A Work of Art

Heston Blumenthal's Christmas experience.



Christmas special: Wednesday 19 December, 8pm. BBC2.
Heston turned his attention to the biggest meal of the year, Christmas dinner, in this episode. His six guests all had one thing in common - a genuine love of food - and Heston's aim was to make them feel like children again, albeit with some very sophisticated tastes. When Terry Wogan, Kirsty Wark, Dara O'Briain, Rob Brydon, Richard E Grant and Sue Perkins arrived, they had no idea what to expect.

What they received was pure Art you could eat.

The Last Day...

...at work. With Friday off I can feel the bubbling optimism and joy sweeping through me. Christmas is marvellous but the greatest part is that I don't have to go to work. Yes I know that on January 3rd I will feel terribly depressed but that is in the future, far far away. At five o'clock this evening I hit the point where (apart from my annual Summer vacation) I have the maximum holiday in front of me.

Of course I assume I will be called upon (willingly I add) to do my share of sprout-peeling, toilet-cleaning and grocery-buying but my mood can be neither dimmed nor derailed. I tell myself I will dust my running shoes off, unpack my sketchbook and prepare my creative juices to explode into the vacuum. Usually it pans out to twelve days in an armchair stuffed full with calorific danger (me, not the armchair) with the only exercise being the lifting of the remote control to pause the sky plus whilst I do any business (pouring a drink) before returning to the cricket or the football.

I do without doubt, when faced by "spare time" always feel the urge to stretch my imagination, to write the great northern novel or paint the definitive study of Sheffield at dusk (or whatever). I know these desires are in there inside me struggling to manifest themselves. Even if they have not surfaced during the first 49 years it doesn't mean they might not suddenly escape. (image of Steve McQueen on his bike in "The Great Escape"). The truth is more likely to be that if I perform one task this holiday it will be to reduce the number of bookshelves surrounding the marital bed in the master bedroom. It feels like we are sleeping in a crowded, badly-designed Waterstones and I swear the books talk to me. I often will wake up and think where is that book, (for example, called Adam's Navel) governed by a totally irrational need to use this certain book and of course I can't find it. A reorganisation of reading matter would be helpful therefore to improve access to the books, to allow a deeper and more restful sleep (as being half-deaf I wouldn't hear the books talking in the night if they were in the attic), and to see what colour the wallpaper is (or was).

When I was at boarding school and I was longing for the holidays (and in a previous reincarnation of my current job when I was really, really unhappy) I use to create a chart to count down the hours until I would be free. When an hour went past I would tick it off (or colour the square in) first on a sheet of paper then on an excel spreadsheet (for recent bad times). Obviously overnight I would colour in an entire eight hours which make me feel far happier. This was not really born out of manic depression (although the citalopram does probably help) but rather from a sense of knowing that what I really wanted to do was not in that place but in a room of my own.

Therefore in these future twelve days (at present mercifully free from any extraneous commitments) my time is my own. Whether it is to write the Great Northern Novel or to paint the definitive study of Sheffield At Dusk (or whatever) these days seem to hold the possibility of promise. These twelve days also contain five lottery days, upon which numbers permitting, this delicious sense of freedom might (however unlikely) be extended even farther into the future. When I wake up I wake with the feeling of relaxed optimism. There will be no nausea of adrenalin surging through my body as I prepare to move through the days governed by management, by society, by convention or by pretence. Shackled by work and by fiscal famine (the necessity of one forcing the other) the day-to-day existence, the feudal servitude will be lifted for the holidays. For my twelve days of Christmas my motivations will be internal as opposed to external, ambitions genuinely fed by my perspective rather than anyone else's. I will arise and go and I will think "What shall I do today ?". The limitations are mine and I could ask for nothing more.

Getting it down on paper....

This is a probably futile attempt to organise my thoughts regarding all the creative ideas and concepts which make an impact upon me. How to structure what is thought or done or discarded should, in effect, when collected explain a great many of the complex narratives which in turn reveal the creative life of the individual. As a writer and artist whose initial drive is directed towards recording on paper and preserving for posterity (really ? he asks himself). In fact the intimate artistic history of impulse, impetus and imposition would definitely seem to make the base foundation of the examined life that of the Journal. Whether that can successfully record both stream of consciousness and external stimuli is a cunning plan born out of the mind of a collector and a creator.

How many of us lie awake at night with our brains fizzing with world-shatteringly brilliant dreams and need to write it down if only to grab some semblance of peace and quiet. Sometimes the idea is fine, sometimes it is rubbish but other schemes and schedules can easily develop out of this miasma of half-considered and semi-understood desires. If I had a copy of every doodle I had ever made or every quotation that ever attracted my attention, every book read and painting admired, every garden planned or rearranged would it help the process of creating art. I tend to regard every artistic or creative endeavour as being in some way linked. I like to keep archives of photographs that carry meaning. Imagery from magazines that arrests my attention. The thousands of volumes in my library that serve as a repository of reference material. I hoard pebbles, rocks, pieces of driftwood; all with colours and textures that for some reason have found a place in which to rest. The link between these collections and the creation of new art may possibly be argued for and be supportable (even if not immediately self evident) but the average person on the street who demands a "use" for an item might well be baffled.

