Shakespeare Day - A Bank Holiday?

I really would like to see today as Shakespeare Day, a bank holiday (as you can never have enough of those), a day to celebrate our cultural heritage. Not because Shakespeare needs the PR, think he’s being doing quite nicely on that front for a few hundred years, but because it deflects the jingoism and ridiculous nonsense of St George. The arts enrich our lives, they are good for our wellbeing, and they help us on the road to happiness and fulfilment. The arts celebrate diversity.

Angry, bored, depressed, perplexed, stressed, having trouble making sense of the world or just generally unhappy?

Then get some art in your life. Open your heart to the arts. You’ll feel so much better for it.

Scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing), William Blake, ca. 1825 — Source.

On losing my virginity

I'm sure you know the score; the anticipation is overwhelming, the pulse races as the nerves build and the fear of failure weighs heavy on the mind. Venturing into unchartered waters can be quite traumatic.

I've always been a late developer which probably accounts for my boyish looks. People are often surprised at how old I am. Apparently I look younger than my given years. It has been commented on many times. That's what good clean living does for you I guess.

At the tender age of 60 I am about to lose my exhibiting virginity. As from Sunday evening 14 pieces of my art will be on view to the public at the Art of Norwich Nº43 exhibition. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a teeny bit apprehensive. I not particularly worried about how my work is received but very worried that my creations will stay hanging in situ. I'm responsible for putting the fixings in the board that my pictures will hang upon. I'm shit at DIY and as we know from the Bard of Barking, "the laws of gravity are very, very strict". It could all end in tears.

P-put it to the test-o

He said 'What do you think about my manifesto?'
'I like a manifesto, put it to the test-o.'

Sultans Of Ping F.C.:Where's Me Jumper?

I wrote this manifesto (below) in 1982 and it still pretty much sums up how I feel about art and my art in particular. Everybody can be an artist. Nobody can tell you what is and isn't art and what you should like. Nobody can tell you how to enjoy art. Art is not exclusively for the elite. Art really needs to be democratised.

Meet Fred

This is Fred. He's a dapper dude. I suspect this is what passed for cool in December 1920, and it still looks cool today.

Who is he?

Well he's definitely a relative of mine. We* think he's Granddad Garrard's brother. If this is so it makes him my great uncle. I don't ever remember meeting him. In fact I know virtually nothing about him. And in a way I'm fine with that. I'm not overly bothered about family history. I've done the odd thing on here about family but it doesn't figure greatly as a driving force in my life. I don't get the being tied genetically is more important than being connected with like minded people thing.

The gene pool is fickle and cruel sea, as It's interesting how someone as handsome as fred can mutate into an ugly bugger like me. Nature is without emotion.

I'm tempted to invent a fable around this photo and perhaps one day I will. But for now I'll let him rest in peace.

*My mother and sisters

Free ‘Money’ - Millions!

Would you like a free wad?

What must it be like to give away millions?*

What is money, anyway?

Money is artifice; a promise of a perceived value; an abstract concept. Its practical value can oscillate wildly, particularly in uncertain times.

What is art?

Art is in the eye of the beholder.

Is art currency?

Only if you want it to be. Like money art has value if you believe it has value. The minute you stop believing it’s all worthless. But of course art can have value way beyond any recognised monetary worth; an aesthetic, cerebral or decorative value. Think about it!

The great currency give away

I’ve designed my own artistic currency. There is no promise of any monetary value but if you like my art you may feel that it has a certain intrinsic value.

Each one of these folding sheets of paper ‘money’ is worth a million notes*. Up until now I’ve been printing out a few at a time and leaving them in strategic places as an experiment in found art. I leave them on trains and buses, in racks of leaflets, as extra tips in restaurants and extra donations in collection boxes, in library books, in pubs partially tucked under a beer mat and in other public places where they might be observed by the curious.

Would you like a free wad of this ‘cash’?

I’ve had several thousand printed so if you would like a wad at absolutely no charge to yourself then please contact me and I’ll send you a goodly supply of notes. Help spread the joy. Distribute them as freely as you wish. Feel like you are an eccentric millionaire. Guaranteed to break the ice at parties! Contact me and the ‘cash’ is yours. Be part of my art experiment.

*please note that this ‘currency’ has absolutely no guaranteed monetary value. The notes are purely works of art.

If you would like a free wad of artist cash, yes at absolutely no charge to yourself, then please fill in your name and address below and I’ll send you a goodly supply of notes. Help spread the joy. Distribute them as freely as you wish. Feel like you are an eccentric millionaire. Guaranteed to break the ice at parties! Apply now and the ‘cash’ is yours.

Fill out my online form.

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Why does society continue to ask the wrong questions?

Why is society so fixated with quick fix solutions to failed outcomes, rather than truly questioning the diverse root causes of a particular problem? Things can only ever be improved if we are brave enough to think things through in greater detail than most people do now. Nothing is ever black and white. Answers are rarely simple, and on the odd occasion that they are society won’t accept them. Society doesn’t like the unpalatable ‘truth’. Society would rather blame a scapegoat than get to root causes.

All discrimination is evil. It only serves to divide society. Trying to right wrongs with other wrongs is wrong. It doesn’t work. Initially it might apply a superficial gloss and appear to be a solution but deep down, bubbling away will be the seeds of discontent, slowly seething and growing. Positive discrimination isn’t. It’s an oxymoron. Whilst the human race continues its fixation with competition there will always be discrimination in one form or another. Competition ensures that there are always winners and losers. Should we really label people losers? I don’t think so. Nobody should be considered a loser.

That brings me onto the over-hyped nonsense known as the Oscars. The recent comments and complaints about the racist nature of the Oscars along with Charlotte Rampling's reported opinions on the matter are all ignoring the obvious. Why is society not questioning the misguided need to have competitions right across the arts? The ‘best of’ label applied to any art form is totally without any validity. Appreciation of the arts can only ever be subjective. Popularity is never a measure of quality. There are no quality standards in the arts and any attempt to apply them is pure artifice. ‘Good’ or ‘bad’ can’t be applied to the vocabulary that describes the arts. Unfortunately many people can’t seem to cope with abstracts. They bizarrely have to categorise and objectivise the arts. But it doesn’t have to be this way. So rather than this smoke-screen of great debate about who said what and the possible nature of the alleged inherent racism within the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences why is nobody questioning the need for the Oscars in the first place?

Let’s eradicate arts competitions as they have no place in a civilised society!

My top 10 list of 2015

At this time of year people like to review the previous 12 months and make lists about their favourite things, their least favourite things or things or events they believe to be significant. Why?

Newspapers and periodicals are full of them. They are easy; they fill space with very little effort. They are cheap, and in so many ways.

I don’t have a top ten list. It’s all arse!

Time is essentially a manmade constraint and calendars are just a tool to falsely measure it in a very arbitrary way. We don’t live our lives like chapters in a book so why pretend otherwise? In my opinion it’s all to make things tidy in our minds. Filing for those that can’t cope with the fluid nature of existence. It’s laziness.

Lists of favourite things would seem to be the worst of the genre; trying to measure stuff that can only ever be subjective is worthless, anal and crass. If I like something it doesn’t make it important to anyone else. Someone else might also like it, but popularity is just what it says on the box, it’s popular, which doesn’t make it better or worse than stuff that’s not as popular.

If chaos theory is to be believed, and I have no reason not to believe it, then a butterfly flapping its wings is a significant and therefore warrants a place on any list of important world events, but I doubt you’ll ever see it.

So come on people, lets shun this lists nonsense and accept the fractal reality of being. Break free from your filing. Get a life!