Monday 15 February 2021

An introduction and finding a path out of the fog.

 As is evidenced from my meagre and sporadic activity on both my Instagram and Facebook art pages I’ve hardly been prolific with my artwork over the past few months/years/decades. Indeed that is how long it feels like this creative funk/slump and general block seems to have been dragging on. Of course it’s all about perception and maybe from the outside looking in it doesn’t seem quite so barren but from my confused, constantly overthinking inside the struggle to get back into any kind of meaningful flow feels never ending. Scrolling through social media it always appears that the entire world is making amazing work though of course I know this is but an illusion and all you are seeing are peoples very best, curated lives and in all likelihood everyone is struggling just as much as you….but it doesn’t help.

As part of my apparent intention to be the world's greatest procrastinator I have been planning to do a blog of some form or other for about the past 10 years, it’s always on my end of year well meaning ‘to-do’ lists for new beginnings in a new year. There it generally stays, never getting out of my head onto the screen but I finally broke the seal and made a post with last month's short piece about one of my old bands ‘Angst’ so now it’s time to make a start on the other aspect of the blog - my artwork/life. 


I’m planning on splitting my posts here between documenting and talking about various old and current bands and musical projects as I go through the long process of digitising decades of old cassette recordings etc and then hopefully working through my creative block regarding my visual art  by discussing and sharing my ideas, working practices etc. I’m also planning on doing a bunch of small interviews with some of the amazingly talented friends I have working as artists or makers within the creative fields, finding out about others particular working practices and how they deal and overcome various hurdles and issues. We shall see.


The infernal list maker.

I have heaps of old journals where I’m constantly berating myself for not making any art, trying to unpick the knots of twisted wool inside my head plus literally no end of lists. I make lists. Lists and lists and more lists. Unfortunately the things on those lists very rarely get done, just moved onto other future lists. Looking at my most recent lists from the start of the year it really isn’t a lack of ideas or plans for work I’d like to make, quite the opposite, it’s TOO MUCH stuff, too many things, too many ideas. I never know what I should/could do first, where to start, and so inevitably I get so overwhelmed I do nothing. I’m hoping that by keeping this blog I can at least feel like I’m doing something and gradually find some focus. I know I’m a year or ten behind the times and blogs are probably very much yesterday's thing. Probably there are very few, if any, out there interested or with the attention spans to wade through my waffle and stream of consciousness but I don't really care. I’m mainly doing this for myself, however, if by some small chance anyone reading should find anything interesting or want to offer any comment or feedback or start a discussion that’d be most grand and appreciated.


Looking back through old sketchbooks, photos of old atwork plus all the cassettes of personal musical experiments it seems like I was most productive through the 90’s plus that’s when I took more chances with art and music and there were the biggest leaps in both ideas, styles and output. I was wondering why that was? Did I have more free time? In some cases yes, as I wasn’t working long hours at a mind numbing and physically exhausting day job as I have been these past 15 years or so, however it was also a time when my daughter (born in 1992) was small and I was designated stay at home dad while her mum was finishing her degree and Uni and working part time so child care was taking up a lot of my time. Also it was the decade where I did both my access Art course at City College and then my 3 year Visual Studies degree at Norwich Art School both of which I absolutely loved. I’d be an eternal student if I could afford it and being in that environment my work thrived. However I think the biggest difference between now and then is the lack of time destroying distractions. This was largely a time before the internet invaded our everyday lives and brains and also before Netflix and TV on demand. I want to write a whole separate blog post at some point on my views on Social Media and how I feel it has (largely negatively) affected the way I work and think. I feel like we have all been irreversibly re-wired and trying to override this and free ourselves to work in the way we used to (for ourselves, without the need for constant validation etc) feels increasingly impossible.


Never enough sketchbooks.

Anyway, I guess this will do for now. This is just a basic introduction, in the meantime please keep an eye on my anti-social media for new stuff. I’m hoping to write here at least once or twice a month to start with and have already a list (of course) of several topics and posts I intend to write soon. 

If you got this far, thanks for reading, I’m really hoping this will be a bit of a spring board and that it will prove the start of a new period of creative productivity. Looking forward to sharing my random meanderings along the way.






Currently playing while I write this - 


Myrkur - Folkesange cd


Other recent musical inspirations - 


BIB - Deluxe lp

Neil Cassal - Fade Away Diamond Time cd

Wardruna - Kvitravn cd

Black Country, New Road - For the First Time cd.

Emma Ruth Rundle, Thou -  The Helm of Sorrow EP


Currently reading - 


Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock,Revolution and fall of the Berlin wall - Tim Mohr

Norse Mythology - Neil Gaiman

Steve Ignorant / References with Mathew Worley 


My muse Maia