STUDIO<>VISIT (days 2 and 3)

So, didn’t post on Wednesday because that was a ‘staring into space day’. There is always one and it was good to get it out of the way early on. Today I rose early after a restless sleep, excited about what the day had in store but since it is Friday and I’m not in situ then it doesn’t really count.

Thursday was also the day that the timber got delivered for the Worcester Open (to which I have been accepted) so I was there early doors at the Museum and Art gallery putting in a shift heaving stuff around.

After showering I went up to WRE to buy a couple of decent sized stretchers and began preparations to paint reverse sides with watered down PVA glue. Next I put up my postcards and also printed off screensaver images of landscape – I’m tempted to do one with a silhouetted Playboy bunny logo on a pole in the distance, might lend the scene a little gravitas.

Looking at postcards – they could be used at Band B (B&B) as a promotional tool along with a map of the city and a list of suggestions where to go to see stuff. 

No pictures as I didn't take my phone. Back next Tuesday when I will finally get to pop pen one of those tubes of Windsor and Newton. Pop along, I'm waiting...... 

STUDIO<>VISIT

Today I started micro-dency @ PITT project space in Worcester – the residency which will stretch out over July is called Studio<>Visit and you are all welcome to visit. I have a kettle but no running water so please bring your own and I will make us both a refreshing drink. If you are going to visit please do so on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays between the hours of 10 a.m and 2 p.m. 

This must be the place....

I am investigating landscape painting and over the coming weeks intend developing my own Nu Tradition of landscape art.

So far I have unpacked and explored my new surroundings. There is a toilet and as a contrast, French windows that open out onto a small, pleasant walled garden. I have a radio and paint and I took a flask of coffee so I was happy. After listening to the radio, drinking the coffee and admiring the lawn for a short while I made some cursory notes in my cursory notebook, locked up and travelled the short distance to a nearby settlement where I bought a sandwich, two postcards and a Fleetwood Mac cd although not all from the same shop. 

Farmer on a skateboard

I set up a small installation that references homelessness and rough sleeping although the piece is called ‘Glossing’, a term that references Glamour and dosing, hence ‘glossing’.

Glossing

Tomorrow I will take some water to put in the toilet and begin unpacking the paints in earnest…. 

Drop Zone

Lately I've been making sculptures - I didn't set out to do so and until a week or so back I wouldn't have considered them as such. Micro Bill boards - interesting how it has developed from the ones I made last year which were text based, to these which are much more about the sculptural qualities inherent in their structure. The reverse is often more interesting than the front, the way the frame can be used in conjunction with objects/culture carriers (books, magazines, cd cases etc) and also how the BB responds to the plinth.

Now they've gone from just making a couple to thinking about them as a gallery landscape (working title Drop Zone imagining Drop City taken over, falling apart and now the hippies are coming back to reclaim it) - different sized plinths (maybe wallpapered), maybe one on the floor - in darkness but with lighting, perhaps using outdoor bulbs to create that yellowy 'motorway' style of atmosphere. Shadows. Maybe sound too, a hum or drone. Electricity.

Colour coded too with a restrictive palette, the above is an exception but otherwise sticking to wood varnish, grey/white card and cream gloss paint. Got a bit of a manifesto developing here! Included them for Worcester Open; it's the closing date for Exeter tomorrow with Ludlow and Wells to follow. We'll see.

Other news - new www coming on nicely. Mr Mecca has done a sterling job of putting it together. Just need more images. Details to follow.

Also picked up some work from Brum, photo's on aluminium, one largish and two 7"x 5", just need a third for a trip-tych. So, on a bit of a roll, not done any Cheek by Joel stuff for a while but I think the break was worth it.

Brum degree show was last Monday, good to catch up with Laura who I hadn't seen for a while. Good show too and lovely to be in the old building once again.

Cunt'ry Life

This month Scot of the Attic is promoting Cunt'ry Life Online Magazine               

Issue 19 - OUT NOW! 

Packed full of Tractor Articles, Ploughing Reviews, the Muck Spreading Gossip Column, Tips on how to Sow Your Seed, Horrorscopes, Farm Girl Fashion, T.V Drama - Swine Flu Over the Cuckold's Nest, How to Cook Roadkill (and not poison your family in the process), Health and Beauty - farm hands and moisteurising, Know Your Hole, True Romance - 'I fell in love with a scarecrow' by Hugh Heiffer! PLUS competitions + prizes.................. 

....and all on a farmboy’s wages!

