Split Enz

"When my baby's walking down the street
I see red, I see red, I see red.
How could someone wicked walk around free
I see red, I see red, I see red.
I see red, I see red
(red!), I see red."

Tim Finn

The Stork

Lino-cut pastiche

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Portrait of an artist as a young man

As a young man I had ambitions to be an artist. A visual artist that is. I’ve always been creative, and always felt comfortable expressing my thoughts in a visual format. I considered going to Art College when at school, and then a little later after I’d been at work for a few years. But basically I chickened out on both occasions. I have No regrets about those decisions as I’m not convinced that I would have been happy. One of my concerns has always been prostituting myself, and my art. I’ve never wanted to sell anything that I’ve produced. I’ve always liked the idea of mass producing images and got quite excited when the plain paper copier became readily available. It started me down the road of producing black and white images for repetition. I also had a little bit of success providing images for indie music labels. But life got in the way and I stopped making pictures of any sort. I’ve had one or two false starts in the intervening years but never managed to sustain anything. I’ve recently started again. Only time will tell if I keep it up but I feel a lot more confident. Digital technology helps. In fact it helps a great deal as I now feel that the technology has finally caught up with where I want to be and how I want to express myself. Watch this space.

John Jarrold Printing Museum

Last Saturday we had the pleasure of visiting the John Jarrold Printing Museum in Norwich. Spending a fascinating couple of hours there. The museum which has limited opening appears to be staffed mainly by retired folk. Nothing wrong with that I might add. Many of whom worked in the printing trade. I’ve been in love with printing since my first John Bull Printing Outfit as a kid.

The museum has a really good cross section of exhibits from early letterpress to latter-day offset-litho, as well as examples of ancillary equipment related to the printing and bookbinding world.

The print museum is housed in part of a very fine building, a former yarn mill. In many ways the museum undersells itself but that’s also part of its charm. Having said that they could tweak the presentation a bit to improve the experience and no doubt increase revenue.

In my early years as a buyer I worked for a firm of manufacturing stationers, Swallow Manufacturing Co Ltd, which did its own printing. I was charged with buying the printing supplies. I loved that bit of my job.

If you ever find yourself in Norwich on a Wednesday with an hour or two to spare you could do a lot worse than going to this fine establishment.

“With twenty-six soldiers of lead I have conquered the world” – this saying has been attributed to a number of famous people over the years, including the great Karl Marx and it adorns the museum brochure.

May I have your autograph please?

I’m never likely to be famous and quite frankly I have no desire to be so. I write this blog mainly for my own amazement and for anyone that happens to come across it. It’s nice when others read it but I see that as a bonus and not something I work very hard to encourage. So if I ever have the misfortune to become famous please be warned. I will not be signing autographs.

We have this strange class of people in this country, mainly driven by cheap ’n’ nasty television and the tabloids, which are famous for being famous. The celebrity is a curious and pointless phenomenon; talentless and yet famous. Pawns in a lucrative latter-day freak show. In my adult life I’ve never asked for anyone autograph and it is something that I don’t think I’ll ever do. I’ve been to concerts where at the end or in the interval the performer will be at the ‘product’ stall signing cds books etc. I’ve even made purchases on odd occasions. But I’ve never ever been tempted to have them signed. I’m not big on hero worship and can never see the point of an autograph. What does it do?

I suppose my unswerving belief that we are all equal kicks in and yes certain people might be very talented, artistic and/or clever having interesting things to say, sing or display but it doesn’t put them above the rest. We are all mere humans; flesh, blood and brains. No more, no less. I don’t acknowledge pedestals. It is why I can never see the point of awards or honours, and why I’m a republican. We are of equal value.

 

Confession corner

I own an unsolicited photo of The Smiths, signed by Morrissey. I wrote to him in the early days of The Smiths, no idea why. He wrote back and enclosed the photo. I hang on to it. Again I don’t know why. Perhaps I should shred it.