one step behind the zeitgeist

[WEDNESDAY 25 MARCH 2009]
I wasted some time this morning making a secret lo-fi video. That probably sounds more dodgy than it actually was. As you can imagine, my camera work is about as professional as my photography, so the results will undoubtedly be ropey as hell.

It was mainly just some shots of this hole I call a studio, with some deadpan commentary over the top. How’s that for a pitch?

There has been slow progress on this canvas – I’m working on a “lean” layer. This entails quite a bit of delicate brushwork, blending edges to make them glow. It is painstaking, but necessary, work. And it threatens to drive me over the edge.

The high contrast of these stripes is messing with my peripheral vision. Need to keep taking eye breaks or I’ll give myself a migraine. And the turps fumes aren’t helping much either.

The Pod of i has got me painting to MGMT – I fear I’m always one step behind the zeitgeist. It’s good painting music though, so I’ll get back to it.

And relax……………………….. I have completed that arduous “lean” layer with a few last strokes of Permanent Geranium colour. I’ll have a cup of tea to celebrate.

Green neon painting is far more relaxing. Aaah, the psychology of colour.

Spring has Sprung

[WEDNESDAY 18 MARCH 2009]
Spring has sprung. I know this because:

1. It’s a glorious day outside.
2. The birds are chirping up a beautiful cacophony in the garden.
3. I have eschewed the thermals for the first time this year.

Yes it is a glorious day out there, and here I am in my window-less loft, hoping the early chill will soon be displaced by the joys of spring scuttling up the ladder.

On with the show…

[note to self: film the days travails, then speed up the footage. Post it on YouTube. Dispel the myth of the artist, by showing every step of the process. Imagine the viewing figures: Zero.]

On with the show…

As if to perpetuate the overall feeling of goodness, the Pod of i has been selecting some choice music to soundtrack the moment: Bubblegum by Kim Fowley; two Belle & Sebastian songs in a row; Range Life by Pavement; Stereo Total; Dusty singing about The Windmills of Your Mind. It’s all sweet, sweet music to my ears.

In a bid to spoil the party, along comes Mark E. Smith with a curmudgeonly retort to all this gambolling-lamb joie de vivre.

11am: A quick cup of tea and some sunshine to warm me through.

As well as a preoccupation with neon, I must confess to having a deep fascination with rust, mould, decay, and anything that looks distressed. This is probably rooted back in my foundation year, when I spent a lot of time shivering under Worthing pier, sketching and taking photos. I tend to romanticise the fragility of battered and weathered artefacts, and find myself attracted and repulsed by their decomposing patina.  Hence I am compelled to take photos of things like this:

This explains why I was in heaven breathing in the lead-fumes and poring over the topography of Kiefer’s monumental canvases and loitering amongst Richard Serra’s lurching slabs of weathered steel on a trip to the Bilbao Guggenheim a year or so ago.

Note to self:

Like so:

Neon Painting: You Give Me Fever

This is another werk from the first set of neon paintings I produced after picking up the brush again in 2006. It was shown in 2 exhibitions in Brighton and Hove, and someone took a fancy to it on its second showing. It has long been gone to a loving home, leaving only photographs and memories.

Here are some photos taken in-situ, against the [accidentally] kitsch wallpaper that covers the walls in our flat.

You Give Me Fever, 2006, oil on canvas, 80 x 100cm.

You can view (and buy!) more of my werk at Saatchi online and Artists.de.

'The Artist' and 'The Process'

[WEDNESDAY 11 MARCH 2009]
It is 1.45pm, and I have made it through ‘til after lunch before even looking at this computer. Pats-on-the-back all round.

I have been working with great purpose, in contrast to last Wednesday, when… Well you know what happened last time...

I feel a lot more comfortable in my role as ‘the artist’ today. I have been reading Roxy by Michael Bracewell, and getting all nostalgic for my art school days, which has awakened my thirst for ‘the process’, and given me a much needed fresh impetus to create.

I propped this canvas on the easel, determined to bring it towards some form of completion.

And when I’d finished:

the iPod is running low on juice, so I’ve resorted to the wireless – 6Music, Adam Ant is on. This is a good thing.