The struggle towards creativity however has little to do with the concept of "average" and as in so many struggles what is most obvious is the confusion. It is in order to access the individual strands that combine intellectually, psychically, spiritually and even physically to create an artistic anything that I try to anatomize the elements of my own individuality. Yes it is self-absorbed but it looks both ways inwards and outwards. I am looking for connectivity between areas of interest and searching for the alliances between images collected and concepts explored. It is both academic and emotional moving between differing disciplines and entering into the shadows of areas not so seriously studied. Out of this navel-gazing and creative-stalking of myself I hope and aim to find out more about who I am and what I can do. If it reflects other elements of the environment that has designed me then so be it but this is a personal pilgrimage with all the overtones which that term can carry. To find the crux of creativity can bring both angst and absolution. To discover an intimacy of identity can forge either integration or isolation. To listen to the voices in your head and by mapping those personal perspectives you may begin to find a series of different directions in which to travel. The process is in the Journey.

Approaching Resolution....

Kneeling meekly, settled on our sofas and watching Strictly Come Bloating We approach the season of Celebrations, dedicated to the patron saint of corpulence; St. Slimfast and the divine message of conspicuous and abundant consumption, we prepare to initially destroy our bodies and then decide (really, really decide) to transform them into the strong, sculpted and toned Godlike physiques we know that are lurking under all that pale white flab. This is the time of resolution. The time when the diary can assume an even greater significance because it demonstrates most clearly both our strengths and our weaknesses, our successes and our failures.

Last year I bought a five-year diary with each page having five spaces on it in order to give (at the end of the demi-decade) a comparative perspective of the changes both physically, mentally and spiritually which I had achieved. 2007 was to be the start of what the Russians called a five-year plan. At the very least, I honestly believed it would recall my running times and the evidence of my fight against the evils of fatbastarditis.However and unfortunately the shameful history of 2007 (so far) are the details of a paltry, puny five runs; [in miles] 0.4, 0.4, 0.61, 1.725 and 0.4 - a magnificent total of 3.535 miles. Yes, my capacity for statistical analysis is still burning powerfully even if my motivation is cooling. However with the rationalisation of the upcoming resolution period I tell myself if I NOW start training seriously I would still never be able to meaningfully alter those statistics anyway. I tell myself they would serve better as a benchmark of indignity and having confessed (here, now, in public) I will swear to do better next year. Like writing a diary for the first week in January and then giving up I will dedicatedly and determinedly fight through to at least March. In fact having never started my five-year diary last year at all I can make 2008 the new beginning of the five-year plan and with similar skills to those Soviet apparatchiks who designed such plans in the first place I can rewrite history to fit a complete new set of facts.

Optimistically then I foresee an immediately successful year. Indeed I can probably do more mileage in one run (relatively easily) than the whole of 2007 (perhaps with a lie-down after). So 2008 will be a better running year than 2007.Additionally If I finish one drawing or painting in 2008 which I am pleased with (enough to keep) that will also be an improvement. The truth is that my expectations are so incredibly low (to match my running incredibly slow) that the future is rosy or rose-tinted at least. In the year 2008 I will be 50. England expects everyman to do his duty and I expect to do better. I expect to do more, and I expect to do it faster. I speak these words as I write them with the solemn catechismal pronunciation of the new believer - with a faith-restored and belief-bolstered conviction that things can only get better. [cue music and lights]......

Identity. Who you are.... The Examined Life

If somebody (for whatever reason) was given the task of trying to understand how I think or who I am (or was);(although why anyone would want to do such a thing I cannot imagine) how would they go about the task ? Bearing in mind modern security warnings regarding identity theft there are clearly many ways to go about this endeavour but I am approaching it from the perspective of the individual wishing to lead "an examined life" as opposed to that of a potential stalker sizing up his next target. If you are a stalker however this may well be of help to you and if you are contemplating identity theft I would seriously reconsider your choice of individual. Incidentally now that all our personal details have been so generously distributed by our own government if you are seeking financial security it must be pointed out that there is very little money actually in my bank account. It was however empty before they lost the discs with the details on them. You are free to take over the debts though if you want.

It is said that if you look at somebody's bookshelf you can get an idea of their character. Does this also apply to the polymath or the renaissance man - adept at a multitude of tasks and skilled in them all? What does Stephen Fry's library look like ? Millions of books in front of you or just a select few ? Could it not mean that the person is just a book collector ? How they are organised gives the investigator another clue ; strict alphetical order, in dewey-decimal ranking or just a lumping of all the blue covered books together. (Or worse - a combination of everything) What does that signify ? Do we see the glimmerings of an obsessive personality ? Are the books annotated ? Do they look well-thumbed ? (Although I can't say I use my thumbs much when reading.) Are the favourite books separated ? Which books are next to the bed ? Which books are on the desk ?

Are there any diaries, notebooks, letters ? In this electronic age is there a laptop with an online diary or a blog (hastily written, in snatched episodes whilst supposed to be working) ? Emails saved in bizarrely-named folders, paintings or posters on the walls, objets d'art or just found materials scavenged from interesting walks along the river bank. Is there a special place where the individual "nested" ; a den where the person could surround themselves with the necessities of life like music, coffee or the regalia of past endeavours both successful or not ? The old baseball glove, the juggling balls, (the deduction of meaning). Consider the samurai sword and tea set bought whilst seduced in the middle of reading Shogun and brought down from the attic after watching "Kill Bill".
Do the shelves illustrate a past history of collecting and interests - endless possibilities from gardening books to cooking books, from tropical fish to almost every sort of art and craft imaginable. Even the boxes of bookmarks including those small leather types which say something like "Welcome to Conisbrough Castle". In other words Where have you been ? Clearly as I write I picture somebody watching me trying to imagine what I am like. To see yourself as others see you is a difficult project. Am I a butterfly flitting from idea to idea with no purpose or future or goal ? Or is everything linked in some vast cosmic network that at some point in time will come together, will slot into place with a vigorous and exquisitely screamed Eureka.

