Well it's been a funny old week. Been the first week of term at work and things are pretty hectic. I can almost feel the mechanisms of the degree show clunking into action. This will be my third degree show on the other side of the fence and it's funny how things work in cycles. When your at art school your going through all the different stages, from the wide eyed nievete of first year through to having to put together the first big show of your career. It's amazing how much you change as a person and as an artist over four years in art school. You arrive wishing to cast aside and destroy all these stuffy conventions of conceptualism, context, and chin scratching only to find yourself at the other side as the sort of person you hated at the beginning, but with a deeper understanding of why things are the way you are.
But now I went back to the school to work it is a completelly different situation. You get to understand the workings of an art school. The trends and the patterns that exist through the student body. Each year a new bunch of 'crazy' young first years flood in ready to begin thier journey and each year the looming cloud of the logistical nightmare that is the degree show. This year the graduating class are those who were in first year when I was doing my honours, and things feel as they are coming full circle.
The thought of facing Grays without people there who were there when I was a student is a bit odd really, means I'll have finally 'properly' cross over into the realms of staff and all memory of my art school days will be gone from the student body. It's just a reality I'll have to face I suppose.
Also this week I've been getting more into the world of blogging. I know I've been sporadically waffling on this for a long time, I pulled out the twitter account and got it up and running on the old iPhone. I've been getting quite into it but I've only got six followers and I'm pretty sure they aren't interested in what I have to say. I almost posted from the toilet earlier nut I didn't think the Internet was ready for news of my turf. Although obviously I've changed my mind now I'm writing this. Ive managed to get a feed from my twitter running on this blog, and I'm currently trying to find a way to get my tumble to update through here and this blog update through tumblr. Although I'm not sure if that'll just create some sort if horrible feedback blog loop.
Cake is running through a number of last minute snags and hitches. Hopefully get them sorted out at the beginning of the week to try and avoid slippage. Marks issue should be in in a couple of weeks so looking forwards to that. Also been in couple of meetings about the June issue, which looks as though it's going to to be something quite special. Martins issue seems to be coming along quite nicelly as well, although I don't want to see it until it's finished. Just need to chase up a couple of the other issues to see how they're getting g on. Also need to investigate funding options for the magazine.
Well an exciting weekend of proposal writing, magazine posting and hopefully cake fixing ahead. Updates on my twitter no doubt.
Mobile Blogging from here.
Friday, 30 January 2009
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
Creative Scotland?
Just found a blog that details all the partlimentary debate and that around the proposed merger of the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen into 'Creative Scotland', a Ill-concieved plan which seems to have been put into motion by those kindly folks who know nothing about the workings of the artistic community but who have spreadsheets that kindly inform them that this would be a hood idea for all involved.
The worst part of it all is that the whole thing is being pushed ahead without any consultation from the Scottish Artist Union or any arts organizations and seemingly unsympathetic to the Scottish arts community at all.
Consolidating the Arts Council and scottish screen means consolidating thier funding pots and means artists, designers and filmmakers are all going for the same grants. As well as therlse grants they are proposing to offer investment opportunities and repayable loans to fund projects.
I may be being completelly silly here, but the nature of the artistic world is that there is no product to sell and the last thing we want is unneccessary debt that will be nigh on impossible to pay back given the nature of most contemporary work. This being the reason that the artist grant system was set up in the first place.
There appears to also be a seven million pound price tag on the administstive costs in bringing this about which will most likelly cut into the capital available for use. SAC isn't perfect but at least it manages to provide funds for loads of organizations and projects, and the same for Scottish screen, so why should we need to waste seven million quid merging them?
After initial excitement about an SNP led Scottish Government, my confidence is beginning to wane. With Alec Salmond sticking his oar in with Ian Wood's selfish unfounded ludicrousity and now this, just seems to me highly ironic calling this thing Creative Scotland when chances are it'll force those creative folks in Scotland to look elsewhere. Creative industies like visual art, craft, film and music are some of the country's biggest exports and it doesn't seem like our Government is willing to support us.
