I am thinking that the missing link in my work are words, they are the missing content to my earth scapes. I need to express the connection of landscape and emotion, I want to weave the emotional content in an integral way into the landscapes and make them a part of the process so that they become a whole entity, I want them to be my own words and to speak my own personal connectivity,and experience of terrain. It will be sometimes visible and sometimes not, like weather and just as random.

I am considering the emotional responce that we have to our environment, landscape, terrain et al. How do these places make us feel, we use such expressions as “a glorious view, sunset, vista, why and how do they make us feel this way. Of course it is subjective, we talk about loving a landscape, what causes this love, and our undoubted preferences for, sea, mountains, or woods. Landscapes inspire poets to wax lyrical, and songs to be sung in praise, and as this emotional responce drives my work, I am thinking that I need to address this very particular ellement, watch this space.

My latest creations are taking over my studio, and yet still they come, I am having to become more creative about drying times. It has been a long time since I last used my kiln and worked with glass, unfortunately, thats the problem you have when wanting to work with different media, I am beginning to think about glass again, so maybe the time is nigh, watch this space. However until then I continue with the forms, I gues until I completely run out of space.

I hold my breath so much when I am working, like a child sticking his tongue out to aid concentration, and then find that rather than die, there is a sudden exhalation.  I get so involved in process that however silly it sounds, remembering to breathe, is a problem. Working in my studio is like being in a bubble, and after an intence period of work it is sometimes quite a shock to lift up the head and connect with the outside world, and I suppose that is a problem for all creative lone workers. We are I guess happy in our own little world.

The work I am doing at present is oh so delicate, I have a lot of dificulty in initial stages in forming the spheres as gesso is liquid that has to harden, and only ammasses strength with build up of layers, and so if not supported by framework will fracture. This has happened over the last week several times, I am working much more cautiously now, and have got past the danger stages on several pieces. I am concidering the final forms as the spheres are evolving organically, and they are the counterparts to the earth series panels, the 3D version. It is nesessary to have a series of tasks so that drying time can be usefully filled, but not wth the dreaded ‘paperwork’.

I have been so busy in my studio I havnt done my blog, so I have forced myself to sit down and quickly give an up date. It has been good to get back in the studio, and it is also good to get into the mind set that goes with it. I feel completely divorced from the general hubub of normal life and it is like a kind of meditation. Studio time is a physicality that takes in subconscious mental processes, and an ability to tap into a mind body connection. I have been working on spheres, small generally, and playing with texture, applying layers, allowing drying time, and building up.

Having completed shed loads of mind numbing paperwork, I am now allocating myself studio time and time to play, this is the part that makes all the boring stuff worthwhile. tomorrow I shall head to the shed and give myself some headroom to experiment and just to see what comes out. I want to play with some 3D shapes and make a mess with no pre-prescribed parametres. I intend to push my media, and in particular gesso to its physical limits, and to look at strengthening with various materials. If I can get some images on this blog then you will be able to check my progress, should be fun. I am hoping to write my posts each monday, as when possible, so lets see where a week takes us to

I was caught looking through a book at images of earth patterns and was accused of being a geek, well! I didnt think that the title was appropriate to me and said so. However on reflection I gues I am, when I consider that I have been looking into and researching the same topic for the last 3-4 years. It all began when I was at Sunderland studying for my MA and became interested in colour in relation to landscape and became interested in our emotional responce to nature and colour for example a sunset. This gradually became an interest in such stuff as fibonatti and his mathematical codes in nature, this led to universal patterns within natural forms, and then onto patterns of the earth when created by formation such as erosion, impact, eruption, and so on, so I suppose that I am obsessed. I cant help but be facinated by the sometimes amazing shapes that are formed, over such vast distances, like a mountain range for instance, and through the eyes of modern technology like satellites we get a chance to view these earthscapes from a view point never possible a few years ago. How amazing, and of course good reason for obsession, no apologies given for being A GEEK

Back to work after a long summer lay off, and it began with cleaning out my studio and getting it ready for work again, hoovered, and  scrubbed down. I tend to start off tidy, and then as the creative juices start to flow it gradually decends into a jumble of tools, equipment, notes, and work in various stages of completion, depending of course on process. Very quickly every surface becomes loaded and various pieces of work precariously stacked, whilst drying, or setting. I have intensely enjoyable periods of creative roduction, followed by harrowing periods of paperwork. I know I havesuch a period well overdue and I would rather clean the bowels of hell, but unfortunately I have no such option at present. However, this week I am going to be good to myself, and have a paperwork week free.

I have been organising publicity/promo literature and bumf, for myself for a coming art show,which I have to say does concentrate the mind, what images do I want, what do I want to say, how do I want to portray myself and my work. Good questions? They are a necessary evil, another job to be done that isnt doing your work. This is a task where a dual personality is a definate bonus, one that looks from a business point of view and the other looks from an easthetic viewpoint. When gathering together this material a few calculated judgements have to be made, for example, a leaflet with images, with titles, prices? , and/or do I need to put an artists ‘statement’? The latter is a bone of contention with many “creative’s”, some like to have one with their work, whereas others absolutely hate them with a passion. I suppose I stand in the middle on this one, as I really loathe some of the really pretensious drivel that some people write, but sometimes find a few well chosen words can give an in, to some possibly complex works. I digress, I must continue with my own beautifully formed drive, so that I can get back in my shed!!! sorry, I meant studio, of course.