I am unsure exactly how many people out there in cyberspace can, could, would or will even read this. Nor is this the reason for its writing. Neither am I sure what that reason is though. I feel like writing. I know I am not really confident enough to advertise it beyond simply leaving it out there exposed (freudian choice of word) for the universe to read. I keep hoping an interesting comment might be wending its way towards me to reassure myself I am not simply talking to myself but then again in the nature of the examined life that might be highly desirable. Perhaps one day I may even surprise myself. Can one surprise oneself ? or can only others do that to you (or for you) and the madness comes steadily, stealthily closer. Muttering to itself whilst you sit there writing a conversation with yourself.

Under the Weather

As Winter approaches and the evenings draw in the world of sniffles descends upon the unwary bystander. The lack of sunlight the scientists tell us is responsible for the darkness of our moods and our tumblings into misery and depression but our pagan animal instincts also move us towards the possibility of conserving our energy and even hibernating. The thoughts of huge open fires warmly inviting us to sit and stare into the flames are replaced by the functionality of the radiator and the central heating. Winter is however a time of not simply bland dormancy but hopefully recuperation. The garden sees a build up within the soil of the energy that the increasing Spring light levels and warmth will trigger to begin the cycle again.

This Wintry season is therefore a time of contemplation. It is a time to organise and to order (if possible) the chaos that surrounds us. I make lists; of ideas, of intentions, of schedules, schemes and plans. Not (for once) of world domination and how to spend my eight-figure lottery winnings but of simpler more creative concepts.
The death of Norman Mailer intrudes upon this solititude and those early discussions about the greatness (or otherwise) of the American Dream come flooding back. The potential (cruelly destroyed) of John F. Kennedy and his dreams for the Camelot administration pierced by an assassins bullet and decades of conspiracy theories. I remember considering this tragedy whilst reading "The Great Gatsby" and "The Catcher in the Rye" and thinking about the realities of the individual, the contributions each person can make and the impressions they can leave upon the world.

Winter is a time for such musings. In the semi-darkness the light can seem a long way away but cocooned within a nest of imagination, research and creativity the seeds of future productivity can be harnessed. If the outside is hostile then we can only retreat back inside - into an atmosphere which can sustain optimism and (to use a word sometimes corrupted by religious overtones) Hope. Under this duvet of re-invigoration the future may be mapped and in the strands of art or literature a vision may be glimpsed. There are no guarantees, of course sterility and stagnancy are by no means seasonal. It is as perfectly possible to fritter away the Winter as it is the Summer but because the weather and the climate and the immediate environment itself prevents alternative perspectives the best of all worlds is to rest and recover. To recoup the strength required and to plan your work under the weather, in the eye of the storm and in Spring; to come out running.

Beguiling....

Art which places you here........

In this world we inhabit where people are continually labelling and categorising everything and everybody. Where lists of the top ten or bottom ten are spread across our cultural radars. Where the omniprescent use of the sound byte indicates the perceived average attention span of the viewer or audience or congregation. Where influences are cited and homage equates with plagiarism. This image stands out. Borrowed off the Tate Britain web site this painting places Simon Patterson in the constellation of his own individual universe.

Is it reasonable to think of it as a directional mapping leading to a referenced framework from which something (or anyone) may emerge. There is no visible named linkage between the artist and his painting - no explanations of how or why or where decisions were made; no naming of names in any expected order. He gives no criteria to elucidate his choices. He grants no special favours towards his viewer or chooses one line above another. He offers the flat surface of the classic Underground plan and subverts it into something much much more. It is titled The Great Bear, a major constellation in the night sky that with the relevant astronomical knowledge would allow any traveller in a particular place to know where he is. It is, however far more than merely a signpost or a compass.

Neither is it an anonymous image. It does reveal the shadow of the artist because it conveys a sense of personal identity both by and within the dramatis personae he uses and chooses. Each individual is selected, and positioned by the artist working, in effect as an individual himself therefore if his shadow is not visible then his presence still subtly haunts the building. The image conveys within it the idea of contemporaneity (NOW) and of [wanted and unwanted] heritage (THEN) delineating the past and the present along a linear sense of directional historical value(s). It is also geographical both in its spatiality - mapping routes and/or combinations that could lead to different universes of collaborative interaction and in the variety and numerous nationalities depicted. This is not simply a white anglo saxon or masculine only construct.

Simon Patterson in this painting has created a mind map which can answer the ultimate question What is the meaning of life ? This artwork serves to define and direct the viewer to a place where it is impossible to arrive at. The journey of life, moving continuously and continually towards its close with no idea of where we are going. This image can reveal places where influences interact and significance (signification) is given a measurement as a point along a pointless scale and the viewer, lost in a world of free will and opportunity is free to position himself. For those of us - the silent majority, unnoticed and unappreciated - without that fickle dusting of celebrity are able to imagine where we reside, not on the lines but in the blankness between them.

Even from the distance of 2007 its relevance can miraculously carry on growing in meaning the viewer can with imagination extend the given lines along existing networks or create new ones to encompass new influences and dynamics. The viewer would be able to include the modern greats and not-so-greats that have since burst into life so that this image will effectively become one immortal web. This idea, born in the image, still can and does illustrate the world to the world. All it requires is for the viewer to place his mark upon it; shouting or murmuring, scribbling or spraying, using a big red arrow or a miniscule footnote, the slogan I AM HERE....

