my life as a artist
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bang
Tuesday 13th November 2007 11:33 PM
This morning, when I went to the newsagents to buy a kilo of Guardian, Greg-behind-the-counter was having a heated debate with Mrs Blackmore, about the big bang theory. Greg, who's a big man, (and generally prone to largeness), was getting quite red in the face, and had started inter-fucking-spersing words with profanities.
Mrs Blackmore, a leathery, hard-faced woman in her late seventies, was not intimidated, and besides enthusiastically positing that the cosmos was the result of a big bang, fifteen billion years ago, she was also demanding her copy of the Daily Mail and a walnut whip, in a fierce, phlegmy, high-pitched, rattling voice, not unlike the sound a two-stroke motorbike being thrashed around the estate.
Although enjoying the smell of burnt oil, and the cut and thrust of conflicting creation myths, I was getting impatient to make my purchase. The Guardian was getting so heavy that I'd already had to jettison Work and Money.
'Excuse me' I said, in my calmest voice, 'My mum says that the laws of angular momentum prove that the universe is isotropic'
There was a brief silence. 'Why didn't you say so before, young man?' said Mrs Blackmore, her voice softening, and her now smiling, leathery face twinkling. As she left the shop she said 'Bang goes my theory!' and laughed.
Afterwards, Greg was so grateful that he said I could flick through the sports section of the Yorkshire Post without having to buy it, to see if there was anything about Huddersfield Town. Before I left, he asked me for some advice about his hair. At the moment he wears it very close cropped, like a Russian weightlifter, and he said that he'd been thinking of having a different style, something that was softer and spoke more of his inner feminine.
I suggested that he grow it longer, and have a power bob, like Anna Wintour, the legendary US editor of Vogue magazine. His eyes shone as I showed him an example from the fashion section of the Guardian. 'It's a lot of maintenance, but I think it'd really suit you.' I said, leaving him the section to look at later. By the time I left, the Guardian was manageable enough to carry home.
In the interests of social critique, over a saucer of soya milk, I read the Charlie Booker column. I recently heard him introduced on a radio 4 programme as 'the cleverest person that Ian Hislop's says he's ever sat next to.' Greg says that the laws of angular momentum prove that the uni-shagging-verse is iso-fucking-tropic.
Posted 11:33 PM | 2 Comments | Permalink
the wanderer returns
Thursday 8th November 2007 9:01 PM
Hello Mr and Mrs Blogwatcher! Greetings to you, your gracefully aging parents, and all your beautiful sons and daughters! I have been away, with the poetry, the art, the tide and the fairies, on the lost shores of Aldeburgh, where Suffolk loses its toe-hold, and slips into the sea.
Aldeburgh's charming oddness and sense of singularity was enhanced and echoed by my inability to get a signal for my mobile phone or the internet connection for the lap-top. Sometimes it was like being in an Orwellian sci-fi novel called '1957'.
On my first night, I ate in the restaurant that seemed to offer the best vegetarian option. However, it turned out to be one of those nouvelle 'excuse me waiter, my plate's dirty' cuisine sort of places, so the three-bean wrap I ordered was exactly that. When the waitress brought it over, I thought she was being like a wine-waiter that pours you half an inch as a taster, so after I'd eaten it, I called her over, and said 'That's fine, I'll have some of that.' Instead, she brought me a bill for sixteen pounds, so I ate that instead, but it tasted a bit bitter and overcooked.
On Thursday night, the joint launch of the festival and the exhibition was held in the Peter Pears gallery. I got slightly drunk on red wine, and sold four text-pieces to a golden Labrador, called Tim. On Friday I stayed in and counted my dog biscuits.
