I am very bad at being able to visualise finished work taking shape in mid air or empty space. I look at pieces of paper wondering if I could draw anything and doodle because nothing comes to mind but words. The few times I have sat down and sketched something like my dogs sleeping or…
Strength
We are well used to seeing things that do not yield, that are instantly resourceful, as the ‘strongest’. Though in the way of Chinese philosophy it is pointed out that sometimes giving way makes you stronger as water can erode everything in time. And that’s the point, time. We are creatures of moments, held within…
Clowning Around
I think I saw my first real, live clown outside a circus in Bristol when I was a child. He gave me an Indian Feather hat which I still have replete with broken red feather and an elastic band at the back to keep it in place. I have never been one to be scared…
Uniformity
The thrust of business (free market or otherwise) is to make the greatest number of people buy the greatest number of the same things. The business system is also deigned to ensure we keep buying by depriving people of the means to grow their own food (which it seems to me most people are reluctant…
What Does Your World Look Like?
There are around the world hundreds of eruptions every year. We don’t know about them because for the most part they happen under water. If you have never seen the films of these eruptions I would suggest you try to hunt one down because it is a very weird thing to see steam created on…
Hamlet And The Lars Larson Show
I remember when we were studying Hamlet at school our master asking us to list all the people who died in the play and then asking us if it would have been better if Hamlet had said and done nothing. It was a hard question because we could all see from the plot it is…
Language
There is something insistent in our need to communicate. An endless desire to be understood. And languages reflect our needs and desires starting off being quite small and growing as we grow, like flowers opening their petals as the sun rises. Many years ago they started looking closely at philology in Europe and the ways…
New Born
The calves in their fluffy smallness are in the fields this time of year. We had the lambs specially reared for the Easter food market last month. We are actually quite lucky here that the farmers tend to keep the mothers and babies together in the field. It is not the usual way with modern…
Mind Altering Drugs
Since my sister has tried everything in the world (so I am told) and lives in a haze of marijuana, I do wonder why people seek mind altering experiences through chemicals in plants. I do have an understanding that artists have often tried these things, and religious shamans have used them for centuries to great…
Art On Disc
Many years ago I was discussing with a painter the longevity of paintings. It was at the same time I was being introduced to the Book Arts and learning how the Book of Kells was dug out of a bog in Ireland and its illuminations still resound throughout Europe after a thousand years. And we…