The worst part of it all is that the whole thing is being pushed ahead without any consultation from the Scottish Artist Union or any arts organizations and seemingly unsympathetic to the Scottish arts community at all.
Consolidating the Arts Council and scottish screen means consolidating thier funding pots and means artists, designers and filmmakers are all going for the same grants. As well as therlse grants they are proposing to offer investment opportunities and repayable loans to fund projects.
I may be being completelly silly here, but the nature of the artistic world is that there is no product to sell and the last thing we want is unneccessary debt that will be nigh on impossible to pay back given the nature of most contemporary work. This being the reason that the artist grant system was set up in the first place.
There appears to also be a seven million pound price tag on the administstive costs in bringing this about which will most likelly cut into the capital available for use. SAC isn't perfect but at least it manages to provide funds for loads of organizations and projects, and the same for Scottish screen, so why should we need to waste seven million quid merging them?
After initial excitement about an SNP led Scottish Government, my confidence is beginning to wane. With Alec Salmond sticking his oar in with Ian Wood's selfish unfounded ludicrousity and now this, just seems to me highly ironic calling this thing Creative Scotland when chances are it'll force those creative folks in Scotland to look elsewhere. Creative industies like visual art, craft, film and music are some of the country's biggest exports and it doesn't seem like our Government is willing to support us.
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
Sunday, 18 January 2009
2009: In Blogs
Well here goes, first blog of 2009, and I'm actually writing this from my new iPhone Internet toy device. I'm still gettingused to it so that should explain any weird spelling mistakes.
Not had the best start to the year all in all. The shingles were swiftly followed by insane toothache from a bit of turkey, extreme frustrating disappointment, then had the tooth out and got dry socket. Fortunately it seems to all be gone now, so I can eat a d shave and laugh and stuff so I can finally think about getting into 2009.
Hopefully there'll be a lot of good things this year, got plans for lots of video work, vjing and the like. A bit more travel hopefully and I might actually get round to sorting my life out. Possibly.
Got an email form a guy I know who is film officer for aberdeen and he's looking into setting up a film festival for the city which aounxs like a pretty good idea all in all. There seems like big scope fpr collaboration so I popped along the proposal I outlined for the av festival from last year and he seemed quite up for incorporating that into the scheme. Hopefully it'll all come together and get something good going on.
(Just to note, I've now switched to my laptop because typing on the iPhone was too damn slow for all I have to write)
I've also noticed how many times I;ve written hopefully, so I'm going to try not to use that word again.
Preparations for Cake are going well, get the next issue back from the printer on monday and we're in talks about some sort of offbeat launch event in a field or something. Might be a bit disastrous in february, but we'll see what happens. Martin's issue seems to be coming along quite nicely, good list of artists, he had a photoshoot for the cover the other day with the big block logo he made all by himself, Mark's one is to come in soon which, knowing him and his updated website being anything to go by it will be nothing short of spectacular. So no pressure on Brady.
Inviting more people to curate at the moment to take the list into next year. A few interested parties and waiting for replies for others.
I had the idea before Christmas of trying to update this regularly, starting on new years day. This has, obviously not happened but I will try and update this a bit more regularly in the coming months. I've got a proposal in for a small residency thing and should be using this to document that, through vimeo and twitter and stuff as well.
Also, should mention something quite sad which happened today which was the sad passing of Tony Hart, he may be a butt of many jokes among artists but that joke mostly comes from a warm hearted admiration of the man. Many were inspired by Tony's shows, which were innovative at the time and provided an interesting outlet for educating children in the basics of art.
He also provided a platform for kids watching his show to have their work shown through the Gallery section of his programmes, providing much needed encouragement and inspiration to young budding artists. He was also responsible for Morph, the little orange plasticine man who lived among art materials which injected the show with light hearted humour and an inspired approach to expressing the imagination and possibilities that lie amongst the artists pallete.
