Smugness is not a pretty thing but it does have its pleasures. I have been toying with today’s idea for a while and never got round to working out how I might use it. Today it worked out better than I could have expected and a little serendipity helped it along.
Plus Captain Beefheart gets another mention/quote on the envelope!
Well Captain Beefheart gets a mention as I have been playing my Christmas present box set quite a bit. I have been struggling today and really found it difficult to do anything: energy levels at a low. Too much alcohol and a broken night don’t help me to deal with the black dog. So I am having a quiet night off now,
It took a long time, but the piece is great today. Don’t think for a moment that because I am suffering from depression at present that today’s piece is gloomy or dark. In fact it is full of slightly self-deprecating humour and is very nicely composed and has visual allusions to earlier developments in this project.
Yesterday’s hurried headline has me in a fix. I said it was a song lyric but I can’t think of anything with those words. I can only imagine that I subconsciously altered the words of Cat Stevens’s “How Can I Tell You?” to a negative. Who knows?
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!
A very rich result for today’s piece: one that has something for everyone perhaps. Technically interesting, visually rich with references to our art heritage. Took a bit of a while but worth it.
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!
I’ve walked to the sea and back and done my #Letter365 for today and now it’s time for making dinner.
The family is gathered and food and fun and games seems more attractive than making up some old guff to write here. Job done so we will leave it at that!
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.