Crisis Management

When mistakes are made, when apologies are offered and when self-esteem plummets how do we survive. After doing the unthinkable and breaking the laws and rules that govern civilised behaviour we ask ourselves questions. They start at the very lowest rung of the ladder ; do we try to re-climb the ladder or stay at the bottom. If we decide to try to climb HOW do we do it. Shyly and tentatively or brazenly and arrogantly. My impulse is to hide both physically and psychologically. To bury myself where I cannot be seen and pointed at as if the guilt is/was emblazoned on my forehead. Of course the old adage states life must go on and like the counselling sessions where one is asked Have you ever harmed yourself or thought about suicide you sense the immediate reaction. Oh God no. But the question in turn makes you think about whether you could. Like standing on the edge of a cliff and looking down and wondering. Or standing at the edge of a busy road one step from destruction and contemplating Notness. Of not existing. The temptations of a peculiar sort of freedom but they offer no continuing sense of, well, enjoying oneself. And the fact that pleasure is still a possibility rather than an entitlement suggests to me there isa desire not to finish the last chapter with a cliffhanger.

So to face those demons we climb and we do it more slowly, more carefully than we have ever done before. Knowing that the ladder may not be firmly secured and knowing in our loneliness that we must accept the blame for that although in different circumstances behaviour is doubtlessly modified. One step at a time. Gently does it.
The dream is still there. Faded and flickering. HOW is important. WHY is interesting. Although busted it can still be rebuilt. HOPE survives......I hope.

About looking and seeing....

The easel is set up. The pencil is poised. Where to start. At this point STOP. Look at the subject. REALLY look at it. Concentrate. Forget the details. Forget the exciting focal point of the image. Even if that is the most interesting part - indeed perhaps it is the reason you chose this subject in the first place. Ignore the subtlety of colour and form and texture. Look at the object in front of you. See it AS IT IS. Examine the overall composition of it. Try to see the general shapes that make up its basic construction. Sphere or cone or cube. See how they relate to each other. Picture the volume enclosed within it. Imagine the lines that describe its contours even those invisible to you at the back of the subject. Acquire an understanding of how space is broken by that object sitting within it as if the air surrounding it was the only revealing fact that showed there was an object there. Some artists acquire these "looking" skills by using this delineation of negative space to allow the outlined form to be revealed. This style of drawing avoids the cartoonifying of a sketch and producing a clumsy bordering for an outline for a drawing that if it IS incorrect in its structure will destroy the integrity of the artwork. Even using the lightest touch possible with a hard pencil to sketch in an outline allows into your drawing a mindset that is not natural. Shape, form and texture are not functions of solid line.
Similarly examine the colours of the subject or object. Do not rely on your knowledge of that subject to allow it to provide the tonal ranges as a cursory inspection may reveal. Take your time. A blackboard in the shade is a different colour to a blackboard in full sun and neither is black. Don't paint the green bottle without the reflections which change that green colour to whatever is revealed and reflected in it. In other words every object is part of its context and those surroundings impact on it as a subject but that object also impacts on those surroundings. In a landscape colours and shadows grant meaning that allows the eye to make sense of the image in terms of a particular kind of reality. To paint and sketch is to allow oneself to be drawn into a closer examination of this reality which in turn helps to make sense of other areas of artistic truth. To give oneself this possibility of a new understanding of both life and art is to uncover a potential that great artists recognise immediately but us mere mortals need to learn. And it IS a matter of learning - learning to slow down, to study, to try to see what IS in front of you NOT what you THINK is in front of you. Between this collaboration of muscle memory and intellectual rigour a new sense of artistic reality can be forged and the complexity of even the simplest object can inherit a new and stunning beauty that was, in fact, always there in front of you but never seen before. Open your eyes and look again. And again. And again.

Bewitching

Landscape 101.i

Jonathan: I want to fly where no seagull has flown before. I want to know what there is to know about life!

Father, Mother: Son, this may not be the best life, but it's all we know.
Jonathan: There's got to be more to life than fighting for fish heads!

[the Elder banishes Jonathan from the flock]
The Elder: You are henceforth and forever outcast!

Jonathan: Listen, everybody! There's no limit to how high we can fly! We can dive for fish and never have to live on garbage again!

Chang: Heaven isn't a place; heaven is perfection.

Chang: Perfect speed isn't moving fast at all; perfect speed is being there.

Chang: I've gone everywhere and everywhen I can think of...

Chang: To fly as fast as thought to anywhere that is now - you begin by knowing that you have already arrived...

Chang: I am a perfect expression of freedom, here and now.

Jonathan: You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now - and nothing can stand in your way!

Jonathan: I only wish to share what I've learned - the very simple fact that it is right for a gull to fly!

Jonathan: The only true law is that which sets us free.

Wisdom 101.ii

"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so."
--From Hamlet (II, ii, 115-117)

The Meaning of Life..... and Everything.......

The quick and easy answer as everyone knows is 42 (and not to panic). Evolving from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy this posits us (the earth) as part of a gigantic computer program designed to discover that very answer. The point is that it assumes an investigative mode of behaviour and by placing the question in the guise of a comedy places existence firmly in the field of the surreal. Perhaps this is not so far from the same existence being explained in terms of the pantheon of Ancient Greek Gods interfering in the mortal lives of their subjects. Both of these are explanations that put the basic responsibilities for life and its meanings on the shoulders of giants (or at least higher beings with differing senses of responsibility). Us, as puny mortals, are at the beck and call of outside events - the whims of fate.

