ajmoesby.text.art

A go at video text

2011-01-03T13:58:00.001Z

At long last I have started experimenting with text and video http://vimeo.com/18369152

Rural Life

2010-02-03T12:02:00.003Z

The best news I had all year came with being accepted to show some work in the 40th Anniversary Exhibition of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act at the Houses of Parliament. I also have work touring with the Outside In exhibition - Pallant House Biennial of Outsider Art.

We had more snow yesterday and more due today. I just watched the mercury drop 2 1/2 degrees in 20 minutes. The pitch black last week gave a great view of a huge low moon and mars. It always amazes me how much bigger the moon looks when it is close to the horizon. And I never tire of the holding the moon in the right it will be bigger tomorrow and hold it in the left it will be smaller. The Cowboy Junkies put it much better in a song of theirs. But the moon has been particularly splendid this weekend.

The barn which was brought down by the snow has been cleared away. The washing machine is being temperamental - it freezes up and needs thawing before it can be used - oh the joys.

Last Thursday I cut my head open on the boot of my car. I drove to the surgery to get it checked out. It wasn't bad enough for stitches but the nurse did take hair from either side of the cut and tie it in a knot to bring the wound together. I ended up with a funky pioneering medical treatment coiffure.

Hallelujah for snow tyres.

Snowed In

2010-01-18T08:54:00.006Z

It started snowing here on the 16th of December, There was a thin film of the old style proper snow - the big flakes, or 'bin lids' as my mam calls them. As I returned from Bristol on the 21st an inch had brought the city to a stand still and cast the airport in to chaotic delay. As I look out the window today most of the snow has gone though there is a random patchwork on the hills. To my mind that makes a month of snow on the ground. The mercury is slightly above freezing.

We had a white xmas and a white New Year. Extreme weather events meant that i was snowed in alone at New Year and I remained snowed in for over a week. A lot of time and energy were bound up in the routine of coal and wood and keeping warm, keeping the chickens happy (or as happy as they could be given the minus 10 nights and minus 3 days). The Morso squirrel was a legend that never went out for 10 days. The occasional frozen spring meant no water and that means no central heating. It was all quite surreal, groundhog day gives an idea but doesn't explain the reality.

There was extreme beauty with the extreme weather. 2 metre icicles from the gutter. Fantastic ice crystals that you only get when the temperature is arctic cold. Immense hoar frosts that betrayed the direction of the winds. And then yes, a whole period of time where no wind blew at all. Perfect stillness. A rarity given the location and where for the past 3 years the vegetable crop has suffered due to the relentless westerly winds. On one still evening i ventured out and produced a light installation

So the snow grew deeper and became compacted. The bin man hasn't been for a month, the post man couldn't get through for over a week. At least the phone line stayed in, i don't know if i could have handled total solitary. And then last sunday the barn behind us collapsed with the weight of the thawing snow.

Here's the icicles

Tindersticks

2009-11-25T09:42:00.002Z

Last night I felt like I was in a Tindersticks song - I had the photo's out and yes the rain was coming in through the roof and through the ceiling and then down the walls.

Arvon

2009-11-25T09:36:00.003Z

So this sign was just opposite the gate to Lumb Bank. Helpful or Threatening? You decide!

This caught my eye on the way to the grave of Sylvia Plath

Why would someone put this on her grave?
Or all this plastic tat?

ARVON 41

2009-10-02T00:54:00.001+01:00

Much to my surprise - and joy oh joy! I have been awarded an Arvon 41 bursary place at one of the Arvon Foundation's (have I used my apostrophe correctly?) residential writing courses.

NEW STUDIO

2009-10-02T00:53:00.001+01:00

A new venture. This week I took the keys of my new studio. I haven't had a proper studio since Waygood. That's a long time. It was there i realised the benefit a studio gives. However there is always that "Can I afford to have it? - Can I afford not to have it? dilemma. So I have taken the leap and will spend the winter making/creating in a much more focussed (hopefully) way.

