tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53010015235813116482024-03-19T04:00:34.665+00:00MICKEY MOUSE has grown up A COW :: Tom Gameson's blog ~Welcome to my blog of animation work, pictures i've drawn, inspiration i've gathered and whatever else.. what I had for breakfast too from time to time.Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.comBlogger298125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-78722124010309732752016-04-13T16:48:00.001+01:002016-04-13T16:48:47.513+01:00Scribbled secret notebooks<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I think I know what's
comin'. We got a burgeoning spirituality on the horizon of our
society. It's there n it's growin. Mindfulness on the NHS.. Meditation in schools. (I am excited to see these kids grow up..!). It makes sense hence it's growin'.
Its nice to be nice. It's natural to love. Hence it's growin. It may
take time but it'll come in thru the door, eventually. When we allow
it. Because the arch of the moral universe is long but it bends
towards justice.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Contempt for this
modern society is where we're at. You see it all around. Fashion
advertisements fronted by sullen expressions. Holywood &
X-Factor, flogging dead horses to tired eyes. Contemporary art with
it's leanings towards disorder, chaos, & sometimes ugliness. The
absolute apathy to change abound.The decline of the West (Oscar
Spengler), these are seemingly the end days, were we put all that
former-prosperity to bed.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Right now contemp. Art seems all about edgyness & graffiti & messy paint & sullen expressions. Nah fuck that. That's like Topshop, frownin' down on us & on our faces too when we find ourself in their shirts.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But we'll get tired of
this contemptious outlook, and thus will be the trajectory. Inspired
will be the step forward. Love will be the landing place.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Art will help society
get there. Paint a picture of a pretty place & watch all birds
fly to it.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Art will help allow it.
Share a smile, see a smile.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Lets see a smile.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Not cus I'm dull &
unrealistic. Or ignoring the truth.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I see the truth and its
loooove! It's creativity. It's compassion. It's <u>one big organism
prodding itself towards glory.
</u></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So I ain't talkin about
ignorance is bliss. Or turnin that frown upside down. Nothhiin
mechanical. All natural. Progressive & alive.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Pick up the baton of
impressionism! Lets take one step back, take a deep breath in and
cough sideways all the monotonous laboured speech of modern art. One
step back, & two ever-forward.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Lets see in the souls
of men the light that Monet painted.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Let us see the sadness
too! Sure, perhaps it'll be warming sadness, not sullen, 'whatcha
gunna do about it' loneliness.. Warming sadness, like the empathy
Dylan brings in yr ears as he sings n you agree-inside.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Related:<br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bHw4MMEnmpc" width="500"></iframe></div>
Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-46344039321556695652016-03-26T04:22:00.000+00:002016-04-07T21:14:48.458+01:006 in a rowSo I recently finished
these oils of me mate Alex.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRoO8BqsjBtYQB51Ef_9s6Vqx-hRnR066J-5MAvYuVokxOPAWnR36HSkQDtJpxmGtMvkMNhZSriGnEk87rOqxrGIuM9Iy4f64iLvB8o1GjmK57ZI0Sa8mmlTGr0_ZkoTZmpoPYgau28fOp/s1600/DSC_0627.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRoO8BqsjBtYQB51Ef_9s6Vqx-hRnR066J-5MAvYuVokxOPAWnR36HSkQDtJpxmGtMvkMNhZSriGnEk87rOqxrGIuM9Iy4f64iLvB8o1GjmK57ZI0Sa8mmlTGr0_ZkoTZmpoPYgau28fOp/s400/DSC_0627.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiibGtFu4_yK2wqEh5Ft2xK5R8FcoV30qmBBjGZVga7g6LZPssXom8jWBpy6V6JyZhlKvc_sspDKuJytzlgppqIRxxlJ9h5V32h7sv7Rmwb3C9JTnQPGXQY5otMrlnFzvUDiJYTs2J_Vd1X/s1600/finished2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiibGtFu4_yK2wqEh5Ft2xK5R8FcoV30qmBBjGZVga7g6LZPssXom8jWBpy6V6JyZhlKvc_sspDKuJytzlgppqIRxxlJ9h5V32h7sv7Rmwb3C9JTnQPGXQY5otMrlnFzvUDiJYTs2J_Vd1X/s200/finished2.jpg" width="149" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHF3tOyvSSlpmiSWGu2fXbNTWavP38eNi9Rj8UFLEX1VpMxuxzVa7-apBTer3dATLFPuHUejteHYAWkR7l__Hgiq7EQOxGI4j5DB8bq40yY9P53EVkis7Vbtq2GYwZq2OP4vr5JvFg-dD2/s1600/finished.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHF3tOyvSSlpmiSWGu2fXbNTWavP38eNi9Rj8UFLEX1VpMxuxzVa7-apBTer3dATLFPuHUejteHYAWkR7l__Hgiq7EQOxGI4j5DB8bq40yY9P53EVkis7Vbtq2GYwZq2OP4vr5JvFg-dD2/s200/finished.jpg" width="154" /></a></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFdwVSvHOIQRNw6RmaLGzg6PlGSc4dHyuI-AI3WMy1GYTlrnl5h5MDdcGtHNkd1hBoU2HD11O_C5v5qLYZpSCL36yyMgbRwNseulSBRPXMbqTJDCrt1o0cnVQjWUQc_j-tEZx-57UM8UdF/s1600/DSC_0633.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFdwVSvHOIQRNw6RmaLGzg6PlGSc4dHyuI-AI3WMy1GYTlrnl5h5MDdcGtHNkd1hBoU2HD11O_C5v5qLYZpSCL36yyMgbRwNseulSBRPXMbqTJDCrt1o0cnVQjWUQc_j-tEZx-57UM8UdF/s200/DSC_0633.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK-qGf42g6XVKY3PJ29sN2x6VtUdTcjIDADhAUZb31i0ODLXmn7KeTIQhIoj7GiG85usnYBBsqWrBgf0JqZAQWcnAZKKil2rdDg-Y1SNF6FZ0gpdFIITHuZL-103nFxBhruv1b5f4JC34G/s1600/DSC_0640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK-qGf42g6XVKY3PJ29sN2x6VtUdTcjIDADhAUZb31i0ODLXmn7KeTIQhIoj7GiG85usnYBBsqWrBgf0JqZAQWcnAZKKil2rdDg-Y1SNF6FZ0gpdFIITHuZL-103nFxBhruv1b5f4JC34G/s200/DSC_0640.jpg" width="112" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>The back story:</u></b><br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Me and alex
both lived in a hostel together last year in Hove. We both eventually
left there, but stayed in contact. I'd wanted to do a painting of
Alex for a while. He's a good friend and an interesting character –
his tales a strange one and weaves all about, in and out of any
pavement crack or hedgerow. I would say we struck up a real bond based on the books we both read, things we both felt about the world, and just laughing together at life in all it's sillyness.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I got a call from Alex
a couple of months ago saying 'Hey Tom! I'm over at Pauls.. I leave
tomorrow, come around!” so I did. We had a few beers and laughed
and listened to old C.D's. Then I said 'Oh Hey! Lets get that picture
before you go!'. So he sat back against the wall, someone
angled the hanging bulb in his direction, and I snapped a few
on my shoddy phone camera. Means must n all that. I thought they may
not come out any good. but they surprised me..! I took a bunch, and I
couldn't decided which I liked best.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Originally I'd wanted
to do a take on Manet's Absynthe drinker for Alex. I was thinking of
posing it, but in the end, I dug the freshness of the photos we took
moreso than if we'd tried to arrange the shot. It just wasn't the
time, or the place. It was a time to snap & capture what was there. To arrange anythin' woulda felt like a fraud.. drew the originality right outta the occasion.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So I got 6 all together
that I liked the look of, and didn't know which one to paint. The
work goes on hold there for a month, as my brain tries to decide
which. A month or so later, I was up in London looking about the
tate, in the Turner wing. On the wall there was a plack which read
that Turner, used to sometimes paint multiple canvases at a time,
sometimes even 8 seascapes going in his studio, all at once; moving
from one canvas to the next with the paint loaded onto the brush.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I thought, what a good
shout. <u>So this would be my method!</u></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<u><b>The work</b></u></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I arrived back from
London n got going the next day. It was a change from doing one
painting, in several ways. Having 6 going at once is very interesting
on the brain.. when I paint I always (in my head) laugh at what I
call the 'Lily Briscoe Blues..'. In the book To The Lighthouse, there
is a character called Lily Briscoe. A young painter who, when the
story pulls into her focus, is always caught up with the work at hand
– either damning herself, or praising herself and getting caugt up
in wander. Well ain't that just the way? Our ego's do this all the
time when creating – either dreaming about how good it is and how
it is going to be and how bla bla bla, or damning us – 'christ,
youre so bad at this, why don't you just give up? Etc etc etc..'</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So the Lily Briscoe
Blues, when confronted with 6 paintings? Well, it just makes a
mockery of the whole concept! You realise that one may be going bad,
and one may be going well, but that's ok – it doesnt reflect in any
detremental way on your ability – its just where that painting
happens to be at. I've always kinda succumb to the idea of acting
creatively when your mojo's goin – but we think our mojo is going
when the painting is going well – but someitmes the painting isn't
'going well' (because your crossin thru the muddy beginnings before
you get up the hill) so it can knock you out of stride.. So thus, painting like this, many at once, makes a mockery of the 'sensitivity' you sometimes find yourself fallin' prey to as an artist..</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
When painting 6, one
may be going great, another, not so. But that's fine! It becomes fun
– like spinnin' plates. Workin them all to a state of happy-ness.
