I spent the first full day at Chelmsford designing the new Smallest Theatre in the World. The college is so well equipped and everybody is very friendly too. Makes a pleasant change from watching paint dry all on my own. My plan is to make a flat pack, touring friendly version out of welded Ali square tube with painted panels attached.

I’ve made two 1:5 scaled maquettes of the structure today, and now am looking forward to the fun part which is designing the scenic painting to go on the panels.

This is the seconf one I made, a tapered structure which I think may give us more opportunities to play with perspective and viewpoint.

A couple of interested students dropped by and it would be really good to get them submitting models as well. This project is a very interesting use of visual thinking because it’s entirely subject to the logic of a performance – it’s definitely NOT another art show. The structure and the appearance has to work as a performance space, and I’m learning what a subtle discipline that is. I really love the way it is totally audience focussed. The Lemmings, like all actors,  always think about who they are playing to. Visual artists sometimes spend unhealthy amounts of time thinking about what they are playing with….

Here’s some links – If you are interested in the AA2A scheme or Chelmsford College. 

Day in London tomorrow which will involve buying more paint at Atlantis (you can’t be too careful) topped off with the fundraiser for the Smallest Theatre featuring live performance by the Joe Fleming Band

The last couple of months have been entirely devoted to painting. A wonderful, perplexing, slow motion dance which has filled my thinking with substance and touch as much as with looking and ideas. It mostly feels like learning to fly. Much time spent crunching inelegantly along the ground until suddenly I’m airbourne. Nobody more surprised than I am. Suprisingly, remaining airbourne is much easier than taking off. The next question is how long to stay up. It’s so easy to get that wrong, overcook the painting and crash back to the ground. This means I spend the next day sifting through wreckage and hoping to find treasure. But sometimes I’m brave enough to trust the mark I made, leave it well alone and am greeted the next morning by some work which is breathing on it’s own, an independent life form ready to tell me where to go next.

One welcome unintended consequence of all this time watching paint dry is that I spent the last two months almost completely free of social media. The time freed up by that was spent actually being social which was nearly as much fun as painting. But as you may know I rarely stay quiet for long, so here’s my report on progress so far in the Cabinet of Lemmings project. This is a working title for a follow on show to ‘Such Stuff’ at the end of last year. I’m still thinking a lot about the relationship between painting and film. The first five back cloths are nearly ready :

These will be used as backgrounds for the animation, along with a model set and puppets which I’m also working on this week. I’m also working on some 1:2 scale puppets for use in the film as well as some props. Big project, time is short.

One of this weeks events is in London, at the Greenwich Printmakers Gallery :

The other event is at my Studio as part of CATOS 2012 Open Studios. Please get in touch if you’d like to visit, if you can’t make it on the official day I’d be happy to arrange another time.

The final call is for my show at the Swan Inn in Bures, which will be coming down soon. I’d be very pleased to welcome you personally at any of them, preferring to be social without media whenever possible.

I’m just catching the last gulp of coffee and squit of wifi before doing the talk at Gansborough’s House. I’m printmaker of the month, no less, and have a small show hung by Emma Buckmaster and Janet French.

I’m thrilled to be playmate of the month and am especially looking forward to the talk tonight, which will be with a well informed group of printmakers and friends of GH. I’m hoping for a debate about where printmakers belong inbetween the credit crunching rock and the hard place of a largely dysfunctional art market. I love my job but we need to be honest about how to earn a living doing it.

It’s always the marks that draw me back into printmaking – the sharp lines of engraving or the softer painterly marks of litho or monoprints. My hope is to explore some questions about editioning and how it fits with a printmakers working life. I’ve always felt that drawing and painting are like making music. Printmakers, just like musicians, now have to work within digital media that can be instantly copied. A well made archival print is literally a mouse click away, for everybody. I’m hoping we can talk about how this feels for makers and buyers of work.

I’m not a great believer in artists statements, so here’s a quote from an interview I did for ICR Ipswich radio during my recent show at Colchester Minories, which was called “Such Stuff” :
“Most of my role models are not from visual arts, but from music and performance … Jazz gave everybody a working method that is still fit for purpose 100 years on. These musicians were born as captives, their history and memory stolen. Out of that necessity they made the virtue of improvisation, of speaking to the moment, of not staying in one place for long. As a jobbing artist, that was a gift that liberated me from this obsession with objects, or rather with the markets for those objects. There is so much stuff, so many opinions. Where do you start to look, let alone to make ? ”

This is quite a long artist statement for me.

I always think that artist’s opinions are best seen and not heard.

Everybody needs a plan and here’s my one for the talk tonight :

So much of cultural theory and art criticism is a dysfunctional branch of retailing without realising it. This leaves the very best of them, like Robert Hughes in his book about Goya, to perform the unpleasant task of clearing away the tangled mess left by all the others. It’s probably because we all find it very difficult to discriminate, or rather it’s easy to discriminate but very hard to feel sure about how we feel. But this difficulty makes equals of us all, and means in the end we have to work it out for ourselves.

