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!
There are times when I have done an especially good piece when I am close to weeping and other times I am a bit more fist in the air or sometimes, like today, when I just want to keep looking at it. The problem with that is I then start to have doubts. I wonder if it is just a superficial attractiveness or the idea is a bit facile or I am being too clever or too intellectual. But then again I couldn’t care less if I continue to derive such pleasure from looking at it: pleasure and wonder can’t be bad can it? I really didn’t want to part from this one so it will be interesting to see it again in 8 months time and see how I feel about it!
Why the postman won’t be worried about today’s piece
Another miraculous silk purse from a sow’s ear – no that is not the right metaphor. There must be a saying that sums up finding a sapphire ring in a pig pen. Another fine sapphire from a pig pen! This morning, for the first time, I was wishing I had never started this project. I was down in the dumps with no confidence and an idea for today’s piece that I really didn’t have any faith in when I had a little idea just pop in and immediately I jumped up and created something pretty special and something which caused me to do some prep for some other things as well as deciding to develop some other work from it. I have no idea where it came from and it was sort of a cheating way to make the idea that wasn’t going to work (and which I would have spent a lot of time on before accepting that it wasn’t any good) have a speedier and easier resolution. Then it just took off and I knew immediately it was going to work and was worth the effort. All that was said in one excited breathless breath!
Anyway the postman who is supposed to be a fan is on holiday: thus the exchange above!
Today’s piece was created and posted in Birmingham (although the printed elements of the envelope were prepared yesterday in advance) and the picture above was taken in Victoria Square on the wall of the pool where some words from Burnt Norton, one of the Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot are carved:
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight, And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly, The surface glittered out of heart of light, And they were behind us, reflected in the pool. Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
But at present the cloud has permanently passed as the pool is drained and the fountains stilled presumably for maintenance:
To look down into the drained pool. Dry the pool, dry concrete
So there is a little touch of inspiration from Eliot and the light-hearted Brummie love of its public art. My picture of the Floozie says it all:
Floozie in the Jacuzzi with seagull and bird dropping
And of course behind and below the Floozie is Gormley’s Iron Man, a little of its magic rubbed off on me I hope, and round the corner is the Museum & Art Gallery with its great collection of Pre-Raphaelites amongst much else, though sadly I don’t think there are any Rauschenbergs there. And, of course, the stunning new library is not far away. I have been reading about Rauschenberg and looking at his work a lot recently. I think if I had become familiar with his work in the late 60s I might have studied painting rather than sculpture or perhaps I might have had the courage to be bolder in my sculpture. It is only today that I am really beginning to understand the very radical nature of his work and the interesting questions he has been asking through his career. His Erased de Kooning Drawing for example is intriguingly complex. Rubbing out Iron Man or TS Eliot is a little more difficult!
When I came to post No107 I was surprised to find the letter boxes at the Post Office had been painted white with no helpful patterns to educate you in how to post a letter.
No107 gets posted in Birmingham
And someone (is there anybody out there?) is bound to want to see the back of the envelope:
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.
As if it wasn’t enough to create an artwork every day for this project AND put it in an envelope AND print messages on the front of that envelope AND seal the flap with sealing wax AND annotate the back: as if all that wasn’t enough now I have started annotating the front too! What am I doing?
Is it perhaps because it is Friday 13th and full moon? Is it perhaps that it is a hot day and I did some strimming in the garden today and a whiff of petrol and nettle juice mixed with grass pollen has tipped me over the edge? Or is it perhaps that my obsessive nature has got its claws into this project?
Anyway, the offending dot of watercolour could be a clue to what is inside or to the work I did immediately after that kept me from posting it straightaway or I could have just put a spot of paint there as an excuse to annotate the front and write about it on this blog. If nobody buys it you will probably never know.
The other day someone said they enjoyed my Twitter feed as it had a Mornington Crescent feel to it. I sense this blog is going that way!
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.
Late evening at Bradpole PO post box – same old thing!
Now that #Letter365 has gone on sale in a low key way I am convinced that most pieces will get sold, but when I do one like today’s I start to wonder about how random I can be about distributing pieces to buyers who have not specified a date. As a parent you are not supposed to have favourites among your children: as an artist it is a bit different I hope and although all must pass my quality control checks I inevitably will have favourites. So today I started thinking that maybe I will make the next 280 pieces as versions of this one in an attempt to make it easy to have random selection.
When doubt creeps in I resort to begging people to buy. Tomorrow’s envelope might bear another begging message: “buy this or I’ll have to have the cats put down”, “buy this before the bailiff comes” or “if you don’t buy this UKIP will be our next government”.
This one has my last Lawrence of Arabia stamp. I wish I had put a comma after DESTROYED.
Another late night posting because of Dorset Art Weeks
After a slow and depressing day of Dorset Art Weeks inactivity, a draining on-edge preparedness, I was composing, in my head, how this posting might go. I was considering that I might have to write on the outside “DO NOT BUY THIS ONE”. But despite being very tired and low it turned out fine – well more than fine, I am really pleased with it. I hesitated about doing it because I knew it would take quite a time to do and it was already late but it paid off. So a more successful #Letter365 than the open studio day!
An unfolding artwork created a piece each day for a year