It was deeply saddening to hear, back in September that he had been forced to give up painting and drawing after two strokes, it was a hard thing to hear that someone who had made his entire life about art and encouraging and teaching generations of young people about art wasn't able to do this anymore. It led me to think about my own vocation and how important all aspects of art are to me and how I could cope with not being able to do that any more, which is why I found it so upsetting.
I think Tony Hart's passing not long after being deprived of what was most important to him highlights how important artistic expression is to those of us who follow that path and how lost we would be if forced to stop. This aside the death of Tony Hart was a shock and he will be sorely missed by those generations of artists inspired by his programmes, but in those generations of artists, and in the other programmes inspired by the likes of Hart Beat, his legacy will live on and continue.
After that, well I'l up the tempo a bit with things that have been amusing me recently;
1. iPhone (It may already have been implied)
2. The Mighty Boosh live on friday.
3. The British Government's attempts at solving the financial crisis (ooh Political)(But they really are just stupid)
Not had the best start to the year all in all. The shingles were swiftly followed by insane toothache from a bit of turkey, extreme frustrating disappointment, then had the tooth out and got dry socket. Fortunately it seems to all be gone now, so I can eat a d shave and laugh and stuff so I can finally think about getting into 2009.
Hopefully there'll be a lot of good things this year, got plans for lots of video work, vjing and the like. A bit more travel hopefully and I might actually get round to sorting my life out. Possibly.
Got an email form a guy I know who is film officer for aberdeen and he's looking into setting up a film festival for the city which aounxs like a pretty good idea all in all. There seems like big scope fpr collaboration so I popped along the proposal I outlined for the av festival from last year and he seemed quite up for incorporating that into the scheme. Hopefully it'll all come together and get something good going on.
(Just to note, I've now switched to my laptop because typing on the iPhone was too damn slow for all I have to write)
I've also noticed how many times I;ve written hopefully, so I'm going to try not to use that word again.
Preparations for Cake are going well, get the next issue back from the printer on monday and we're in talks about some sort of offbeat launch event in a field or something. Might be a bit disastrous in february, but we'll see what happens. Martin's issue seems to be coming along quite nicely, good list of artists, he had a photoshoot for the cover the other day with the big block logo he made all by himself, Mark's one is to come in soon which, knowing him and his updated website being anything to go by it will be nothing short of spectacular. So no pressure on Brady.
Inviting more people to curate at the moment to take the list into next year. A few interested parties and waiting for replies for others.
I had the idea before Christmas of trying to update this regularly, starting on new years day. This has, obviously not happened but I will try and update this a bit more regularly in the coming months. I've got a proposal in for a small residency thing and should be using this to document that, through vimeo and twitter and stuff as well.
Also, should mention something quite sad which happened today which was the sad passing of Tony Hart, he may be a butt of many jokes among artists but that joke mostly comes from a warm hearted admiration of the man. Many were inspired by Tony's shows, which were innovative at the time and provided an interesting outlet for educating children in the basics of art.
He also provided a platform for kids watching his show to have their work shown through the Gallery section of his programmes, providing much needed encouragement and inspiration to young budding artists. He was also responsible for Morph, the little orange plasticine man who lived among art materials which injected the show with light hearted humour and an inspired approach to expressing the imagination and possibilities that lie amongst the artists pallete.
It was deeply saddening to hear, back in September that he had been forced to give up painting and drawing after two strokes, it was a hard thing to hear that someone who had made his entire life about art and encouraging and teaching generations of young people about art wasn't able to do this anymore. It led me to think about my own vocation and how important all aspects of art are to me and how I could cope with not being able to do that any more, which is why I found it so upsetting.
