Stating the bloody obvious is my forte. Sometimes I feel so frustrated and angry and, worst of all, helpless.  The natter chatter about a global village, the sharing and mixing of cultures blah blah blah....we need shared values of  mutual tolerance, respect above all empathy.

War is almost always futile, once bombs and bullets replace constructive debate and compromise hate feeds on hate poisoning each generation. When it is fought in the name of God it is an insult to God. War degrades humanity. War is evidence of how far we are from God, it has no glory, it is vile, obscene, it taints every living person. If we are all equal then we are all equally guilty of allowing War. By our inaction we give consent. Whilst our children watch TV a child in some other place is burnt or blasted to bloody pulp.

Hell is hopelessness

Hell is the acceptance of hopelessness

Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here

I'd like to wish everyone a happy, safe and gentle New year. I think we are all expecting it to be quite bad for a while, money is going to be short for many of us and with that comes the worries, debts and fears for the future.

This is the first time I've decided to make some New Years resolutions but I think my first will resolve to make some resolutions. My first is to continue to be as honest as I can be in my comments on Artifolio.

I am going to try and be a bit kinder, a little more patient and remember that in bad times we should all pull together a little more. I also hope the credit card company has the same resolution.

Happy New Year and may the fluffy pink sky pixie sprinkle your dreams with star dust.

I'm researching surface and texture using the PC graphics package. The great thing about digitizing an image is that once it's done it can be manipulated in an infinite number of ways. By combining and juxta positioning it is possible to create hybride images far beyond what can be done with collage. There is also the lingering sense of truth in a photographic imagine which, though absurd, imbues a curious sense of reality into the most unrealistic or impossible constructs.

I think there is something to be said for not trying to create a sense of realism, I find film animation and digital manipulation, especially in advertising, very irritating after short time. Probably for the same reason that I dont like magicians, no matter how well the trick is done there is always the knowledge that it is still a trick.

I've been spending hours on the net looking for pulp publishings and illustrations from around the world. I had not realised that comics in South America are not censored to the same degree as in Europe. Some of the stuff is pure sex and violence, almost naked women and dismembered limbs, eyes poked out of sockets a real gorefest all mixed up with bold fonts and lurid colours. I can only get the gist of the meaning but I imagine the plotlines are not too complex.

I've got to a stage where I'm not really looking at art much, I'm getting an idea of current trends and influences but I think much of the stuff being produced is eye candy. At least these comics don't try and make out they are culture ( Capital C).

Put this work in a gallery, stick some art blurb next to and it is instantly elevated and assumed to have a cultural value, put it in a museum and it becomes a cultural artifact. Give it to a sociologist and he'll give you a 5,000 word essay, as could a psychologist or a historian. It's all grist to the culture mill.

That's Christmas done for another year, too much food and drink, crap telly, having to speak to relatives you manage to avoid all year, the cats vandalising the tree and party revellers considerately vomiting on my doorstep.....ding bloody dong.

Actually I had a good Christmas, quiet and traditional. We went to a Christmas Market on Christmas Eve, visited the church and lit some candles, listened to small gospel choir singing carols and then home to prepare the food.

We both like to cook and adore good food so this is the time of year we really make an effort. Home made stuffing, Christmas cake ice cream, biscuits, boiled ham and mulled wine.

We made christmas cake truffles as shown by Nigella darling and I hate to admit they are delicious. We only bought a turkey crown this year as both of us are not keen on cold turkey but love the crisp bacon shell.

Christmas day we stuffed ourselves opened our presents chatted with family and snoozed in front of the tree listening to carols as the evening darkness drew in.

Boxing day we ate my favourite treat, bubble and squeak with cold meats and pickles and later we started on one of my christmas presents, a chicken, ham and pork pie. a work of art

.

If someone is convicted of a crime and given community service as a punishment they now have to wear a bright orange vest. Those wearing bright yellow day glo vests or coats are of course innocent. So now we can poke our fingers and feel a smug satisfaction that justice is being done.

 I was in London last week, in the City where there are still many thousands wandering around in expensive suits smelling of money and crisp as fresh printed £50 notes. Billions have been lost by these spivs and gamblers, for years they've pocketed bonuses which would make a Russian Oligarch blush. But not an orange vest in sight.

We went for a wander around town this afternoon. A small group of elderly ladies stood around a rather tatty looking christmas tree singing carols, it sounded as though a few turkeys were adding to the verbrato but they were doing their best and well, it's the season of good will I suppose.

I stood chewing on a mince pie and watching the old girls wassailing when I noticed a little old lady at the front, she was obviously in pain but continued to sing along, a small trickle of blood seeped from the side of her mouth and stained the powdery makeup on her chin, but she continued singing even when tears welled in her eyes.

When the carol was over she pulled a tissue from her sleeve and dabbed the blood away, then pressed it to the side of her tongue which she had bitten whilst she'd been singing.

Which was lucky really because she couldn't eat her mince pie.........and very tasty it was too.

There is something disgusting about the run up to Christmas this year. I know it's the season of ringing tills but when you see the shelves of shops going into liquidation being picked clean by vulture like bargain hunters it turns the stomach.