In the literary novelistic worlds of the human hero the meaning of life is deduced from the actions of the combatants of existence. To do one's best in the face of overwhelming odds. To boldly go where one is told to go and perform as and when required. It may even be the heroism of the ultra-ordinary that is celebrated. Reginald Perrin trudging faithfully into the anti-heroic world of Sunshine Desserts every morning down those streets named after the greatest poets in the English Language. Perhaps the meaning of life is measured in terms of the rise and fall of individuals, of civilisations, even of celebrity.

Another option lies in the meaning of the examined life. Making sense out of the inexplicable. The song of the philosopher struggling to describe mankind (and womankind) to itself. The navel-gazing or the star-gazing, both activities requiring knowledge, vision and mental strength to face what may turn out to be a big fat existential nothing.

My own personal choice lies in the making of beauty and truth (or Truth and Beauty). To describe what you can see or what you wish to see. To create a culture or an image that serves to define that decision to explore. The meaning of life would then be more about the process than the result. In terms of the written word or the making of marks the resulting works of Art would (could, should, might) reveal the nature of existence. It can illustrate the framework in which we find ourselves, the time and space and nature that surrounds us and in turn reflects our options, our opinions and our operations to understand that universe of being. The meaning of life is personal, private, public, profound, and punctuated by confusion. In the pauses and the clauses of existence life may be as obvious and as misused as punctuation. We eat, shoot and leave.

Autonomy

The image is that of the private detective; the loner; walking the mean streets - righting wrongs, defending the weak and helpless and doing so whilst remaining frightfully uber-cool. The modern image of this chivalric ideal has been rewritten many times but it still holds within it the element of heroism that Literature, Film, Society and Culture all in general can recognise. For myself the Spenser novels of Robert B. Parker demonstrate these qualities par excellence.

Spenser the eponymous hero of the series is now a middle-aged but still strong figure. As the series has developed the physicality of his force has changed - he uses violence only when necessary and never seems to glory in its accomplishment. His powers of persuasion and detection have also subtly altered to include seemingly opposite perspectives from his long-term love interest Susan (The Psychologist) to his brutal enforcer-friend Hawk (The Executioner). Spenser's path (and by inference Parker's) seem to travel between these points. His regular heroic characters portray a stillness around their own centrality. They are confident. They have learned from experience and maturity. They are autonomous without the arrogance of condescension or the unreality of the isolated hero. They are self-sufficient in their autonomy but they accept the need for the beauty and the passion of an outside commitment; whether to truth or beauty or even an individual. Spenser would not shrivel away if Susan died .(Indeed she did leave him in an early book). He would contemplate events and feel sad but I would expect hime to move on. Stoically but with style.

The Godwulf Manuscript (1973)
God Save the Child (1974)
Mortal Stakes (1975)
Promised Land (1976)
The Judas Goat (1978)
Looking for Rachel Wallace (1980)
A Savage Place (1981)
Early Autumn (1981)
Ceremony (1982)
The Widening Gyre (1983)
Valediction (1984)
Catskill Eagle (1985)
Taming a Seahorse (1986)
Pale Kings and Princes (1987)
Crimson Joy (1988)
Playmates (1989)
Stardust (1990)
Pastime (1991)
Double Deuce (1992)
Paper Doll (1993)
Walking Shadow (1994)
Thin Air (1995)
Chance (1996)
Small Vices (1997)
Sudden Mischief (1998)
Hush Money (1999)
Hugger Mugger (2000)
Potshot (2001)
Widow's Walk (2002)
Back Story (2003)
Bad Business (2004)
Cold Service (2005)
School Days (2005)
The Hundred Dollar Baby (2006)
Now and Then (2007)

Looking in Mirrors

Once upon a time I was a runner. I was never incredibly fast. I never travelled faster than a speeding bullet or leaped tall buildings in a single bound - but I enjoyed running. For many reasons I stopped (and started and stopped) running, even jogging (which is/was a more accurate description). Unfortunately my body thinks I still burn off the calories and that increased rate and that glutton inside myself has not told my body. In fact (as in pregnancy) I am eating for two - Chris the runner and Chris the couch potato - and it makes the thought of trying to change these habits harder. I now weigh 16 stone 4 pounds. At my pre-Transplant running weight (1993) I weighed 10 stone 8 (1 stone underweight as befits the serious runner). I would like to get to 11 stone.

Therefore I advertise my intention here. From the 1st of October I am deciding to diet, to exercise, and to stop biting my nails. I have taken that ultimate deterrent ; the semi-naked body picture of the Before (posed frontally and in profile) and it is not a pleasant sight. [Don't panic I have no desire to put it online]. I hope to take an After (the diet) picture that will allow my self-image to recover. I will keep a food diary and an exercise log and will record either my progress or the lack of it. In my high mileage days one of those books written to inspire and encourage me used to suggest that the runner should check in shop windows to watch his form. This means that I would be leaning slightly forwards not backwards, that my arms were carried low, with hands loose rather than clenched into fists. That my arms moved forwards and backwards as opposed to crossing my chest and restricting my breathing. Finally that my face was relaxed and preferably smiling. The image in my mind was the slow motion image of Steve Austin (the 6 million dollar man) striding through the city - the slow motion interestingly conveying the notion of high speed athleticism.

In reality I found recently that I do actually move in slow motion (but not cinematically) and that my face, rather than being illuminated by a smile is contorted into a grimace, a rictus of pain. I convey nothing but an image of a fat plodding potential heart attack victim out tempting fate. I will need to tell myself that it will get easier in time and that simply taking exercise carefully and slowly is at least a beginning. It is the ASICS slogan that stands for "Anima Sana in Corpore Sano" (a sound mind in a sound body) that leads me to this optimistic frame of mind; rejoicing in the interconnectedness of my fitness with other elements of my life. In the past running has worked for me for many reasons, especially as a form of meditation and I hope it can do once again. If you see a lonely figure trudging along Rivelin Valley Road or around Damflask please feel free to lend encouragement. This man is trying to make a start, to fight the ravages of time and age and their pressures weighing on his much-maligned body.

