
Well I can actually – lots of bad words – but I am in a hurry and didn’t know what to write and the quote from a song came into my head so that is what you have got.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something new. First thing that came into my head and has to do with weddings not art, but hey this is conceptual art! Also it is a bit different from what I have been doing but references old stuff and may or may not be borrowed or blue!

My first attempt at my #Letter365 piece today was, well, crap really. What seemed to be a good idea started well then quickly foundered. Despite many attempts to bring it back from the brink, sadly, it tipped off the edge! Part of the problem was my love of using mixtures of materials that are perhaps not designed to go together – sometimes it produces interesting results. There again another part of the problem was that it wasn’t a well thought through idea and I was experimenting as I went. As we all know not every experiment yields a useful result! If I am really honest, I would have to say that my discipline failed for a while too. It was cold at the studio and I had left it later than I intended and wanted to try out some other ideas not related to #Letter365. The lesson is, I suppose, you can’t win them all and get your ducks in a row first!

I don’t have a thermometer in the studio but it definitely wasn’t warm there today. This morning it was -6°C outside and when my son and I moved my printing press to the studio we didn’t stop. I just spent a few hours there in my merino wool thermals and hat, which I felt was enough time today!

Most people in the UK get Boxing Day off but like people in the Health and Emergency Services I am committed to working for at least a little while to work each day for a year. These days quite a lot of retail workers have to work today too. The difference between me and emergency and health workers is they are doing something of real value to the benefit of others and I am bonkers. The difference between me and retail workers is that I am creating something of real value and they are doing something bonkers for the benefit of their capitalist bosses.

All the best laid plans… of course I forgot something! Having decided that I would be doing my #Letter365 pieces at home over the festive season I prepared various things and gathered materials together to allow this to happen with maximum ease, minimum stress and widest options. I wanted to be able to let inspiration not be too limited but on first outing got caught out! To be fair my first idea was crap and the second wasn’t going anywhere and it was all taking much longer than I planned and I was starting to get cold in the Pig Barn (my erstwhile studio in the garden). All went better after lighting the woodburner! Tempting to stay there as today’s piece has sparked some ideas to take elsewhere, but it is Christmas day so it’s back to the warmth of the house and family.

Walking round to the Arts Centre I thought of a brilliant headline and how I would write this blog entry but it went totally out of mind when I realised that I had omitted an apostrophe from my message on the envelope: worse than that I realised that I had done the same yesterday but not seen it. Woe, woe and, thrice, woe!