It's obvious to anyone who has been through a bad recession that the **** has yet to really hit the fan, the mentality of consumers is akin to toasting marshmallows over an active volcano.

Fortunately the art usually gets better at times like these, when there's cash about you can get away with feeding crap to the public but when a person is up to their neck in crud they are not so keen on being spoon fed more of the stuff in the name of culture.

I believe this recession could be the start of the end of the begining of the end of the kind of adolescent conceptualism from artists who've only just aquired fluff on their bollocks or have been living on their reputation which has been bolstered by state promotion and funding.

Now, I'm going to give my compost heap a  pre christmas forking....  don't let anyone say I don't know how to have a good time!

I am increasingly drawn to images and object which would be considered craft or folk art. I am useless at anything practical, metalwork, carpentry, DIY you name it I've failed. I admire craftspeople.

 I remember as a boy watching my father strip down car engines and put them back together again. He can still turn his hand to most things and though he works slowly, which drives me mad, I am still amazed by the range of his skills and his ability to master new ones.

Boys Toys

The feeling of impotence when presented with images of suffering, violence and dispair on TV purges any sense of idealism.

Art therapy is a useful tool in helping people work through a traumatic event or betgin to untangle the causes of mental illness or on a more basic level to express what seems to be unable to be communicated in any other way.

Art is a Meta Language in that it is connected to and influences all other forms of communication. It's intrinsic value is the way it can be used to personalize what is being communicated. Words cannot express the experience of depression with the same power, subtelty and truth as, for example an image.

The act of painting in itself can describe the inner turmoil, body language, expresses the 'closed' nature of depression. The absurdity of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy CBT is that it tries to reinforce positive behaviour through language and writing, the making of lists, the grading of experience. The rules...When you feel :( do Y to :) . CBT presumes the causes of Depression. If you want to scare the crap out of a psychologist mention the Subconscious.

This is the value of Art therapy, it presumes nothing and allows the individual to attempt to communicate what cannot be expressed due to the limitation of other  modes of expression.

CBT is a method of problem solving which works for many people. An illness is not a problem in itself but causes problems. By resolving the various problems associated with the illness psychologists believe this is a cure. It also places responsibility on the individual for the success. If it does not work it is the fault of the patient not CBT, this acts to reinforce negative feelings, the individual is oppressed by the limitations of language, words and systems. There is a difference between a cure and problem solving.

Is there more to the happy accident? what is the difference between this and a accident?

The happy accident is one which the artist believes adds to the work whilst still conforming to the rules the artist is applying to a particular work.

An accident does not conform to the guiding rules, it stands out as an unintentional error and diminishes the artist's intention.

The happy accident also works as a trigger for new ideas which can directly influence the work by slight amendments to the guiding rules.

There is a question of the attitude of the artist. Some artists have a methodical approach which is particularly important in the commercial field, if happy accidents occur they tend to stay in the sketch/drawing stage as indulging one's creativity can an expensive luxury if the client doesn't share your enthusiasm for the change in direction.

Is the happy accident the subconscious emerging throught the cracks as Freud would have us believe or is it part of the essence of the subconscious to recognise something overlooked  and present it to consciousness. The Subconscious subverts consciousness by existing as an unrecognised part of perception.

The idea is that consciousness is blind to everything but the exterior and itself. The reason a thought just seems to appear is because consciousness does not recognise the process, cannot describe the process so we experience an idea as a moment of enlightenment it simply pops into our mind. The way we believe we think is based on external experience. If I build a table, from scratch I need to organise the process. I can think a table from start to finish before I begin making it but this does not describe the thought process but a method of construction based on prior knowledge and experience. Consciousness misrepresents the thought process as a linear arrangement in order to exclude information which directs the focus away from the task in hand.

Even the concept 'I think' gives the illusion of thought being an ordered process an almost mechanical in nature. The reason for this is that communication is based on a relationship with the exterior world, learning in all it's various forms is the exterior shaping consciousness, essentially the world shapes us we do not shape our world.

I suggest that as consciousness can only exist as a relationship between the interior and exterior it cannot form any understanding or knowledge about the true nature of its thought processes other than from the exterior world, The Happy accident like slips of the tongue and other accidents give a tiny glimpse into the way we think.

One of the great pleasures of making art is what some call the happy accident. These are the little joys of life, the drip of paint, the fleck of one colour in another, the stray line. Anything unintended which adds to, or inspires and works like a spark to a dry tinder work is a happy accident.

Freud did not believe in accidents. The subconscious, like a djinn escaping momenarily from it's bottle, shows itself in accidents of speech, writing, apparently unintended actions. Whilst I don't think I can agree entirely with him, when I consider the actual process of painting and making, when I am really engrossed there is a sense of being on autopilot. It is when I am working in this mode that happy accidents tend to occur. 

The event breaks the mode of thought because it changes the composition in some destinct way. For the most part when I start on a work I have a general idea of what I want to do. It is  like adlibing a speech, I know where to start, what I want to say and how to end, I've mentally mapped the future with a degree of faith in my ability be 'creative' in the fuzzy areas.

