Don't Miss Today

Waving Leaves,
Weaving Lives,
Wavering, Leaves.









In the past week i have been likened to Jesus and Moses, simply an aesthetic connection I assume, I aim to keep my miracles to myself. It is strange how a beard can make one appear messianic.

I was hoping to get a song finished this week but none have come forward. It would appear I can't sing this evening. I bet Jesus could nail it...

Bone Snow Knives and Tin Oil Lamps






















I have been busy this week, but amongst other healthy demands on my time I have had some time to really get stuck into some reading and have made some really good finds. The kind of words that somehow seem to solidify a lot intangible thoughts and seemingly unrelated ideas. They do not necessarily make the ideas immediately obvious but certainly seem to be a rung on the ladder.

From a book a friend sent my recently, I have been fascinated with a certain diagrammatic representation of a history of the Sioux . The chart plots a kind of time line of the these people that is simply marked by event. Clearly they were aware of the change of the seasons and of the passing of days, probably far more than we are now, more closely in tune, but the need for calendaring this information appears to be in their eyes unnecessary. Far more important is the, in this case, pictorial representation of, documenting important events. This seems to relate to a way of viewing time in many Native American Indians, and also many strong indigenous cultures, such as the Mayans and Eskimos.

Some Eskimo groups mythology see time differently from western 'civilised' selves. Historical and mythical reality are not the 'past', they are forever present, participating in all current being, giving meaning to all their activities and to all their existence. The past is present.Wherever they go, their surroundings have meaning for them, every rock, ruin and element of their landscape have mythical significance.

For many of these peoples, time has a far less tangible quality, this may indeed be a truer way of viewing time. How do we know tie is constant, we do not even know the origins of time, yet our Western world revolves around some invented measure of this incorporeal concept. Creation stories tell of a time before time, before the creation of the world, where beings looked upon the birth of the creator, of the fashioning of this time.

It is easy to forget how culturally restrained major concepts and even senses are. The Aivilik (an Eskimo group) have no word for history. To distinguish between different kinds of occasions they will say, for example, eetchuk, that is "time before time". not a previous phase of this time, but a different kind of time. MAterial objects, songs, prayers and stories can psess the pastas an attribute. I read about an ethnographer who when attempting to record an Elder's autobiography had to chronolgise events in a way he could understand as when speaking Ohnainewk would work backwards and forwards with ommissions and repetitions, seemingly uninterested in a 'typical' narrative structure.

This even carries through to their art which Martijn describes as an 'acoustic art', relying more on auditory than on ocular powers in aprehending reality. Traditional carvers would not preoccupy themselves with the task of placing a carving ina deliberate setting, mood or time, each carving 'lives in a spatial independence. Size and shape, proportions and slection, these are set by the object itself, not forced from without. Like sound, each carving creates its own space, its own identity and imposes its own assumptions'. (Eskimo Carvings in Historical Perspective.)
They do not represent static moments in time. They are small and easily handled, they lack a single, favoured side for viewing, achieving multpile perspectives. The soapstone carvings we see today from Eskimo cultures are largely inspired by the wishes of white men travelling through in search of trinkets and keepsakes, the proliferation of which came about when the Eskimos realised they could make money from the tourist trade, and began to represent domestic or outdoor scenes.


Everything is in mythology, and everything in mythology is and is together.

Some drawings
(apologies for use of photo booth, I forgot my camera)




































































A story:

Hi, High, Hill!

The weather forecast says heavy rain, storm, snow. The cottage, the site, Low Wray, the rain. Tom, the man, the national trust, his eyes, calm, gentle, honest, slight. The Outgate Inn, creepy, the couple signs above the bar, she reads them out, he ignores her, looks at the cricket painting, sighs, indifference. You say you are drunk, I hold the torch in the dark. The rain falls through the night, tapping on the tent, the sleep is cold, pushed to one side, against the canvas wall.

We wake, rain, indecision, we buy a map, waterproof paper, we walk. Green and luscious, moss covers everything, so much is green, so much green, around the lake and up. Long walk. I fall, embarrassed. Coffee and Kendal Mint Cake, they talk of hair, on backs, chests and women. Five Hellos. Up from the lake, towards the tarn. Tarn, torn, taw. The sun comes out, we go swimming in the tarn, we rest our feet. Cold in the instance, instantly freezing, clean and bright, slight of breath and blood to the head. I sink my chest, in up to my beard, you stand bottom dipped, arms held safe, we hold each other, sun on the side of our faces.

