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.