<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Having 6 different canvases goin' at the same time, I had six different avenues to go down. All the time whilst your paintin' your confronted with 'which turn t</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">o take?', each brush stroke can be a decision as to which direction forward you're taking. Having 6 allowed me to much more gently take my course, and not get hung up atall mentally about which course I should take.<br /><br />Suprise yourself too with how quick it is to paint 6 together - because you're using the same paint largely, it cuts out mixing time, so you get 'em done reletivaly fast!</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What I like most about the finished images together is it gives a chance to show the different sides to someones character, different shades. Reverting back to my animation-know-how - the person ain't this drawing, or this one, or that one, or that one... the person is what comes between all those! There's a narrative we can read between the frames.. draw an outline <i>of the soul</i> we can begin to flesh out..</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I like too that it simillarily carried the energy of my friend. He wasn't often sittin' still. Hurried hand gestures, flurries of activity, of shoutin across the room, of tilting heads back n debating. He moved alot. And no doubt he moved alot when I took the picture too! Means must, n i'm glad they did on this occasion for sure.<br />
<br />
Final step is to frame them correct; I'm thinking lots of differently sized & styled frames, hung in Italian barber shop style..</div>
Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-44034080971038054322016-03-26T03:43:00.001+00:002016-03-26T04:48:59.689+00:00Monet & self portraits<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<u><b>Monet & the
back story</b></u></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirfPwjPCIRKuVXShnmzFUDXtS1BGu9sF4hrs3Fe_mCiCPal5t929bO7r4_iBde8z_GDa6ERY__OZOdhrIFXO2cWg8OHd_AHQLT14istOe3gFd89h9RztVuQnSRRi3-J7hItFj2xNhKEUxe/s1600/monet+Tree-In-Flower-Near-Vetheui-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirfPwjPCIRKuVXShnmzFUDXtS1BGu9sF4hrs3Fe_mCiCPal5t929bO7r4_iBde8z_GDa6ERY__OZOdhrIFXO2cWg8OHd_AHQLT14istOe3gFd89h9RztVuQnSRRi3-J7hItFj2xNhKEUxe/s400/monet+Tree-In-Flower-Near-Vetheui-large.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<u><b><br /></b></u></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“If only you could
have seen how beautiful it was and how I wished you were here on the
terrace with me; it seems it was cold and I was oblivious to in in my
enthusiasm for the work in hand and for the novelty of it all, but
how hard it's going to be!</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I had barely settled
down to my painting when the hospital treasurer appeared, to invite
me downstairs for tea, but he had not imagined that I would be unable
to leave my picture; I made it as clear as I could to him, not in
good English, but using sign language to express my keenness to get
down to work. Ten minutes later, the good man came back in person
with a cup of tea, sandwiches and cakes; which did me some good, I
must admit...”</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyLKrNyzyThU92Zs4B6a080RbF2lTCOVyUf181dNdYwIhAjY9-0rbIH7WvflOiQ7iJkvy5pRN_vY8emDmDAATMdjV3hffVBmA4KjW5RUqi2dil0BGYkbx11GWkEs5ldROFCWh9xgZOdp0X/s1600/Monet+Self-Portrait-In-His-Atelier-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyLKrNyzyThU92Zs4B6a080RbF2lTCOVyUf181dNdYwIhAjY9-0rbIH7WvflOiQ7iJkvy5pRN_vY8emDmDAATMdjV3hffVBmA4KjW5RUqi2dil0BGYkbx11GWkEs5ldROFCWh9xgZOdp0X/s320/Monet+Self-Portrait-In-His-Atelier-large.jpg" width="275" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">one of only a handful of self-portraits Monet did</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
For almost the whole of the last year I have
been enthralled by Claude Monet. Beginning last summer, I travelled
down thru Paris on route to Plum Village (near Bordeaux). I had one
day in Paris – the first time I'd been there, and had a long list
of things to see, beginning with a visit to Pere Lachase, to the
grave of one of my boys Jim Morrison. I found the grave, took a ciggy
off it which I smoked and was my last for a week( I left a copy of
Leaves of Grass in its place..). From there I headed to the centre, with my long-list in hand - Eiffel Tower, Catacombs, left bank, find just where Hemingway used to wander
(another of my boys). The day was still early and I had time for it all. Whilst walking past the Louvre (I knew I had no
time for that unfortunately) I stumbled upon the Musay D'Orsay.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I went in, thinking I
could maybe spare an hour, but I did not know at that time I would be
there for the rest of the day. I spent 5 or 6 hours there, wrote off
the rest of Paris, and really for the first time in my life, became
aquainted with the impressionists.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I really was totally
immersed that day, droppin my eyes into their soft focus. I'd been
meditatin' lots at the time n reading lots of the Dharma (and was infact
en route to a meditation retreat in plum village) & for me, they had
the vision; whether they knew it or not, they had meditative eyes..<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2gYeRs7heIVBc4Z-NdTbhtUkoRlRnHzS7J22SFPAdWaAYhNP6mZJkROhsbh3e54w9MThJ7Un3Ajb_eVfsRRz3WeVgvle-ORdhKl4XJJtPweakhsUiVMj1SiKZRR6Cm9RIwIqSV6VDBF-s/s1600/monet+In-the-Meadow-%2528detail%2529-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2gYeRs7heIVBc4Z-NdTbhtUkoRlRnHzS7J22SFPAdWaAYhNP6mZJkROhsbh3e54w9MThJ7Un3Ajb_eVfsRRz3WeVgvle-ORdhKl4XJJtPweakhsUiVMj1SiKZRR6Cm9RIwIqSV6VDBF-s/s400/monet+In-the-Meadow-%2528detail%2529-large.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Sometimes in life, like
when you look upon the world like it's all in bloom, at once, that
moment; everything urging onwards; the plants and trees all breathing
their quiet breath, & likewise, the wood in the book case is not
dead, the stone in the walls neither. Energy riddles & wriggles
thru all matter. Its all vegetated and blooming – right now.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Monet would describe
his method as looking out at the world and seeing 'a dash of yellow
here, a rectangle of violet-blue there'. Breaking the material down
in his eye, just to be this whole vegetated sway before him. They saw
with Blakean originality;</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Behold our ancient
days<br />
before this Earth
appeared<br />
in its vegetated
mortality<br />
to my mortal vegetated
eye”<br />
-Blake</blockquote>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So for me, that day,
wide eyed & wandering the heavy halls of Musay D'Orsay, I totally
corralled the vision of the impressionists with the truth we bare
witness to in meditation; deep understanding of the truth of nature –
impermanence, emptiness, and all the rest of it. I saw their vision
as the meditative-vision, their eyes as only recepticals; mortal
vegetated eye-holes peering objectively upon the vegetated material world.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5T9DuAma40N0xiI2Z_22ztuQjQtFscw7-Mt59E042gmmaXFpno6fP-QBvvEEVZ-yN4Fwy5ds9ZSOAcRAQtVJe-Vq-Fu0QBcBt9Cf8xNCtrLUTYWDwBypOWxi7ybAFNQBHUSnYOifpmGJk/s1600/van+gogh+-+chaumes+de+cordeville+at+auvers-sur-oise+1890.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5T9DuAma40N0xiI2Z_22ztuQjQtFscw7-Mt59E042gmmaXFpno6fP-QBvvEEVZ-yN4Fwy5ds9ZSOAcRAQtVJe-Vq-Fu0QBcBt9Cf8xNCtrLUTYWDwBypOWxi7ybAFNQBHUSnYOifpmGJk/s400/van+gogh+-+chaumes+de+cordeville+at+auvers-sur-oise+1890.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Van Gogh maybe best expressed it; that same energy wriggling, thru all material likewise.</td></tr>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I was fortunately able
to further this understanding for the whole week following my day in
Paris; I spent the whole week in plum village lookin upon the world
in blossom. All in high summer bloom – the trees sweating, the
waters gushing with easy summer joy. The people not only breathing
but every folicle of their vegetated body breathing its own quiet
breath. & with such understanding, the vision too; a simple bus
journey thru French countryside becoming a feast of activity, of the
interplay of colour as you stare wide-eyed at someones face. A conversation
feeling fresh as childs play. Such freshness is such beauty. an' it's
all around, in blossom & constant.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Since this time, June
last year, I have really been learning all I can about the
impressionists.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The other day I found
in a charity shop a stack of 5 Impressionists/monet books. Some keen
impressionist has just died, I thought, and that's sad, but glad that
they have fallen into my hands, because I will twist myself with
them, bend myself into them, and gladly so.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
One of them the quote
at the top is from. What I love is to see the other side of the
canvas. Revealing the painter behind, how he stood & what he
stood for. Learning about their poverty makes things easier. Haha!
Makes going to sleep in a shoddy bed & damp abode a thing of
diligence rather than societical failure. Ha!
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So yes, for the last
year almost now, I have thought a lot about Monet, and the
impressionists, and bought myself nearer to their understanding. This
is the revealing part, because I don't feel I've changed what I felt
about painting, or discarded anything atall – I've come nearer to
myself as a painter really. That's what it feels like. Painting,
whilst learning about the impressionists, has been a fervent
interplay which has poked and prodded me diligently along my way. My
canvases are developing in a certain direction for sure. The
impressionists have helped me to unwind my ignorance, and, especially
with the brilliance of Monet, absolute mastery that begs to be
followed. (I follow faithfully like a dog to a master, but it is
still mine to dog the lead; to sniff this way & that on our
endless trail..)</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
–</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<u><b>Lets move things
forward</b></u></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyrvSbvKtI2fN8bjWJNkjmsnSq6qzGSyMN8_TWrF9Xk6hOKUUtdFjquuDvrnRvAA_VEmjSWV5qfnLAZhtN5ueNja3nALOuU1lKDbntUBJvSOvQLbmF8gbI0B-_0cRz6TQDE_pUZxBl0j-u/s1600/waterloo-bridge-sunlight-effect-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyrvSbvKtI2fN8bjWJNkjmsnSq6qzGSyMN8_TWrF9Xk6hOKUUtdFjquuDvrnRvAA_VEmjSWV5qfnLAZhtN5ueNja3nALOuU1lKDbntUBJvSOvQLbmF8gbI0B-_0cRz6TQDE_pUZxBl0j-u/s320/waterloo-bridge-sunlight-effect-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<u><b><br /></b></u></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Reading Monet's
letters, I frequently found him saying about how there is such a
short window of opportunity to paint.. for the weather effect to
sustain.. sometimes even only 7 minutes. This is why he would work on
several canvases at once on site. Or would come back the next day at
a simillar time and hope for a simillar weather effect.<br />
<br />
I love
this idea, and feel empathy for it too, for portraits. There is only
a small window of opportunity. It becomes especially apparent when
doing self portraits – there is a certain atmosphere that is all about you in that
first sitting – you may be oblivious to it even as you work (It is like nostalgia; we are never aware of nostalgia when it is being created, only is it later that the whiff's come). No mind, infact, perhaps it can be for the better for no specific
mood to be apparent.. This means your cards are ever closer to your
chest; you cannot see the wood from the tree; you are so ingrained in
your current way that it ain't even apparent to you. Well good!
Record it, get it down, n just like the weather of the world'll
change overnight sometimes, your soul weather can change likewise
too. So we must catch it whilst we can; whether the rain trickles slowly off the leaf, or dry grass raises itself to the hotsun; all is nature and all is beautiful & joyous in its essence, so capture it as you see it, <i>as it is.</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
All this thought about capturing effects in the moment wrings my ears with the wisdom of Walter Benjamin, & his observation that '<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;">The
work is the death mask of its conception'. From that initial satori
(lightbulb moment) it's an effort of catchin' butterflies before they
drift outta reach. In that initial moment – often, you'll know it
exactly – see it in your head in pure-whole-completedness. You'll really know just what you
wanna say – really have that handful of butterflies. But in a
sunken moment they escape you, and it's you to chase after them, and
clumsily catch what you can..</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;">This
is how it can sometimes feel, tryin' to keep on point. Keep integrety
behind what you wanna most say. Especially if a work drags out. <br /><br />I'm
makin efforts now to capture the main things. Perhaps the expression,
the pose, in the 1</span></span><span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><sup><span style="font-family: fira-sans;"><span style="font-size: small;">st</span></span></sup></span><span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;">
sitting. Not worry so much about whatever can be filled in later.
