No263 glides gracefully towards the abyss of the post box
The piece inside may or may not have any connection to what is written on the envelope, though one thing is for sure none of the envelopes contain a live cat or any other sentient being. Neither has an albatross that has been in contact with this piece or its envelope nor has it been made intentionally wet by seawater from such a bird. It could be argued that there is no completed artwork inside until the envelope is opened! Did Schrödinger use a cat in his problem to shock or cause us to think in a different way? Have I put live artworks in these envelopes along with a small radioactive source and a vial of art poison (carefully shielded so the artwork cannot tamper with them)? After an hour will any of the artworks be dead? By the time the installation opens in March 2015 will all the pieces be dead? If so will they have died of natural causes, starved by my cruel confinement of them or poisoned by the experiment. Were they dead to begin with? How can we tell if the art is dead or just sleeping?
You’ll have to look a the photo to grasp what I am on about and even then I doubt if you will. Frankly, the few people who look at this will probably not care what it’s about anyway.
I needed to go out and get some coffee so I delivered today’s piece by hand. Dee was at the Arts Centre and, in her usual reluctant way, agreed to take delivery of No261. It’s not the taking delivery she has a problem with, but the taking of her picture – there is no telling her! She had noticed recent Schrödinger’s cat references and suggested “Cat” as the name that he might have called it. She also noticed that today’s envelope was quite chunky – I don’t mean knobbly, just robust, substantial – which is true. Perhaps she is right about what Schrödinger called the cat?
As I walked out of the Arts Centre I noticed someone reading about this project and said, in passing, “that’s good. It’s mine” She called me back and we had a chat and she is a sculptor called Rachel and her friend Nick came back to the studio for a chat and i didn’t get the coffee. A little bit later I went out for the coffee and met someone else and had a chat and ended up not doing much work!
I’m not having a good day, struggling with the black dog, and I thought I could cut corners, save time and do any old rubbish. But, of course, I cannot. There may be a question about the quality or value of my work from and aesthetic standpoint but, I find, never from a moral one! Even after I had resigned myself to doing it properly I started bemoaning my choice of materials: “that will take longer”, “I wish I hadn’t chosen that”, “I have to take care now I’ve done that! and so on. But you know it was worth the effort. It would never have worked without doing it right and it would only have made me feel more depressed. And I got a moody picture too. As much as I love the London slang “moody” I don’t mean that. Nor is it in a bad temper. I just mean it’s a moody photo. Mind you it’s not so easy to read the bit about Schrödinger’s cat!
I do not know what it is in me that makes me create more work. After a long break when I managed not to write anything at all on the envelope in the way of annotations, today I write a note on the back. That means I feel obliged to include the photo of the back and write about it maybe. All I was doing was making a note to remind me what I wanted to write or say on this post. Normally I would just put a note on the blog in a draft which I could elaborate on later, but because I had to do a factory reset on my phone last weekend (the latest Android upgrade broke it!) I had not set up my WordPress blogs and couldn’t remember my log in details! Which has just made me think i could have done it on my tablet – but then I probably haven’t set the phone up to link to the tablet … and now i see that it’s Android that made all this extra work!
What I realised as I was creating today’s piece was that it had strong resonances to a strand of work that I did at college 45 years ago. I was approaching the same place from two directions but with a similar outcome in technique and look and feel. This has prompted me to have another poke around in that area – well I have already started – but to also revisit the technique. The interesting thing is that I had a very strong idea for today which I perhaps approached with the wrong medium, so found myself in different territory! Perhaps that one will happen tomorrow!
I actually meant the heading in the way of “this is a good piece of work” but I can understand that some may think it means “here is another mad person!”
Well, it was quite a difficult day where I ended up having to be flexible and doing things in a topsy-turvy way so I was unable to spend the long interrupted span of time at the studio I had planned. Despite this I managed to complete a large drawing and do some working pieces as well as this #Letter365 piece which turned out much better than I could have hoped.
It’s been a busy day. I met with friends to talk about my show and engaged with others about my work and went to the dentist (it’s quite a journey)and saw the beauty of soft, dramatic skies on the sea and did some work and did my #Letter365 and made dinner and went to the Film Society and that needs to be spoken of. The film was Museum Hours and I think that it would help you understand me and this project (among other things) if you watched it. It explores so many things about mundanity and specialness, the beauty of boredom, the wonder of humanity and the way that the small things hold the magic.
Screen grab from the Bridport Film Society website featuring “Museum Hours”
I did an hour and a half work in my sketchbook before breakfast today (and I have just done similar this evening!) and I did a large drawing (may not yet be finished) at the studio plus some sorting out there. It’s so great to be able to spend some real time on my work rather than only being able to make time for this project. I know I need to put this project in high gear very soon if it is to be a real success, but I need to do some other things first if I am to retain a semblance of sanity.
Having really prepared everything for a productive time at the studio I realised I had forgotten to take the envelope I had printed. Head next!
If you were worried that I might give out before I had managed to do mt #Letter365 piece let me reassure you that a bracing walk by the sea was not enough to sap all my creative energies. It was not what I originally thought I might do, but this morning I was sifting through a sketchbook and thought I would try something I’d meant to play with a while ago. I have to say it’s a pretty fine piece too!
It is odd that, when I am now keener than ever to develop themes and work through ideas, I find myself feeling guilty when I do that in #Letter365. I have been here before, having to remind myself that its ok to do things that are similar. Many artists have done countless versions of the same thing or developed similar works along a theme.
An unfolding artwork created a piece each day for a year