Wildlife watch
Earlier, I stepped down the ladder for a breath of fresh air, and discovered 2 ducks looking round the garden. “There ain’t no pond here.” I told them, and they looked a little confused, and left.

3.45pm: I think I deserve a tea break whilst I contemplate my next move.

Injury count:
So far today I have cracked my shin on the ladder, giving me a nice bump and graze just below my knee. I have also smacked my head on one of the low beams of the pitched roof. The hazards of working in a cramped loft-space are many – though I have, thankfully, not yet taken a tumble down the hatch, despite my vertigo tempting me and taunting me every time I venture near.

Now you may be thinking: If you have vertigo, why loiter near the edge?
Here’s an explanation, in someone else's words:
“What is vertigo? Fear of falling? Then why do we feel it even when the observation tower comes equipped with a sturdy handrail? No, vertigo is something other than the fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us. It is the desire to fall, against which terrified, we defend ourselves.”
Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. (1984: p56)

And now, it’s almost time to go. I’ll clean up the brushes, and clean my grubby hands, then I’m ready to catch the train to take me home to see my wife and cat.

Today has been a good day.

BE BOLD

[WEDNESDAY 04 MARCH 2009]
It’s been a slow, distracted morning – delicately faffing paint over an existing layer. Trying to achieve that luminosity and effervescence that is my goal.

“Be bold!” I tell myself.
“Don’t spoil what you have already laid down.” A nagging little voice whispers.

I have just taken a sip of Herbas de Menorca. It says it is chamomile, but has more of a mellow anis taste to it. It is 12:09pm.

I have eight brushes on the go, 2 palette knives and 4 colours (Emerald Green; Ivory Black; Titanium White; Permanent Geranium). The second canvas of the day is propped on the easel. It is time to be bold…

I can hear mice scuttling around in the insulation space overhead. I’ve begun correcting my spelling and grammar. Get back to work.

I’ve done something… Fuck knows if it’s the right thing. But it is something at least. Now would be a good time to take lunch and take stock.


There’s a wall at the side of the house with an almighty crack running through it. It looks like it might fall down any minute. I take a photo for reference and for prosperity.

Surveying this loft-cum-studio I can see that I have no less than 13 unfinished paintings (that is, ones where I have actually committed pigment to canvas). It is troubling to me that this scenario has arisen. I don’t think it’s necessarily a lack of will to finish, rather a lacking in confidence to boldly move forward with these things to bring them to a state of completion. 

I find I have no trouble starting things – not for me the blank-page (canvas) syndrome that holds so many creatives in their tracks. I’ve stepped into the breach 13 times on 13 canvases, and then got lost: Lost in the process; lead down a blind alley only to realise I don’t have the spunk to make my way out the other side.

I can pen bold statements on this here computer – they can all too easily be erased. But the bold painter seems to have deserted me.

Before lunch, I had a sickly urge to take a knife to this canvas. I took it outside, where I spent a lot of time staring daggers at it, a prodigious flow of tourettes-words gushing forth in the daylight. The birds evacuated the garden, the neighbours shut the windows, cute bunnies scuttled down their burrows…

I can see now that the something I did before may not have been quite right. But it was also not wrong.

I should probably werk on something else for a while. Load up the third canvas of the day –SPQR – and open the cobalt violet.

As I paint, I regain composure. Sucking on a Halls clears my head, and I know that this preoccupation with timidly inching forward is a ridiculous way to werk. I know that whatever wrong is done can be rectified later, in fact maybe there is no wrong, and everything is part of the process. I can tell myself that if I do something rash, like scrawling a giant schoolboy prick across months of hard werk, it can be painted over, buried under another few layers of paint. But the problem I have is that this would put me back another few weeks, going over the ground I have spent many hours toiling to create.

It’s a futile business if you look at it like that. So I’ll just get on with it.

back-handed compliment

I was walking along Western Road yesterday, and this guy approached me making serious eye-contact.

I tried to tune out from what he was saying and intended to just walk on by, but one word rang out that completely threw me off guard - "paintball".

