Another lesson learnt today. I hesitated before adding some last-minute enhancements to today’s piece. I didn’t want to risk spoiling it yet I knew it needed something. For a few moments I held back. The piece was OK and I really didn’t want to start from scratch again. Then I said to myself “Do not be afraid – it’s only art” – well that isn’t quite true: the actual words involved an expletive or two, but that is a fair summary! I believed in myself and was confident that I could create something good if II did have to start from scratch. That of course gave me the freedom to add enhancements that enhanced!
First of all I should explain that I have changed the style of posting picture today because of the return of the shadow rabbit. I felt that Violet Lines and The Rabbit was a combination too much!
The piece I’ve produced today is superficially attractive and well composed but is designed to irritate the spatially astute among you. Part of what art should do is challenge us; ask questions; irritate us. I suspect that most people (who like my work) will just go “ooh, that’s nice”. If that is your reaction then you should look harder, more carefully, longer. Of course now there’s the rub, you cannot see the item in question, at least not until next March and even then only if it is sold!
Posted in pleasant evening sunshine No109 goes in the box
I am quite tempted to let the printer problem develop further. I like the way this little wave of chaos is reasserting itself, just like a shipwreck or a cliff fall will alter the formation of a beach until the sea slowly sorts it out and gets it back neat like it wants. I also wished i had done some more experiments with printing things with the blocked nozzle last time. So we will see how it is tomorrow.
Then there is the back of the envelope and that is going in dangerously silly ways. I have always loved names (it is probably something to do with the rather pedestrian name I was graced with) and have” collected” place names at various times for their history, their humour, their story and so on. I have also made up place names, especially descriptive names for places along the route of my local walks. So many place names have been lost because of the breakdown of communities and the increase in roads as the main byways and highways. I like to redress the balance a little. I also like to make up people’s names. Had i chosen to be a writer I would never have been short of good names. So who knows where the back of today’s envelope will lead? Perhaps I will have to get a person’s name on the back? I am reminded of Joseph Heller’s “Is there anybody in the john, Milton?” (There is something willing me to go and fins the quote to see if I have the punctuation – well any of it – correct!!!)
Printer errors wreak havoc on the envelope of No102
The great thing about exploring the interplay between chaos and control is that when it all fucks up it is just the effects of chaos in the ascendant. In other spheres at other times marks on envelopes or any other unforeseen mistakes or problems would have caused me a lot of unhappiness and anger,
The marks on today’s envelope are quite attractive and it would be gret to be able to reproduce the effect at will and they did mar what should have been just neutral grey and red. You might notice that the red is hardly red. I have been blaming the paper, but I fear the printer is on the blink. I might have a little investigate one day soon.
Having talked about the envelope becoming part of the artwork it seems like something in me is wanting to make it mandatory to decorate the envelope back. As if i need more things to do each day!
If you were missing the envelope going in the box, that is here below:
Another late night posting – No86 gets the last film stamp
After a long day of Dorset Art Weeks and a late finish i find that I have committed to myself to a set of actions for the next month of this project. Of course I cannot say what it is or how it might affect the work I produce in that period.
Over that last few days I have been asked quite a few questions about #Letter365 and how I might distribute pieces to those who have bought unspecified dates. Also, in telling the story of the project people have commented that the envelopes have become part of the artwork. This has caused me to consider the display of envelopes in the final installation and I am now considering opening the envelopes by slitting three sides to open them so both front and back can be seen.
Making art is an odd business. How come I can struggle for ages with an idea that seems really good in my head, but just won’t come together. Is it timing? Materials? How I feel that day? The light? How hungry I am? I don’t think it’s just because it’s a shit idea because sometimes I can work through the problem and other times I can revisit it later and it works well. Today was a struggle until I saw a different possibility and thought “oh that’s nice” and it all came togther like a dream.
I was really upset this morning that after quite a bit of preparatory and layout work on my #Letter365 piece I messed it up. I accidentally damaged the piece in a way I could not remedy. I remember as a child at school being upset once when I spilt paint on an almost completed painting – one that was going to be entered in a competition, It was a painting of a couple of children and a dog playing. My teacher, a wise woman, suggested that I could turn that spill into a tree trunk. It made it a better painting too. I didn’t win the competition. But today’s issue wasn’t one of those things where you can make the mistake into something else. I had just messed it up!
I had other things to attend to and it was quite a lot later that I returned to teh studio to decide what to do. When I looked at the morning’s piece I realised it was rubbish. I had been trying to shoehorn an idea that might work on a larger scale in a different medium into #Letter365. You could say that i was using #Letter365 as a sandbox, being lazy and trying something out rather than concentrating on making a good artwork for the project.
I then went on to make something rather nice, much more in keeping with the nature of the project. And of course it all came together with ease because I wasn’t trying to force it. Even though it required patience, care and precision I didn’t mess it up in any way: it was the right thing.
So although I was upset and frustrated this morning I am now pleased that I messed up, otherwise I would have wasted even more time on something that was never going to work in that format.
Sometimes there just isn’t anything to report. I did the piece; signed and date-stamped it; photographed it; made the envelope text and printed it; stuck a stamp on the envelope; put the piece in the envelope and sealed it; put a sealing wax seal on the back of the envelope; date-stamped the envelope; photographed the envelope; walked to the post box and took pictures of the envelope in front of the post box; pushed the envelope and its contents into the post box ; walked home; downloaded the images to my PC; and wrote this.
It’s what I do without much variation every single day. That’s all ok and I usually enjoy doing most parts of it, but there is a limit to what I can write about. It’s part of my job at the moment that’s all.
The box plate WED tells you I missed the post with No47
Following on from my last post, all was good with this in the end, but I think I am just having a poor art day. There was another piece hanging around in the studio – a reject from a previous #Letter365 attempt! – which I thought I could use to do an experiment on, rather than risk the piece I was working on (not #Letter365 related). It was looking amazingly good and I was really delighted with it then I added the final process and found that the ink I’d used was not waterproof and it went from looking interesting back to a mess like the one that got it rejected last time!
So I missed the post, but there would have been a backlog with the Easter holidays so it will even things out a bit!
An unfolding artwork created a piece each day for a year
