‘my thoughts/my work’

as previously posted, started a new series of work based on three little words (influence of the Humament – Tom Phillips). Still undecided about background colour, off to have a think…

terrible lighting has meant I need to take the photos again, but here’s the written aspect (close up)

Title: tongue twister. graphite on paper

If you have had the opportunity to see some of my earlier work you we know that I like to use expletives!!
Came across this on my inderweb travels.. shame its over the water, maybe the will transport over to the UK!
I have edited the words for tender eyes!

THE SWEARING FESTIVAL II
back to swear one
Saturday November 10, 2007
main event $12
panel event $5
TICKETS ON SALE HERE
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SATURDAY NOVEMBER 10, 3pm, $5 door (no presale of tix for Panel)
Experts discuss HOW THE S***S AND F***S CHANGE THE WORLD
Linguist Dr. Jonathan Hunt
Author and Litquake founder Jack Boulware
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SATURDAY NOVEMBER 10, 8pm, $12 door
The Mass Swearing Experiment – A multi-media exposure of us and our mouths.
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A Most Horrible, Vile Oaths contest – Where you get to offload on your personal targets.

LIVE MUSIC from Les Merdes – Sing along to the s**t parade
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Filthy, foreign tongues – Foreign guests educate us on How to cuss your stale croissant? And how to tell the Spanish train conductor, Why don’t you get some f*****g toilet paper on these trains? Other bad languages to feature too.
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Swear Into the Light – Curse torture, sponsored by The Dick Cheney Ideas Group
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The Shite Discotheque Party
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And loads more wrongness….
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Raffle Prizes
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Special Guests
The Swearing Festival explodes it all.

SWEARING

72% of men and 58% of women swear in public.
Swearing takes up 13% of adult conversation
Spock swore in Star Trek 4
One South Park episode used the same expletive 146 times.

following links that I scan usually delve a little deeper if it catches my eye – not to sure about having this sculpture in my living room but after seeing other work I like the use of mixed media and the technques used in their creation

by Rune Olsen

again delving that bit deeper, came across the original

in the trusted words of Rolf Harris “do you know what it is yet?”
Tako to ama
is an erotic woodcut of the ukiyo-e genre made around 1820 by the Japanese artist Hokusai. Perhaps the first instance of tentacle eroticism, it depicts a woman entwined sexually with a pair of octopuses, the smaller of which kisses her while the larger one performs cunnilingus. Hokusai created The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife during the the Edo period in when Shinto was making a resurgence; this influenced the piece’s animism and playful attitude towards sexuality. It is a celebrated example of shunga and has been reworked by a number of artists. Similar themes of human females having sexual intercourse with sea life have been displayed since the 17th century in Japanese netsuke, small carved sculptures only a few inches in height and often extremely elaborate.

as mentioed, had a look at some of the more recent work, this I like

Thickskinned 2006 Graphite, masking tape, blue mannequin eyes, newspaper, steel, wire and acrylic medium 33″ x 27″ x 46″

During my usual trails around the inderwed I happened across this artist. Took a closer look at what he was doing and on the surface looks like a great idea – mass art for the masses (update on Warhol I suppose). Then I went to the website to have a closer look at the work he actually produces.. to be honest the words that spring to mind are: quality? workmanship? I understand the concept, but I find the work produced is only worthy of the few quid he charges. Does it undermine the value of the work of others artists, who strive to produce work which shows integrity and a passion to create an artifact of personal value?