A blurred camera phone image to give a hint of the flavour

At the moment it's bare - apart from the first few bits i could take. It will be becoming more studio like in the very near future. It's going to have to lure me in and make that hour long drive seem like a good thing - i know how grim winter driving is - and that whole leave in the dark get home in the dark thing . At the moment though it's all joy. I just picked up an overhead projector off freecycle so that will be making it's way studio bound soon. Beginnings - always exciting as they unfurl.

Outside In

2009-08-28T08:54:00.003+01:00

On the 7th of august I was Lucky enough to attend the opening of Outside In at Pallant House Chichester. This is the Biennial of Outsider Art and it is a real privilege to be in such a brilliantly curated exhibition. Marc (Steene) and Kate (Hadley) have done an amazing job in pulling this off. The show runs until 8th November. http://www.outsidein.org.uk/

Nature

2009-08-20T14:57:00.000+01:00

Today i found 5 baby rabbits in a hole in my garden - no sign of mum. So I put aside my fear of furry things, and put them in a box and drove them to where i know there are other baby rabbits. Whilst rabbits do destroy my vegetables i couldn't bring myself to despatch them with the back of my shovel or let the terriers (not mine) have sight of them and then face the carnage that would have undoubtedly ensued. I pondered this moral dilemma over a cup of tea which was not without stress as i was hoping the sparrow hawk wouldn't come a visiting as it is currently teaching baby to hunt.

Butterflies

2008-10-16T18:20:00.002+01:00

Not so much butterflies as caterpillars. Whilst it wasn't too good a year for veg - tomatoes failed dismally, pak choi bolted, mange tout came and went in a week, it was a brilliant year for the cabbage white. Wet weather ensuring not much time in the garden when I was on the Fell it was open season on the winter veg. Kill one and hundreds came to the funeral so in the end i just let them gorge themselves.

Black Rocks on the Fell

2008-10-16T17:59:00.002+01:00

After a brief trip cycle touring in Orkney, which by the way is awesome, we returned to the fell ready to pick up the next new arrivals. 3 Black Rock chicks. This meant in the wet summer we had to build a coop and a pen, bearing in mind that several of next doors Rhode Island crosses had been snaffled by the rogue fox. We wont be due eggs till mid november. However, without personalising them too much, they have each developed a personality and they provide many hours of joy. A welcome distraction when the muse wont visit and inspiration is low.

FOAL

2008-10-16T17:53:00.003+01:00

It seems ages ago but up here on the Fell one of natures miracles happened. This foal was born to mum ( Blossom). It was all leg. Now of course a few months on its filled out, been weaned on to solids and hangs out in the fields with the others - still under the watchful gaze of mum of course. It was truely amazing watching it take its first doddering unsteady steps, finding out what her legs are for.

DE-INSTALLING

2008-07-14T17:47:00.003+01:00

So all too soon it was time to take it down. It was thankfully a lot quicker to pack up and move than to put in. Hopefully Drift will have a life beyond this and be recycled into another artwork. However this is what it ingloriously looked like before being tidied and stored.

Now I guess its the big post-show anti-climax before moving on to the next project. Currently that is to be a residency at a department of psychiatry at a local hospital.

So after 6 months of work - The Opening.

2008-05-13T14:10:00.005+01:00

Thursday 8th May. Thanks to Tony and Jo everything got installed on time and looked how i wanted it. Even a couple of last minute on the fly interventions worked, such as the Drift piece in dust of the parquet. Moving the parquet is no mean feat in itself. It doesn't look like a lot but believe me a thousand pieces, and it is dense, is not easy to move or re-assemble.

Openings are daunting and it's that

culmination of time concentrated in the big hurrah, this is it, 6 months of my life. Also the chatting on, not seeing everyone, anxiety, chatting too long, nerves, excitement, making sure it's all ok for everyone - even yourself. It's al so much, too much. That big mix of STUFF. But i think it was good, i was pleased with the work, i was pleased that i had progressed my practice. The development process was just that.