This allows the possibility for a happy accident to occur, it is when the mind is intensely preocupied but aware of the adlib nature of the process. The mind picks up on these accidents and incorperates them into the whole. At other times the accident destroys the work for the artist. 

What do I think of this? What is the artist rejecting? Consider.

I believe one of the most important objectives of representational painting is to refresh the viewer's awareness of the object world. The problem with functional perception is in it's name. There is no functional purpose in the perception of the way light and shadow fall on a chair other than it informs the brain of it's three dimensionality. Ask people from England to paint a tree from memory and it will have green leaves and a brown trunk, The only difference between a tree painting by a Canadian would be the species rather than the colour.

We live in functional mode, it enables us to read and understand the world quickly but it also blinds us to what is not purely functional and if we are trapped in this way of seeing we fail to see the significance and meaning of our world. An artist like Chardin painted still life paintings of kitchen objects, pots and pans, just everyday functional objects but the way he rendered them, the acuteness of his vision and subtle understanding of light and shade fill these objects with meaning and significance. The eye becomes aware of every dent and mark we become aware of history as well as form and function. We also see the objects as part of everyday human existence, by painting these objects the artist encourages, almost demands that we understand it is not what we observe but the way we observe which counts most.

How do we as artists make value judgements at the very basic level? In earlier posts I've thought about perception and thought processes. I've come to the conclusion that it is not possible to think outside of the ourselves, we are hardwired to think in certain ways. How we process information is common to all humans beings, how we interprete information is defined by our experiences.

I have used the word hardwiring deliberately to describe the biological chemistry and mechanics which govern the thought process. It seems obvious that these processes can be damaged or subverted by, for example a stroke or a drug such as LSD. Emotional states tend to shade rather than directly effect, but  may be influenced by a chemical imbalance within the body ( depression, bipolar disorder ). I imagine this as a kind of  changing climate both general and, in part, unique to each individual.

Recognition is a fundimental requirement of consciousness, the ability is hardwired, interpretation is based on experience, therefore meaning is always based on previous experience. The senses provide information which is then interpreted, How does this process work?

Do with think in terms of a gathering flow of information which forms into an interpretation or recognition? Perhaps the process begins from a basis in geometric forms which become more detailed and precise with the increase in sensorial information and past experience. Another question is how and when the mind reaches a point of recognition?

I am also researching the way the brain edits information and decides on what is relevent or to be rejected. This process is at the centre of how we percieve our world, is there a form of censorship established or inbuilt into the structure of the brain? This might seem absurd, though I am trying to imagine how, by limiting that which is interpreted the mind can work more efficiently.  The brain must regulate the body and maintain it.  Gathering and interpreting information must be fast and effective when it is a matter of survival. Might the brain develop a restricted focus we call consciousness and a general accumulated flux of information which is the subconscious? If this is the case how are the two linked and are both limited in some form?

I've been working with images depicting the opening scenes of 1970's hardcore porn movies. To be honest the pleasure in these cheap tacky films are to be found in the paper thin storylines cheesy dialogue and soundtracks. This is porn made in a garden shed.

Big perms, moustaches ( and you should see the guys) the 'Carry On' smutty giggles and sexual noises which sound more like a 25 stone pensioner changing a spare tyre whilst dancing on mice than groans of orgasmic pleasure. There is something strangely joyous about these films when viewed in a historical context. This was the time just before AIDS arrived, when sex was risk free thanks to penicillin and the pill and the laws on gay sex were being eased. Not many of us felt we were a part of the permissive society but having a crafty peek at a bit of scandiporn gave us a glimpse of a tacky sexual paradise, a kind of compensation for being decimalised and suffering the indignity of metrification that joining the Common Market had entailed.

Sex aid 1970's style

 There is a wide streak of prudery running down the British backbone, the stiff upper lip and shouting for the underdog mentality excluded most guilt free pleasures, 'Erotic' was for many people.....  getting drunk on a Saturday night and fumbling under the candlewick blankets, the wife statically charged from her baby doll shorty nightie rubbing against the Brentford Nylon sheets, as hubby got on with the job. Sex seemed a hit and miss affair, like the popular game show of the time The Golden Shot, left a bit, right a bit, right right...fire. We bumped uglies but it never seemed as sexy as it was in Scandiland, In the suburbs there was rumours of wife swapping, car keys in a bowl and pick one at random, a borrowed wife, a borrowed car, Oh the scandal of it all.

 I only had a bicycle a second hand Chopper.

Richard Dadd

English Artist 1817-1886

Dadd was a promising artist, he studiued at The Royal academy then embarked on a 2 years of travels around Europe and the middle east. Whilst travelling he suffered from attacks of insanity which gradually increased in severity and violence. His father, though warned of his mounting insanity, took over the care of his son. In a delussional state Richard Dadd knifed his father to death whilst acting on the instructions of voices in his head.

He was institutionalised for the rest of his life. During this time he produced a small number of painting depicting an imaginey Faerie World. The most famous is 'The Faerie Feller's Master Stroke'. It was recorded by his doctor that he must have spent 10,000 hours on the work and still considered it unfinished.

The Faerie Feller's  Master Stroke   Richard Dadd