On Saturday afternoon, I did a gig with Owen O'Neill, an Irish poet and playwright that I used to do comedy gigs with fifteen years ago. Aldeburgh's attentive, genteel atmosphere was very different to those days, and I'm sure that Owen found their murmurs of respectful appreciation infinitely preferable to the comedy club's usual, cheery shouts of 'Fuck off you ginger twat'
On Saturday night I had my solo gig in the Jubilee Hall. It went very well, except for a slightly strangulated laugh after I said, 'I asked the woman in the jewellers shop if they sold crucifixes. She went into the backroom, and after a short while said 'Do you want a plain one or one with a little man on?'
On Sunday, before I took the exhibition down, I sold another three paintings. ( I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, and cried 'A sale! A sale!') Such are my new-found riches, that as soon as I got back to York, I bought a bottle of maple syrup, which I blended with lime juice, fresh herbs, garlic, ginger and chilli, and savoured the sweet tang of success.
Meanwhile, outside, under the duvet of night, there are moans and rustlings, as the trees are being undressed by the ravishing wind. Mucky buggers.
Posted 9:01 PM | 2 Comments | Permalink
tomorrow I
Monday 29th October 2007 11:01 PM
Tomorrow I'm driving down to Aldeburgh to set up the exhibition. Outside the caravan, Jimmy the donkey is guarding a hired, bright red Volvo estate, packed to the gunnels with art. Obviously, it's the Volvo that's loaded up with art, not the donkey. In the past, I have used Jimmy to deliver small unframed pencil sketches within the York area, but in this case I think the Volvo's more practical.
There are going to be thirty-four slices of art in this multi-grain, exhibition loaf, which was baked in the rayburn of my soul, using paper and oil pastel flour, with my imagination as the yeast, quickened by life's sugar. When it's up in the gallery (where the girl I love is), it'll be fresh out of the soul-aga, and should be still warm. May all the visitors be butter.
This one's called 'Houses playing out in the street'
Posted 11:01 PM | 3 Comments | Permalink
ooh I have been busy
Wednesday 24th October 2007 12:22 AM
Hello everybloggy! Sorry for not leaving any morsels this week. I've been mounting, framing, stringing up and naming, in preparation for next week's Aldeburgh exhibition.
The festival want to do a press release for it, and they've asked me to send them a j-peg of the picture below. They referred to it as 'White horse moon pop', which is apparently what it was called in the last show. Having forgotten this, last night I renamed it 'Leave the girl alone or the moon gets it', and made a little title plaque for it.
I think I prefer the original title, but I don't want to destroy the newly made title plaque (they're like dental plaque, but whiter). I'm in a mild quandary.
Posted 12:22 AM | 3 Comments | Permalink
a weekend away
Sunday 14th October 2007 8:19 PM
Hello Everybloggy! I thought today, we could just go on holiday, why not! Over these last few weeks, you've had to cope with a sporadic supply of blogs, sometimes of variable quality, and not only that, you've also had to deal with a retinal barrage of outsider art. You must be shattered.
On top of the daily grind of reflection and pottering, I've also had to frame over thirty oeuvres (that means art-works… it's French and possibly pretentious, but I'm using it in this case, because coupled with 'thirty', you get an 'er-er' sound, which subliminally suggests physical exertion. I don't need to tell you this, but I want to be honest with you, because subliminal manipulation is a serious business, and buy one of Rory Motion's paintings I know we've had issues of trust in the past.)
I thought it might be nice to go to Manda Nkwichi, a rather special eco-tourist lodge on the shores of Lake Malawi, Mozambique side (see home page, 'Hi Nyanja'). Even though we're only going there in cyber-space, I'd still recommend you to wear a pair of shorts and take on board plenty of fluids.
We've just come from Malawi into Mozambique, through passport control, which consisted of a nice man called Paul under a mango tree. Jan, the Dutch pilot who's just dropped us off, here on the island of Likomo, kindly agrees to pose, with his plane, on his way back to Lilongwe.
The green boat on the shore is the mighty SS Nkwichi, which will sail us across Lake Malawi to the lodge. I'm so glad we've managed to get away for a while, just the twenty-eight thousand a month of us, without the kids. Are you happy, darling?
Posted 8:19 PM | 2 Comments | Permalink
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