Just try to get those indicators of the initial feel down as
accurately as I feel them.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;"><b><u>Recent work</u></b></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;">One thing I love of Monet is how we can witness in his work what I think of as a balanced creation. I've been thinking alot about the differences between the masculine & feminime over the last 6 months (how they work creatively. Will do a seperate post on this at some point). I think in some characters we can find personifications of both in one. E.g Mick Jagger, David Bowie - somethin' very masculine about them, but somethin' very feminime also.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;">But anywho, to bring this to Monet. From a distance, we see these delicate, blissful, sometimes dainty impressions of joys before us.. but if we peer close, we may see a rugged definition to the brush strokes. A haphazard, quickly lain, workman-like rendering. So in one it contains the two. I really like this, and it's a theme I wanna carry into my own work.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;">That was certainly, now I think about it, part of the feeling behind my newest self portrait. Recently, like I said, I been thinking alot about the Masculine & feminime dichotomy that lies behind creativity (& life for that matter). I've been thinking alot too about what is the image of 'the divine feminime?' 'what does the divine feminime look like?' (partly inspired by another project & partly inspired by my own intrigue). So that was the theme and feel behind this one; I wanted to represent the masculine, bent & inquisitive, lookin' out just for 'the divine feminime'. I wanted it to look very masculine, but also to have an undercurrent of feminimity to it; e.g in the pose itself (being a bit like a fashion model 'hands on hips n pointed elbows' sorta stance), the bttom half of the body having a bit of a feminime twist to it (the legs are together rather than parted (typically masculine characterisation)) </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioHunxrc98jcUO94o_w3eIIIAh6qT1uC7EeKj6c1uTqu3Y6zX7osilLoLKvirjTkHxakzbTPk4w9LObYq8JWikSlJeWrKGMD0YZFgq9uDMxiefNHwEYDYXCWYw4001p0Shp2CzVgA6I4Y1/s1600/self+portrait2016red+jumper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioHunxrc98jcUO94o_w3eIIIAh6qT1uC7EeKj6c1uTqu3Y6zX7osilLoLKvirjTkHxakzbTPk4w9LObYq8JWikSlJeWrKGMD0YZFgq9uDMxiefNHwEYDYXCWYw4001p0Shp2CzVgA6I4Y1/s320/self+portrait2016red+jumper.jpg" width="260" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;">To critique this one, I think the window stayed open just a little too long - and what began with a winter shrill eased into a spring-light breeze. Y'know? It lost it's full oomph somewhere near the end - when I found myself doin' details without the conviction - that is to say, with a different conviction - as to which I began. But no mind, still a decent portrait, and more importantly, more lessons learnt. Every wrong attempt n all that.. ;)</span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;">One thing, I must admit, that excites me, is that Monet was very sparing with his portraits; he only did a handful of self-portraits and seemingly didn't really push the opportunities much atall. Just dipped his toes.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;">I wanna take the opportunity to explore portraits with his wit & intrigue for life. Just how he watched the weathers of the world change and record all it's intricacies, that's just what I wanna do; watch the changing effect on the soul, let people be vessels; record it thru them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;">What I dig with self-portraits is it gives me the opportunity to cast one off. Cast a certain shade of my character off. You might be feelin' a certain way for a month, or a week perhaps. You can acknowledge it n get it down in a self-portrait. N suddenly the face in the mirror may be reflecting back in a new light. Just like Dylan writing every-song to every-shade of every intricately different feeling he felt of heart-ache or love, it's like that. You capture that specific, intricate feeling.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHCve_YPhfnJsU_Lb7xAA83JtwLhXCKgq5KJKU6Q8zToKD_aQ-A3TNxoMANjj6yLCmMeXbEQ3Dtv2A2sZr0HVS-5t9mCocy9qvahXFLgoWt3Uy0-ZkbyQHy6F5MJdmI6H255y0uqula8FM/s1600/self+portrait.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHCve_YPhfnJsU_Lb7xAA83JtwLhXCKgq5KJKU6Q8zToKD_aQ-A3TNxoMANjj6yLCmMeXbEQ3Dtv2A2sZr0HVS-5t9mCocy9qvahXFLgoWt3Uy0-ZkbyQHy6F5MJdmI6H255y0uqula8FM/s320/self+portrait.jpg" width="231" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><b><u>Next steps</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;">I think my next steps now are to</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;">1) sink further into impressionism, continue to cultivate my style</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;">2) Work on bringing my sketching/draughtsman abilities into oil-painting more. I don't currently sketch with my brush, but I could, so I shall.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;">3) Continue to make effort to capture someones character. This is a trait people always point out in my drawings & paintings, but I wanna push it more so. </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;">4) Just keep simply painting. With no real rules or regulations upon myself. Just integrety, sincerity, and other wholesome ways.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;">5) Get back into life drawing regularly. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: fira-sans;">That'll do. As always, bit of a ramble, but hope there's some sense amongst the nonse. Peace x</span></span></div>
Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-6331599010711287242016-03-26T03:15:00.001+00:002016-03-26T03:15:48.918+00:00Recent workHere's some recent paintings:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieqHdCy8_YfdHO1kisPEIfYblEg7vpIOxSkXjpQeODF-QEgKF4K8d5xXG9HlA1kZSRnkM0qr7rywTHKo8bL8QgaN9Dwo9YPknbvMNji_22tsR4f2WfVNhQ9QIO6wuIOP38EgYRWWZZ0mCF/s1600/lama.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieqHdCy8_YfdHO1kisPEIfYblEg7vpIOxSkXjpQeODF-QEgKF4K8d5xXG9HlA1kZSRnkM0qr7rywTHKo8bL8QgaN9Dwo9YPknbvMNji_22tsR4f2WfVNhQ9QIO6wuIOP38EgYRWWZZ0mCF/s320/lama.jpg" width="243" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">His Holiness, in a pastiche to Manet's the fifer.<br />Quite happy with this one;painted it on a big block of wood. It was nice to paint His Holiness and reflect on his qualities whilst I did so. I gave this one away to a friend, and gladly it's reinvigorated me to paint him again. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxustb2KM1mtZ4X40j2k9VOR_FB2dN162_ZEQl3x2zYItlxHBOhAkTkPZB-C80jWJ0gPvxlvuCzJYbdj4GuC_FZWEFGo4UC7YlB1HFvWHXnSNoQfyxZzdcDj4kY_oSkxKgFWveeNWoCyI1/s1600/fran+large+for+website.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxustb2KM1mtZ4X40j2k9VOR_FB2dN162_ZEQl3x2zYItlxHBOhAkTkPZB-C80jWJ0gPvxlvuCzJYbdj4GuC_FZWEFGo4UC7YlB1HFvWHXnSNoQfyxZzdcDj4kY_oSkxKgFWveeNWoCyI1/s320/fran+large+for+website.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is my friend Francesca. It's part of an ongoing series that are in tune with the seasons. She's my winter girl. The feel I was after was 'cold outside, warmth inside'. This changed as the painting went on; I just wanted to capture a homely welcoming spirit; also the challenge was not to objectify her too. I feel glad on this front - I think she came out lookin' sexy, but not sexualised. She looks like she's got the power over the viewer too, I'd say. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK54XYUIfN2WjMKWSAsdPkgmaGyNdh0EL_AngjvuDDAz5kTQ3NNJy9-j8g_FoFngu6adaQDfFur7y62TOdUBNsUBkLoiD-kRgWu3Lzcsg6OZYW3EdyvpjpGq8EqepoMyO1v8DU3sKhKlhD/s1600/sams+dad+for+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK54XYUIfN2WjMKWSAsdPkgmaGyNdh0EL_AngjvuDDAz5kTQ3NNJy9-j8g_FoFngu6adaQDfFur7y62TOdUBNsUBkLoiD-kRgWu3Lzcsg6OZYW3EdyvpjpGq8EqepoMyO1v8DU3sKhKlhD/s320/sams+dad+for+web.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This was a commision. I wanted to give it a bit of a Degas feel. This picture is not actually of the finished painting. In the finished painting, the dogs head is flipped about the other way. I changed it last minute - an hour before my train. I thought it'd relate the closeness between the two better if their eyes crossed view. So that's what I did.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-DXntt_14HrTNCSjJfI51t0ayAzhCNBaYgwTeRGuVgCNs-JQJp1CPNJwJDHg6adztt0XHIOmjbZpRZAsi5FJDiJnUCA8ykVbKmFSJqHqCP2wyUUaiwPyj4kT8uRVb-IDZBOhMqAUtjo3P/s1600/DSCF6128.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-DXntt_14HrTNCSjJfI51t0ayAzhCNBaYgwTeRGuVgCNs-JQJp1CPNJwJDHg6adztt0XHIOmjbZpRZAsi5FJDiJnUCA8ykVbKmFSJqHqCP2wyUUaiwPyj4kT8uRVb-IDZBOhMqAUtjo3P/s320/DSCF6128.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Here is myself & my pal Ori. These were done one night when I hadn't painted for a while. I like the feel of them, they feel quite fun. Caricatures of our souls. Him, the poet in the meadow, dreamin' of some distance, and me, some brooding mad-man, in equal measure intense & comical. They were just for the sake of painting, and I am glad of them.<br /><br /></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This one was done just before christmas. I kinda wanted to continue the feel of the previous self-portrait, give it an intensity. Also give it a 'dead-of-night, but lively' feel too - 'serious conversation under lamplight' sorta thing. Or like a game of chess that really keeps you on your toes and your lips curling eachway.</td></tr>
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<br />Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-22806172528236263052015-10-03T19:16:00.003+01:002015-10-03T19:16:49.601+01:00EsmeHere's an oil painting of me pal Esme.<br />
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Was fairly chuffed with this one as it came out largely as I saw it. One of them happy happening's where things fell into place rarther curtly.<br />
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This story sums it up:<br />
We went up on the rooftop just to have a catch up before we took the photo for the picture. sat up there, chewin the fat, I said 'Cool shall we do it then (get the photo)?'<br />
'Hmmm, now we really need a wall of green to shoot this infront of...' I looked down at my feet on the roof edge and right there where they hung was the perfect spot for the photo. The sun had come out too that day, right in the high-reach of summer, and was shinin' right on the ivy. right as I'd wanted it in my head. Just one of them days.<br />
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Anywho it's quite nice havin' something you've done that you done utterly deteste. Ha. Think this is moving a bit more towards Renoir, which was my ambition too, so am glad about that.<br /><br />
Anywho, still much to learn, a long road to dance down, and it shall be! PeaceThomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-22067451994772966232015-08-24T15:07:00.000+01:002016-03-26T03:45:42.456+00:00Recent painting & drawingOil painting of me pal Carmen;<br />
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Think I'm getting better with colour, but think this one struggles from the overall composition of it. Infact might go and repaint a bit of it, haha. That's the endless problem of painting, especially oils, which weave their wet smell at ya and ask you to carry on..<br />
From the closeup you can see that sections of it look quite good when isolated but that's no good if the whole thing doesn't work well together.<br />
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The next one I do is gunna be a big canvas filled mainly with the light of the background. it'll be of my friend Ezme infront of a wall of ivy on a sunny roof.<br />
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Here's a quick sketch of my pal Ori. This was a nice one to do as its just one of them ones that came out quickly, just in 20 minutes or so quick fire.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">eer he is the little bugger</td></tr>
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<br />Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-8437608513410744352015-07-29T12:07:00.000+01:002015-07-29T12:11:54.557+01:00Recent paintingsA couple of recent paintings:<br />
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Here's a couple of new paintings. I think they somewhat represent a bit of a pivot point with my painting. The 1st two paintings (of Lennon & Charlie Chaplin) are in line with what I've been doing for a long time. That's probably the 5th or 6th of Lennon i've done, likewise of people like Dylan etc. Idol painting. I always sorta considered it just an expression of grattitude rather than art; paintings usually done in a fevour of being wrapped in one of their albums*.</div>
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But the third painting, the one of my friend Todd, represents a bit of a departure point from this. For a while I've had an idea in mind for how I want to paint and have not been able to reach it. What tends to happen is; I begin the painting, then my conservatism mutes any sorta progress of it evolving into something new, as a result of a desire to just 'round off a nice painting'. Altho this has resulted in some 'nice paintings' its also deliberated progress. e.g with this one of my friend Dena. It's a nice painting, but I wanted to say so much more with it, and instead it came out as quite flat(in the material sense), and just a rendering of her physical beauty, and my skill with the medium, rather than saying anything deeper:</div>
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So the one of my friend Todd, (which unfortunately by the way the colours on the camera came out a little skewed so it's not quite right on here) When you look at it, it doesnt appear like a massive step forward, but it just feels like a gentle push in the right direction. This is probably about 5/10% of my intent. What I want is to be able to paint these paintings where it just feels like LIFE has been blown together by the winds, all leaf-like-brush-strokes blown about the canvas in disarray, but in the centre, a face to come together - to express the random emergence and miraculousness-nature of life happening. To express also how we come from nothing, blown together for this moment.</div>
