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| RTomens, 2022 |
As Mose Allison sang 'Don't talk about me 'cause I could be high' - I just ate some Tangtastic Haribos, now I'm drinking coffee - that's the kind of hedonistic, bohemian artist I am! Here's Mose singing the song...
So I made this dumb collage today just because I felt like making a collage without specifically thinking 'I'll make a dumb one' actually thinking 'I'll do something simple' (are mine ever complex? No) but as it progressed it took over in some sense, not the one artists sometimes spout about as in 'The art takes me over! Possesses me!' - no - just...I couldn't help the direction it took. It started with the film star, who I intended to deform in some way, quite radically, but then I just gave her a Punk hairstyle, starting to think 'This is some commercial kind of shit, the kind of collage young girls make' but carrying on anyway, with the printing, then the marker pens etc.
It's appropriate that some sort of 'Punk' image should emerge because it was back in ye olde days of Punke that I started making collages. Previous to that I had drawn, mostly. But cut, paste and Xerox was everywhere in '77 so I got the collage bug. I also realised, like everyone else, that whether you were hitting guitar strings or cutting out images, old notions of technical skill no longer applied. We didn't consider composition any more than Punk bands did, although having said that it's obvious, in retrospect, that great tunes by the likes of The Buzzcocks weren't just thrown together.
My art then (and now?) was more or less just thrown together - to hell with the rules! And so the much-loved (nowadays) Punk Aesthetic was born. We didn't know it was nothing new, dating back a good ten years and more to the underground press of the 60s. We weren't interested in the history. We didn't know what a Situationist was. Only Malcolm did.
I often used to say that my art was still in the spirit of Punk. Perhaps I'll say it tomorrow, should anyone ask. But what does that mean? It means art that has little regard for Fine Art rules - yes - Art that wears its ignorance on it's sleeve! It's not even something I'm proud of, not having been the Art school. I mean, I would have gone after secondary school if I hadn't had enough of teachers; if I had bothered studying at all. Me and study don't get on. And all that studyin' hasn't helped a lot of former artists I've met over the decades. It actually sounded the death knell as far as their creativity was concerned once they realised they weren't going to 'make it'. Art as a career just didn't work out and doesn't for most students.
Well, so now, unlike Mose in his song, I may not exactly be 'living the life I love' but at least I'm still loving making Art as much as I did back in 1977.
Excellent! I think rules are slippery, elusive things. Are they laws? Conventions? Habits?
ReplyDeletePunk's a great example of things which probably had a terrific spirit and impetus, but before you know it, WALLOP!, it's all for sale, and soon starts looking very formulaic and sounding very dull.
Then, as you say, you had The Buzzcocks. And loads of other punk bands, who didn't do the visual thing, and brought so much more to the music. Interesting to note that people like The Buzzcocks, Wire, The Swell Maps, The TV Personalities and The Fall, to name but a few, didn't look like punks. Or if they did, they didn't for long. Interesting, too, that they probably all get labelled 'post-punk,' whatever the hell that was. Or is.
I'm a study guy. I don't have a problem with all teachers. I like learning and doing stuff and knowing all about what's considered great and trying to understand it. I was in a band which got going listening and covering songs by people like The Buzzcocks, Wire, The Swell Maps, The TV Personalities and The Fall. In a real, demonstrable sense (and really, I'm not trying to be a tosspot), these folk were our teachers. Our band moved on pretty rapidly and we wrote our own stuff right from the off, but the punk bands and The Velvets and few other likely suspects gave us a leg up. I don't think we'd have got very far if we didn't absorb our influences - but ended up with some reasonable 'notches' on our rock and roll belts.
Love the art piece. Yep, it says 'punk' and is 'punky.' In a way your stuff often is, but never always is. If you see what I mean.
Thanks for the comment Andrew. As you say, some of the bands didn't exactly look Punk in the stereotypical sense but there were many players and fans who opted for 'charity shop chic' (ha-ha) as opposed to spikey hair, leather, zips, safety pins etc. My art is a product of both the times (the Punk DIY influence) and my life (of course) once spent struggling with 'failure' to take the formal route before eventually feeling free to make what I like. As for making music, I tried once but couldn't even make it as a One Chord Wonder!
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