He asked again "When was the last time you played paintball?"
me: "er, when I was 15"
him: "when you were 15? How old are you now?"
me: "32"

I walked on. He called after me something about having a "babyface"...

When I got home, I made sure to check the portrait in the attic.

The black hit of space

[WEDNESDAY 25 FEBRUARY 2009]
After a couple of (essential) phone calls, I made it to the coalface by twenty-past-nine.

If anything, this blog has at least made me keen and punctual – if only so that I can report my clocking-in without any sense of guilt.

I could be lying of course. But you’ll just have to take my word for it. I’m a good catholic boy, I don’t tell fibs.

At present, I am valiantly fending off a shitty cold which has been lurking since last Thursday. Current symptoms include that horrid burning catarrh sensation you get in your nose; my brain has apparently been replaced by cotton wool; and my taste buds have deserted me (which somewhat marred pancake day).

No doubt it will erupt into something really nasty as soon as the weekend (and my birthday) arrives…

I just spent my tea break composing an overwrought dirge on the piano. I find my fingers and ears are always drawn to the lower keys, seeking out those deep, dark, leaden tones.

Then I wasted a fruitless hour searching for something elusive on the internet - Procrastination by any other name.

I should probably have some lunch now, so I can have a long uninterrupted stretch of activity this afternoon.

------------------------LUNCH BREAK------------------------

…Eeek, I just typed that ellipsis and the computer started emitting a high-pitched whine, as if it had had enough. I am aware that in composing prose I am all too easily tempted into using this tool to string together disparate trains of thought.

Perhaps I should keep an ellipsis count…

Then again, perhaps it would make my writing too considered…

Having this stinking cold allows me to at least feed my trio of minor addictions: Olbas oil, Halls extra strong, and Ribena. Indeed, if I could smell anything, I’ve no doubt I would smell like a giant menthol. And it’s merely a matter of time before my teeth fall out from all the sugar.

Eureka! I’ve just discovered that Ivory Black gives a deep and almost impenetrable black – the kind of black you find in the shadows of a Francis Bacon painting.

Goodbye Lamp Black…

I spend the remainder of the afternoon over-painting black spaces, to render them deeper and darker – a thoroughly therapeutic exercise.

SPQR

[WEDNESDAY 18 FEBRUARY 2009]
Keen as mustard. I was out by 9, brush in hand. I’ve missed 2 weeks due to snow and Paris, so there’s a lot to catch up on.

Have been using this rather opulent cobalt violet for a commission piece.

It reminds me of the foil you used to get on Dairy Milk chocolate (the nicotine fiends among you will probably be thinking of Silk Cut). 

It is 10.33, time for a cup of tea.

The commission is to depict SPQR in purple neon, and is based on this classical inscription

[I didn't take this photo, I found it on the interweb]

SPQR is an initialism from the latin phrase Senatus Populusque Romanus.  It apparently crops up all over Rome on manhole covers and statue plinths and graffiti scrawled across the walls.

Very little procrastination to report today - just good honest werk.

Look! I have close-up evidence:

Neon Painting: Cry For Help

Seeing as I'm touting myself as some kind of artist, I thought I'd better start providing some evidence:

This is Cry For Help, 2006, oil on canvas, 80 x 100cm.

This was from the first wave of neon paintings I started when I picked up the brush again in 2006. It has been shown in 2 exhibitions in Brighton and Hove, and has travelled to The Hague, when it was chosen for the Red Cross Summer Exhibition 2008. Apparently there was interest in buying it from the International Crime Court! But they didn't put in a high enough bid in the end.

It currently resides in our friend's flat in Amsterdam, after they kindly collected it from The Hague.


You can view (and buy!) more of my werk at Saatchi online and Artists.de.

Electronics for Dummies

Last Thursday I opened up our old Sequential Circuits Six-Trak and re-installed the factory patches. I also cleaned 20-odd years of grime off the contacts of the buttons - It works a lot better now.

After that, I opened up an old radio and had fun conjuring free-jazz electronic noise out of the circuit board with my bare hands.
TIP: DO NOT TRY THIS WITH ANYTHING THAT IS PLUGGED INTO THE MAINS !!!!