I feel very clearly why Francis Bacon is a better painter than I am. In a burning building I’d be confident about grabbing his Three studies for a portrait of George Dyer and would leave all my stuff to the flames. But beauty is a difficult thing, particularly the brutal beauty of these portraits, and has nothing to do with “being beautiful”.

A person might believe they are being beautiful, or even the most beautiful, but only if they are particularly stupid or self attached. This kind of media driven narcissism gives the word ‘beauty’ a bad name. It’s why so many people got in a tizzy about Susan Boyle only having a beautiful voice, as if that’s not enough.

But all of us can find beauty waiting for us at the tips of our fingers when we are fully awakened by love. Suddenly the beauty pageant stops and we find ourselves holding Katherine Hepburn, Michelle Pfeiffer and Marylin Monroe. This connectedness can’t be voted into a top ten of beauties, is not about possessing one person compared to another. It is found when you awake and are being awakened. I try to apply the same standards to my own work and if I was braver about that, a lot of it wouldn’t make it out of the door.

I always  feel that Goya is “better” than me, but more deeply I also feel that we simply accompany each other in trying to awaken ourselves and those around us. That kind of companionship makes this pointless job worth doing. It’s also why it takes someone as good as Robert Hughes to remind us that we can rely on nobody but ourselves if we want to be awake in this perplexing, dangerous and beautiful place.

I’ve been painting my way further into the characters for the Cabinet film, bits of them feel ok and bits feel less so. At the moment I’m liking very close up views of the surfaces with all their bumps and hesitations.

I’m well into two long term projects at the moment :

Drawing at dance speed : more action with the burnt stick.

I’m half way though a really exciting drawing project at the Opera House in Covent garden. This opportunity was kindly set up by the choreographer Freddie Opoku-Addaie, following a discussion we had about different kinds of craft. We talked about how craft skill can only be developed through passionate commitment, and how the crafts are all different but somehow the same because of that.

I absolutely jumped at this opportunity to draw at dance speed.

I have wanted to move my figurative work on from the static vibe of the ‘life’ room for some time. Life models know they will be asked to hold a pose for ages so all the poses end up looking a bit like Greek statues. This is possibly why some opinionistas are snotty about ‘figurative’ work, and why even more people seem to think ‘photography does it better’.

I was so lucky to share the ROH rehearsal space with the four dancers : Eliisa Erävalo, Maria Olga Palliani, Hugh Stanier and Ruth Voon. It was a complete revelation to me, and such a priviledge to watch them build a rich and emotional story using nothing more than the articulation of their own bodies. It also helped me question all my assumptions about figure drawing. Dancing is at the same time like and unlike drawing. I worked in charcoal on a roll of brown kraft paper, and in the first session made just under 40 feet of drawings. But I still didn’t cover anything like as much ground as the dancers did. Their work is physical and committed in a way that the best drawing is, but they do it with their whole bodies in defiance of gravity rather than just a burnt stick, in defiance of a blank piece of paper.

This work would not have been possible without the support of the Royal Opera House associate choreographer Freddie Opoku-Addaie and the dancers. Their piece, called “Absent Made Present” was commissioned by ROH2 and will be at the Linbury from 29 to 31 March 2012.

Supported by: The Place; The Point, Eastleigh; Southbank Centre; Jardin d’Europe; Dance in Devon; The Arts at Dartington; Stratford Circus.

The next project will be at least seven months in the making :

The Curious Cabinet of Lemmings (a working title, as they say).

Combining painting, object installation and film, this is a follow on show to “Such Stuff” at the end of last year. I’ve always loved music and theatre because their magic lives in a moment rather than an object or a place. Visual arts has an unhealthy obsession with retailing objects rather than connecting with audiences. I’d rather give a piece of work away to twenty people than sell it to one person because they believe it could have intrinsic (resale) value. So this show is planned as an event, where the audience brings the completion of the work.

I’ve been really enjoying the smell of oils in the studio again, I’ve been using the meditative pace of painting as a way to develop the narrative of the show.

I’m negotiating for a really interesting space in town to show it in, more an that to follow. So far I’ve nearly finished the first set of scenic paintings, which will establish the ‘characters’ in the story. These will be giving their stories to the installation and film. Now I’m about to spend the day making a big zoetrope with the real Grand Theatre of Lemmings. We’ll probably tweet a few pics if it goes well.

I’ve been painting full time since the new year. It feels SO good to allow myself enough room for new work, particularly giving time for the setbacks and failures to prosper. For me, the downs of this baffling process are just as important as the ups. As Bobby Zimmerman sang “Ain’t no success like failure, and failure is no success at all”.

