The Hand Book

 

This little video is a kind of summary of the “Meditations” – prints of my own hands in action – that I have done to date. I also think this is a fair summary of any “philosophy” that is behind them. What I don’t know is whether I drew on some personal well of ideas and attitudes to bring these things forth, or whether the ideas took form in the making of the prints. Something of both, I’d guess.

What did you do in the Corona Crisis, Daddy?

 

I’m getting prepared for this year’s Warwickshire Open Studios. I shall sign up whatever happens.

It has been a creative year for me and I think the impact of the coronavirus and government restrictions have taken my work in directions I hadn’t expected.

So here’s my first video for this year. It places some of the themes of my work in the context of our present malaise.

And to prove it...

 

Rugby Open 2020 has now been properly locked down past the scheduled closing date. But there is some online stuff beginning to happen.

 

 

Here’s a video of the exhibition with nobody there. You will spot my print around 30 seconds in.

Update on 7th January. They've added a nice online brochure in flipbook format and a form to vote for your favorite work. Both again on the Rugby Open 2020 page. And here's a direct link to the brochure you'll find me on page 18.

Update on 12th January. RAGM are keeping the exhibition on the walls until 17th April so will open it if-and-when they get the nod from government. Fingers crossed.

Dance of Death: The video!

To round the challenge off, I've put all the postcards into a slideshow, along with all the proofs so the images "develop" somewhat. All set to the soundtrack of me reading my verses. ("Oh, please! Not that!" you say), Hope you like it.

The art escapes

This fills my quota for Warwickshire Open Studios' #artweeksfromhome. As I said in the previous post, this began life as a “how-to” video. But I let the art take over and choose its own direction. Though its still a how-to, just requires some interpretation, is all.

In its first iteration, the video was approaching 5 minutes long and still seemed to be rushing its subject matter. Then I deleted some files accidentally. Time to stop. Time to do something else. That turned out to be the “Artist in Error” video. 

When that was done, I came back and thought, “Begin at the beginning.” Which immediately put me in mind of Under Milk Wood. Hence the poetry. And the opening line.

Art begets art as I often say. And this one has many ancestors. More than I will ever know.

When I showed the finished file to Feline, she said, “I WANT THIS AS A T-SHIRT.” Oh. Of course... I hadn't really thought of that until then. But it made total sense. So here it is on Feline and Strange's shirtee shop. (Also available as hoodie, bag or mug)

Portrait of an Artist in Error

"Meet the Artist" is one of the headings given by Warwickshire Open Studios for our little videos for #artweeksathome. What should I show in such a video?

I decided this was a place to tell you how a past event maybe affected my current practice, and how, yes, I've always been "like that."

The movie!

Well, it's a slide show, really.

With Warwickshire Open Studios going virtual this year, they have encouraged the artists to add some video to their profile. The WOS people will then try and create some buzz during the Art Weeks fortnight to try and pull some traffic in. We shall see how it all pans out.

I'd not done anything with the video editor that comes standard with Windows before – it's basic, but ably does the job. I'm pretty pleased with it. And when I asked Feline if it would be OK to use her music, she really liked it, too.