Reinvention tension

When I win the lottery I will stay exactly the same. Nothing will change. This is the refrain often spouted towards the cameras as the so-talented beneficiary celebrates their good fortune. Personally I swear now, here, in public - I will definitely change as many elements of my life as I feel necessary. Please don't misunderstand me I won't swap Val for a younger model or insist on silicon implants (to either of us) but I will reconfigure the environment of my life.

The term is Reinvention and it comes with many problems. I don't mean the small changes like giving up smoking or even eating meat, or the style changes for image purposes. Those well-worshipped celebrity changes ; Madonna's chameleonesque transformations, Bob Dylan's decision to use an electric guitar, or Kylie's iconic shiftings from girl-next-door to siren to show queen. The true reinvention is a spiritual and psychological decision to restructure and reshape your life. Yes I would give funds to the hospital that granted me my kidney transplant in 1995 and buy my brother the house he will need when Noah is born but that is only the doing of things. With reinvention comes the chance to BE different, to be MORE, to be how and what you feel you could be.

For certain individuals this move may be brought upon them by personal crisis by the death of a loved one or the betrayal by a supposedly loved one. These reinventions are born out of pain and misery and at the time they feel only like survival - of moving from day to day and going through the motions. My own divorce involved no children and for the two of us the reinvention was helped by the fact that we realised the intelligent person we once loved was still intelligent but had simply made a decision. A decision that allowed friendship to remain and reinvention to begin whilst gaining the knowledge of who and what we were, are and might be.

Reinvention is about a realistic understanding of personal identity. It is about self-knowledge and self-worth. It is not the mid-life crisis or the adventures of hormonal change it is a thought process that, for me, would be a pleasure to undertake. In the (statistically unlikely) event of that monumental windfall or the (astronomically improbable) urge of a benevolent patron of the arts with a spare ten millions pounds to see me as the next great MABA (Middle-Aged British Artist [think Damien Hirst with Stickleback rather than Shark]) then my reinvention is going to be slow and steady. It will probably only begin when I retire whilst hopefully the body will still be holding together. This is the curse of the Working Man to (heroically) man the barricades day by day whilst internally one's mind is circumnavigating the globe or saving the rainforests.

I hear the brave people out there with courage to back up their conviction muttering about seizing the day and grasping the dream and perhaps in my unwillingness to alter my circumstances lies the very foundation of a conventional stagnation. This blog comes out of that stagnation and although it makes make little claim to be either a mission statement or a strategic plan there lies within it the potential to be both. Perhaps everybody somewhere sometime has these ideas unless their life is perfect and that seems to me to be unlikely. In the meantime plans are forming, seeds are growing, intentions are made or muddied, the world turns and gravity holds us in position. Reinvention is the mother necessary to change that position.

six numbers = ?

Wisdom 101.i

"Most of the world's ills, it seemed to him, were caused by men who believed themselves important: on a good day it always ended in tears, on a bad day in global destruction. Oliver was not a man to start a war or provoke pestilence: his icons were the makers of music, the tellers of tales, the clowns and the balladeers, and all who celebrated life's footnotes, appendices and afterthoughts."

Alan Plater, Oliver's Travels, Little Brown, London, 1994, p. 2

Self-Help and the Pregnant Pause

I like to think I can sort myself out. I keep thinking that if there is a question there must be an answer. Why do I think this ? Is there any evidence that suggests that resolution of our problems is imminent ? Or is it an inbuilt sense of boundless optimism resonant with the promise of Micawberesque possibilities that something will turn up. It is not simply a choice of option between the glass being half-full or half-empty because in other areas of my existence I display a fairly healthy dose of outright scepticism (if not cynicism).

Therefore I ask myself why do I purchase diet books or exercise books. Books on Yoga or Runes or Native American Medicine. Why are there boxes of cards supposedly to encourage creativity or to find one's soul or to encounter the truths of buddhism or meditation. Could it be the frantic graspings of a control freak coming to terms with not being in control of anything, particularly of his own surroundings. Self- help has come a long way since Samuel Smiles in 1882 advocated fine old values such as hard work and moral improvement. Self-Help as a marketing and publishing style has entered the new age of the individual far from the needs of societal enhancement. Perhaps when the day dawns that shows these two elements need to be reconnected will be when the world starts to be a better place. In the days when Church and State mattered to individuals in the sense that Life and Death matter self-help could rather simplistically be viewed as the Bible as the instruction book for those generations who chose it. And equally so every other Religion had their equivalents (with equal certainty and the power to enforce it).

In a way the modern concept of self-help is definitely more peaceful but it sows in its individualism the seeds of its own ineffectuality. In terms both of a more fractured philosophy of existence and in the disparate attitudes shown to global problems. If only one factor should intrude upon an individualistic autonomy of life it must be that of ecological stewardship. Self-help in a post Mad-Max world will be about self-preservation if the environmentalists cannot get their messages across. In a pregnant pause between thinking of a possible disaster and that catastrophe being pushed upon our grandchildren we need to create and nurture an unself-help that can save the world. It may be as simple as recycling and composting to begin with but voices need to be raised. In that pregnant pause before the birth of the idea whilst people are thinking - that is the time for one's self to provide the answer.

