Past Blogs for July 2011

In most instances, choosing the words for these pieces comes second.  I rifle though the pages of the encyclopedias until something screams ‘pick me’ at me.  I have no idea why it does, or why I think the words should go with the image, but I feel it in my bones.  Seriously – it’s like an act of divining. So can a man have show shadows?  Well, it must have something to do with flight in my head. *shrug*

As I’ve said before, we are off to Edinburgh for August, so I am away from my studio.  I hope I’ll be able to write something on here while I’m away.  Not necessarily poems, but I’ll try to send you some postcards.  When I think postcards, I think prose poems – same shape?  I like Charles Simic’s idea of a prose poem being like a fly trapped inside  room.  Maybe I’ll have a play around with that idea….maybe I will….buzz buzzzzzz….

I went into my studio yesterday for a pair of scissors and it didn’t recognise me.  It must be three weeks since I last did anything meaningful in there and it growled at me.  I am sure there are been further resin castings happening in my absence.  It must have grown tired of waiting for me.

We go up  to Edinburgh in less than two weeks for the whole of August for Martin’s show Whistle.  I am his technical support – I operate the visuals, and we will do the show every day save two, for the whole of the Fringe.  I have no idea how exhausted he/we will be by the end of it, but I am already looking forward to a holiday!

So my studio will need to wait a bit longer for me to remind it what we were doing before. Perhaps it will invent a password and deny me access till I say it three times.  I thought I would post something I made about a month ago, which kind of illustrates what’s been happening with time around here of late.

Further into my adventures in casting, I present to you some kind of a bird-child-creature.  I think she owes something to the Green Man, but she’s keeping mum on the subject.

This is a magpie feather from an envelope of magpie feathers given to me by my friend Matt.  It’s always good when people know you are on the lookout for materials, because some interesting things come your way.  My friend Paddy for example, found half a set of false teeth in her front garden (?!).  I haven’t got possession of them yet but they’ve got my name on.

I have used resin plaster for these hands and feet, which is whiter and denser and means more serious business than the type of plaster I used first.  Unfortunately, it only seems to come in small boxes.  Growl.

Translucency doesn’t photograph brilliantly, so let me talk you through this.  The hands and feet are cast in clear water resin, and left to right some objects set inside them as follows: an eye in a hand, a marble in a foot, a pinned moth in a hand, an eye in a foot, and a hand holding a tooth.  As ever, the words are from Aurthur Mee.

I have a stash of new materials on my desk I am yet to use – some watch faces, more dolls eyes and some magpie feathers.  They are calling to me as we speak, but I need to do some sensible things this week, like marking and finishing writing  a review for Poetry Salzburg Review. I head off to the lovely Ledbury Poetry Festival on Friday -I have a reading on Sunday morning, so I may not get to play with the new materials till after then.  I’ve just had to order a new trampoline, but that’s another story entirely.

Goodness – it’s been weeks since I’ve posted something new here!  Terrifying how Time’s winged chariot zips along.  And it’s actually been a few weeks since I’ve made anything new, so here is one I made earlier.  Martin had only just had the chance to photograph it.  As you will see, I’ve branched out considerably from my trusty square canvases.  These rectangles allow a sense of narrative.  I have no idea what the narrative is here –  the marbles would probably have something to say about it.  The hands and feet too, perhaps.

The hands and feet here are cast from fairly light plaster.  They are porous, and you probably can’t see from this image, they have a few air bubbles.  This made me cross at first – I wanted them perfect  – but now I rather like the fragile quality it gives them.  The marbles are antique and have their own bubbles and a few knocks from different stages in their lives.