Master of None. To focus or diversify?

Something I really struggle with regarding getting on and building any sort of solid body of work is just focusing on just one particular medium or style. It seems that many (if not all) the really successful artists both past and present whose work I admire and find inspiring have found something that is indisputably ‘them’. Work with a strong style and identity that you can look at and know it’s theirs. In my head I really don’t know if I have that, when I look back at all the stuff I’ve done in a wide variety of media it all feels like a bit of a clusterfuck in my head. I’m sure everyone goes through those stages of experimenting with various materials and styles before they hit on something special, something that just works for them and know this is what they want to do, this is what their artwork is going to be about. I feel like I’m constantly going through that without ever really arriving at that moment. Perhaps that moment doesn’t really exist and it’s just about making choices and sacrifices. I have this constant internal fight going on between me that is always thinking of the next thing and likes to mix it up and the other voice telling me I need to stop wasting time trying to be a bit of everything. It really does feel like a constant case of ‘Jack of all trades - master of none’.

Looking back through decades of work I see I’ve tried my hand at, produced bodies of work in - pen and ink illustration, watercolour pencil drawing/painting, large charcoal drawing, large multimedia relief pieces (both figurative and abstract), Sculpture, collage (traditional/paper and digital), painting (both oil and acrylic), printmaking (specifically lately linocut) and photography. I think that’s everything. If I assembled 2 or 3 of each of those and displayed them together would it as a whole look like my work or a rather disparate group show?

I feel like the sensible answer would be to decide on one or maybe two styles/media and subject matter and just really concentrate on those, master a particular discipline but I know I’d just get bored. After a few days of intense dot work on some tiny, massively detailed pen and ink piece I’d be dreaming of working on a 6 foot charcoal drawing, working loose and fast.

Recently I think I’ve been very much driven by my environment and lack of space or a studio where I can make a mess. I've been just making small drawings and paintings. They seem to get smaller and tighter over time and now I'm really craving making something big and expressive. Once the spring kicks in and it gets warmer out I’m planning on making full use of the garage space I’m now lucky to have and getting large and messy. 

Is it okay to have one stream of work that is 5 foot abstract assemblages with plaster and wood and wax etc and another that is nothing but 6 inch tight pencil drawings? I don’t suppose there are any rules and perhaps I might yet stumble on something I want to explore and exclusively work on for years but for now I guess I’ll just continue flitting from thing to thing trying to keep my busy brain engaged. I should probably choose 2 or 3 things and just concentrate on those, however in many ways my artwork feeds directly from other aspects of my life, I mean on any given day that days soundtrack is most likely to feature a variety of punk, country, folk, modern classical, Americana, 70’s rock, indie, psychedelia, electro, crust, metal, post rock, jazz, straight up pop and fuck knows what else. I’d go crazy just listening to one style of music but then on the other (other) hand (too many hands going on here) if I was trying to play 20 different styles of guitar in a band it’d be a fucking mess. Mind you, perhaps I would if I could, it's more that I can only actually physically play one dubious, half arsed style because I’m lazy and never practice. I’d love to be able to play country guitar.

To be continued….

Some recent reading rambling.

I recently finished a really great book, 'Burning Down the Haus - Punk Rock, revolution and the Fall of the Berlin Wall'. This was an awesome read, I have to say my knowledge of Deutsche punk (east or west) and the pre-unification situation in Germany is practically zero so this super detailed account was hugely educational in many ways. Honestly I'd always had this really ignorant and uninformed idea that everyone in the east was just desperately trying to 'escape' to the west, this was obviously the angle that the mainstream media was presenting over here back in the cold war days of the 70's and early 80's. So to read that in fact the east German punks who were fighting against massive oppression from the regime and most specifically the Stasi had no interest in escaping into the west but were instead intent on fighting the system to simply make life better for them and everyone in the east. In fact the Stasi would often banish punks to the west as a way as removing the problem. Initially the only voices calling for unification was actually from the growing number of neo Nazis (another constant threat the punks had to deal with).

Anyway, American author Tim Mohr who lived and DJ'd in Berlin during the 90's spoke to many of the key figures in the East German scene from bands such as Planlos, Wutanfall, Namenlos, Feeling B and many others to piece together an exhaustive history of the time.

I got into punk at the age of 12 in 1979, which was a similar time frame to a lot of the figures in the book but when I read about what they had to endure to even be punk it just makes you realise how hardcore, resourceful and incredibly resilient they were. Would I have stuck to my guns against the brutal oppression they had to deal with on a daily basis? Unlikely. I was arrested on demos back in the 80's but I would think questioning from Norwich CID was a walk in the park compared to days of relentless interrogation from the Stasi, often for little more than being found with some vague lyrics written on scraps of paper.