Temptations

[WEDNESDAY 28 JANUARY 2009]

Today has started well. I was in the studio just after 9. Would have been earlier had I not stopped to try something out on the piano. And now Drive-In Saturday has just come on the stereo…

10.39am: For some reason my iPod thinks it is Christmas – It has just played The Knife Christmas Reindeer followed by France Gall Chasse-Neige. It is not snowing outside. It is pissing down with rain.

This is what is directly in front of me as I type.

As you can see, I don’t half take a crap photo (I tried taking 2 and they were both terrible, but I see no point in spending the next hour trying to get one shot in focus). I think the subject of the photo is testament to my strong work-ethic and self-control – these bottles have sat here since I moved in during August 2006.

From right to left we have:
Schnappe de Rosas (Rose Schnapps) – about a sip taken
Palo (unidentified brown liquour) – approx. 2 sips taken
Herbas de Menorca (a Camomile liquor) – worryingly half-drunk.
Anis (Ouzo) – half-drunk, French style, diluted with water
Pomada (apple schnapps,recommended served cold) – again half-drunk
Gin (no explanation necessary) – Unopened

Please observe, temptation hasn’t exactly been tapping on my shoulder, though I should point out that the majority of time I have spent in this ‘studio’ has been during the day (I could probably count the nights on one hand). So draw your own conclusions.

My hectic weekend seems to have landed me with a cold-sore – which is a nice thing to take home to the wife tonight. It brings to mind a conversation I overheard in a local charity shop: One of the old dears was talking to a little girl and commented that her mouth looked sore. Her accompanying Grandad piped up “Oh yes, she’s got a dose of herpes, haven’t you dear?” Silence...

3.15pm: I’ve run out of momentum.

Wildlife watch: I spy a heron across the field. I take a crap photo. Look there he is, lurking near the tropical fish farm, planning his supper.

In between all these exciting goings-on I still found time to make some headway on this new werk.

--- CANCELLED ---

There will be no Wednesday Painting this week due to adverse weather conditions.

There will also be no Wednesday Painting next week, because I'll be in Paris.

Some of you out there may be thinking: "But we've not had last weeks scintillating instalment yet!"

To this, I hold my hands up and I apologise - I will do it tomorrow.

I have to go and work in a cold shed now...

An Introduction

[WEDNESDAY 21 JANUARY 2009]
My New Years’ resolution was to spend less time sat in front of a computer screen, so it’s most likely a grave mistake starting a blog in January…

No bother, I’ll just make sure it doesn’t become a pre-occupation – It’ll just be something I add to on a casual basis. That’s the plan.

I wanted to call this blog ‘I Heart Neon’ but some little sod just claimed that one in November. I wouldn’t mind so much if they actually had something interesting to say, but from the posts they have so far made, I have learnt just 3 things.

1. They have 2 other blogs (with friends)
2. They chose the title because they “love neon colours” !?!
3. Their favourite new band is some ghastly manufactured all-girl rock group.

A wholly enlightening read, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Well now that I’ve alienated at least one potential reader, I’ll get back to actually doing something creative. Just as soon as I’ve had a cup of tea…

A few more words, and I'll be out of your hair.

So I have chosen to call this here page “Confessions of a Wednesday Painter”

My reasons:
1. I’d like to call myself an artist, but since I only actually paint on Wednesdays, perhaps I don’t qualify as an “artist”. Maybe “dilettante” would be a better term.
2. It had a catchy ring to it – I have of course cleverly paraphrased De Quincey’s “Confessions of an English Opium-Eater”. There may well be confessions, but I don’t really fancy any opium, right now – I’m not keen on the taste, and it plays havoc with the digestive system.

This is the hole I call a studio.

It lacks certain things essential to providing a workable space for the artist:
1. No natural light (you’ll notice a day-light lamp clamped to the easel).
2. No ventilation (luckily I’m quite fond of the smell of turpentine)
3. No space to put anything.

It’s not ideal, but I like to call it home.

So now I’ve procrastinated for a further 5 minutes, I shall commence work.