Geometric drawing

 

untitled, RTomens, 2025

I kept myself amused for a few hours yesterday by doing some drawing. It's a doodle, of sorts, despite the apparently rigid structure. By which I mean it began simply with a triangle and other shapes were added and so on. The dark outer edges were a last minute addition. I think they lend the inner part more oomph. 

TTFN!

Love & Napalm: Export U.S.A - JG Ballard / The Magic of Ju-Ju skull connection - Archie Shepp / Burroughs' cut-ups and concrete poetry

 

Continuing the JG Ballard theme (see last post), here's a Christmas present...from me to me - ha! Well, I swear it was comparatively cheap by at least £100, so I treated myself to this 1972 Grove Press first American edition. OK, it doesn't have the annotations by Ballard included in the Flamingo 2001 paperback but...look at that cover! Plus, it a hardback...it's a lovely size...it's so good-looking! You can over-indulgence in food at Christmas, but never books.

The painted skull by Alan Winston used for Love & Napalm: Export U.S.A. was also used five years earlier for Archie Shepp's album, The Magic Of Ju-Ju. Winston isn't credited in the book. I don't know about the album. I used to have it on vinyl but it went years ago, along with many others I've sold. Once upon a time I listened to a lot of Free Jazz and the title track of the album certainly is 'free'. But gradually I listened to it less until it then got to the stage where I joined the common listener in finding it bloody annoying! I'll dip in now and again, these days, but generally you could say my taste in Jazz has got more 'conservative'. 

When it comes to literature though, I suppose my taste is...'radical' (?), alongside genre fiction. Ballard's novel would certainly be considered radical amongst most people and The Atrocity Exhibition (it's UK title) his most adventurous work regarding structure. 

Ballard was a big fan of William Burroughs, as I'm sure you know. I see a connection between Burroughs' cut-up novels and concrete poetry when it comes to disrupting structures of 'normal' poetry and text generally to shape new images, new ideas and ways of looking at words and letters. A connection can also be made between Eduardo Paolozzi's 'sampled' texts and Burroughs, then to The Independent Group (of which Paolozzi was a member) and their influence on Ballard. That whole 'scene' inspires me greatly, from This Is Tomorrow to Abba Zaba, Moorcock's New Worlds magazine and British art in the 60s. 

Eduardo Paolozzi at New Worlds: Science Fiction and Art in the Sixties is highly recommended. The best place to buy it is here.

TTFN

Book: The Illuminated Man - Life, Death And The Worlds Of JG Ballard

 

RTomens, 2025

The actual book, The Illuminated Man - Life, Death And The Worlds Of JG Ballard, is due in April, published by Bloomsbury. This isn't the actual cover though. I got it into my head to create one. Don't ask me why. It was something to do this afternoon. There's much excitement over the book in the Ballard community, especially since Priest was also a highly regarded writer of speculative fiction and knew many others who were part of the 'New Wave' of UK 'science-fiction' in the 60s.  

Cold vispo: For Your Information / I love borders! / My art travels and so do I, occasionally / Music: The Shout (soundtrack) by Rupert Hine /

For Your Information, RTomens, 2025

Here's a new 'cold' (collage of old) vispo piece. Two old pieces went into the making, with print overlaid then further cut-out shapes added. At this rate, it will take me ages to weed out the rejects from the boxes and recycle them, but that's how it's going.

I love borders! Don't you? Oops, I forgot to cap the 'b'. You'll think me one of those crazy people who care about the type and number of people who come into their country - oh no!!! Perhaps you can't get Border biscuits in your country. I'm not sure if their sales cross borders. 

My art has physically crossed a few borders. It's travelled to Japan, Austria, Portugal, America, Australia...and probably other countries I've forgotten. It's more well-travelled than me. When I did fly it was usually to Europe because I can't be doing long haul. That and the fact that I love France as a holiday destination, especially the South and in particular Nice. As I always say, in my 'other life', I'd live there; perhaps in London too, although once in Nice, I can't imagine what would draw me back to London.

Here I am posing outside the Jean Cocteau museum in Menton. A cool building...with cool content!

Here's the view from the top of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nice. 

It's the greatest gallery in my world but is currently closed for renovation so wait until it's reopened before you go. You really should go. 

Now I must stop posting holiday snaps and mention this film soundtrack...

The official soundtrack credit went to Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford but Buried Treasure's Alan Gubby has spent seven years (!) getting this collection of Rupert Hine's recordings for the film together and it's a real treat pop-pickers.  If you like electronic film cues and short mood pieces this is a must. The clip below features John Hurt as composer, Anthony Fielding, making musique concrète.

TTFN!

Print: Intangible / Existential psychic turmoil / Having to explain things

Intangible, RTomens, 2025

Excuse me? No, I'm not sure...

Everyone's 'all over the place' - have you noticed? Only right now we have the excuse of 'It's Christmas'. Come the New Year, the only excuse is existential turmoil due to the psychic chaos caused by:

misinformation

politics

the social network notworking

too much information

viral mental health 'issues'

the continued existence of Taylor Swift

I forgot to tell you what concrete poetry is when you asked a few months ago. Then I realised you were being lazy by not using Google, so I didn't bother answering. 