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*to return to what I was saying about those 'idol paintings', I feel too that these are sort of the pinnacle of that, atleast with the intent of them. The Lennon one, altho its not bang on so not great, what I like about it is the mash-up of elements; it has a bit of a graffiti-street art style to it (with the heavy black stencil-esque outline) but also with the golden glow it (to me atleast) kinda feels like a golden buddha head seen somewhere in our memories. Also the use of cardboard, was, tobe honest just because im poor, but also I like that it represents the 'working class hero' angle to it. That's why I did Chaplain too, the one of him I'll just call 'the tramp' and see who gets it.</div>
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I went to the Musee D'orsay the other day and was totally blown away.. Manet, Monet, Courbert, Degas, Van Gogh, Renoir.. really blown away. After leaving there felt really like my eyes could just look at life with the delicate caress & desirous-intrigue of their oils.. It was a very poignant thing to do too, as I spent the next week in a place called P<a href="http://plumvillage.org/">lum Village</a>, surrounded by monks, and beautiful people all being peaceful and joyous. Whilst there, I felt too that being mindful ( being in the moment, 'reared to the moment' is the phrase that kept coming to my mind ),to look at the world like this is to look at the world like a painter weighing up-with gentle-intent - the world infront of him. Its a feeling art students may trace the whispers of when they <i>really look</i> in life drawing.</div>
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Van Gogh is a good epitomy of that. When you stand infront of one of his canvases, you can really feel the ripples of life about the scene he's capturing.. all the motions in the air and connections of energy between all things.. how a man may seep into the canvas, and may emerge with a bold line of action also.. a tree likewise may be exploding from the earth or plaintively bobbin on the waves of energy abound.</div>
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Anywho, will cut it there. Its all about feeling and you can't capture feeling with words, only point to it. But i think what Im pointing to more is my ecstacy & rapture., but perhaps thats an indicement more important than trying to capture feeling with words.. anywho, Thanks for reading. Peas</div>
Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-71897227291706709622015-06-09T21:38:00.000+01:002015-06-09T21:47:16.281+01:00the importance of moving<div style="text-align: center;">
"The only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keepin' on"</div>
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In my life now, I tend to find myself moving round alot. I have thought of myself as a traveller for a while, but this isn't strictly true; I realised the other day I haven't left the country (beside a week or two holidays) for a couple of years now, and I've never been away longer than three months; Likewise I've never felt the aliveness of not knowing I would return. I've tended to have about 5 weeks out the country at a time when I get away, and steadily, my trips have got closer to home and less grandiose. Coincidentally (or not so..) this has coincided with my university loan running dry, and my pockets getting ever thinner. But that's ok, it's only served me to take more modest trips. If you wanna keep moving you move regardless.<br />
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But it's been nice - I've sorta just become always on the move. I tend to stay in a place for about two months, I spose that's just about enough time to get a grasp of the place. Right after uni it was most extreme; two months at home (feet up, flat out), two months in Plymouth, two in Mevagissey, two in Torquay (home again), 5 weeks goin' round East Europe, two back in TQ (working), back to Plymouth, then back to Torquay, where I finally stopped for a while to make BEAT Magazine.<br />
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It's not like a conscious choice to keep moving, think more just a natural inclination to keep things fresh. I think the habit is born from chasing after experience, as Byron put it -<br />
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“The great object of life is Sensation - to feel that we exist - even though in pain - it is this "craving void" which drives us to gaming - to battle - to travel.."</h1>
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I think from an outlook acquired such as this, you realise one particular, and fundamental truth in life. Everytime you move, you bare witness to a different side to your character - feel your character, your sensibilities etc, swayed and tested in new ways. You see more clearly who you are when you attack your sensibilities from such a variety of angles. e.g with me, living up North, dropped into working in a pub, it was interesting to see how <i>'I'</i> would react. Or living in a hostel in Brighton for a few months, seeing how '<i>I'd'</i> respond to new surroundings. It's all about jumping in at the deep end and learning to swim in a totally new way.</div>
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Doing so helps unravel certain traits, helps peel back the opinions and characteristics we assume are fundamental to our characters, fundamental to <i>'us'</i>. </div>
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I spose evidence can be found in the reverse: It's typical that in a place, people are very simillar - not just in terms of accent & features etc, but likewise in terms of their beliefs and opinions. This is only natural, and part of the innocent communitas we seek as humans - were social creatures afterall, and want to get along. But people often feel scared to voice something that makes them seperate from the norm. e.g the football fan who has a secret love of reading, or the girl in the small town who doesn't actually have a desire to gossip or for the sewing circle about her.. </div>
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Leaving helps you realise the variety in the world, and that it's ok to be your own way. Gives you the integrety to say 'OK, they're that way here. I don't feel affinity with that but I know out there, elsewhere, people do. Lets go find 'em '.<br />
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<u>Further</u></div>
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Eventually, perhaps also, we realise a deeper truth. When you keep chipping away at 'who you are' (which is really who & what your ego has decided to associate with), eventually you get to the point when you just realise, 'wow, we're just all energy, were just all ripples of the big bang going this way and that'. We're all nature at heart. But anywho, this is somethin' I'm still learning about, or moving towards; first you gotta <b>understand </b>it ('<i>stand under</i>' it - appreciate it) then you gotta <b>realize </b>it (make your '<i>reality</i>' (aint it nice when words offer secret truth's like that?)). I certainly understand it, but realizing it is fleeting, not constant. Unravel your ego baby!</div>
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If this last bit has sparked an interest in you, like I said, I won't say much more, but would certainly point you in the direction of 'A New Earth' by Eckhart Tolle. Likewise I would urge you to look at the contentedness in the eyes and manner of someone such as the Dalai Lama. They got it. Peace.<br />
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Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-35974398986001155042015-03-14T11:35:00.000+00:002015-03-14T11:35:32.214+00:00Meditation for animationThese last few years i've got really keen on Buddhism. I think in the West, we have a natural inclination towards Eastern outlook, for its difference to our historical thought. For its general relaxed demeanour to religion.. there are many reasons. Buddhism in particular garners a weight of that leaning.<br />
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I got into meditation properly right after uni when I moved to Mevagissey for a bit (to live with Miguel). Because it was so quiet there and peaceful in the quiet harbour, mornings were ripe for being still and quiet.<br />
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I got into it for a few reasons; one being that natural inclination for sure, also that I am a keen reader, and focus & concentration are important for reading; skills practicing meditation would surely enhance. I don't mean to sound so robotic about it, as I don't feel that way.<br />
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I think meditation is becoming more important to the West too as an antidote to our busy lives. Everything is on, always, phones in ears always, sideways thoughts on hectic highstreets.. we are naturally lusting for that 'minute' of silence, the chance to get our minds back to 'now'. It's all about 'Being here now'.<br />
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I also got into it as I knew how it'd help my animation practice. Here's a few ideas on why its conductive to animation;<br />
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In meditation, especially the practice of mindfulness, we look over our bodies, bit by bit, feeling in every inch of the body. Feeling the pull of individual acute aches & being aware of your anatomy. <br />
I find this technique very close to how I feel in life drawing. In life drawing you're not only looking at some other body, but trying to relate that feeling in your own body - that weight, the fall of things, the pull on intricate & hidden muscles that cause tension on the surface.. If you can draw focus to your own body, and help imitate the flow and feel of what you're looking at, you can understand it on a deeper level, that serves to improve the understanding in your own drawing. If you can feel it you can see it. Or notice it, rather.<br />
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Simillarily, in mindfulness we practice watching our breath. This is a fundamental technique, in that the breath serves as an anchor we can always return to, like a mantra. The breath is constant, so-necessary, yet we are often not concious of it, we just do it. Also, by controlling our breath, we can control our mood - slow deep breath's and all that..<br />
So, in watching the breath, we as animators can begin to articulate all those subtle movements in the chest that we never usually notice. We can follow the breath down into the belly, fill your lungs from bottom-up, and roll it back out like a wave, feel it tickle out our noses calmly. Articulating like this is to recall that intricate eye we strive to acquire in animation. To be able to look in such detail is key.<br />
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Cultivating that pointed, focused, contcentration in meditation helps us in animation too. Animation is a long and sometimes laborious task that takes dedication and patience. It is good to have us held there content. This is a great antithesis to the inevitable procrastination that waves over you. Like in the Zen saying, 'Dont just do something, sit there!'. Disciplined patience.<br />
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I find too in meditation I am often beginning to imagine some obscure mental parable, in line with the practice. often revolving around the breath. Here's a couple, just for example of what I mean, because of course these are steeped in subjectivity:<br />
- I often visualize my breath like a wave rolling on the shore, from the deep of my lungs, rolling its way up my chest, out of my mouth.<br />
- I will often have two images in mind too - or one that contorts to the sway of my breath. E.g to meditate on a face that droops and relaxes as my body does with the breath, and pulls tight as I breathe in anew.<br />
- Also I like to picture a flower, growing. It begins in the dirt, the mess of wantaway life, and, rising through, pulling straight in the stem, unveils its petals in buddha-wisdom. The lotus flower that grows wherever. 'This is the moment of embarking, all auspicious signs are in place'. I remember that in meditation, and it helps garner in me this blossoming flower metaphor.<br />
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There is so much more, the idea of satori too - cultivating a quiet mind, that lights up with that great spark of idea. We can't control, or number, the amount of 'moments' we will have like this, visionary moments, the lightbulb flicking on (eurika!) (called satori's in the east, but usually reserved for monastic thought), but we can help by putting ourselves in fertile ground, and staying well watered.<br />
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I'll leave it there. Let me know if you see it likewise, or have anything to add.Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-44188299729820963662015-02-20T15:48:00.001+00:002015-02-20T15:52:28.808+00:00haiku<div class="tr_bq">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjGjJ3goycE2sXoHbX0jlD3AI17Q-A-p6NV6T-IGp24WK17oMSdcyo2CBC84JBi5Ek9l0yh7D91XLNIriBaPOnC5uweY9s90q898N2xnEMLtKX28kbMcaj6tHyN1yZDr5XZzNxUHCadK6n/s1600/kerouac+n+cat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjGjJ3goycE2sXoHbX0jlD3AI17Q-A-p6NV6T-IGp24WK17oMSdcyo2CBC84JBi5Ek9l0yh7D91XLNIriBaPOnC5uweY9s90q898N2xnEMLtKX28kbMcaj6tHyN1yZDr5XZzNxUHCadK6n/s1600/kerouac+n+cat.jpg" height="200" width="162" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kerouac n' cat</td></tr>
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One thing I did do whilst up t'North was get into writing Haikus. I did it in the Kerouacian vein. Came across a Jack Kerouac book in Helmsley library, 'book of haikus'. In it he outline's his version of the traditional Japanese poems. He free'd them a little, saying that Western languages didn't fit so inline with the 17 syllable structure of traditional haiku, so instead he proposed just three line numbers. He called them 'American pops'. The aim with haiku is to create a little snapshot of the world, of life, etc, with all the simplicity of a trickling stream, yet the full force of a sunset.</div>