The Face that launched....

Keeping a Journal

When I was small I would be given a diary and for a few days or weeks I would write in it everything I did ; that is until I got bored with it and it became a chore. When I was fit and active (before this mysterious extra four stones appeared around my body like a cellulite rings of Saturn [Faturn]) I religiously kept a running log. And I mean religiously. Times were recorded to the minute, second, tenths, hundredths. What shoes were worn was recorded with the distance run for each pair (so if a pair dropped to bits you could compare performance). A subjective measuring of effort was noted as was the weather or any other data which might prove useful in gauging training for an event or analysing an injury.

Even when the running began to slacken off - I haven't given up - the running log has subtly changed its style and its relevance. It is a blending of what has been called in the past a "Commonplace" book - collecting quotations and reviews of books or television, a journal - where intimate thoughts (or not) are expressed, and an artist's ideas book. Postcards and images are kept. Random thoughts are preserved. It functions as a confidant, as an audience, as a trigger, as a resource for future writing, as a listing, as a repository for useless (and useful) information. It is an aid in understanding how I think and feel and act and make decisions and solve problems.

It is a form of presentation that is becoming far more widely used - from my daughters' school giving her a homework logbook to a Project Management tool to the online versions of the same. The Blogging generation with all the new found flexibility that technology can give are but an offshoot of this desire. Although I use this blog for many of the same purposes I do so in reference to my Journal. However the Journal is also Art in the sense of its objectival value. As a construct with aesthetic meaning that book form fits into a tradition that so far technology has not dimmed. As in the predictions that have been made saying that the Book is dead - the Screen Supreme - it has not happened. Francis Fukuyama's "End of History" has not happened. For many of us the book is an object to be treasured and touched. Indeed, even the smell of a new book (especially a glossy coffee table book)- the opening of a crisp new notebook to write in with its promising potential; these conjure up an image that encapsulates newness and freshness and the hint of a knowledge somehow sensually to be possessed and enjoyed. Imagine those Venn diagrams from early mathematics classes - the circles that overlapped creating sets and subsets. If the circles are "Me" , "Us" , "Them" , that section which contains all of those is the Journal. That is a position I try to keep it in.

To be creatively continuing

So I tell myself it is all about Process and not simply Production. Creativity is found in the unlikeliest places and not necessarily at the times when one is searching for it. "Being an artist" (and I admit I am only guessing) - a professional artist - is an occupation. It is not stereotypically as pictured ; the bearded emaciated figure high in his Parisian garrett waiting for inspiration to strike him. Writing has a similar romantic image but Terry Pratchett as a writer tries to produce a certain number of words per day and for the artist there needs to be a similar sense of discipline. Robert Genn's letters on "The Painters Keys" website illustrate this perfectly. (see http://www.painterskeys.com/ ). What is needed is a product that ideally will bring joy both to the creator and to the purchaser.

Within the process there are millions of traps to ensure that production is sidetracked. Reference books become more interesting than actually painting. The decision on the subject matter leads to a mindless doodling - usually into what is described, by myself, as "an abstract format" but by my intrigued daughter as bubbles or rocks or fingerprints. (That is three different styles I happen to use ; not one unrecognisable one.) Sometimes I simply tidy my art boxes out or reorganize my workstation. Is this art or creativity or I am still in "a building stage" and I will burst into profligate artistic nirvana any day now. Part of the problem lies in the act of possession.

I like to be ABLE to do something if I wanted. If I want to paint or draw or carve I can. I have the tools and the materials I have collected. They are waiting. With regard to subject matter I have collected cuttings from magazines - faces, eyes, images which shock and surprise, ideas that other artists have used which I admire, photogaphs which range from the iconic to the bizarre. I am intrigued by masks, by the concepts of individuality and identity, by the spiritual nature of everything from running to worshipping the sun. I like to possess the information to learn and to harvest that knowledge any time I choose in order to create something new. So far I realise I have created a library and an archive but as for creativity I believe that is somewhere within. I hope this blog may help me to think out loud and turning that churning morrass of ideas and instincts and intentions, that intensity of feeling into some artwork profoundly purposeful and poignant. The question is how to manufacture Creativity.

Making a Mark

Back in 1976 I took Art A level. I got an A. The examination consisted of a written paper on Architecture and three practicals in Life drawing, plant drawing, and a still life. Due to the fact that a practical examination lasting three hours would not give the examinee time to finish his work to an acceptable level it was figured that he would complete a small section to illustrate how it would have been done had he had more time.

It is now 2007 and I am 49 and I still have not finished one single drawing or painting I am happy with. Correction - if I am unhappy with it I throw it away long before it could ever be finished.

Why ? I admit I am a perfectionist. I admit I have a lazy streak. I admit my mind would rarely stay still long enough to finish a drawing. To finish any art. I admit to a flexible outlook that allows me to lower my expectations. I admit that I collect all the materials but then have no idea what subject to draw. I know what I don't want to draw. Is this a start. On one project at A level I remember I decided to create a pointillist poster of Laurence Olivier as Othello holding the incriminating handkerchief in front of Desdemona (Maggie Smith). It was A1 size. As time progressed I realised it was so slow A1 was Optimistic to say the least. It is now in a frame at home (unfinished) A5 with only Othello's face drawn. The idea was fine but the implementation was slow and basically, lost.

However I feel like I want to be creative; to draw, paint, carve, sculpt, design.
To be Continued.