I wasn't making concrete poetry before the internet, so I would have had to answer. Imagine having to actually explain something to someone! You're too young to know what it was like. Such hard work, formulating answers whilst inebriated in a bar, perhaps, or high from two coffees in a cafe. It's a wonder anyone knew anything. We read books, though. Magazines and newspapers. 

I'll continue this history lesson next time. Meanwhile...

TTFN!

What is it? Visual poetry, unidentified poetic object / I am not as good as Miles Davis

What's The Name Of This Game?, RTomens, 2025

'Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”'

I don't even like the term 'visual poetry' but a label that differentiates what I do from Fine Art is needed and you know how broad the Church of Visual Poetry is - so it can take one more member. 

Aside from more text-heavy pieces which bare obvious comparison to historical examples I do go elsewhere, visually. The piece above is one example. I made it this afternoon having tried another and abandoned it. The inked shapes came first, of course, then the question: What's the name of this game? It seemed apt. I found it randomly in a short story.

I'll tell you this but please keep it to yourself: none of the text I use is 'original'. I like chance encounters with sentences, dialogue or phrases. In that respect, perhaps it is 'found poetry'. Ask John Cage. I ask you to keep this secret because some people may be under the impression that I think up texts and base the visuals around them. Whether that would be considered more admirable, I don't know. I'm a literary magpie. 

Once upon a time I aspired to make up my own sentences and put loads of them together. I still have them, in batches of around 70,000 words, each trying to be a novel; a good novel. They failed. That was about 30 years ago. I found writing poetry easier, which is not to say the poems were better than those novels. I even read them in public and survived. The poetry audience is very polite. I think if I'd simply read out 'You lot are a bunch of cunts!' over and over, they still would have applauded. Someone once suggested I read my visual poetry, but it would have sounded a) terrible and b) like sound poetry, which I don't like.

I don't even know if I like the piece above. I don't know what it is or where it came from. Making art is an invasion in reverse. It doesn't enter, it leaves. But like a virus, or actual invader, it can be quite unpleasant. It can be unnerving. I don't mind not knowing. There's too much knowing amongst artists. They get too cosy with their creativity, to the point where it's more like craft. Each thing they make is neat, tidy, and made from their formula. At least craft workshops are unpretentious.

Last time out I denied any comparison in terms of greatness to the dub producer King Tubby. Today I deny any likeness to Miles Davis whilst thinking about 'grey areas' in art and creativity 'outside' boxes. Davis made some messy sounds during his 'electric' period, didn't he? Did he know what it was, that sound he cultivated by enlisting great musicians and prompting them to play beyond their comfort zones? It was no longer Jazz, was it? It was never straight Funk, or Noise. His bands created some ugly, misshapen, awkward things. 

Miles Davis: 'If you understood everything I said, you'd be me.' But did he understand everything his music 'said'? Perhaps. Many didn't understand it, that's for sure. I can't claim to understand a lot of what I make under the name of 'visual poetry'. Like an impulsive run of notes during free improvisation, the pieces appear, recorded on paper. You, the audience, will decide how 'good' or 'bad' they sound.

TTFN

Remake/remodel vispo collage / Bad painting / Dub me...dub me always

 

Fool, RTomens, 2025

Yes, the vispo recycling continues apace. No definite stylistic approach yet and one may never emerge. Knowing me (as I do, in this regard, although perhaps not ultimately in every sense because...well...don't you ever look in the mirror and say 'Who are you?' No? It can't only be me that does...) I'll use various techniques.

Sometimes I do crave the technique, the one that's so damned good I have to use it all the time. But that just isn't me. I can't keep on one track. I have noticed that many more popular artists have one-track minds to their art. I mean popular in the small pond (the one related to using text and the broad visual poetics church), not that big one outside populated by Big Fine Artists making lots of money. They get invited to speak at events (OK, I did once this year), they even have studios! They have loads more followers online than I do and they know how to write or talk about their 'practice'. Yes, they call it their 'practice'. I never use the word. Perhaps I should. Perhaps it's key to their success. See? They take themselves seriously as...artists! They even have artist haircuts which, for women, must include a radical fringe of some kind, very floppy, perhaps, or the classic Hannah Hoch fringe. That's one sure sign of serious artist. 

I'm not sure about the men, although the boys...well, a walk around Central Saint Martins would surely reveal a stereotype or two. I might even struggle differentiating between the sexes - ha-ha - no, not because of long hair (aah, the 60s, when it was only long hair that caused old fogies to scratch their heads and wonder) but because...he/they whatever - it's all about neutrality, you know!!! 

Where was I? Yes, that's it, cutting up old visual poems to recycle. In Fool (above) I went all 'mixed media', yes, I did. I actually did some painting! I can't paint properly, but even as I write that I'm fully aware that I was w-a-a-ay ahead of my time by not painting 'properly', ever, starting in the 70s. It took teachers and students a long time to catch up with me but for the last few decades not being able to paint properly has definitely not been a problem. 

