25 01 2018

Heroic attempts on the studio, punctuated by taking snaps... full of tristesse punctuated by euphoria. Binned stuff I haven't seen in over 20 years. Playing havoc with my chest.

22 01 2018 Monday

Yesssssssss!! Can't believe how much I've done this morning! Second studio is practically usable and the fact I'm not actually gasping for air is miraculous. Can't move however and aint holding my breath for the afternoons activities. Where's that puffer.... (ha that's what alchemists assistants were called, I'd forgotten. They died in droves, of course.)

19 01 2018 Friday

Last night O-B, Gracie, Theo, Tim, Kat, Jim, Peter D., Margaret and I (think that was it) met and talked about performance art having watched The Artist is Present. the Marina Abromavitch apology (I use the term in the sense of medieval theology). It was a good and provocative night and everyone wanted to do it again; agreed on the 19th Feb when we will deal with Dada.

Theo having just turned up overnighted and this morning I press ganged the poor boy into sorting through a huge amount of old pencils, left over from workshopping days. We got it down to a large carrier bag and a small one, pencils cleansed and sharpened, the rest binned. In the process I found Keith Moons' drum stick, obtained many years ago from the drummer himself, on Top of the Pops.

The pencils go to Senegal with a local lady who takes stuff to two villages there.

Most cathartic. Am aiming to get rid of old stuff, unused for years, to make room for more. Either that or a new studio.

thurs 18th Jan

Bob away - femme de menage ill - Andree moved out - builders gone. Thursday is mine! Then I remembered the paperwork, most of it critical. Sigh.

Sat 13th Jan 2018

My ineptitude with technology is actually a handicap. All of yesterday trying to get files to designer... finally uploaded to facebook and sent reduced so at least he can work out what he has to deal with.
Rather good to exchange views, he has pointed out the weaknesses of a strand of the book - the diagrams - which he finds confusing. LaLa.... they are Staffords, from the horses mouth.
Builders have been claiming they will finish tomorrow for three days. Now its going to be monday. It'll take weeks to have a working studio again.

weds 10 jan 2018

Still in exile, in winter bedroom; computer on dressing table with printer, some notes and files on chest of draws. Not unpleasant except its hard to draw here.
Have managed a few pages for the book; oven ready anyway, inking to be done if I ever get a studio again.
Have scanned and sent 9 images to designer but don't know if hes got them. Files are HUGE, had to change all sorts of technical stuff to send them and still don't know if they are there.

08 01 2018

spent yesterday considering relationship between model and artist and how necessary it was to note the observer, since these things don't occur one without the other; without being diagrammatic or unnecessarily pedantic - all that stuff. Bounded into draw with an alert brain and a sharpened pencil. Leon however was never took his eyes off his mobile! Kept me laughing all morning.

07 01 2018

In an idle moment - I seem to be having many - l was standing by a window hoping to catch a lightning flash of which there were also many.
Then I saw these eyes looking in!
Captivated.
Drawing tomorrow, if all is well. Thinking about the model looking at me rather than me looking at the model. Can this change  things?

5th Jan 2018

Cheerful day - have abandoned not only studio but entire house, due to amazing levels of dust generated by builders. Got computer and printer installed on dressing table in summer bedroom, which is v comfy.
Have therefore been able to do computer stuff. Downloaded hundreds - thousands? - of pix onto external storage, xmas pressie from Bob. Caught up with mail. Bought a raffle ticket for the RA - 35 quid, do I never learn? Was seduced by the fact that Greyson Perry is doing the selection and asking for funny pix. Am sending the Frog Princess which I think is hysterical.
Spent time on Skype talking with Marcus J., who is a close friend of the guy that runs the foundation I am pointing my book at, to  pay for the designer. He likes it. I in the meantime have decided its not so much a book as a pamphlet and needs padding. Bobs comment; I'm loosing sight of my target audience. Yup.
Plumber and team here for another week.

o2 o1 2018

La la another year. Synesthetically it is pale grey-custard yellow, with a rather nice lemon zest taste.
Plumber arriving allegedly at 8.30 am, who has since texted to revise to 10 (hence time to do blog). Taking a slice off the studio to make a bathroom for the adjacent bedroom in adjacent house. Then, in the absence of an income from art, we can let it. Nicely symbolic.
So can't finish up, dammit, but will have opportunity to do all the computer based stuff I've been putting off.
Power cuts permitting. Started last night and since there are storms raging the power kept going off. Gave up in the end but not before managing to pay $49 to enter yet another pointless art competition. I quite like this one, which I entered last year. Was attracted because a. everyone in the business said dont touch it and b. if you are selected they foot the cost of the p and p. AND they give you a certificate!!! The deal is basically you pay to have an image included in a big light box which is set up somewhere important. No selection, that occurs after the big light box thing. (The selected show last year was dire. Wispy trees against snow kind of nonsense.)