Hi,Wednesday soon comes round... this one's taking it to the wire...
This will be fairly image heavy (for a lack of time today (I should prepare earlier), and not necessarily a lack of ideas, but a lack of time to dwell on these ideas).
One observation:
There are significantly less whole bits of peanut in in the already dubiously 'crunchy' crunchy peanut butter from Morrison's. And it has gone up from 78p to 99p, in one price hike. I will try some consumer power and report back.
Eskimos
Amongst my reading I have started reading about Eskimos. I am becoming more attracted to a lifestyle that is, whilst I accept not truly 'living off the land', running more parallel alongside that of nature. Many indigenous cultures, although often strating as nomads, as the majority of us did, appear to have a much stronger kinship with their environment, a respect that runs beyond a simple aesthetic appreciation. What is created in these cultures is necessary, utilsed, adorned because of the genuine worth of it, not from a case of one up manship (although admittedly so, this does have a place in the formation and retention of certain social constructions and hierachies). The eskimos are thought to have been one of the most adaptive of cultures, in a physical and anthroplogic sense. The clothing and materials developed and made remain perfect for the job intended, rarely surpasses by anything modern technology and new processes can muster.
Quite how i would establish this desire of living my life more in this way I am unsure, most definitively a case of easier said than done, but one I aim to see what I can do, apathy is easy when we have far more than we truly need available to us, a filtering down of what is essential can reveal a beautiful simplicity. I think this relates to the ideas of the Encyclopedia I have discussed previously, but I'm not sure how yet...
Tattooing
This weekend sees the close of Morphic Resonance. During the show I have been offering tattoos, with a home made gun, free of charge. It has been an odd experience, often a quite exhiliterating if occasionally stressful one, and one that has been occasionally loaded with a great deal of emotional involvement for both parties. To make a permanent maek on someone, is a very empowering feeling, not one that should be taken lightly or flippantly, not to be that it can't be immediate and exciting but there is a great culture and tradition behind it, however, many of the things that make us turn our heads are not ones that simply go against this but are aware and twist this tradition. I have a great respect for professional tattooists but find it hard to understand why they look so down on DIY tattoos, mainly because of the poor workmanship, which is mainly down to rudimentary materials, and the lack of sterility. I would like to see thought if they would say a Maori tattoo performed traditionally is any less a tattoo than one performed on a town high street.
Any exploration into the notion of tattooing is a valid one, each just has it's own aesthetic, meanings, codes and symbolism, and each will ultimately be viewed differently, if it is done honestly at the time there should be no regrets, it is a memorandum, and is full of whatever feelings went into the ink at the time it was pushed into the skin, be it good or bad.
Treasures
I have always been fascinated by things which frequently occur but are often, not really even ignored but rarely noticed by most. The smaller the better. The more microscopic something appears, especially when it relates to something on a larger scale we are familiar with becomes all the more bewitching, perhaps because of its seeming impossibility, maybe because of the reality that there are many of things in this world that whilst much more minuscule than ourselves are as if not important to the sustenance of life or the way it alludes to the possibility that there are things, much smaller than us living amongst us, as in the tales of faerie folk that still resonate and enchant me.
Lichen specifically has for a long time amazed me. The hugely complex but regular and repeating forms would be incredible if at a scale of large trees, but as they are, tens of thousandths the size they are, structurally, truly beyond comprehension. They are also beautiful in their architecture and colouration. I was informed there is 1 million times more lichen in weight than humans. And that apparently they are thinking of maybe putting some in the clouds to help rain.
The first three photos are from the Lake Distrct, the second three from Arctic Norway and the last one of the set was taken in Northern Scotland. When I holiday I am forever picking bits of lichen or other such treasures, shells, wild flowers, leaves, pebbles, that take my eye. A nice coinicidence I realised recently was that I often place these treasures in a small zip up pocket on my kagool that is just over heart, my chest, and that the origin of treasure, "a concentration of riches, often one which is considered lost or forgotten until being rediscovered", is from the Greek θησαυρος; thesaurus, meaning "a treasure of the chest".
John Berger
I read last weekend that John Berger has donated all of his archive to the British Library, on the condition a representative from the library goes out to visit him in rural France, to help sort through the box loads of notes and sketches and also to assist him in baling the hay.
Drawings
Some more drawings working towards a few 'zines. Mostly based around many of the ideas that appear up here.
Print Club
I am a part of the Secret Blisters show, an exhibition organised by Print Club London of 35 screenprints – each by a different artist, each in an edition of 35, selling for £35 a piece. Artists signatures will be hidden at the show, to encourage peopple to buy the posters they like, rather than buying simply for the sake of who the artist is.
Opens this weekend at MC Motors in London's Dalston.
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