We toured West Germany in 1988 a year prior to the wall coming down but didn't get to Berlin or anywhere close to the East. I did first visit Berlin for a week in 1999 though and was pleased to see a whole section at the end of the book relating to the very productive time after the wall came down when there was a power vacuum before reunification and the East German punks squatted a whole bunch of old buildings and set up a whole alternative network, central to which was the large squat Tachelese. I visited there, having a look around some of the artists studios and had a nice sandwich in the basement café Zapata in 99 (I posted a few photos recently on my Instagram page), the building was evicted in 2012 so I'm grateful I got to see that piece of important Berlin history.

Describing what happened in Berlin during that short lived power vacuum between the fall of the wall and unification Tim MOHR SAYS -

"What was suddenly happening in East Berlin wasn't bohemianism, it was pure magic: the imposition of something completely new on this blank slate of a city, a collective imagination being brought to life. and for that reason alone, the crumbling wasteland of central East Berlin became the most beautiful place on earth just then, an entire city of limitless possibility...

....The dream of scaling up a society based on socialist anarchist cells seemed to be working. East Berlin had become an autonomous zone on par with the Paris commune of 1871, and unlike nineteenth century Paris, Berlin had no central government to fight , no national troops threatening to invade - there was in essence no central authority at all in the aftermath of the collapse of the communist regime"

Anyway, I'd highly recommend picking up a copy of the book, I got my copy from the awesome Land of Treason distro - https://landoftreason.co.uk/product-category/books-on-hardcore-punk/

Here's some basic history of Tacheles - Kunsthaus_Tacheles from Wkiipedia

Tacheles in 1999

A younger me some 22 years ago outside tacheles in Berlin.

Here's an interview with Tim Mohr talking about the book and the scene.

n the flipside to this, as inspirational and uplifting I found Burning down the Haus I’m struggling through the Harley Flanagan ‘Hard-Core - Life of my Own’ biography which I’m mostly just finding really depressing. The constant (and I mean utterly relentless) tales of being crazy fucked up on LSD, angel dust and whatever other drug coupled with gratuitous, detailed accounts of sickening violence. Yeah we get it, you’re a fucked up hard ass. The uber macho thug core tough guy shit that Cro-Mags spawned pretty much encapsulates everything I hate about that side of hardcore. Also his recollections of some punks back in the day in New York who were in that grey area between right wing skinheads and punks ‘chaos punks’ really brought back some bad memories. I’d not really heard anyone else use chaos punk as a term since the 80’s where back here in Norwich they were the bane of our fucking lives. There was a whole chaos crew here and we were their sworn enemies (it was one way, we didn’t give a fuck about them and just wanted to be left to do our own thing). One even had ‘kill hippy Punks’ on the back of his jacket. We pretty much gave up playing local gigs because the constant overbearing threat of violence was just so tiresome and so many gigs were ruined by their brainless nonsense. Certainly one thing from back in the day I don't miss.

Don’t get me wrong when Age of Quarrel came out in 1986 it blew me away. All our crew were totally into that record and it used to get played to death at the old D.I Drayton Road punk house and it’s still undeniably a classic (putting aside some dubious lyrics). 

I saw the Cro-Mags in 1987 in Leeds at a huge metal fest titled ‘Christmas on earth’. we’d all mainly gone up there to see voivod but unfortunately they couldn’t get into the country so didn't play. Aside from Cro-Mags other bands on the bill were Megadeth, Overkill, Nuclear Assault, Kreator, Laaz Rockit and Kreator. From what little I remember it was all a bit of a damp squib with Cro-Mags actually being the only high point. I remember we spent some fun time hanging outside beforehand getting nicely drunk only to discover once inside it was like this horrible soulless dark aircraft hanger without a fucking bar, all I remember them serving was orange juice and there was a no re-entry policy.  Being stuck inside a giant metal fest without alcohol was a serious downer. There was no atmosphere as the place was only about half full plus the sound was truly abysmal. I think Cro-Mags were the only band to manage to get a half decent sound. There was also this huge gap between the stupid crowd barriers and the stage (so typically metal) plus really over zealous security apes policing the photo pit. If you were quick it was still possible to clamber onto the barrier and stage dive from there, which I was having fun doing until at one point I was surfing on top of the crowd trying to drop back down when one of the stage thugs grabbed me and pulled me into the photo pit, I was then dragged away by my dreads all the while being punched, pulled behind the stage, a fire door was kicked open and with a few more choice punches to my body found myself unceremoniously thrown into the street. Luckily (or perhaps unluckily) a kindly photographer managed to get me back in with his press pass. Nuclear Assault were half way through their set when I got back in and all the other bands sucked. Anyway, that’s my little Cro-Mags tale. Oh and I did do the cover art for a UK/HC Cro-Mags tribute album on Blackfish records back in 1999. Amazingly, I’m still actually pretty happy with the painting I did for that, it was kind of fun.

