Tuesday 19 March 2024
Typewriter Workshop at The People's Museum
Thursday 14 March 2024
Typewriter Art Workshop
Typewriter Art Saturday Workshop! This Saturday, March 16, a one-off art club with Professor Esther Leslie and Barrie Tullett, author of Typewriter Art: A Modern Anthology and co-author of RUHUMAN. It will be held at People's Museum: Somers Town, 52 Phoenix Road London NW1 1ES
I've been asked to hold the workshop because:
a) I'm the best typewriter/visual poet they know
b) I'm the only one they know in London
Joking aside, it should be fun. I hope to be able to coax people into using The Beast which is, I think, probably more intimidating than the common-size little typewriter...it positively snarls 'Dare to touch me!' I'm worried that if any children have a go it will eat them alive. Stranger things have happened.
Can visual poetry be taught? I wonder. Why not? Once someone gets used to tapping the keys and when they see the letter stamped magically onto the page they may also fall in love with typewriting. I hope to inspire them by prompting a sense of play. If anyone tries to create a face, I won't be able to help - ha-ha!
Tickets here.
Wednesday 13 March 2024
Vispo: No Joke
Tuesday 12 March 2024
Thursday 7 March 2024
Eduardo Paolozzi is 100 years old!
Monday 4 March 2024
Painting/print: Cold Facts / Album Of The Week: Antología 1: Obras para la Orquesta Experimental de Instrumentos Nativos - Cergio Prudencio
RTomens, 2024 |
Friday 1 March 2024
Music: Illegal Rave Tapes - The Complete Series 1999-2012 - Acrelid
Come and have a go if you think you're 'Ardcore enough!
I was never a cheesy quaver but I make up for it nowadays by sitting on the sofa in my slippers throwing shapes to Ac-i-i-id.
The collected Illegal Rave Tapes (10 cassettes) amount to 133 tracks of brain-busting brilliance by John Lee Richardson under the alias Acrelid - no, not brilliant as in, you know, clever...or deep...or even highly inventive...just brilliant as in the most fun you can have with your trousers on - mebbe.
It's all here, Acid-Breakcore-Junglist (etc) braindance built to honour the hardcore ethos and go beyond to the point of retrospectively crashing every rave that ever happened by beating up the bouncer on the door (gate) and busting open the cassette recorder then remixing it all at home. Makes Aphex Twin sound like the hippy muso he secretly was - heh-heh. On that note, you can even detect something of AT in tracks like Flummox, but throughout it all everything is here, every familiar skittering percussive D&B break, bass, Acid Techno squiggle rearranged, recycled to make you dance in your head. Top marks.
Wednesday 28 February 2024
Print: Corporate Identity / The child artist within
RTomens, 2024 |
Print made from a collage to which acrylic paint was applied....then printed over.
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”
- Picasso
Successful professional artists do seem to have grown up and remained artists. They made time for art. They went through tough periods of having no money, possibly even whilst also having a family, which might be deemed irresponsible at the time and only the right decision in retrospect.
Grow up! I've tried. I only succeed in the context of either hearing or seeing a friend do/say something stupid which evokes the 'Grow up!' response, but really, I've no right. I created my own privileged position of having time to make Art. Or...life just turned out that way. No kids, mortgage, car, career...no excuse really for not retaining that child-like joy in making Art.
We're probably all kids inside, even in old age. There's a part of us that is still...5...10...or 15. I think it's necessary in order to survive. Childhood remains visible to the inner eye...a sight assuring continuity...a place we might still feel we can be a part of...almost touch. It's better than only looking ahead into an uncertain future and old age.
I'm a child with adult eyes when I make Art. All that living and seeing what's happened in the world can't help but somehow influence the process, yet I'm not overtly a 'political' artist. I saw a quote recently which said all art must either be political, or mere decoration. Rubbish. There's plenty or room between the two.
Yes, when I make Art part of me is that child, gleefully just doing it for fun...trashing paper, splashing paint (and glue), typing away...not knowing what 'the rules' are or even believing in them. It was all inevitable from the days when I learnt to hate school therefore only did dead-end jobs therefore struggled to stay sane for decades, alleviating the misery with music, dancing, clothes and girls...typical working class.
People stop being artists for two reasons: Adult Life gets in the way, or they give up after going to Art school because they never Made It.
Nowadays, without Work, Art keeps me sane and gives me something to do. If that means I don't lead a typical Adult Life so be it. I hope that child artist lives in me until I die.