I think Tony Hart's passing not long after being deprived of what was most important to him highlights how important artistic expression is to those of us who follow that path and how lost we would be if forced to stop. This aside the death of Tony Hart was a shock and he will be sorely missed by those generations of artists inspired by his programmes, but in those generations of artists, and in the other programmes inspired by the likes of Hart Beat, his legacy will live on and continue.
After that, well I'l up the tempo a bit with things that have been amusing me recently;
1. iPhone (It may already have been implied)
2. The Mighty Boosh live on friday.
3. The British Government's attempts at solving the financial crisis (ooh Political)(But they really are just stupid)
Wednesday, 24 December 2008
Decemberings
Sorry for the lack of posting, been busy which led to shingles which led to inactivity which led to feeble excuse.
Anyway in the spirit of the season here's what's amusing me right now:
Thats right they're actually amusing me right this second, or actually a few minutes a go giving time to write the beginning bit, find the links, cut and past them and then write this bit. Plus the time it takes to write whatever else I write in the blog. So that could be a good twenty odd minutes ago, so they might not be amusing me any more, in fact I probably now hate them.
Anyway some other things that are amusing me right now:
1. The very full cup of tea next to me.
2. The fact it is christmas tomorrow.
3. The fact I'm managing to get home for christmas after illness scare
4. The fact I can recornise the Mighty Boosh Live from the upstairs flat because everything up there must be listened to at the volume of a concord engine.
5. The Sonic Screwdriver Tracy gave me for christmas (Which I opened already)
6. Lego Batman for the PS2 which Kieran gave me for christmas.(Which I opened already and completed)
7. Christmas
8. I have a new nephew
9. Christmas.
Bah Humbug to All!
Yup, can't be bothered with those videos anymore
Anyway in the spirit of the season here's what's amusing me right now:
Thats right they're actually amusing me right this second, or actually a few minutes a go giving time to write the beginning bit, find the links, cut and past them and then write this bit. Plus the time it takes to write whatever else I write in the blog. So that could be a good twenty odd minutes ago, so they might not be amusing me any more, in fact I probably now hate them.
Anyway some other things that are amusing me right now:
1. The very full cup of tea next to me.
2. The fact it is christmas tomorrow.
3. The fact I'm managing to get home for christmas after illness scare
4. The fact I can recornise the Mighty Boosh Live from the upstairs flat because everything up there must be listened to at the volume of a concord engine.
5. The Sonic Screwdriver Tracy gave me for christmas (Which I opened already)
6. Lego Batman for the PS2 which Kieran gave me for christmas.(Which I opened already and completed)
7. Christmas
8. I have a new nephew
9. Christmas.
Bah Humbug to All!
Yup, can't be bothered with those videos anymore
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
It's Grim Up North
Well, so, some interesting news emerged yesterday which threatens to kill off the future of art and expression in Aberdeen. Ian Wood has pledged to donate fifty million quid of his own money to fund some bullshit scheme to "revitalise" the city centre. Two things: Aberdeen City Council has called the death knell for the City Centre by continually building stupidly huge shopping centres to take away business from it's main thoroughfare, and Aberdeen is hardly a city.
The proposed plan is to build a massive square over the top of Union Terrace Gardens, the railway line and the Denburn essentially paving from Union Street across to Schoolhill, which in itself is rediculous and will cost much more than the pledged £50 Million. The issue is that a feasibility study is to be put underway by Wood, and while this is going on any work on Peacocks will be halted in the meantime. If there is any slippage in Peacocks time the project will fall apart, they'll lose the Architects, the design team, the campaign team. There'll be job losses and in the long run, once the lease on the present building runs out Peacocks will probably just cease.
I know that a lot of people are sticking around in Aberdeen at the moment to help improve things and hopefully be a part of a changing culture up here, but any chance of that will be gone and im pretty sure all of the young artistic community will just up and leave. We've tried, we're still trying, we really want to make a difference, make a change. But how long can we just live with those in charge of Aberdeen pushing aside any kind of culture in exchange for short term solutions and easy cash?
