All posts by David Smith

#Letter365, Art, Process

It is possible that my brain is failing

#Letter365 No236 gets posted in the rain
No236 gets posted in the rain

It’s probably just that I am tired and bored with having to spend time in front of the computer. I have been working on some of the things I need to do in preparation for my exhibitions but what I really wanted to be doing is some art! In fact, when I did get to the studio, everything went so smoothly! I didn’t allow myself to say no when I had the urge to work on a larger piece. I am at that point where I need to just concentrate on my art or I’ll have a meltdown – but I have other stuff I need to do.

Don’t ask about the stuff on the envelope. I was so desperate to get away from the computer I forgot to do the envelope and found myself at the studio naked in the envelope department! So it got done this evening when my interest in computers and keyboards has waned even further.

#Letter365, Art, Process

No room for a sloppy, half-hearted approach

#'Letter365 No235 goes in the post
No235 goes in the post

I sort of had a half idea, a sort of just-about-do idea, for today’s #Letter365 piece when I got to the studio. It wouldn’t take me long to do – ah not long if I cut corners – probably no one will ever see it – but that’s not the point – oh that might take a while and may not work – and actually it’s not that interesting unless I do it in a way that probably needs a different scale and different materials – and that won’t fit in the envelope! So I started again and took it and myself seriously. A little trickier than I intended but it didn’t take much extra effort and I have ended up with a piece to be proud of. Along the way I had some thoughts about the original idea and now have some ideas how I could make it work – it will take quite a bit of trial-and-error experimentation but it may resurface later in the project!

#Letter365, Art

Not a lot of scope for origami but Finley Quaye gathers a rainbow

#Letter365 No234 gets posted
No234 gets dropped in the box

Songs with Sunday in the title range from excellent to dire and in my opinion there’s probably a lot more towards the dire end! The first song that came to mind was, of course, the Small Faces’ “Lazy Sunday Afternoon”, quickly followed by Lionel Ritchie, but you wouldn’t want to get that stuck in your head. Blondie’s “Sunday Girl” would be tough to shift too! But today’s winner is Finley Quaye with “Sunday Shining”

#Letter365, Art, Birmingham

Done and dusted in Birmingham

#Letter365 No233 gets posted in Birmingham
No233 gets posted in Birmingham

Today’s piece was created in the Waterhall Gallery in Birmingham. Nice quiet space where the current selection of pieces from the city’s collection is themed round still life. It has a nice series of Jim Dine screenprint/collages in there. I popped into the Gas Hall afterwards to have a look at the West Midlands Open which I found massively disappointing. I cannot believe that our second city and the surrounding area could not produce some more exciting or interesting pieces. It mostly seemed a little dull, staid and derivative. Most of it would not have seemed out of place in a show from the Seventies. I place the blame on the curation and it really wasn’t displayed or lit to bring out its best. There was only one piece I thought I might like to have on my wall and three others that I thought had interesting aspects. There were quite a few well executed pieces and some superficially attractive stuff but nothing to stretch or stimulate.

A piece of music that has stretched and stimulated me for 40 years is Jefferson Airplane’s “Won’t you try / Saturday afternoon” – this version is from Woodstock

#Letter365, Art

A West Midlands posting for today’s #Letter365

#Letter365 No232 goes in the box in Redditch
No232 goes in the box in Redditch

Today’s piece got transported all the way to the West Midlands this evening. It’s an interesting one that has set me thinking about some new techniques to experiment with.

I am still on about music and days the week and I’ll add a video of someone’s version of “Friday on my Mind”. I can’t really do Bowie because he was featured yesterday. I thought about Springsteen which has its own flavour. But the original Easybeats’ version is probably the one.

#Letter365, Art

John Lee Hooker adds mystery to an unsettling piece

I always feel the echo on John Lee Hooker tracks has an eerie air and today’s piece (if only I could talk about it) has something unsettling about it: so they go together. Eric Dolphy and Charles Mingus playing “Wednesday Evening Prayer Meeting” would have been a good choice but maybe too cool for the piece. I don’t know. As to the Simon & Garfunkel thing “Wednesday Morning: 3am” is a disappointing track on a disappointing album really and the artwork is definitely not that!