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I just keep a little book in my back pocket and write them whenever. I did them with the Kerouacian ideal in mind that <i>'write in recollection and amazement FOR YOURSELF'</i> however i'll publish a couple here anyway 'cus they're fun little ditties.<br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">cherub smiling cat,</span><br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;">sleeps tight under arm</span><br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;">and i write haikus.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">ancestral remarks</span><br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;">detail the fur of the cat</span><br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;">on a winters eve</span></blockquote>
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Hayfields on the horizon - remind<br />
of giddy summer playgrounds<br />
in golden spring youth</blockquote>
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<span style="color: #990000;">Holy smokin fire</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000;">puffs its rings to the night</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000;">and says 'how do?'</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #990000;"><br /></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #990000;">aching windpipes</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000;">curtails spiritual practice</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000;">today & tomorrow</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #38761d;">If sight is only reflections</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">and waves are all but vibrations</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">then where is the source which winds them?</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>When I refer to waves I mean particle waves, e.g sound waves.</i></span><br />
what I like about this one is it sorta follows a trajectory, step stonin' the reader to 'the source'.<br />
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This last one got me thinking about the source.. how we can't see it. I've long thought upon how human's trying to comprehend our creation is much like a dog trying to grasp how human's talk.. or where a can of coke comes from.. it's above them, outta reach, incomprehensible.<br />
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So perhaps an analogy for the source, using the above haiku as reference..:<br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">NOTE - 1,2 & 3 refers to line number</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i>Rain falls down on a mountain. (3)<br />
it trickles down, curving and caressing a path for itself, collecting into a river. (2) The river bends itself along the land, until it reaches the sea.<br />
the sea is unable to turn inland. It cannot swim upstream, but only struggle on the shore. (1)<br />
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So you see how the sea can't swim upstream, it can look inland - but it can't reach far. It certainly can't reach its source by its own will. Then how does it reach its source? By simply going through the motions - where it finds itself raised to the clouds.<br />
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I hope that makes some sorta sense. I think i'll explore this idea more, in different creative avenues. Perhaps it'd be explainable in song.<br />
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Anywho, some more, follwing the theme loosely:<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">Rainfall & waves for millenia<br />carved a david of this land<br />& the granite of our bones recalls us.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #38761d;">vein's criss-crossed<br />murmer in echo<br />of the faraway heart</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #38761d;">(this ain't a haiku but on the same wave length)<br />& like a kite morality stems<br />from the hand of atavism<br />dancing-to-and-thro<br />in the winds of willful existence.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #38761d;">waves reflect<br />from brain to brain<br />through ear eye & hand.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #38761d;">cemetry's lined<br />with washed away lives<br />stories told to the stones & dirt.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #990000;">cold & distant<br />his face hangs like the moon<br />bright & weary, motionless<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">(about a wreck-head friend of mine..) </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>He reads his woes in the sunday papers,<br />the cats not out the bag;<br />children count the ladybugs.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #990000;">Innocence lost from adolescent eye's<br />ten years too late<br />redemption will come</span></blockquote>
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<blockquote>
Sisyphusal bee sting!<br />
the forever thorn in one's mind<br />
that rues you from being</blockquote>
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go write some of yr own!<br />
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What I enjoy most about haiku is its immediate art - art that rivals the click of the camera for its immediacy, and therefore, encapsulated spontinaity.Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-44374447799026861102015-02-20T15:33:00.001+00:002015-02-20T15:33:49.708+00:00life updateSo a dip in form for this blog, but can explain.. I moved up to Yorkshire last August, and where we were living, we had no internet, or television for that matter. Infact it was quite the hippy household - plenty animals for company (a dog, a cat, 2 rabbits and a pheasant at one point!), a field-fulla-sheep across the road, the woods right on our doorstep.. the village itself only had a curry house, a fish n chips and a pub that opened one night a week!<br />
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But anywho so have been doing that since August. I came home for christmas and then decided to move on to the next place.<br />
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So now I find myself in Brighton. My reason for coming here is that I want to get creative as I can, get my foot well and truly back on the ball.. I loved living in Yorkshire, but I feel that its time lost in a sense - I did very little creative work whilst I was up there, and instead spent all my time working full time. Infact, the only painting I finished up there was done two days before I came home. I did it for my nan for christmas (see pic)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigRIMjuzFfEtZG677NeBxrCeu2q1qn3rcrUhn_IBud8Eblmhd7Nm7pPyMcQUJI1UyPIcLGa7ewwauTJ77Y3Ax0RKWzR7vH8zvZeMHDDSuZAVb44qEVuwA4xExYBn3PNFd08e6ksrHCC2Lq/s1600/jo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigRIMjuzFfEtZG677NeBxrCeu2q1qn3rcrUhn_IBud8Eblmhd7Nm7pPyMcQUJI1UyPIcLGa7ewwauTJ77Y3Ax0RKWzR7vH8zvZeMHDDSuZAVb44qEVuwA4xExYBn3PNFd08e6ksrHCC2Lq/s1600/jo.jpg" height="320" width="211" /></a></div>
This is certainly my most well travelled canvas. So I finished it a few days before christmas, however being done with oil's, it certainly wouldn't be dry for a good while. I put it in the car for the first leg of the journey - Helmsley (North Yorkshire) to Essex with Rosey. Not only did I have the canvas with me (which is about waist height btw..!) but I had as much of my stuff as I could physically carry - a full to the brim rucksack, a side-bag full of books & trinkets, a mandolin... I think I also had a few sets of clothes on that wouldn't fit in the bag. From Basildon (Essex) I jumped on a train into central London. Changing onto the tube was the worst part, I didn't even have a hand free to put me ticket through. Finally though got to Victoria and got on my coach. This was the nice part as it was the evening now, and I could sit back finally and enjoy "drivin' home for christmas"..<br />
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<br />Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-57766976533484606222014-07-20T21:59:00.000+01:002014-07-20T21:59:02.775+01:00oil inspirationBin getting really into Duncan Grant & Vanessa Bell's paintings recently. I find some of theirs are in a simillar direction to what I want to do with my oils.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxNlWZZI5OvUFwhSujGvs4GK9fVP6aDfy7x9EeWnMLve9DpfevxjOs4Tqu2UdQwQBxKotItB-GiiWENjyVvhmTcdM9AV-I8FSTy0Goh_Y0mKEZsmxLuEWKbgTmzpTVSC5t7UwB2TFxFAzQ/s1600/6c066ee13f14841c68cb1cef29496e42.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxNlWZZI5OvUFwhSujGvs4GK9fVP6aDfy7x9EeWnMLve9DpfevxjOs4Tqu2UdQwQBxKotItB-GiiWENjyVvhmTcdM9AV-I8FSTy0Goh_Y0mKEZsmxLuEWKbgTmzpTVSC5t7UwB2TFxFAzQ/s1600/6c066ee13f14841c68cb1cef29496e42.jpg" height="320" width="217" /></a></div>
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With these ones, I like how well the person sits with the nature around them, soaked into it. Really like how the strokes all come together, flowing in different directions to create the shape. The lottery of colour weaved and winding a figure out the Earth (like a wave out the ocean). I think the lack of detail on the faces especially adds to this too - no real personal distinction, its just a person in some shape, just as you may paint a flower arching in some shape.</div>
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This is probably the best example:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLn4wRarkNlfM-MflmPbXgzgb0eXiPoskU-G9dUNC2brIxwiQq1P-S_73qhwJXRAQiHC9-BtvzRSyzz27qGnVOX9NNWvEURpy3mCx38vFZVP_jV42CM6iutRqxvIAkWQFQqgHSGYr9gtzm/s1600/grantkeynes2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLn4wRarkNlfM-MflmPbXgzgb0eXiPoskU-G9dUNC2brIxwiQq1P-S_73qhwJXRAQiHC9-BtvzRSyzz27qGnVOX9NNWvEURpy3mCx38vFZVP_jV42CM6iutRqxvIAkWQFQqgHSGYr9gtzm/s1600/grantkeynes2.jpg" height="320" width="259" /></a></div>
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This one especially, the face kinda rises out of the foliage. The darkened outlines too on his knees and his right shoulder lean him outwards too and give him a slight distinction.<br />
<br />Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-84598002507834496872014-07-12T16:19:00.003+01:002014-07-13T02:48:57.797+01:00Oil Paintingsso continuing on from the last post, bin keeping at oil paintings. Just doing my third at the mo, and having a break inbetween.<br />
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As I said before, what I'm enjoying most is the way you can mix oils on the canvas. I'venever enjoyed colour, its always been a finnicky point for me, but I spose that's because I never went near a theory book for it or tried to understand how. Using oils gives me the time to do this, by practicing it, and learning as I go along.<br />
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Anywho here's the second one I did, its of me nan.<br />
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Quite happy with this one, though not really as its not what I was going for.</div>
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What I want to do with oils, is have the paintings be really loosely defined at the edges, then all come together in the focal point (in this instance that'd be the face) What I'd change is have the outer edges of the painting - eg the shoulders - be really loose & abstract, all paint splodges coming together, like flower petals, rising up to make her face. I want all the splodges to feel like nature coming together to make something. The idea being that we are like waves; how waves rise up out the ocean and form for a minute and we point and say 'hey look its a wave', people are the same: We rise up out the Earth, form for a moment of time, 80 years or so, then fall back into it, like waves do.</div>
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This is the idea I want to imply with my paintings. Not capturing that at the mo, but I feel if I continue I will. I think at the mo its because I'm new to it and still toeing quite a conservative line. When I've got the confidence of the medium I'll be able to express what I mean properly.</div>
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With this in mind, I'm going to break one of my rules. I've always believed that an 'artist', be it a painter, writer, animator or whoever, should try their best with what they're trying to achieve (the message, not just the technical ability). if you're not trying your best your setting in stone a limit of your abilities that is lower, and is a harder standard to reach further from. Your also not developing. Hemingway summed it up neatly during a conversation with Fitzgerald (from his book A Moveable Feast):</div>
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"He had told me at the Closerie des Liles how he wrote what he thought were good stories, and which were really good stories for 'the post', and then changed them for submission, knowing exactly how he must make the twists that made them into salable magazine stories. I had been shocked at this and I said I thought it was whoring. He said that it was whoring but that he had to do it as he made his money from the magazines to have money ahead to write decent books. I said that I did not believe anyone could write anyway except the very best he could write without destroying his talent"</blockquote>
This 'destruction of talent' is the reason why I've chose to avoid the industry. Perhaps its pig-headed to do so, but I don't care, its only my opinion. Perhaps im setting myself up to fail, but again I don't care, I may end up 27 with no 'experience' behind me except my own subjective avenues but I'd rather explore them than some other pursuit. I also know its an ignorant perspective (ignorant of the virtues of the industry) but still the main thing I want to do is my own thing. I'd rather walk at my own pace & do that than be caught up in some whole other world.<br />
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But for painting with oils I'm going to break this for a moment; I think what I need to do is continue practicing: be conservative about it, if that's all I can do. Most of all I must just keep at it. Keep knocking them out and getting better technically. It's like Dylan said, 'Write ten songs a day, throw nine away'. The gems will begin to shine.</div>
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When I have my confidence with them, I'll be able to be freer with it and explore how I want to use them. I spose this is the standard way really - Picasso learnt to paint traditionally & realistically very well before he went into Cubism. Ralph Steadman too - he was a very accurate & articulate, traditional painter, painting landscapes and still life and such. He got his abilities up, then he met Hunter Thompson, got crazy, and his drawings completely changed..</div>
