Floored

I tend to make things on the fly or in a spontaneous manner. I don't dwell on what it is i am going to make - it just comes into my head and i make it. I am not a perfectionist. I make do with what i have to hand or what is easily available. Hopefully that is cheaply too. So i have this friend who is looking to off load a whole load of parquet. It's already been an artwork. So i quite like that recycling thing. That lack of preciousness. And Parquet. Well, there's a word. It just sounds pretentious, up itself - at the end of the day it's just a floor.

This parquet is blocks. Old recycled blocks - even prior to being an artwork by Susan T Grant - not tongue and groove. I like the blocks. They are solid. Small and solid. Coloured and discoloured by time. Like a little piece of history. Each block with its' own memory. It's own story. And now it has one more. At the moment i only have one small box. It's not just a straight forward transaction. I get to buy a share in half of it. Get access to it all and then have to store the half which isn't mine. It also fits into the accumulation of stuff, clutter - that ocd-esque satisfaction thing going on. Lots of bits that get put together to make a bigger bit.

Snow Bound

Battling tentatively through the snow with a boot load of exciting booty to mess around with when i got to the studio i was a bit ahead of myself. Unlike those days when you wake up slightly late and things get gradually later as you go through day - a bit like one of those motorway tail backs which is just a rippling echo of someone breaking too hard further on up the road. I won't rant on about how no matter how much advance warning we have of snow it always surprises the UK and brings it to a standstill. 

Meeting and talking with Tony is intense(unfortunately Jo couldn't make it today). Like the mentoring sessions should be longer but after an hour or so it's like having gorged yourself on a smorgasbord of fine food and wine. A heady cocktail indeed. It has brought into focus things I have been unaware of in my practice which is great. For instance in narrative confessionals does the narrative have to be factu

ally based, honest or is invention and faction ok? Does it matter?

Tony keeps referencing other artists I have either neither heard of or seen their work. Not coming from a traditional art degree background but one which has encompassed organic farming, dysfunctional adolescents and therapy i have to hold my hand up to a certain degree of ignorance of such matters. However i have been told that sooner or later you need to check out other peoples work in a more broad and in depth manner. I better renew my library card for 2008. A fear of doing this is how do you stop yourself from being influenced or incorporating others work into yours. Collective unconcious versus deliberate plagiarism. But how else do you push yourself/knowledge and improve without being challenged?

On a more mundane level i am slowly cluttering up my studio with stuff. Starting with the table and spilling out from there