Now, it's the hiatus. The it's all over. The what happens next.

The Run In

2008-04-27T15:26:00.005+01:00

Aint it so. Feast and famine the lot of the jobbing artist. Things have recently become overwhelming. Having been ill with a serious bout of something more serious than 'man-flu' and a trip to casualty and a bizarre skin thing going on the list of things to do growing ever longer and the deadlines fast approaching the last thing i needed to do was a trip to Budapest.

So now i find myself two weeks from the opening. Angstville. Because before i can even concentrate on that i need to finish several other things. However once this is complete it's back to the famine again. Sourcing out that next project. Some of my thought processes have been around the quality of finish of work. Mostly i like the exquisite. However i am erring towards the raw.

Not that i shall be including the above which is just roughly cut foam letters. By the way the photo of the ladybird is from the American Bar in the basement of the town hall in Prague. Along with some parquet i also acquired some slates.

Collecting Memories

2008-03-06T17:32:00.003Z

Collecting Memories 2008

This is made with more of that Shields Road paint. The shineyness comes through on this one though;

Collecting Memories 2008

The paint doesn't want to stay on the canvas. I quite like it though. It looks like the red which was full on red, bright and vibrant has lost all of its qualities.

I know it's blurred - it's supposed to be like that!

2008-03-06T17:26:00.003Z

Angst 2008

Finishes. Struggling with the Exquisite.

2008-03-06T16:48:00.002Z

Exquisite. It's a word I am using, probably over using, a lot at the moment. The work I am producing at the moment is very instant. Quick. Raw. Unmetered. Tony and Jo were in a couple of weeks ago. Where I had had a canvas was just the space with the gaffer tape remaining. Everything was again on the floor when i re-entered the studio. I have become accustomed to this and now quite like it. It gives everything an air of temporariness, transcience, like its almost gone already before its even really there. The crux here is that most of my previous work has been quite exact in its finish. What i am having suggested to me now is do i leave everything in its current state. As it was made. Unrefined. Totally lacking in some elements of exquisiteness. Do I have the courage? Can i leave the text scribbled with a blunt crayon or do i re-do it in some nice font on steel or glass or in resin or somesuch. I just don't know.

CHEAP PAINT-SHIELDS ROAD

2008-02-11T12:51:00.000Z

When i lived in Bristol they used to say you could get anything on the Gloucester Road, and in my experience that was pretty much true. It used to be a similar story for Shields Road when i lived in Newcastle as a kid. I wondered if it still held true. I went to explore and returned disappointed but for a tin of cheap paint from wilko's. I guess Chilli Road or Heaton Park Road are the places these days. Progress ay! So this paint is heinous.

work in progress destined never to be finished 2007

It is just so shiny it's unbelivable and so unbreathable too. But i will persevere with it cos now it has my curiosity. I want to discover it's properties and potential. Watch this space.

REVIEW

2008-02-11T12:30:00.000Z

The good thing, or one of them is that i get feedback and reviews on what i am doing, my process, my current work, possibilities, ideas etc etc. Vici from Arcadea was in just before spain. A guided tour of all of the above. Whilst its great it's also exhausting. It's that tsunami again. But it challenges me to keep abreast of what and why i am doing things, to reflect on things, to try and do all that without becoming totally introspective and self referential and disappear into my own naval in a trance. I am fortunate to have everyones input, insight and professional provocation.