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My main inspiration, I'd say is still Kathe Kollwitz. I love her looseness. Altho she didn't work in oils (atleast that's not what she's known for) the way the lines curve & caress and disperse freely is (referring to the waves idea above) what I want to present.</div>
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Also love Lucien Freud just for the sheer thickness of his paint, & his auterial eye.</div>
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Also getting very into Duncan Grant & Vanessa Bell. I think these two touched on what I want to do at times, and in their varied exploration threw up some interesting ideas.</div>
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If you know anyone else I should look into, let me know. </div>
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I do find I'm very 'conservative'. Painting, writing & such you learn things about yourself (for an auteur POV), infact it was playing Chess I really realised how conservative I am. My friend I usually play with would make big sweeping moves - throw the Queen out into the centre ground within a few moves - whilst I'm there, hushing my pawns along, little by little. As I've got more confident with chess, I've began making bigger sweeping moves, this will be the same for painting, in time.</div>
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Right, time to get back to it. Will post the painting up when done. Not liking it at the mo, but must keep my integrety, not let the Lilly Briscoe blues take over, and just keep at it.</div>
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Peace</div>
Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-73482937191254572832014-06-24T17:15:00.001+01:002014-06-24T17:15:53.937+01:00your magnetic movements still capture the minutes i'm inDid a new Dylan painting.<br />
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I have to say that I don't think of my paintings as 'art' really, other people use that word sometimes (tho I spose flippantly) and it's nice to be complimented but I don't. These don't say anything - but I don't mean that as a bad thing. They are just done out of enjoyment. I see it like this - the same way you dance to a song you love, that's you reacting to the energy of the music. This is just me doing the same. Painting was completed whilst listening to Highway 61 thru headphones, on repeat, late into the night.<br />
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Anywho, this was my first attempt at oils and I'm defintely glad of how it came out. I don't think it's great, but it's a good start, and I felt I learnt alot doing it: I've never been one for colour, I usually just ignore the idea of it completely, or if I do use it am quite blaize & throw it down in an abstract way instead, but oils really give you time to play with colour - mixing on the canvas. This was a great revelation. Watercolours are the opposite - you gotta be very fiddly & precise with your colour mixing before you lay it down, was great to not have to do that.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlKFU7Zr-COR4NPDfZvq8ag10blVvnmIYcX9mWeuDhPA37ma0muroEyyGHtB070akKISIxQH6wQpPB6N-pkE2eL-54gFDyGHFvnBz61zQbaagb-HAmjgHPNq_WON7XHbI6cOwW35gBxfWc/s1600/dylan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlKFU7Zr-COR4NPDfZvq8ag10blVvnmIYcX9mWeuDhPA37ma0muroEyyGHtB070akKISIxQH6wQpPB6N-pkE2eL-54gFDyGHFvnBz61zQbaagb-HAmjgHPNq_WON7XHbI6cOwW35gBxfWc/s1600/dylan.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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Everytime I do a painting I mean to not say much atall but always end up spouting off about this and that. Oh well, tis the way the penny drops. Every painting is a lesson learn'd</div>
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Here's a great quote from the man from his book Chronicles about his sound (or his art/style):</div>
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"<span style="background-color: #f6f6f5; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the "Blonde on Blonde" album. It's that thin, that wild mercury sound. It's metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up. That's my particular sound. I haven't been able to succeed in getting it all the time."</span> </blockquote>
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Here's the photo it's from.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6hzufQJMTuC0iIUYjdCxTmWy9lnAVo-bzBWNBQiDqxNatemYyNUTIi6JSueyrWclLDdfEuQlwOAnGk-AfCvJuH865PgYkyj4wb3d62j0OpWvLBdGMJ3bIimDFTULuXNzI7TRgGMn5fduM/s1600/american-masters-dylan14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6hzufQJMTuC0iIUYjdCxTmWy9lnAVo-bzBWNBQiDqxNatemYyNUTIi6JSueyrWclLDdfEuQlwOAnGk-AfCvJuH865PgYkyj4wb3d62j0OpWvLBdGMJ3bIimDFTULuXNzI7TRgGMn5fduM/s1600/american-masters-dylan14.jpg" height="398" width="400" /></a></div>
Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-54560695960088656902014-06-24T14:48:00.000+01:002014-06-24T14:57:02.189+01:00the other pathFollowing on from what I wrote about students attending university, I want to make clear the other path has equal & contrary merit.<br />
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<i>NOTE - Reference to university is made in a general sense, although specifically is about my own ballpark (the arts). I'm sure it will encompass other subjects also, but some it will not</i><br />
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In short, uni for me was great to have those three years to really focus on growing (being like a sponge and soaking everything up), the chance to sit down and get on with it, but also the support, and especially the motivation to do so, something that I thought was necessary for me to keep me chained to my work station.<br />
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However, I feel strongly that someone, with enough conviction (strong emphasis on the word conviction) can simply (but not easily) do it on there own.<br />
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I always felt that, to take the example of a photographer, you don't need the best equipment, you don't need a Canon 5D or expensive tripod & lighting kit; most of all you need <b>ambition</b>, <b>desire</b>, <b>commitment </b>& <b>conviction </b>in yourself. Someone who has those will go out with a £2 camera and shoot everything they wanna shoot in total passion.<br />
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One of the best people I've met in the last year is my friend Steve, he didn't go to university, but has all these attributes in abundance for his field (singer / songwriter / music). Talking to him about uni, his idea was that he saw all these people going off for three years and thought 'how do I play catch up?' How do I do that without spending a penny?<br />
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Having not gone to university, you stand in the distinct advantage of not being anywhere between £20,000 to £75,000 in debt, and yet (potentially) as well qualified as your competitive peers who did attend university. Altho this may make you shiver in your boots with denial, it is true. Considering that your specialty is a creative venture; qualification comes in the form of a strong portfolio & passed clients, rather than A*'s & B's or 1:1's.<br />
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What you don't have is the three years spent with an open-pass to exploring your subject of choice in that prosperous bubble. <a href="http://tomgameson.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/busy-bein-born-pat-on-back-to-students.html">There are great virtues to be hand from attending university</a>. However, this is where your unspent £20,000-£75,000 comes in - see it as your golden ticket. Live cheaply (at home or in cheap rented accommodation) & get well acquainted with your camera, lightbox, canvas, (whatever). Use the local library to read about them technically, explore the worlds galleries online & keep up with contemporary trends: whatever you want, use the internet to aid it. Make the internet your new best friend and keep your use of it virtuous. Watch endless Youtube tutorials, and not just from nobodies, from masters in their fields, explaining it all intricately. Converse with the multitudes of people on the same path as you, online, get to the bottom of whatever it is you want to get to the bottom of. Be your own boss & push yourself: Schedule yourself a course as if you were a student - an hours researching in the morning, a photoshoot/studio session at mid day. DONT compare your efforts to those around you else you'll get stuck in first gear (unless your blessed with a vibrant & active home town)<br />
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You just gotta have the conviction in yourself, most of all.<br />
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This is hard, I don't think I could have done this, I think I would have wavered personally. This has been my plight since finishing uni, to write my own course of study (in the books I read, things I do) and keep developing with the same will & wings I developed at uni. But it's tough.<br />
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It's also hard to convince those around you that this is a virtuous path. Uni is almost like a free-pass in this regard, your family will determine that <i>'My son?</i> <i>He's at uni..'</i> with pride and contentment. For them to see you take the other path and say<i> 'He sits in his room and reads books and draws pictures'</i> doesn't hold as much weight in societies eyes. But the one who does it with self-infused conviction, commitment, passion, and everything else, will be a very wealthy fellow.<br />
<br />Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-26331242975523555202014-06-09T04:36:00.000+01:002014-06-09T04:59:54.370+01:00busy bein' born: a pat on the back to students everywhereThere's a certain brand of cynicism regarding students that you hear from time to time, with even the employment minister Esther McVey recently branding students as <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2543613/Jobless-Why-not-work-Costa-coffee-Employment-ministers-message-young.html">'snobs' who should work for Costa</a>, but there's a very valid case for the worth of students to society.<br />
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University is a chance to exist within a bubble, a safe-haven where although you're likely skint, you're skint in the 'beans on toast' sense, rather than the anxious, over-bearing dread that comes part & parcel of being 'real world poor'. It's a bubble where for three + years you have few commitments besides your course of study, and are free to focus on your work, and your own chosen path within that framework.<br />
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One of my favorite things about returning to Falmouth University recently was to see all these young people walking about, each with a young-scrunched up face, lost in the thought of their own creation; perhaps trying to figure out some new thing or tie loose ends of there own desires. Each with their feet on the ground and their heads in the clouds.<br />
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Uni is a bubble where the freshness of youth can transpire to great things. We see this most voicefully in the sciences, where new ways of doing things, new potions and tonics for societies ills are remedied. Its my belief that cancer won't be cured by some government think tank or multi-million pound contract, but someday - perhaps on the offchance - in some university laboratory.<br />
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We see it too in my field, the arts. Art in the 'real world' has a habit of being a grand echo chamber, with icons of the past (<a href="http://greynotgrey.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/fountain.jpg">1</a>) repeated with tired acclaim (<a href="http://www.saatchigallery.com/imgs/artists/emin-tracey/tracey-emin-my-bed.jpg">2</a>). Unfortunately the acclaim most modern art receives tends to be thanks to its value in auction houses & ticket prices rather than its true worth to us.<br />
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Good universities are what <a href="http://www.phy.ilstu.edu/pte/310content/philosophy/midwife.html">Socrates would refer to as midwives</a>: breeding grounds for newness. In the real world, under the shade of capitalism, great artistic ventures can be cast aside as phantom-plans, when really it is only the smell of money they do not engineer. At uni you have none of those obligations (the need to make work that is financially viable) and so you set off on your ways for other, more sentimental means.<br />
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Its the job of all students to take their three years and grasp them with both hands. It is a time of limitless prosperity for themselves as a person, and themselves as an artist, thinker, scientist, whatever. To be in that bubble, surrounded by like-minded folk, all pointed - with fresh insightful vigour - to the future, is a real opportunity for growth. With the right attitude, students bloom not only with their subject, but as people, growing rounded & worldy in lecture halls & libraries, in conversation & relations.<br />
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People often chastise the outlook of students as dreamers and idealists, and yes often this is fair criticism. However it is in this naive, playful wonderings that we find the most concentrated effort of new thought. Naive stabs in the dark, yes, fair; but one of them will hit the mark.<br />
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I'm a big believer in youth, I think your early 20's is the perfect time for newness. Much like footballers, you have the risk-taking naivety of youth that implores you to try new things, the (virtuous) confidence/arrogance to dignify your vision with great integrity, and are physically & mentally at your peak. You've also not been trodden with the ways of the real world enough to lose any of this. It's a time when the '<a href="http://quotes.lifehack.org/media/quotes/quote-Anatole-France-i-prefer-the-folly-of-enthusiasm-to-1479.png">folly of enthusiasm</a>' is all around, and the indifference of wisdom' is distant & unheard.<br />