It's not just Peacocks at risk, Whitespace, Citymoves, Cultural Enterprise and other organisations are going to be housed there. But if there was to be no peacosk that would be a pretty shocking state of affairs, because like it or loathe it, agree with the exhibitions or policy or not it is the closest thing we have to a Contemporary Art Centre and other galleries like Slogan need the support of Peacocks to thrive. if Peacock goes, art goes. Grays will be all there is left.
The proposed plan is to build a massive square over the top of Union Terrace Gardens, the railway line and the Denburn essentially paving from Union Street across to Schoolhill, which in itself is rediculous and will cost much more than the pledged £50 Million. The issue is that a feasibility study is to be put underway by Wood, and while this is going on any work on Peacocks will be halted in the meantime. If there is any slippage in Peacocks time the project will fall apart, they'll lose the Architects, the design team, the campaign team. There'll be job losses and in the long run, once the lease on the present building runs out Peacocks will probably just cease.
I know that a lot of people are sticking around in Aberdeen at the moment to help improve things and hopefully be a part of a changing culture up here, but any chance of that will be gone and im pretty sure all of the young artistic community will just up and leave. We've tried, we're still trying, we really want to make a difference, make a change. But how long can we just live with those in charge of Aberdeen pushing aside any kind of culture in exchange for short term solutions and easy cash?
It's not just Peacocks at risk, Whitespace, Citymoves, Cultural Enterprise and other organisations are going to be housed there. But if there was to be no peacosk that would be a pretty shocking state of affairs, because like it or loathe it, agree with the exhibitions or policy or not it is the closest thing we have to a Contemporary Art Centre and other galleries like Slogan need the support of Peacocks to thrive. if Peacock goes, art goes. Grays will be all there is left.
Monday, 10 November 2008
Two tunes in one day
Well, like a usual lazy sunday I haven't done much. Was pottering around on Logic this morning with a tune I started building last night, and tonight after the cinema I finished it off (Still need to do some vocals though) and wrote another one which is now finished. I'll pop them on the Myspace tonight maybe.
Anyway, this weekend, as per many, began on Thursday. Louise, Mhairi and Amy had been trying to arrange a screening at Grays on the grounds, it had fallen through, as had a back up plan of the beach so I ended up offering my back garden. There used to be some amazing parties in the garden here at Crown Street, but in the two-plus years I've been here there hasn't really been anything. So on Thursday Louise and that flattened out the grass, we put up a gazebo, got the projector and my new PA out and set up for a screening. The night went pretty well all in all and ended up with a load of us in the garden with a guitar. And general drunkenness, which made work a little difficult the next day.
Martin has some pictures, but he's busy out hob-nobing with celebrities and the like with his big lens, so I'll try and get them soon.
Anyway had a massive sleep to compensate and chilled out the rest of the weekend, watched Quantum of Solace today, which was pretty food despite my apprehensions. Not really sure the point of this any more, just boasting about my two tunes. Oh well.
Anyway, this weekend, as per many, began on Thursday. Louise, Mhairi and Amy had been trying to arrange a screening at Grays on the grounds, it had fallen through, as had a back up plan of the beach so I ended up offering my back garden. There used to be some amazing parties in the garden here at Crown Street, but in the two-plus years I've been here there hasn't really been anything. So on Thursday Louise and that flattened out the grass, we put up a gazebo, got the projector and my new PA out and set up for a screening. The night went pretty well all in all and ended up with a load of us in the garden with a guitar. And general drunkenness, which made work a little difficult the next day.
Martin has some pictures, but he's busy out hob-nobing with celebrities and the like with his big lens, so I'll try and get them soon.
Anyway had a massive sleep to compensate and chilled out the rest of the weekend, watched Quantum of Solace today, which was pretty food despite my apprehensions. Not really sure the point of this any more, just boasting about my two tunes. Oh well.
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