#Letter365 No230 goes in the box
No230 goes in the box

 

#Letter365, Art

Rolling Stones or Melanie?

#Letter365 No229 goes in the box
No229 goes in the box

Now there’s a thing, having got caught with this thing about music with days of the week, and having loads of songs with Monday in just popping into my head, I decide to carry on and do Tuesday and my brain offers up just two songs! Monday I’m spoilt for choice: Tuesday I am scrabbling around te vague recesses of my mind. Isn’t there a Tori Amos track? I can’t quite get it. Paul Kossoff? No, access blocked. So that leaves me with Cat Stevens’s “Tuesday’s Dead” and “Ruby Tuesday” and Melanie has to be the version (though I am quite tempted to just put up a live version of “Sympathy for the Devil” because it’s a much better song!)

So here you go:

I know I hinted at Cat Stevens but I might save him till next week.

Well and the piece? I never know what is going to happen. Today I had a meeting at the Arts Centre about #Collage365 and this one. It went on a lot longer than I thought so I had limited time as i was going to go to the Film Society. I decided to miss that, sadly, so as not to get stressed about this. The work that came out was unexpected (and took longer than expected) but very interesting.

#Letter365, Art

Monday, Monday – using the Mamas & the Papas to drum up interest

On the envelope of today’s piece I hinted at two pieces of music – the Mamas & the Papas “Monday, Monday” and The Boomtown Rats – “I Don’t Like Mondays”.  I suppose I just let my brain churn up some old memories and I sort of assumed the songs were very different. Then during the day I came to realise the songs were not very different. The Mamas & the Papas can’t cope with Monday’s because of an association with events that happened on a Monday, whereas Bob and the boys seemed from recollection to have a dystopian view of the whole week and Monday was just an example day singled out for destruction as an example to the rest of the days!

Now that I have had a chance to refresh my memory and view the YouTube clips i see that I was both right and wrong. There is something deeply menacing in the Mamas & the Papas. There’s a touch of Star Trek and it’s so clean it looks unreal (in my memory they were all flower power and druggy!) I suspect that in their choreography they trace out a message to the alien death ships in geostationary orbit above us. The only reason we were not destroyed was they had better things to do that watch pop TV. They don’t seem upset that this unnamed woman (we presume) upped and left. It’s actually Monday afternoon specifically they find untrustworthy – there was no warning in the morning of what was to be!

For the Rats it’s a very different story: it’s not just Monday afternoon that’s the problem, they feel the whole day deserves shooting down! And is there menace in their dystopian song about death? No, they are all such cheeky, friendly softies. It is quite clear that there is nothing to fear from this bunch – though had the alien battle cruisers above been watching and had travelled back in time they may have put us all out of our misery of having to watch years and years of Bob Geldorf being famous for being Bob Geldorf and blown the planet to pieces way back then!

And how are they the same? They are both so clean! Their meanings are apparently the opposite to their presentation. Worst of all, once in your head it takes an incredibly long and annoying time to shift them from your brain!!!

Of course you won’t have that problem with #Letter365 No 228 as the whole enterprise is thoroughly forgettable:

#Letter365 No228 gets posted
No228 gets consigned to the oblivion of the box
#Letter365, Art, Process

My first attempt was too big to fit in the envelope

#Letter365 No227 is posted in the opening for stamped mail
No227 gets posted in the right slot

Well that headline is a lie. It’s just trying to add a bit of drama. I spent a decent amount of time at the studio today. I had hoped to do a bit more sorting but really needed to try out working on something much bigger than usual so I can assess the best way to set up the studio. So after sweeping out and cleaning some fo the drawers of my recently acquired plan chest I created a paper work area about 2.8m by 1.2m. I was going to leave it at that point so I could get the #Letter365 piece underway but well…I had to try out something!

There was never any intention that I was going to force such a large (in any case as yet unfinished) piece into the envelope. My #Letter365 artwork today is more modest in scope and somewhat more refined I would say.

For a change I am showing a larger view of the double-mouthed post box I have been using of late. There is also a return to a picture of the back of the envelope:

Back of No227
Back of No227