                                                           (Back issues still available)                                      

GET IT WHILE IT'S HOT!!!

Scot Atticus is currently on holiday, he may return before the end of the month. 

Worcester Man Chosen as New Pope!

White smoke over Worcester when Brian ‘Basher’ Bishop woke up this morning to discover he had been elected the new leader of the Catholic Church, writes Scot Atticus.

Brian 59, of Strawberry Way, Dines Green, who recently retired after seven years as a plasterer  revealed that he only entered the competition after encouragement from his wife Janis, 53; ‘I thought I had no chance but she kept on at me saying – ‘you’ve got to be in it to win it!’ Brian claims his new job won’t change him one bit and he plans to continue coaching Dines Green F.C Under 13’s in their Sunday League campaign where they are through to the Quarter Finals of the North East Worcestershire Junior Cup. They face second place Batchley Colts this Sunday, kick off 2pm at Mount Pleasant Leisure Centre.

Before Brian

When asked about some of the broader issues facing the church today Brian, who admitted he’s 

never travelled abroad and only goes to church every other Christmas said he couldn’t see a problem with condom machines in Africa providing they could build enough public toilets to house them. The papal prophylactic wondered if too many different currencies might be at the heart of the problem, making it impossible to manufacture a generic machine at their Beijing plant. In his first address the profiteering Pontiff urged African nations to consider adopting a common currency similar to the Euro suggesting that ‘if they all had an Afro then they’d probably get on a bit better’.  

After Brian

Bishop will be known as Pope Rural I. 

Love of the Common Peepz

It’s dress down Friday at the station, but they don’t need the aggravation,

‘cos when the cops come out to play they look like men @ C&A

lo-fi high rise wi-fi too, Cherry Red caught Sniffin' Glue;

pace the cage in human zoos, listening out for blues and two’s.

(later)

a fat man wearing nylon slacks gets cornered by the P.A stack 

as subway dwelling disco bratz bait bouncers waving rounders bats;

D.I.S.C.O damaged firewall kid pulls ghetto princess off the skidz, 

(whilst rural punk plays Mercian funk that gloryfies his lifestyle junk).

- meanwhile on the other side of a town, designed by planners with no manners whilst getting hammered...

bingo wings at Burger King eat cheesy chips and onion rings; 

whilst Osbourne’s stately mandarins find horse meat in banana skins; 

Ukip safe trip, Premier in, Travelodge for Polish skinz; 

where Asian Babes sell webcam porn, U.S.B ports in every storm; 

handcuffed to a divan bedhead, bloodied duvet muddied bedspread;

flattery then battery, they drowned her in the ladies lavatory; 

blubbery and rubbery, schoolboys wank into the shrubbery, 

imagine her in reader's wives, 
with plastics, carrotts, cukes and vibes, 

it transformed their X-box lives - they only show you tits on SKY!

…….no safe word was whispered here, so they turned off her laughing gear.

Shall I go on?  

Nike, Bodem, Broadband modem, you're no one 'til you've been on Wogan, gotta problem? – adopt a slogan!

Relax…just do it, when you want to go through it

behind every door in every town, some weird kind of shit is about to go down. But Friday night is five* more sleeps, livin’ in the love of the common peepz.  

Worcester Fashion Week

Well, for the past fortnight it's been Worcester fashion week and we've all been struck down with runway fever! The city's cafes and charity shops have been over run with fashion savvy farmers and their gauche daughters eager to taste everything the city has to offer. We're grateful to Cheek By Joel for sending in these lovely images. For some time WFW has been viewed as being reminiscent of a crime scene and as a result photographers have  been banned - hence the press's reliance on artist's impressions such as these.

The event, which for the 4th year running was sponsored by The Lone Furrow Tractor Co, was held in the city's Guild Hall and was opened by Councillor Bob Roberts and featured Worcester's very own Carnivore Queen, lovely Katy Hackett, 19 (below). 'I had a lovely time' said Katy 'and I'm sure the experience will help me a lot'. We're not sure which designer is showing in each of these images, but we're fairly sure that they will be coming to what remains of our high street fairly soon.

Joel informs us that he is suprised these turned out as well as they did since to use his term he was as 'drunk as a lord' when he did them. So well done Joel for entering into the spirits of the event but without leaving your work ethic at the bar. 

It's taken a while to get off the ground, and whilst it may not yet quite be up there with New York, London, Paris or Milan - yet! - it's good to know it's taking off!