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That's about all. A pat on the back to students everywhere.Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-81819028808695402722014-06-04T15:56:00.001+01:002014-06-09T00:29:16.249+01:00Humblin Hubblin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr9kmcU7A5Y0aSduVg91cBqks3N1dzFlF5Yly8hThZ0J5YAfM1Jyvz5bAflzVGejwOkcLjYfqSvn-P694DXWTavWluMDQyOyY_dVwpvCIwEr59T87mnuIkMlDAnx45BLSgUhJNTpvK-0x0/s1600/o-HUBBLE-UV-900.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr9kmcU7A5Y0aSduVg91cBqks3N1dzFlF5Yly8hThZ0J5YAfM1Jyvz5bAflzVGejwOkcLjYfqSvn-P694DXWTavWluMDQyOyY_dVwpvCIwEr59T87mnuIkMlDAnx45BLSgUhJNTpvK-0x0/s1600/o-HUBBLE-UV-900.jpg" height="362" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/03/hubble-space-telescope-ultraviolet-10000-galaxies-photo_n_5440225.html">story behind this picture</a></div>
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<i>It's easy to forget how small we are..</i><br />
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Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-13501522188265258632014-06-03T20:54:00.002+01:002014-06-09T00:54:52.289+01:00Sincerity part 2 featuring Bobby DFollowing on from thinking about the importance of sincerity to art (<a href="http://tomgameson.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/sincerity.html">first bit</a>).<br />
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'Art' you can think of as 'articulation'. We forget that though words are vast and can be bent to present a fathomable 'articulation' of what we want to say, they are weak, loose-fitting definitions that can never fully pronounce what we really want to express. If we agree with W.Benjamin that works of art are mere deathmasks of the original (<a href="http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/08/walter-benjamin.html">link, number 13</a>), then words are merely pale stabs in the dark.<br />
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Talking about her husbands lyrics, Olivia Harrison (George's wife) said "George usually referred to the lyrics of Bob Dylan when trying to make a point or elucidate his own feelings of isolation and frustration brought about by things in and beyond this life. Many times he said "I wish I knew more words", but perhaps all the words in the world, including the Sanskrit and mantras integral to his vocabulary, could not fully express his depth of feeling and realisation"<br />
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This is true of all of us, and its the reason a certain song (or painting, poem, anything) can be so cherished for us in moments of heartbreak (or joy); they seem to pronounce so much more what we are trying to articulate than our words ever could.<br />
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This I feel is in the succincticity of all parts strung together; the melody, the beat - fast or slow, & the lyrics themselves, all joining, working together to relay the depths of what we feel inside & wish to express.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="194" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/71634162?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ff9933" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="200"></iframe><br />
A very good example of this is Dylan on the track 'Positively 4th street'. <i>(Note - A good example if you are familiar with his other work, so apologies for my rose-tinted view</i>) On this song Dylan sounds defiantly self-righteous, so scornful to his ex in lyrics that kick off with "You got a lot of nerve, to say you are my friend, when I was down you just stood there grinning".<br />
However its not only in his lyrics but in the self-righteous way he sings them, the beat of the drum chugging away, and the melody which sweeps in and commands a sense of resolution to the scene he portrays. This ain't Charlie-Chaplin-Dylan caught in play-rhymes or serious contemplative solemn Dylan like we've heard in previous songs; this is him with his back up & his tail withdrawn from beneath his legs.<br />
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Words alone can't command such articulation. For example the lyrics themselves could be imagined in a broken, detached voice, distant and silently self-righteous. But the character he presents is one we can all find within ourselves when the time calls.<br />
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Another example, which is perhaps more widely recognised, would be Sinead O'Connor on Nothing Compares to you. Again, the words, her articulation of those words, and the simple, sad karaoke-esque backing track all tie together. With this example, we have the video too, which sticks in your mind just as emphatically as the rest.<br />
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On second thoughts, this post has a degree of hypocrisy when levied against the preivious post on the subject. Subjectively for myself, Dylan speaks volumes, however what's to say Christina Aguilera singing Diirty - written by someone else, perhaps not with her full 'sincerity' behind - can't speak with equal truth for people as Dylan does? It's certainly sung with equal gusto, and afterall, art is in the eye of the beholder, regardless of its conception.<br />
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The same could be said for a Beyonce song (who I feel is simply playing the game) or a One Direction song (who, undeniably, are as factory-processed as they come). Is sincerity really fundamental?<br />
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I spose at the very least it's a great lynch-pin, if something is sincere, then it is worthy of consideration. If someone truly feels something then it is a statement to adorn the great human tapestry. Culture is a reflection of us, in our place & time - regardless of whether that's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUiTQvT0W_0">Sinead O'Connor singing despairingly about the death of her mother</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA01pdI0jng">Robin Thick singing ironically & testingly about rape.</a>. Irony, malevolence & disdain are sincere emotions too afterall..<br />
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Then on another level, even if Robin Thick wasn't sincere, the reaction to it from the masses (people unflinchingly dancing away) too tells us something to further our understanding of ourselves & our current condition (culture).<br />
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Anywho, thoughts thoughts thoughts. Roll on.Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-76759301401032355472014-06-03T15:00:00.000+01:002014-06-03T15:00:32.182+01:00Her<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today one thing we are all drawn to think about is this sense of loneliness that pervades with social media. With growing melancholy, each of us, meandering slowly into a state of self-conformed isolation. When working long hours by yourself, stuck behind a computer in a room in a house, or perhaps during unfilled evenings, you may find yourself drawn to Facebook or checking emails etc: This is a lust for social interaction. It's a lust born from atavistic desires, the longing and necessity for community that is twice-trodden into the wellbeing of all humans and other beings. However, clicking through status updates, messaging long-lost friends - a solemn coldness is born of it all, and rather than fulfilling our lust we are left a little cold underneath.</div>
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'Her' comes to grips with this sense and shakes it in a not-too-distant future setting. It's not a fantastic film, a little unformed round the edges, but it does provoke questions in the way it envisions a plausible near-future. </div>
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One thing that has concerned me recently regarding all this push towards a strange & detached future we're building for ourselves, is virtual reality headsets. I think right now they personify our vision and where we are headed. VR headsets will raise even more questions (and hopefully answer a few) about us and our needs. For example with a VR headset we will be able to lunch in East-side Manhattan, take an evening stroll along the Rialto and sleep in the comfort of our own beds; or perhaps have a dinner-date with a pal half way across the world, look around the restaurant, interact with other virtual-real people - imagine a virtual world populated with real people all walking around and interacting from the comfort of their own front room. </div>
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I have contradictory feelings towards it, on the one hand the teenage boy inside of me rears his head and shouts 'Wow! Amazing' It's the same way I feel about cloning; it's messed up, the wrong path to tread for what we truly desire (contentment, peace), however its bloody marvelous and a testament to the genius of humans; we have gone so far down this path why not push it as far as we can and see what happens, perhaps that will be the footnote of the human lifespan of this Earth.</div>
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On the otherhand though I feel it'll only raise more questions about what humans really need. VR Headsets will further the question Facebook proposes & the lust for social interaction. Despite all this interaction and lottery of possibilities, will we too, when we remove the helmet and feel the real world, really be left cold and detached? In social interaction, is there something tangible in 'feeling' the other person, their energy & subconscious bonds? & if so will all this technology really offer any solutions or just further the chasm?</div>
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Anywho, one other thing that's raised is the thought (which I hadn't considered before) but if each of us had a device in our pocket that was so alive, so interested in us, new us personally & hung on every word, would that be of some beneficiary to our way of being? A personal PA that is unintrusive and dedicated to pushing us, caring about us etc. Would that make us all better? And if so who has the right sensibility and wisdom to design the psyche of such a tool? What virtues would be placated as THE virtues?</div>
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With visions of the future, utopian or otherwise, I am always drawn to recall Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. The wearing of VR headsets, the fulfilling our time with distraction, is just another version of his Soma. It's just another way we can come home from work and distract ourselves until the next day. Or is it? Who knows.<br />
<br />
Some wise words from the Dalai Lama:<br />
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"Man surprised me most about humanity. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.<br />Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”</h1>
Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-75182431750608278802014-05-05T11:31:00.000+01:002014-05-05T11:35:30.197+01:00sincerity<span style="font-family: inherit;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/C4mKwmvV3a8" width="500"></iframe></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">You could write this video off just as some wacky fella from Belgium. Do that aswell if you like, but it makes you think about sincerity. <i>Note, assuming this is for real and not a joke.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sincerity I think is key to art. If someone is saying something that they feel sincere about, from a sociological angle we can use it to futher our understanding about the human endeavour. With this fella for example, he is obsessed with marbles. Bit odd, you might say, but it is an obsession nonetheless. If he was equally obsessed with something a little more usual, perhaps his body, working out, then we may not question it or write it off. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This leads us to ask, why is it usual to be obsessed with your body/looks rather than something like marbles? They are both passions. Both worthless in the end, so why do we do them? Why do they make us happy & keep us compelled? Is it to be wrapped up in something that is the draw?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Anywho, hope I haven't lost you. But to turn back to sincerity. I find sincerity is key in art. Sincerity is the departure point from the audience to the work, from the audience to the soul of humanity itself. It is the departure point, meaning without that truthfulness & earnestness imbedded compounding every word, brush stroke, movement, how can we trust it?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sincerity is key. Even if there ideal they are presenting is (perceived by you) wrong, sincerity enables you to trace it - where they coming from? At which point did there feeling become broken off from you're own, their eyes blemished & haized in this way? Trace that vein to the big human heart (we all want happiness, we all want to avoid suffering, we all live we all die). You can forgive innocence, you can accept a different opinion to your own if struck with conviction, you can emphasise - admire, pity, be GLAD for naivety etc etc. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">E.G the songwriter Elliot Smith. After listening to his album a few times I got bored of the whiny broken heartedness of it all. But that aint an act, it isnt something masqueraded or suggested by the record company. He's broke & sounds broke. He's sincere about it. This is the problem with people on X-Factor & modern pop music in general. They are told to 'sing joyful' or sing 'poignantly tragically' etc, but it ain't the truth of how they're feeling, there's nothing beneath the big bellyful singing.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbtPsp0rPGgBZy0jWXbkw8rHzoRbAe3OaMJYUxgTsissubxmCWaMxVlUWmz2sL8zVkzrzDGxwy88VS-4q4bbbZCz41oBBnAYUxHOYfSxQldrsxl4v0-zQhdXtWrqwCbeEeULUpLPIC0UWf/s1600/Umberto_Boccioni_-_A_strada_entra_nella_casa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbtPsp0rPGgBZy0jWXbkw8rHzoRbAe3OaMJYUxgTsissubxmCWaMxVlUWmz2sL8zVkzrzDGxwy88VS-4q4bbbZCz41oBBnAYUxHOYfSxQldrsxl4v0-zQhdXtWrqwCbeEeULUpLPIC0UWf/s1600/Umberto_Boccioni_-_A_strada_entra_nella_casa.jpg" height="200" width="191" /></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Another example is the futurist art movement. I feel very little in common with the futurists, infact they are quite counter to my feeling about the world. They were people around the turn of the last century obsessed with what was going on around them & the optimism that bloomed from it - motor cars, big great feat's of architecture etc. They were wide-eyed at the new capabilities of man and heralded this new mechanical world they saw growing around them. They believed in a loss of humanity in the shadow of the machine. Marinetti, the leader of the movement, held great revolutionary opinions like "<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 18.66666603088379px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">…destroy the museums, the libraries, every type of academy… …the great crowds, shaken by work, by pleasure or by rioting”… …We will glorify war – the world’s only hygiene – militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman.". I don't agree with this, but sincerity lets me see what led him to this point. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 18.66666603088379px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Art to me is all about unrolling the endless truth of humanity. It's expression of everything in ways that words cannot suffice. As Bukowski put it </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14.079999923706055px;">"An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way." Without sincerity we ain't saying nothing atall, just treading dead water.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14.079999923706055px;"><br /></span></span>Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-73215716364602623672014-04-30T17:51:00.000+01:002014-06-03T15:01:32.967+01:00Big Sur<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