FITTING IT ALL IN

2008-02-11T12:18:00.000Z

It's that old thing. You either have the time or the money, rarely both. When this residency was first mooted the year was looking like a desert road - long and empty. Now, in the midst of it things are leaping out, rearing up out of nowhere. For a start you can wipe 2 weeks out the calendar for xmas and new year. A couple of weeks after that i was in Cromarty helping my partner installing some work and the opening of her exhibition. Then i have just returned from a mercy mission to Spain. In amongst all this I am trying to complete the compilation of the book i took on when the waygood got delayed. So where does this fit in. Well, thankfully now it moves closer to the top of the list. Whilst not at the studio it is pretty much on my mind. Which is good. However it is also frustrating. Just before spain i had intended to go into the studio. However, I was unbelievably snowed in again. The second time this winter. How often does that happen in these days of global warming. Oh yeah and in amongst it all you have all the mundane life maintenance stuff to do. Sounding like a whinging pom its time to stop.

PARQUET

2008-02-11T12:07:00.000Z

Parquet in Progress

Floored

2008-01-09T17:29:00.000Z

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

2008-01-09T15:45:00.000Z

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

EXPERIMENTS AND RESEARCH OR JUST MESSING AROUND?

2007-12-27T17:37:00.000Z

So I finally started working. I've strung several lengths of twine from one side of the studio to the other. I had to mark them with luminous electrical tape after an accident was narrowly averted. Handy household hint number 37. I'm not exactly sure why i have done this but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe it cordons off some space, or fills some up without actually having to have much in it. Maybe it just lulls me into the sense that i have done something, i am making progress, i am on my way...wherever that is. I say twine because that's what it is. I like the word and i like the quality, not that string doesn't have its own place and virtues, but twine...... it's not just the word, it's the way it smells, the way it sounds and feels. Nothing can beat a really good quality twine.

I have also been doing varying experiments with PVA. This ranges from the high quality to the cheap and cheerful nursery school stuff. These experiments have involved just making lots of mess and testing how it falls, sticks, peels off, that kind of thing. This needs a lot more work or just ditching. On the other hand similar efforts with acrylic inks and paints have been much more encouraging.

I seem to be slowly succeeding in filling the space. I went round the local hardware cathedral and woolies .....my first alphabet...tapes and adhesives of every variety...buying what seemed inspirational stuff.

I guess the over-riding thing has just been playing. I don't think we play enough as adults and its over all too soon for kids these days. I mean that non directive imaginative free play thing. So yeah, research or messing around. Where do you draw the line and what's the difference?

Studio Virgin

2007-12-10T23:00:00.001Z

I have a workshop at home which I am totally comfortable working in. It's in an old stable with a 3/4 wall and a horse in the stall next door. It's also definitely more of a summer space than a winter one, though i have just rendered it waterproof. A timely occurence given the grey skies and relentless rain. As a space it's versatile, doesn't matter if it gets dirty, well ventilated for resin work and other toxic substances. A studio though,white, pristine, empty. And what's more is....I have never worked in a studio before. I am unfamiliar in it's shape and form. It is uncomfortably empty. I am a hoarder, a filler of space with junk, trinkets, things which may come in handy. So how am I going to work in it? How will I make the most of the opportunity? I hope the hows and the whats do not render me the rabbit in the headlights. How do I make it mine (or the part of it which is mine as i am to share with George for the duration....the space is ample enough to accomodate two easily). Already nearly a month is gone and christmas looms. Due to the delays i took on another project...compiling and editing a book which has eaten in to the available time. Also i live nearly 40 miles from the studio which is another consideration. However that rural -urban split may well be a source of inspiration.

THE WAYGOOD SITUATION

2007-12-10T22:35:00.000Z

About two months ago I was fortunate enough to be offered a studio space at Waygood Studios in Newcastle. Along with this offer came rent a rent free space for 6 months and a small budget. The budget maybe small but the studio is huge, as is the opportunity. Along with the studio comes Joe and Tony who will be mentoring me during my time at Waygood. As with a lot of things in the art world things got delayed a tad, but as of 13th November I am in. The only problem now is what to do.

I would not be in this position if it were not for Vici at Arcadea who offered me the space after Waygood had approached her. So thanks Vici.