We remove our pants and walk on free, it feels American. The trees, tall slim, consistent in width, regular in branch, they creak in the wind as if they are regretful of growing so high. You stop to take photos, again and again as if you have never seen trees before. The map comes out, i find it endearing, a constant need to know, you are defensive of my glances, you snare them. Old Joy. We walk, long walk, misjudge our position, miss roads, ignore signs, Hole House, High-Tock-How. Tired legs, feigning tantrums, we trudge on, collective persistence, empty of stomach but wanton of little, a seat, soup, bread, ale. We reach the outpost, walk back slowly, sit by the lake, watch the ducks, they sit like the couple from the Inn the previous night, early to bed, calm to sleep. Jack Mountain and Luigi Milano, home, welcome.

We awake, wash, collapse the tent, you daydream. Taxi to the station, coffee, worry heart, train, we doze, between stops and changes and more coffee and delays. Houses near, with all its worries, concerns and distractions, this feels like goodbye. We get the bus, it is cheaper here, we delay with tea and I leave, bathe and sleep. A distant memory but a resounding feeling, re-sounding still now, in my ears, eyes and feet, still emanating through me. Such an ease of company and a light beauty, at once so temporary in experience but existent in its permanence. An eternal and internal peace and happiness. Trust a feeling before a forecast.

Work is progressing for our input in the next Project Space Leeds show and our forthcoming show in Newcastle in 5 weeks.


Bad Leg

Something less pretentious
poet/musician Edward Barton
Square Bears


A Recipe

Peanut Butter Banana
one banana, slit along inside curve (but not halved)
spread peanut butter (crunchy) into the crevice
grill, 5 minutes both sides, until the skin is crispy

grants me solace in a dairy free world


Speak to you soon

Don't miss Today

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.

Don't Miss Today

At the weekend I went to the Lake District. It has been quite a few years since I was there last and I had not entirely forgotten what a beautiful part of the country it is, but had neglected to remember just how important it is to get out of the city and put yourself in a place like that as regularly as possible.

Hello, Hi, Hill!
All the more special as we ignored weather forecasts, which proved to be a falsehood anyway, and embraced our good feelings and had a gorgeous time.

The sun comes out, we go swimming in the tarn, we rest our feet.

Some photos:

I would like to do the Coast to Coast walk.

The Coast to Coast Walk is a 192-mile (according to a recent re-measuring the real distance is almost 220 miles) unofficial and mostly unsignposted long distance footpath in Northern England. Devised by Alfred Wainwright, it passes through three contrasting national parks: the Lake District National Park, the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and the North York Moors National Park.

Wainwright recommends that walkers dip their booted feet in the Irish Sea at St Bees and, at the end of the walk, dip their naked feet in the North Sea at Robin Hood's Bay.

It makes me think, who sets out the footpaths we walk on. A track laid down and set upon year after year, but one person would have decided to walk there, would have thought that it was worth other people coming this way, sharing their views. The more well trodden, the less these first steps are remembered.

Coast
I am slightly obsessed by the BBC program 'Coast'. I don't think it is showing currently, I believe there have been two series made and is regularly repeated. The landscapes are typically British, magnificent and inspiring at best, simply beautiful the majority of the time. However, the most uplifting thing I find in this program is the collection of local experts along the way. These people would be usually no more considered experts than you or I but they all have one uniting fascination in some minutiae of their surroundings. Some telescopic focusing on one specific nugget of their microcosm that the rest of the population would generally ignore. It is like turning on Radio 4 at any point in the day and listening just for 5 minutes, you are bound to learn some small point of information that is truly special to someone and delivered with such enthusiasm that it enthuses in myself a quest to divine some unique knowledge, to be an expert in some triviality, not for obscurities sake, but to know that you know something others do not, with the hope of one day departing this knowledge onto some interested party that will hopefully in turn send them on some searching mission.

I feel this when I find myself in my old University library, surrounded by such a treasure chest of knowledge and learning I can barely catch my breath, this want to find and transmit learning is told far better than I could explain in a passage by Hesse in 'Peter Camenzind':

"And gradually as I read more and was more strangely moved by my view down onto the roof-tops, streets and everyday life below, the feeling, mixed with doubts and hesitations, came over me that I too perhaps was a visionary, and the world that lay before me was waiting for me to collect some portion of its treasure, to lift the veil from the accidental and commonplace and through my creative power of poetry, save from destruction and immortalize what I might discover."

I haven't been looking at the internet much this week, I am busy trying to screen print a poster for the Print Club Secretblisters show, which is exciting, finishing off our book which will form a document of our residency as a part of Morphic Resonance and trying to work on new drawings for a set of zines. We are soon to be starting work on what we think will be an exciting project with Liverpool based design studio Thoughtful. We met James from thoughtful yesterday and it was an inspiring visit, to hear someone who we hold in regard talking of the same frustrations we find, but never regretful, always confident and positive. There is hope.

What got me excited in the library today:

































































































And finally:

As found on the great Reference Library blog, something Charles (Eames) said to Ray, and so she wrote it down: "Any indication of not knowing how constantly great you are is merely a lapse into insanity. C.E. to R.E., Jan. 3, 1975"