Beyond the confines...

Got the music in it, don't we

No Talking

For about two years I’ve explored TALKING as a feature, process/methodology or aim in the art I’ve been creating. This is because most of the art I make is about community, connection, cooperation, new social economies and democracy, and curiosity/adventure. For all these things to progress, I’ve always thought talking and speech was the most influential activity.

But recently I’ve been feeling uncomfortable about putting such an emphasis on talking as a community or social game-changer. This is for two reasons:

1)   because I am shy in my clarity of opinion in front of speculative or unknown audiences (even though I know what I think and have strong opinions)

2)   I have a chronic fear of being the centre of attention in formal or responsible situations

I know that talking is the most accessible and democratic platform on which to create change and learn, but I think I am being hypocritical in assuming that talking should be the method and aim of social art projects – because I can’t do it!

What I actually think (and I’ve been kidding myself until now) is this:

            Successful and democratic communities have multiple members. All members offer something unique but with a unified ultimate vision. One of these unique-nesses if you like, is that members will have different skills and preferences of where they like to effect change from within the team, and how. So basically, some are good speakers, some are good listeners, some have a calming presence, some are consistently reliable and responsible, some carry out the team’s decisions without question and interpret the aims perfectly with regard to how the can legitimately and sustainably be manifested for everyone. In other words, we can’t all be confident at speaking up, and in fact some of us hold a far more valuable role just being a quiet but calming force of reliability and innovation in a group.

SO – I’ve realised that my initial ideas about a democratic verbal feedback platform (from which came THE SWAGSATION) are flawed!! I could not set out to a new community and get up on a pedastool and shout my personality and opinions to a new crowd, so why am I suggesting that this be the template for action at The Swagsation? Stoopid me.

So what I’m doing now is trying to smudge The Swagstation into a place for people to offer their help, opinions, skills, encouragement etc… in whichever way they feel comfortable and confident in. It could be through talking, singing, writing in the sand, photographing, painting, making clothes, cooking, sitting and thinking, setting an example by your daily behaviour, exercise, public icon worship, filmmaking, putting on one man plays, helping other people do their stuff… whatever.

 < Part of this idea came to me when I was at the V&A yesterday at the
A World to Win. Posters of Protest and Revolution display, and I read about the Greenwich Mural Project in the 70s, and the See Red Women’s print workshops, both of which simply encourage people to voice their political opinions through open access, casual graphic design. Sound!!!>

So I am trying to ooze in loads of colour, and gooey shapes and texture and gradients to soothe the soul. The look of the place needs to cushion anxieties about being heard. It also needs to trigger playfulness, curiosity, a spirit of adventure and ambition….

The imagery here comes from an instinctive visual activity in a creative mood of anticipation about good futures, and also the things we left behind in the adventure and curiosity of childhood; all the colours you used to wear and daub on sugar paper (and wish you still could every day, but in the adult world people have serious faces).

These visuals are less designed than my older stuff; I guess because I was trained in Graphic Design I tend to rationalise every last pictoral and symbolic element in relation to a vast history of visual and social culture.

This stuff is far more natural and instinctive.

And so it begins. Anti anxiety/pro adventure creation!

Monochrome Homestead

Composites of everything i've ever experienced and everything i've ever imagined

...Our Show...

three of my pieces propped up in the back, and house tiles and cups by Ruth Pilston in the front!

Quilt by Rachael Pilston

I think on reflection, the work i displayed in our show, and also the show as a whole, was a good depiction of the dreams that are wrapped up in hometown and smalltown pride. The communities, and the individual ambitions and dreams that come from both those physical places and their emotional spaces.... how these places keep their peoples' creativity and curiosity alive because they owe it to the place. (Even if the place is somewhere they've not come from, but are desperate to go - like if you want to escape the stinky city!)

I hadn't realised my work was taking that direction so quickly, I just figured I had been focusing on and exploring a few characters that embodied those characeristics. So that's good! It looked fairly coherent to me, apart from a bit too much pink in some areas!

The above four images are really all about the creation of fake memories, or an idealised remembering of actual memories. These are things I think I do sometimes, either to try and feel better about good memories that ended badly, or to keep ambitions and ideologies and dreams going! This sort of picks up from where I was going with the open-air Outback cinema image I got obsessed with... which I will carry on working on. I did a sketch I liked of that cinema, and a bit of a rubbish painting (on some really nice fire retardant wood I found in a skip!)

*

Below are some works I made from different paints I made, using turmeric, paprika and beetroot. They are painted onto fabric that I dyed with onion skins and black beans. They are then monoprinted.

The texts are catchy phrases from Home and Away that they seem to say a lot! They mention local towns that give three different identities to the people in Home and Away.

Feelin' full of the jungle

Here are some of the works I created for our exhibition 'Homestead Act' a few weeks ago. I just got a film developed with some B&W photos of the show and they are lush! Need to scan them.

Some more where these came from too....

And some pages of a zine i made for it. Printed for tuppence by our friendly neighbourhood internet cafe in Peckham! Who cares about bleed when you can support the locals for 90% cheaper than the posh places! Not me, that's who. Tis in the spirit of The Swagstation.