Roanoke College resident artist Steve Keene brings an assembly-line mentality to his work — and passes the savings on to his customers.
New York artist Steve Keene, who has set up a studio in Olin Gallery at Roanoke College’s Olin Hall, creates dozens of paintings simultaneously, which he sells for $1 to $5. Keene says art should be available to everyone.
Keene has created album art, video sets, stage sets and posters for the likes of the Dave Matthews Band.
Steve Keene is painting at Roanoke College’s Olin Gallery until Nov. 10, and since he arrived Oct. 26, he has painted more than 500 paintings.
Think real people can’t afford real art?
People weren’t just buying Keene’s paintings. They were buying them by the fistful, by the armload. Broke young twentysomethings, college students, even a 6-year-old named Judah were snatching up paintings by the real, full-time professional New York artist (and sometimes dropping them, too). Other artists were buying Keene’s paintings, as well. Artist Suzun Hughes of Roanoke had a stack of them in hand and was looking for more.
Why?
“It’s fun,” Hughes said.
It’s also cheap. How cheap? Let’s put it this way: If you’re one of those people who hangs posters on walls instead of paintings because the posters only cost $10, it might be time to give Keene a try. His paintings cost $5. And those are the big ones.
The little ones are a buck.
“Anybody can have one,” said Keene, resident artist at Roanoke College through Saturday. (His work will be on exhibit at Olin Gallery at the college for a week longer.)
How does he do it? Think Henry Ford, whose assembly lines brought automobile prices within reach of the common man. Keene is a one-man assembly line. He doesn’t paint a picture a month, or a week or an hour. He paints 10 an hour, up to a hundred a day — day after day.
“I really don’t think of these as paintings,” he explained, while taking a short break last week. “I think of it as a big sculpture that people are walking in. It’s like Hansel and Gretel. You see a gingerbread house, and you take a piece of candy with you.”
Fair enough. Walking into the gallery where Keene has set up shop is a little like stepping into a candy jar. Keene’s paintings — there are hundreds, maybe thousands — are lined up on two long wooden racks that span the gallery. More paintings are propped against the walls. On opening night, adults and students and a few very small children circled Keene’s wares at speeds ranging from contemplative to breakneck, sometimes pausing to pluck down paintings from the racks, as Motown music blared from loudspeakers overhead.
Meanwhile, between the racks, in a space marked off by yellow tape (the kind of tape you see at crime scenes that says, “Police line — do not cross”), Keene worked. Keene paints on pieces of thin plyboard cut into rectangular shapes. On this night there were about 80 of them sitting side by side. Keene moved among them with his brush, making a slash here, a dab there, while half a dozen people sat outside the tape and watched.
Keene did not talk to them. Asked later what people were saying about his show, he said he didn’t know.
“I don’t interact,” said Keene, who puts in 12-hour days painting. “I don’t want to talk to people when I’m working.”
200,000 sales and counting
Keene was educated at Virginia Commonwealth and Yale universities. Now a married father of two who lives in Brooklyn, he met gallery director Talia Logan when both were living in Charlottesville in the 1990s. Logan quickly became a fan. She estimates she has purchased more than 40 of Keene’s paintings (an outlay for art that falls somewhere between the price of an iPod and a new pair of shoes). “They’re addictive,” Logan said.
According to Keene’s Web site, his unusual approach to painting began to develop in the early ’90s, when he was friends with many musicians and worked for a while as a disc jockey. Keene has created album art, video sets, stage sets and posters for the likes of the Dave Matthews Band, Soul Coughing and the Silver Jews. His painting borrows a lot from music, in fact, especially the improvisational kinds. Keene, who often literally moves into the gallery where his work is being shown and paints on site, considers his work performance art, and says people who buy his paintings (on the honor system — there are payment boxes set up around the gallery) are “buying a slice of my time.”
Keene has sold a lot of slices. He has done his art act in Philadelphia; Houston; Cologne, Germany; Los Angeles; Melbourne, Australia; London; and Florida, and estimates he has sold 200,000 paintings over the past 15 years.
What does he paint?
Anything and everything. Here are some of labels that appear on his pictures in hastily painted letters: “Hotel Roanoke,” “Gertrude Stein,” “Purple Rain,” “Richmond,” “Norfolk,” “Virginia Beach,” “Baseball,” “October,” “Rain in Salem” and “Sam’s Club.” There are pictures of the Beatles and Brooklyn and Athens and lots of flowers.
“Junk,” Keene calls them, and “absolute nonsense.” The point is to gather up objects, he said, in the spirit of Robert Rauschenberg — who made art from dead animals and bathtubs, among other things — and assemble them into a collage.
But one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. Or woman’s. And whatever the reason, most of those buying up gobs of paintings at Keene’s paintings at his reception were female.
“I just like his whole philosophy about art,” said Julie Bivins, a Radford University graduate student whose husband works at Roanoke College. She had come to Olin Hall with friend Denise Valente, a respiratory therapist, and had a stack of dollar-priced “maybe’s” in her hands. “I chose this one just for the colors in it. Our walls are kind of bare.” Bivins was also eying one titled “Breakfast,” with a dashed-off plate of bacon and eggs.
“I like the way a lot of them are funny,” Valente said.
And Keene’s prices? “Ridiculous and funny,” Valente said.
Logan’s take on Keene’s art was a little different.
“It’s absolutely inspiring,” the gallery director said.

VIENNA.