Anyway still got about 100 pages of the biography to get through so maybe there'll be some sort of redemption and positivity yet, c'mon Harley you can do it.

This all took me waaaaaay too long to write. I think I might be missing the point of a blog, especially if I want to write on a bit more of a regular basis. Also I possibly chose the wrong platform as Blogger is being buggy as hell and driving me insane with totally random formatting and layout issues that are mostly making no sense. Ah well I shall persevere.

Cheers to anyone (anyone?) who is actually reading my ramblings.

The great procrastinator and other tales.

 Since I started finally writing on this blog last month I’ve been thinking about the nature of my creative block and more specifically my quite spectacular procrastination skills. I’ve actually procrastinated writing this particular post for a good week or three. 

I’m treating this as a fresh start and like I’m going right back to the beginning (whatever and wherever that is), with that in mind I figured it would be a good idea to try and see what patterns I have to my personal roadblocks and self sabotage. Time to try and break some of those and find a way around those blockades.

One of my favourite and most used excuses to myself regards my work space and environment, like I can’t start making anything until my work space is ‘just so’ and if I can just get this space sorted or add/remove this piece of furniture then I can think and create. It’s odd how I feel like I just can’t create within any sort of chaos, everything has to be tidied and sorted first. Back in the 80’s and early 90’s I literally (and happily) lived within a maelstrom of utter chaos and filth, it didn’t bother me at all. I’d just push things aside, set up somewhere within it all and draw/paint, completely engrossed and utterly oblivious to whatever was around me. The first Deviated Instinct covers and a bunch of Napalm Death album covers were created from within that detritus. 

In the middle of a Napalm Death cover back in my old bedsit days, a free penny chew for anyone who can tell which record cover that is. Also note all the big crazy canvas paintings/collages on the wall. I miss doing big stuff.

Since my bedsit days I’ve lived in 5 different houses and trying to find and make the perfect work space has always been a struggle and an excuse I’ll use as to why I’ve not been able to work. After I finished my visual Studies degree in 1999 I finally did what I’d always dreamed of and got a studio. I got a space within the Warehouse Artists Studios, a co-op studio space in the centre of Norwich (sadly no longer there and long since demolished for a housing development). You had to be interviewed to get a space and once accepted had a space among 20 odd other artists. There was also communal spaces for workshops and group shows, a darkroom and access to computer and admin stuff for networking and promotion. I had a space for about 5 years and spent some of that time serving on the management committee as well as working as the marketing and media manager for a while ( a role I got a reduction of my studio rent for). Looking back it really was perfect and I miss it a lot and yet it still didn’t lead to me making huge amounts of work or taking great creative leaps. Sadly moving into that space also coincided with a time when big aspects of my life were in turmoil and falling apart coinciding with a rapid downward spiral for my mental health. Much of the time I had that studio I was struggling with at times crippling depression and anxiety which literally took me years to work through. Coupled with having to constantly increase my hours at my day job I was able to spend less and less time there until I just couldn't justify the money I was spending on rent for an unused space and had to reluctantly give it up. By this time I’d then moved into a small flat on my own so also had to move all my accumulated art supplies, tools and often very large and cumbersome work into every corner of my apartment. 

My old studio circa 2000-ish.

Gubbins in my old studio during the dark days.

As I was writing this a memory just popped into my head, there used to be a local regional arts magazine style TV programme called 'The Biz' on ITV in the early noughties. I can't remember how it came about but I recall being featured one week and someone who used to be in Eastenders coming down with a camera crew one day to film me and my work in my studio. It was all quite surreal. I recorded the short piece (where they also created a montage of my work to a Napalm Death soundtrack) onto a VHS which is gathering dust in a cupboard somewhere. I haven't seen it since and haven't had a VHS player for a decade or so, I should try and get that converted and post it though, unless it's too cringingly embarrassing. Anyway, I digress...

When I’m feeling particularly hard on myself I tend to beat myself up for wasting such a great opportunity but in truth it was just shitty luck that the universe had various planets colliding for me at once and I’m not sure there was any other way I could have muddled through. In the years since though I do feel like I’ve lost all connection to any kind of local art scene or network. Also my work when I’ve done any has had to adapt to my lack of space, thus I went from making big, messy relief pieces and large wax sculptures and 6 foot charcoal drawings to tiny, tight illustrative drawings and not much else.

