Don't Miss Today

This is the first of my wednesday posts where I intend to sum up my week, give thoughts and plan out the coming week and post things that have been of interest to myself,

So here goes:






















Don't miss today comes from a poster on an 'A' board outside the Merrion Market in Leeds. I believe the actual purpose was to promote a sale on cigarettes at a shop inside the market, but the ambiguous sentiment it offers is a good one, and the more specific 'Don't miss Thursday, Friday and Saturday' is one for those who like to live for the weekend.
















It is an odd thing to simply post up what you find fascinating. I am choosing to post them here as memorandum for myself, to hopefully inspire others and give an insight into and some point of reference for my new drawings and thoughts:

• Andy Goldsworthy - Always astounds me by his gentleness, thoughtfulness, simplicity and sheer beauty of his work. Often belittled by people because of his sometimes over niceness, I think this scares a lot of 'artists', that someone can make such truly honest work that is simply derived from a sheer passion from the awe of nature.
  
• Colophons - Beautiful little logos from publishers.
  
• Roma Publications - Very nice looking books
  
• Zak Kyes - Always challenging and exciting work.
  
• Lehni-Trueb - Strong idiosyncratic but true design and a very honourable DIY ethos.
  

The BBC natural history series South Pacific has been one of the best things I have seen on television all year. the BBC have not made as much of a song and dance about it as they did with Planet Earth but it is truly incredible. Humbling to think of the awesome power the earth and nature still holds over some parts of this planet. Islands where humans simply cannot survive but other animals have evolved to make them their home, islands that are growing and shrinking constantly. It brings into question the relatively modern idea of humans as holders of some sort of dominion over the world and it's inhabitants, as clearly we are just as susceptible to the power of nature as any other animal, in these climbs, even more so.

I am beginning work on (potentially) a couple of zines, one based on the archive and work of Andy Goldsworthy (as mentioned above) and bits of text and images pulled from an old illustrated children's encyclopedia. This follows a bit of 'down time' personally where, for the first time in a while, I have no large scale projects to be working on and I am returning to the exciting world of sketchbooks and drawing to explore. I find the world of the encyclopedia totally absorbing. In a way drawing mirrors this process, of trying to work things out and structure the world, then to disseminate and pick elements at random, parts that say something to you individually, it is this focus and telescopic selection process that makes us different and hopefully makes my work worth looking at.























































Some writing:
'Pockets Are Funny Things To Have'
pocket |ˈpäkət|
noun
1 a small bag sewn into or on clothing so as to form part of it, used for carrying small articles.
I never would have considered a pocket to be a bag, a pocket is exclusive, specific to a trouser, a shirt or a jacket. You can have pockets in a bag. Many people have bags for bags. Bags of bags. In cupboards, in kitchens, under sinks. Pockets can sculpt, a gift bags are bereft of. To leave a tissue in the bottom of a pocket during washing is to cast the recess, a positive of the negative space. The cast is not exclusive. The space and shape is free of the trouser, suddenly able to move at will, although sadly without assistance it will move further than the pocket, it's creator, it's maker. It is a piece of moulded, hardened tissue and cannot move. The pocket is sown into the trouser and holds this book, and the book contains words relating to the tissue and the pocket, reuniting them, but the book is able to move further still. To different pockets! Telling the tale of the tissue, cast in a pocket, the shape of a cloud, cumulous nimbus, with a face and eyes and a silver pin and made into a badge. No longer attached to the trouser but still connected to clothing, reliant on it for movement. Not like a real cloud.

The book learns from other pockets, travels with them, talks to them, feels them, sometimes moulds itslef a little to the,, gets inside the. The bag is all but forgotten, it cannot sculpt, be pinned to clothing, learn from trousers or move like a cloud, but it can carry all these things.

Bag wins in the end