Gustav Klimt’s studio is to be restored and opened to visitors.Once a small country cottage surrounded by fruit trees, the house at 11 Feldmühlgasse was expanded several times after Klimt’s death.The plan now is to demolish 90% of the building, leaving only the original core which Klimt occupied from 1912 until his death in 1918.The studio lies seven kilometres west of the centre of Vienna, in Heitzing, in what was then countryside.Klimt was living in his mother’s apartment in Westbahnstrasse, in town, and renting a workspace offered a place where he could embrace a more Bohemian lifestyle.There was scandalous talk of what went on at the studio, with models wandering around in the nude.According to his artist friend Carl Moll, every day “several were at his beck and call”.Klimt was a notorious womaniser, and there were rumours that he eventually fathered up to 16 children.When Klimt rented the small house, which was built in around 1860, he installed a large window on the north side, enabling him to use the main room as his studio.He lavished great love on the garden, tending roses among the yew trees.Two of his original rose bushes still survive, and these are also immortalised in his 1912 painting Orchard with Roses.Following Klimt’s death in 1918, his friend Egon Schiele (who himself was to die later that year) made what was then regarded as a crazy suggestion.He wrote about the Feldmühlgasse studio: “Nothing should be removed—because everything connected with Klimt’s house is a gesamtkunstwerk [total work of art] which must not be destroyed.The unfinished pictures, brushes, easel and palette should not be touched, and the studio should be opened as a Klimt Museum for the few who enjoy and love art.” It is almost miraculous that Klimt’s studio has survived.The Austrian government has now agreed to save the studio, and is to hand the property over to the Belvedere (which still has the largest collection of Klimt paintings).It will be offered rent-free, together with a contribution of €2m ($2.9m) for the restoration.All post-1918 additions to the building will be demolished, and the original four-room bungalow restored as closely as possible to how it originally looked.What makes the reconstruction of Klimt’s studio such an important opportunity is the survival of the furniture, which had been made by Wiener Werkstätte designer Josef Hoffmann.This was created as an ensemble, and was designed for Klimt’s requirements, with a large wall cabinet for his books and equipment, and seats for talking with clients.Originally made for an earlier studio in Josefstädter Strasse, the furnishing were moved to Feldmühlgasse in 1912.Such was the influence of Hoffmann’s furniture on Klimt that he apparently used the black-and-white band design from it as a decorative element in the background of his Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.This important painting was among those restituted last year from the Belvedere and it was subsequently bought by Ronald Lauder for his Neue Galerie.Another collector is to lend Japanese prints and African sculptures originally owned by Klimt. This will house the artist’s archive, which is owned by the Belvedere.Although two thirds of Klimt’s garden has over the decades been lost to new apartments, it still remains a tranquil spot, and it will be brought back to its original form.Klimt’s visitors recall it full of bumblebees and songbirds.The hope is that Schiele’s dream about the Klimt studio being saved will finally be realised in 2009, almost a century later.

Spent a little time last night on the lettering on the painting – now third layer has been applied – being basically a cadmium red base it really contrasts well with the lime background – in fact it makes my eyes go funny (an effect I was hoping to achieve!)
will post image later today – light permitting
other work currently on the go – just three words series – applied second layer of blue, thinking about the background; maybe opt for a white with a hint of colour, or just zinc white, have to a have a think and play.

just a quickie – been working hard this evening and managed to complete second layer of Payne’s grey, no canvas showing through!
Thought as I was on a role would start on the white areas, surprised myself and completed that, again two coats (000 brush).
Still felt on top of it so I have started on the lettering, a base coat of white, usual font; Times Roman style, thinking about which direction I should go in in terms of selecting final colour for lettering, based on lime I thought I might go for a cadmium red… well see as I start playing / mixing about with colour formats.
Also ….
a little taster of future projects: (will post more details in the not to distant future)
‘It’s all ……’
‘just three words’
‘exchanged inspired’
‘the one that got away’

There is just isn’t enough hours in the day!!

Big picture
Widely considered a touchstone of postmodernism, Tom Phillips’ artistic project, ‘A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel’, has achieved cult status since its initial publication in 1970. One day, Phillips went into a book shop with the intention of buying a cheap book which he would use as the basis for an art project. He randomly selected William Hurrell Mallock’s A Human Document and began the long process of transforming it into a work of art. He paints, draws or collages over the pages, leaving some of the original text on show. This display will follow the evolution of the ongoing project from its beginnings to the present day, with different editions on show alongside related works-on-paper, as well as a number of new pages that have not been seen in public.
Dean Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 6 Jan

As some one who uses photography in their work, I will give this a whirl, from the brief intro on the site it looks good
For video introduction:

The first major museum survey of its kind, The Painting of Modern Life re-examines what has been arguably the most influential development in the history of contemporary painting: the use and translation of photographic imagery. Curated by The Hayward Director Ralph Rugoff, the exhibition charts the international evolution of this tendency over the past 45 years, including seminal photo-inspired works from the early 1960s by artists such as Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol. Revealing the surprising stylistic diversity of this work, the exhibition also focuses on the great variety of subject matter from the personal to the political, addressed by featured artists.

‘This is the rare show that can sustain an argument’ (Daily Telegraph).

‘This is a show that stimulates mind and eye’ (Observer).

List of Artists:

Richard Artschwager, Robert Bechtle, Vija Celmins, Peter Doig, Marlene Dumas, Thomas Eggerer, Judith Eisler, Franz Gertsch, Richard Hamilton, Eberhard Havekost, David Hockney, Johannes Kahrs, Johanna Kandl, Martin Kippenberger, Liu Xiaodong, Malcolm Morley, Elizabeth Peyton, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Gerhard Richter, Wilhelm Sasnal, Luc Tuymans and Andy Warhol.