Since we moved into a new place last year I've actually got a choice of spaces in the house I can work in but still find myself making the same lame excuses. However I’m really trying to make the effort to just shut up and work through it this time. I’ve set up a little drawing corner in the spare bedroom we’re lucky to have plus we have the luxury of having a large garage (with currently no car) so have no excuse for not getting back out and dirty, making some bigger, looser work. I’m looking forward to sharing this as it develops, definitely feeling some Spring optimism growing.

So basically so long as I can find some spare table space somewhere or room to set up my easel if I want to paint I have no excuses, even if I had an amazing gigantic dream studio no doubt I’d be able to find a reason it wasn’t quite right yet. That’s not to say I’d not like to get back to having a proper studio space of course. A Mid can but dream.

One of my current little sketching corners. From here I plan to conquer the universe.

One of my other primary creative roadblocks is too many plans, ideas and infernal lists to the point where I just can’t focus and feel totally overwhelmed by it all, which leads to not knowing which to start with or focus on and thus nothing gets done at all. I’ve started multiple little journals and sketchbooks that are just full of lists of proposed projects and ideas and inspirations. These go back years and years and then I see I’ll go back and revisit old lists and leave myself snarky little comments about not having done something five years later or something. I mean, scribbling ‘fail, fail, fail’ over something really helps!! Yeesh.

I did just look over a bunch of pages and lists I’d made back in 2010 and noticed a good few things (that weren’t even new in my head then) that I’ve still not got around to and would still like to do.

I’m not sure what the answer to all this is, I know that I should just choose one thing, focus on it, work on it start to finish, sounds simple but yet I seem unable to quieten the noise in my head whilst working already thinking about the other things I want to. Maybe I’ll actually write myself some sort of timetable for how I propose to use my free time over a 2 week period and see if I can stick to it. I’m usually hopeless at these things though, my many futile attempts at “okay, I’m going to draw every single day even if it’s just a two minute doodle” rarely get past day 3.

I probably need a list of ideas of how to tackle my lists. Yep, that’s the way.

I need to reboot my brain.

Other things...the pressure of feeling like I need to justify everything in a piece of art. I blame art school for this but that’s a whole other post at some point I think.

Also, the scourge of social media and the modern brainfucking disease of distraction and total lack of an attention span and…..

...oh, look, a butterfly.

Yep that’s another topic to tackle in a post of it’s own.

I think there is a lot more on all this I could waffle on about but that’ll do for today. You see what I mean about attention spans, mind you when I wrote a post on facebook that was longer than about 2 sentences my brother told me “no ones got time to read all that”, so cheers to anyone who got this far.

Things I've been digging this week - 

I’ve been really getting into the ‘Gas Lit’ album by Divide and Dissolve. I usually find I can take or leave a lot of drone/doom but there’s something otherworldly about the whole vibe of this album. I can’t quite put my finger on the feeling it evokes, even though they sound nothing the same I get a similar under the skin feeling from Ulver’s ‘shadows of the Sun’ album.

Also I guess some of the oppressive noise is in a similar vein to the Body but I get more of a positive kick. Whenever I listen to The Body I always have the mental image of a beaten naked man chained up, kneeling in his own piss in the corner of some vast empty warehouse while a figure in a pig mask holds a snarling dog and shrieks at him as he weeps and snivels. Happy stuff.

Divide and Dissolve don’t make me think of that.

Also it’s all about Context.

The world probably doesn’t need any more bunches of beardy blokes just tuning way down and playing very loud very slowly.

Divide and Dissolve most certainly aren’t that.

Taken from their website -

Divide and Dissolve are:

Takiaya Reed (Black and Tsalagi [cherokee])

Sylvie Nehill (Maori)

“We would like to observe a radical shift in the current paradigm of complacency in regards to oppressive power dynamics, genocide, racism, white supremacy and colonization” the band have previously said “to give weight and validation to voices that are traditionally misrepresented and crimilinized before given a chance to speak”

I was also going to write about a couple of great books I just read but I think I'll save that for next time. This has already taken me way too long to post. One of the reasons for doing this blog was just to get a flow going, keep it fairly brief, rough and ready but I've already found myself sort of obsessing over it and things taking 10 times longer than they should. Not to mention that I'm continually thinking of other things I want to post about that then get added to all the physical and mental lists and suddenly I've got even more stuff to get overwhelmed with and slow me down.

So enough.

Hit publish, move on and stop wittering ya dithery old get.