my life as a artist
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cutting edge
Sunday 27th September 2009 8:35 PM
As part of my application for York Open Studio 2010 I've had to include a photo of myself at work, so I got Mark the farmer to take this. I don't usually paint with a saw and a plastic shark, but I thought it might make me seem thrillingly innovative. It was quite a tricky shot to pull off. The Belgian Blue in the field was a bit spooked by my outfit, and the shark and the saw found each other so threatening that at one point I thought they might Clash (shark fought the saw and the saw won). However, Marks generational cow-soothing skills took care of the Belgian Blue, while I had to use a mixture of diplomacy and my bare hands to keep the shark and the saw apart.
I wore the brown hat because I like to think of it as a sort of psychic Sky-dish that catches waves of cosmic inspiration on its softly felted brim, and I'm hoping that the selection committee will see it the same way, and select me.
Meanwhile, back on the planet, I heard a lunchtime news item on the radio last week, that said there was a serious drought in East Africa. The evening programme was identical, except that the report of the drought had been replaced by the news that Chas and Dave had split up. From that, the listener could have assumed that the drought was over, and therefore no longer newsworthy, or they could have assumed that the BBC thought that the Chas and Dave story was more important. The drought still rages on, so it must have been the latter.
A quick inspection of Chas and Dave's discography, which includes 'Wallop and thump!', 'Cor blimey guv, watch what yer doin' with those jellied eels!' and 'Phwoar!', soon reveals that the BBC have made an error of judgement of such epic proportions, that it's almost beyond satire. All this in the same week that Gordon Brown is ceremonially dubbed 'World Statesman of the Year' by Henry Kissinger. In the audience was the new Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak, and the rock star, Bono. In the spirit of things, it would have been nice to see Bono present the Israeli defence minister with an award for humility.
Posted 8:35 PM | 5 Comments | Permalink
i cant stop loving ewe
Thursday 24th September 2009 10:22 PM
Despite all the current government warnings about it, I'm still doing it, and even if they make it illegal, I'll still do it, because love knows no fear. I laugh in the face of danger, especially when it's got a funny face or it's not very dangerous. Of course I'm talking about petting ruminants, not only a good name for a band, but an activity which, if it's mutually consenting and you both wash your hooves afterwards, can be very rewarding for both parties concerned.
Ruminants have got four stomachs, and even though that's one less than Gazza's mate, Jimmy 'Five Bellies', they fart and belch with equal vigour. Sheep, cows and goats are as well-informed on green issues as the next person, and in this time of global warming I'm sure that many of them are deeply embarrassed about the amount of methane they emit. They need some sort of reassurance, and I believe that the tender touch of a human hand on a ruminants flank can bring it comfort and a badly needed boost of self-esteem.
Of course the comfort doesn't only travel in one direction. When you're down and troubled, and you need a helping hand, possibly to update your CD collection, then the touch of a velveteen cow can be a bridge over troubled water. Obviously, not all ruminants are as soothing. Goats, for instance, can be very bristly and smell strongly of sock-cheese, but because they don't fart as much as sheep and cows, they're not as fraught with guilt and therefore less in need of therapeutic stroking.
Yesterday, on the 23rd of the 9th, 2009, I was listening to the World at One, (or was it sixes and sevens?), on Radio 4, in my four-stroke 1.8, doing 50 in third on the A19, and it just didn't add up. They were interviewing a Professor Eric Coli from the Ministry of Agriculture and Atrocity, who said that any loving contact with ruminants, even non-genital, could result in death for people with advanced heart disease or terminal cancer, and that all things, everywhere, should be disinfected with Omnicide.
Until we get love and empathy on the school curriculum, I'm afraid the education system's going to keep on turning out unfortunate souls like Eric. Unlike the ruminants he so despises, Eric is happily monogastric, and doesn't have a stomach like a fermentation vat, and therefore can't produce immense guffs of ozone-destroying methane, but by promoting this soulless brand of crude, spirit-killing reductionism, in his own way, he farts in the face of divinity.
Posted 10:22 PM | 5 Comments | Permalink
channeling
Saturday 12th September 2009 12:54 AM
These last few days I've been horizontal with a heavy cold so I've watched a bit more telly than usual, and in between puffing on the pleasant opium that is Harry Potter, The Simpsons, The Beatles and football, I've found the adverts like an unwelcome spreading pool of spilt bong-water.
Apparently, BMW make joy while Toyota brings families and films together. I actually drive a Toyota, hopefully making me seem marginally less delusional than BMW drivers.
There was an extremely loud, nasty, bang-bang, shouty-shouty psycho-trailer for an obviously unpleasant new film called 'Gamers', which promised 'real lives, real deaths' followed immediately by an army recruitment advert, which promised responsibility, explosions and travel, but could easily have just stayed with the same tag-line.
This evening, during the Simpsons, instead of watching the adverts, (which I feel have been weakening my auto-immune system), I went outside into the garden and searched for a really still butterfly, so that I could look at it. I was soon obliged by a flirtatious Painted Lady, sunning herself on the irises and tremulous like a new flower. There was something strangely familiar about her, in her character, the way she was, her little foibles, that reminded me of a certain caterpillar, called Susan, that I'd met a couple of weeks ago in amongst the dwarf beans, but she looked so completely and utterly different that I couldn't see how it could possibly have been her.
Amongst the soft green furnishings of that living living-room, her wings shone out like television screens, full-colour, high-definition, pixilated miracles of animated dust, broadcasting from a dishless sky the thrilling adventures of an iridescent planet and its beautiful soul. Uninterrupted by adverts, and not featuring Stephen Fry, this compelling drama was more than television, it was life itself.
Just before she flew off, I had a realisation that this gorgeous, elegant creature was none other than the frumpy, wriggly Susan that I'd known in the dwarf beans all those days ago. She'd always been ambitious, even then, but at the same time very self-conscious about her looks, and would often experiment with different styles to somehow compensate. She seemed to have a different exoskeleton every time you saw her, and I remember meeting her once, and overnight she'd gone from having eight pairs of legs to three pairs. She did look a bit less fussy, but at the end of the day, she was still black and yellow, wriggly, and very, very hairy.
The last time I saw her she'd taken to her bed, stopped eating, and was wearing a very 1930's one-piece exoskeleton in cream. Mark the farmer said he'd seen her on Tuesday, and he told me that in act of extreme minimalism, Susan had decided to disintegrate and become liquid. At the time I thought she'd gone too far, but as it's turned out, she's obviously done really well for herself and I'm delighted for her. She's a credit to creation and a lesson to us all.
Posted 12:54 AM | 8 Comments | Permalink