There's no artful anti-skill skill at work. God, no, nothing so old school as learning the rules, then breaking them - fuck the rules to start with - ha-ha! Do you think art schools today teach painting, like...um...composition, colour...er...I don't know what you're supposed to know when it comes to painting. Do they hell - it's a free-for-all! It's post-modern, innit? Yes, dear reader, I was post-modern before it was 'in'. I could prove it by showing you some bad paintings I did, but you've done me no harm so I won't.

Having cut up some work I got the idea to create shapes which ended up looking like magnifying glasses. That wasn't intentional, as you can tell by the fact that all that can be seen are splodges of red paint with a bit of text; nothing important. The black acrylic was applied dry, pure, straight from the tube. I find this the best way to achieve that Bad Painting look, don't you? No mixing with water for fine lines and neat edges. My crude efforts ended up looking a bit...Abstract Expressionist? Maybe?

The other day I compared my recycling to that of reggae producers because, as you know, they loved to recycle a rhythm. I've been listening to a lot of dub recently. It's been a constant in my musical life since the 70s and that Punky Reggae party we all had. It's not really an apt comparison because I don't recycle the same visuals often...I just liked the idea. As I also said, I can't claim to be the visual equivalent of King Tubby or even Adrian Sherwood (meow!). I made a playlist of some faves.

 

What's On My Mind? Death / Biscuits as financial markers / Broken homes? /Punk (hair) roots / Vispo collage reconstruction

What's On Your Mind?, RTomens, 2025

On the bus the other day I thought 'In one-hundred-and-twenty years time everybody living now will be dead'. I played it safe, so I thought, only to discover that Jeanne Calment of France lived to 122. We're all supposedly living longer, so perhaps in 120 years time there will be quite a few people about to defy my prediction. Oh well.

*

If, like us currently, you have three types of biscuit in your full-up tin, you really are doing well, aren't you? I know this isn't an official marker of financial wellbeing, but perhaps it should be. Put it this way:

nothing but crumbs in the tin (poverty)

one stale biscuit (very poor)

two broken Rich Tea (poor)

half-full of chocolate digestives, or a third full of posh biscuits, the kind where you only get 12 in a packet (doing OK)

a full tin of various types (doing well)

See?

*

RTomens, 2025

Came across this sign at the Walthamstow Wetlands the other day. I wonder if it's ever encountered by someone undergoing divorce proceedings and fighting over childcare. If so, it would surely resonate...and probably prove to be quite upsetting.

*

Next year we'll see a tsunami of Punk nostalgia (what do you mean, we have one every year now! - true). I think. So I told Jane the other day, as if I'm some kind of expert. Something in the dark, dusty recesses of my mind told me '76 was important...what was it? I had to look - oh yeah - the first Punk single was released in the UK (New Rose by The Damned). But Punk's history isn't that cut and dried, is it? Of course not, except that by any measure, considering what Punk was/is, proper, New Rose hits all the right notes (there aren't many, they come thick and fast and go before you know what's hit you).

Yeah, yeah, you can trace Punk's roots back to 60s Garage...but how about this, from 1957?

How Punk was Jerry Lee Lewis? The attack! The physicality! The hair! Punk Rock 'n' Roll, for sure. None were wilder. He seems to be on the verge of predating The Who's smashing up of equipment by the looks of it. As if, given a sledgehammer, he would have taken it to that piano, thus not only preempting The Who but also Auto-Destructive Art which, if I recall correctly, did influence Pete Townshend.

Talking of destruction, I'm in the process of destroying old vispo pieces by cutting them up and reassembling them. So they are 'born again', united with other pieces to form one. Perhaps they'll all be a mess, or I may make some that are a little tidier, I don't know yet since it's early days in the process. I had to reduce the amount of pieces I have. They were driving me mad, sitting in boxes, useless. I'm only working on 'lesser' pieces, of course, leaving those which I consider to be totally successful. 

The Panic Is On, RTomens, 2025

TTFN

Exhibition: Poet-Artists of the French Avant-Garde: 1946 - 79 curated by Frédéric Acquaviva

 

Shots from the opening night (can't you tell?). But where are the people? I avoided getting them in the shots. People just get in the way of art, don't they? These were taken at the end, when most folk had left. We were waited on by men in waistcoats carrying champagne bottles. Sothrans is hardcore old-school, established in London since 1815...I loved it, even though it's pricing of books was well out of my range. Instead, I just fondled first eds of Ballard. The exhibition is on until January. Highly recommended.

OK book fair / Vispo: Just Because / Exhibition: Poet-Artists of the French Avant-Garde: 1946 - 79 curated by Frédéric Acquaviva

 

RTomens, 2025

Well, the book fair went OK. I sold a few things, mostly books...and got the distinct impression that most visitors to the table looked at the array of books, collages and vispo and wondered what the hell it was all about...I wouldn't blame them because I ask myself the same question sometimes!

Here's one I made this morning. Just because...

Just Because, RTomens, 2025

Good news on the exhibition front. Poet-Artists of the French Avant-Garde: 1946 - 79 curated by Frédéric Acquaviva, opens this Thursday (Nov 6) at Sotheran’s Athenaeum, 22 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0HS, 6 - 8 pm. It promises to be great. The brochure that accompanies it is available to view here.