Imagined Worlds

It has long been a criticism of the Science Fiction fraternity - the readers of it - that they admire this genre because of its escapist leanings (and, of course a real proclivity for dressing up and living the part - the Tolkien afficionado who speaks elvish or the Star Trekkie with his Vulcan pointed ears or his Klingon body armour). Science Fiction and the Fantasy genre has grown up. Perhaps it is even approaching respectability. The literary critics, those guardians of the canon can now not only place Tolkien in the 1940s and Star Trek in the 1960s/70s but can historically allocate many other writers and their works to a position in which other texts of the literature and the visual arts can now relate. It is possible to make the connection that these works can be seen as both indicative and illuminating of the environment in and out of which they were produced.

The imagined world is a difficult place novelistically to construct. Often requiring epic lengths to create the necessary detail yet in that obsessive delineation of minutiae they risk losing the reader. John Norman's Gor books spend so long advocating the misaligned nature of male and female that it begins to read like the fantasy of a hen-pecked husband. The words "pleasure-slave" do little to enhance the feminist ideology which obviously seemed to threaten the author. Another perhaps more endearing methodology of imagined creationism is to allow each volume to stand on its own but to cohere to an overall universality of design. The Discworld concept in its shadowing of the real world has the power to find humour in both worlds. Thematically this can run for as long as Terry Pratchett can still find targets that amuse him. Jasper Fforde aims at the even more self-referential vision of literature, both classic and popular. It helps to have read Jane Eyre but his first book entitled "The Eyre Affair" works well without it. Classic patterms of literary development still function in this genre Girl meets Boy. Girl loses Boy. Girl gets boy back but only, it turns out, due to Thursday Next. Christopher Booker's "Seven Basic Plots" are as inspirational to the beginning writer as Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces" was to George Lucas's Star Wars dream. For Fforde the pages of literature are ripe for the talents of a revisionist literary detective searching for her lost love.



Likewise Malcolm Pryce's Aberystwyth novels or Roy Clarke's Last of the Summer Wine, Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast or Christine Feehan's Carpathians they all convey in a microcosm the universe as their author sees it or would want others to see it. The popularity of each work further emphasizing that many other participants see it the same way. The accusations of escapism only block off an imaginative entry into these worlds - to see the honour in a work by the late great David Gemmell ; fighting against despair because it must be done - to see faith and loyalty in the words of James Barclay. The response of the reader to these works - to these worlds - is more than is termed a demeaningly described suspension of disbelief - it is a true spiritualised belief far from the religiose demands of compulsion - but not in broadswords and elvish heroes but in a humanistic capacity to improve and grow. Of course the book ends and the reader wends his weary way back to his life but inside him that affiliation to those higher qualities is still there and it only needs some trigger to harness it. We know we will be unlikely to face these heroic types of choices but we are shown the way. And we know the way. Read the instruction book carefully......


Afterthought...
The Pern books of Anne McCaffrey demonstrate this breadth of interest very clearly. From the original settlers decision to leave a crowded and strife-riven home planet to designing a system of government and opening up a new world with all its attendant crises. Where would one park one's dragon ?

Interpretation and Post-modernism

At school we learned things.
What we were taught was considered to be true.
After compulsory education, you were in the growing-up phase where you did things.
Just like I believed that the bible was the word of God so did I read about Boadicea (as she was then named), about German aggression and how the Empire was a civilising thing. I believed in fairness, truth and justice. I believed in elders and betters.

The world was never like this. Why was I lied to ? Why was my education inextricably intertwined with an ideology I now recognise as not just untrue but obviously untrue and patronisingly simplistic. Nobody told me this but now I see the glimmerings of the doubts beginning to appear. Approaching A-levels I remember how essay writing began to involve the use of the word "perhaps" and how one was encouraged to offer the differing sides of the argument. One still had to use that pompous tone of official authority but in hindsight the cracks were starting to appear. My history teacher told me that no-one needed to know the date of the battle of Waterloo and that History, as a subject, taught an individual to learn to think. Similarly, years later, at an Open University Summer School reading King Lear and the Literary Critics the varying interpretations of the text were offered and rather than judgmentally deciding that one was right and the others wrong I learnt to recognise differing degrees of "Rightness".

Although I make, even now, no pretence to either wisdom or knowledge, I can see in a text (whether it be news documentary, film, or book) the meanings that exist. Not a single meaning but many. The quality of that text is assessed by the accuracy or the emotional response engendered in the work. It is judged by the depth of its presentational awareness and by its avoidance of the banal, the sensational or the dogmatic. Truth is not a single authority nor can opinion be cast as fact. The truth of the fossil record destroys the basis of Genesis but the bible and its believers do tell of power, propaganda, misinformation and manipulation. The bible describes the voice of man rather than the word of God. The organised church, indeed all religions tell of governance and the belief that wanes as humanity both asserts itself and searches for comfort in an alienating, marginalised world.

As an individual I value my capacity to think and dislike it when it is assumed that I will routinely follow a pre-ordained path. I wish to choose my own direction and to power that search not with a cause that I will inflict on anyone else but out of a natural curiosity to find the option which I want to keep. I suspect that the answer to contentment lies in a blending of a multiplicity of skills, talents and thinking. I believe the first step on that search is to satisfy an individual's curiosity to create. The answer starts in that Creativity. And that creativity stems from.........

In the beginning

In the beginning -

There was not the word, there was not a bang, there was certainly no flash photography - there was probably only silence.

These thoughts are about Creativity, about Art and Culture, about Interpretation and Interrogation. It is about answering questions and questioning answers. It is about the narratives of Vermeer or the shadows of Rembrandt; the crow-dark imagery of Ted Hughes and the imagined worlds of Pratchett and Fforde.