriate this year because most of us are going to stay in touch with each other remotely over the festive season. FaceTime and Zoom shall abound, and Santa will be kept busy at Amazon instead of popping down the chimney for a dram and mince pies. May you have a fun-filled holiday, even if it isn't what you hoped Santa would bring, and enjoy.

13 December: Getting stuck

13/12/2020

Ghastly times when work hides behind a curtain while fire-fighting and just struggling with being alive happen to everyone at some point, and that’s okay. It takes time to heal and it will eventually fade into the background. But what about those other times when everything is apparently fine and hunky-dory and you should be charging ahead with brilliant work but the bogeyman comes to visit, settling into your brain in a bleak, growly fog just when art should be blossoming, and effort after effort ends up in an angry ball of scrunched-up matter in the bin, aka creative block.

Images, clockwise from top left
Latifa Echakhch Globus (b) 2007
Martin Creed Work No.88 1995
Ívar Valgardsson Watercolour 2011
John Chamberlain Penthouse #50 1969

4 December: My work books

4/12/2020

All my works originate in these books. I have a number on the go at the same time which span years as I keep adding to them until they are too full to take any more. Two or three are always open on my desk with a large one on the floor as I work. Over time they acquire nicknames, such as The Messy Drawer and Book of Materials. The Messy Drawer was the originator for my Confused Flags series for Artobotic’s Brexit Art Machine, the Book of Materials contains scraps of experiments with different media such as wax, inks, oils, metal leaf, and drawings made with unlikely instruments.

Which one would I save in the event of a fire? Fairisle+Form Ol’ Scruffy, so many beautiful memories and thoughts are bound in the pages of that book. They are all precious repositories; dogs, snow, loving people, wine and golden raindrops, the car breaks down and you meet a hero. I don’t know how I would begin again if they caught fire and I lost them. I would probably have to dig around in the ashes, retrieving anything recognisable and make the ‘Fire Book’ which would be resplendent with singed edges, scorch marks and visible mending with gold leaf, Kintsugi-style “golden joinery”.