This body of work started with portraits of the co founders of the Grand Theatre of Lemmings, Dave Danzig and Mandy Medlicott. Working for them has been a revelation to me, to see creative work that lives only in the moment of a committed performance and then is gone. Such a liberation from the obsession with objects and their perceived value and importance. Along with the portraits I’m working on new Changeling paintings to be scenics for a short film. It all feels like the same show to me, building on “Such Stuff” last year. It’s the slow and infuriating process of painting that is best at revealing the emotional motivators for this project. So far I’m working out the ‘characters’ by painting them :

I’m negotiating a proper theatrical venue in town to show the painting, film and performance together, which is where they belong. I’ve rather ruthlessly cleared the decks of most of the other freelance stuff, which helps me to feel less reactive, more at ease with the rhythms of oil paint. More looking, even more thinking and much less colouring in that you’d expect. A bit like a Miles solo, most of the time is spent pausing, breathing in, holding yourself still but ready. The more time my cat and I spend together in my studio the more like him I become. Long periods of inactivity, eyes half closed and then rare and wonderful bursts of activity.

The challenge for 2012 is to hold all this energy together – the painting, the film/sound, the performance – into a coherent event.

Is painting the best way to do this ? Emphatically yes, it’s the heartbeat and the source of what I’m doing. The meditative pace of paint drying allows depth and ambiguity to develop in a complex project like this one will inevitable become. For a one man band like me, complex projects are always completed under pressure, so it’s important to know how I feel about the things I always end up making too quickly.

Olympic posters ? Whassaappennin ? More posing than postering. YBA poser ?

It’s all very well being the grit in the bikini of the establishement, but that was a long, long time ago. Now we have Middle Aged British Artists, and we need a better word than MABA. My friend Steve came up with just the phrase to describe what happens when an enfant terrible gets properly settled at the armchair :

Les pantoufleurs terribles.

“Pantoufles are slippers. So someone who’s middle-aged and smugly comfortable & likes curling in in their slippers in front of the fire is a pantouflard. But the verb pantoufler has adopted two meanings: to laze around at home and also to transfer to the private sector. The latter meaning got attached to civil servants who use their privileged positions to secure hugely well-paid jobs in the private sector before they’ve given decent service to their country.”

Perfect. You heard it here first.

I need your help developing a new test to identify machines and non-human entities.

Play “I wish” by Stevie Wonder. If you can stand completely still throughout, then you a non human unit.

I  need some help to develop this playlist, which will yield more accurate data. We can then  apply it to managers, helpline administrators, PR people and gallery front of house and others we encounter in our working lives. Then we can roll it out, as managers tend to say. Ooops.

Suggestions so far are :

1. “Reasons to be Cheerful” by Ian Dury and the Blockheads.
2. “Denis Denis” by Blondie/Debbie Harry
3. “Cool struttin” by Sonny Clark

Then we can think about having some fun designing the hardware, no better place to start than the Voight-Kampf Test. I can’t believe that the Blade Runner sketchbooks now fetch over £100 a pop secondhand, I remember them being full of beautiful drawing by Ridley Scott. It was clearly a fully imagined place for him before he went near a camera.

Douglas Coombes of Ipswich community radio asked me onto Lifelines, his weekly talk and music slot. I ended up being in the studio with Julia Devonshire, Ipswich art project officer. We talked about the joint show of Chinwe Chukwuogo-Roy and Gareth Bayliss in the old Ipswich art school building, her object exchange project and how that connected with Such Stuff at the Minories. Was a really interesting morning.

I love radio.

It’s my imaginary/imaginative friend in the studio. What also makes Lifelines really worth a listen is the playlists, Douglas gets the guests to choose them and I heard a really beautiful reading my Roger McGough. Here’s my playlist, which I got carried away with and we only had time to listen to four of them :

Miles Davis : “Nuit sur les Champs-Elysees (take 2)” from Ascenseur pour l’Echafaud.
Little Stevie Wonder : “I wish.”

Now that’s what I call poetry, and the best bass line ever :

Smokin cigarettes and writin somethin nasty on the wall

Teacher sends you to the principle office down the hall

You grow up and learn that kind of thing aint right

But while you were doin it, it sure felt outta sight

I wish those days, could, come back once more

Why did those days ev-er have to go

I wish those days, could, come back once more

Why did those days ev-er have to go, cause I loved em so…….

Antonio Vivaldi : Concerto no. 2 in G minor.

US3 : “Cantaloup (Flip Fantasia)” from Hand on the Torch

Annie Lennox : “Every time we say goodbye” from Red hot and blue.

Cannonball Adderley : “Autumn leaves” from Somethin else.

JS Bach, played by Glenn Gould : “Chromatic fantasy & fugue in D minor”

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi : “Stabat mater dolorosa”

Howlin Wolf : “Highway 49″ from the Howlin Wolf London sessions

Captain Beefheart : “Yellow brick Road: from Safe as Milk

There’s loads more on the list but we only had time for three. Lifelines on Ipswich community radio is definitely worth a listen. It’s on between 10 – 11.30am on Wednesdays.

Just got back from the first day installing the work. Mixed feelings,  partly a shock  to see ideas take shape and start breathing on their own. Partly feeling regretful that its too late to change anything  Mostly straightforward relief at getting shot of this work that has been obsessing me for months.

But mostly just feeling tired, and grateful to my mate Melvyn who did the difficult stuff.