Just got through watching Big Sur. (you can watch it online <a href="http://www.alluc.to/movies/watch-big-sur-online/566557.html">here</a>). No comments like 'it was good' or 'i didnt like it' because its not one of them things you can just yes or no to like that. I enjoyed sitting through it most of all for my interest in Kerouac & the Beats, whether its a good film to the uninterested eye, probably not.<br />
<br />
I read Big Sur 5 years ago & I don't recall it too well. All's I remember is the colour of death that gets thicker & thicker as the book goes on. This is Kerouac at the end of his days, sick of it all, grown old (in mind) and just a general wearyness that suffocates everything. They got that feeling in the film & it's very true.<br />
<br />
Big Sur is like the bookend to On The Road. What began in youthful excitement & freshness & was alive, grew old, got drunk bloated (because what else was there to do?) & ready to die.<br />
<br />
What I love with Kerouac is his ability to repose his statements, actions, from a later more thoughtful position, and to do this honestly, to look at the root of it (& to find the humanity embedded in each wrong action, right action, misaction, any action etc).<br />
<br />
It's interesting that cinema (& culture) are turning towards the beats. When On The Road came out I was really skeptical, worried they'd kill it by making it this grandiose, Happy Meal Toy & teenage hoody-wearing thing. Making everyone know but know one really know if you get what I mean. However, now i'm looking at it out of pure intrigue. When contemporary culture reaches back into the past, after something specific, there's a reason for that reaching. You get this clever amalgamation of past & present. Like with Apocalypse Now, why did Coppola choose to reappropriate Konrad's Heart of Darkness in the Vietnam setting? What was he saying about his contemporary surroundings in doing so? 'The Horror, the Horror'..<br />
<br />
I see the same now with James Bond. Compare it to the films further down the line & we get this sequential step through modern history. How they shoot the cameras, how they pace the shots, how the unravel the plot. All these metathings are the imprint of our time.<br />
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& that's the same with these directors working from Kerouac's novels. They are interpretations, expressions of our time. Big Sur is full of very arty, wandering shots, looking at birds in the sky, the sun through the trees, but all in that contemporary gaize, like it coulda been lifted straight off Vimeo.<br />
<br />
I'd like to see the whole Duoloz legend spelled out. Each one taken up by a different director, different actors, a lottery of appearances, each actor, each film a different perspective on the same man. Because eventually, we'll see between them all, the blurry vague truth of his character(much like anybody's), all the shades & succincticity.<br />
<br />Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-78373334574815426242014-04-04T03:19:00.000+01:002014-04-04T03:51:09.292+01:00Life UpdateSorry for the witless title; it's 2:42 & my heads buzzing from listening to the whirr of the computer & the sly-blinding of the pixel for the last 4 hours. So if this reads a little off-the-mark, that's why.<br />
<br />
Havent posted on here about what i've been up to in ages, & thought it might be nice to have a recap.<br />
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<u><b>BEAT MAG</b></u><br />
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The magazines going really well, from strength to strength really. It's getting better with each issue, more formed, more sculpted to what we want. Getting better also because we came into it as amateurs, & naturally made mistakes. Slowly the errors are getting ironed out & the ideas are blooming.<br />
<br />
One thing I like about doing the mag is that it brings a natural flow to my life; you have this wave that builds - you gather the content together, get the interviews done, go about selling the advertising space - it builds & builds for a month. As it reaches the peak you're all flustered & driven to get it done, then the final week comes, no doubt, I find myself there till the last minute, doing the design, getting it all in order. Then finally it's done, sent to print - wave comes crashing down, the feet go up & the day is spent breathing calmly.<br />
<br />
Infact this wave was a problem before - that's why we switched to doing the mag bi-monthly. The problem was, you'd get it printed, but then straight away be onto the next one - no time to bounce back.<br />
<br />
But that is nice, now, it has a natural flow - the wave that builds, then you have a month where it's easy-swimming, & youre all ready for the next one by the time it comes around.<br />
<br />
This 'natural flow' suits me quite well. One thing i'm really working on with myself is tuning myself from being a 'reactive' person (Shit! This needs doing! Quick! Panic!) to being proactive. Proactive makes sense, is logically correct, however I read Notes From The Underground recently & Dostoevsky seemed to sum up the proactive life accurately for me.. 'The life of twice two's four is not life atall...'<br />
<br />
Yes it is. Stop procrastinating you bum. Get your work done.<br />
<br />
I really enjoy the mag in general. Quite simply, what do I love to do? Talk to people about things that interest me/things that they know deeply about. Doing the mag I get to brush shoulders with some really interesting people, & get educated folk* to spill the beans on interesting subjects like climate change, University fees, homelessness, travelling etc.<br />
<br />
*educated folk - as in, folk who know much about there given subject. Not necessarily people who are scholared in it.<br />
<br />It's also been an avenue into unexpected areas, we're getting alot of support off people we werent expecting or weren't aware of.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<b><u>FALMOUTH</u></b><br />
I haven't posted about this atall yet, but i'm currently working away at something which is really exciting for me. For the past couple of months I've been going down to Falmouth each week. I'm working with the students there in a mentor/director role to make a tribute to the Beatles film Yellow Submarine. I'm really pleased to have the opportunity for several reasons:<br />
1) to help pass on whatever knowledge I can, I like helping people, really like it. Hopefully my knowledge ain't too scatter brain'd & inane, ey?<br />
2) Work on a tribute to the Beatles! As if, ha.<br />
3) Be back in beatufiul Falmouth. Literally love Falmouth. Aaaahhh.<br />
4) Get a bunch of skills. I still, & hopefully for a long time will, firmly believe that life is all about experience. This is a great chance to get so much experience. I'm learning alot about how to try to motivate people, how to manage people, & to do it all with conviction & assurance, regardless of the sometimes open-endedness that the work entails. (film making is alot of decision making)<br />
5) Great to be back around young & prosporous folk. I spose you find this in any university town, it's one thing I hold dear from my time in uni. Everybody goin' about in a state of prosperity, getting better at something. Whatever it is; be it their course of study, their practice, or perhaps just life. Everybody is active. Thinking about something. When I first got back on campus I had a little chuckle to myself seeing all the folk walkin round with there little scrunched up faces, no doubt thinking about some deep down thought for their dissertation (or perhaps how much change they had handy for the laundrette). It's great.<br />
<br />
Anywho, in a nut shell, loving it. Really thankful to have the opportunity.<br />
<br />
It's fun working in the Yellow Submarine style too. It's much simpler than how I typically tend to draw, very appealing to look at, very colourful & fun. It's not too hard & very playfully creative, drawing lots of swirling plants & curved lines.<br />
<br />
It gives me a good appreciation of the style too. When I first watched the film I saw the style as strictly amateur. Although I did realise it was ignorant to see it in this light, I still didn't appreciate the artistic quality of it. Drawing in the style really makes you appreciate it.. the welcoming aesthetics (curvyness of everything), the interlaced pop-iconography & Britishness, the use of colour, and the intended naivety & simplicity of it - that which I originally wrote off as amateur!<br />
Here's a bit of concept work:<br />
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Besides all that, i've started getting back into reading more & just living. Am really enjoying being in Torquay at the mo, feels great feeling we're doing something positive for the town (the magazin) & I think it's going to be a great summer.<br />
<br />
Ciao for now.<br />
<br />
PS dyed my hair blonde. Haha.Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-58397276163458307092014-03-12T16:03:00.000+00:002014-03-23T19:01:11.136+00:00three short poems1)<br />
<br />
I heard Plato from the cave,<br />
& how living is easy with eyes closed<br />
& I saw the people on the streets, politicizing there small worlds & making ends meat<br />
& I know that people know their own lives best, and nothing of the unknown.<br />
<br />
2)<br />
<br />
A bedroom full of books & halfwritten manifestos,<br />
post it note quotes,<br />
concerning all sorts, mainly life, death, living & dying,<br />
& sincerity be at the heart of it.<br />
<br />
3)<br />
<u>You are what you eat</u><br />
<br />
Smother yourself with indolence<br />
& indolence you shall be,<br />
watch all the while the most scant of times<br />
& as such you shall see.<br />
Each evening<br />
make friends with gluttony<br />
Lay a bed<br />
& lie in it, slovenly<br />
...Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-17817470860560678112014-02-12T22:56:00.001+00:002014-02-17T10:48:13.004+00:00I remember you well..<div style="text-align: center;">
..in the Chelsea Hotel.<br />
<br />
Tribute to my future home & Cohen/Joplin<br />
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<br />Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301001523581311648.post-33241312209885359632014-02-07T02:33:00.002+00:002014-02-07T02:53:03.749+00:00Working nine to five..My mate told me a funny story once. He said every time he was rotor'd in to work 9-5, he'd be walking along the long grey dreary road to work, all the while, Dolly Parton ringing in his ears.. "I'm working nine to five..."<br />
<br />
Any who, tonight for the first time in a while I just spent the evening reading. It's nice to just dig your noes into something it ain't seen/felt/smelt/heard in a while..<br />
<br />
I read again 'wage labour and capital' by Karl Marx. It is a text that has been lingering around (my brain) recently, in relation to unfostered thoughts of the economic system, the welfare state, the dole etc etc. reading it over I realised what a 'founding impact' it had on the way I view work. To quote an early paragraph..<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-align: justify; text-indent: 16px;">"the putting of labour-power into action – i.e., the work – is the active expression of the labourer's own life. And this life activity he sells to another person in order to secure the necessary means of life. His life-activity, therefore, is but a means of securing his own existence. He works that he may keep alive. He does not count the labour itself as a part of his life; it is rather a sacrifice of his life. It is a commodity that he has auctioned off to another. The product of his activity, therefore, is not the aim of his activity. What he produces for himself is not the silk that he weaves, not the gold that he draws up the mining shaft, not the palace that he builds. What he produces for himself is wages; and the silk, the gold, and the palace are resolved for him into a certain quantity of necessaries of life, perhaps into a cotton jacket, into copper coins, and into a basement dwelling. And the labourer who for 12 hours long, weaves, spins, bores, turns, builds, shovels, breaks stone, carries hods, and so on – is this 12 hours' weaving, spinning, boring, turning, building, shovelling, stone-breaking, regarded by him as a manifestation of life, as life? Quite the contrary. Life for him begins where this activity ceases, at the table, at the tavern, in bed. The 12 hours' work, on the other hand, has no meaning for him as weaving, spinning, boring, and so on, but only as earnings, which enable him to sit down at a table, to take his seat in the tavern, and to lie down in a bed."</span></blockquote>
<br />
Still very much today, tho one change. The worker still sells his 'life activity' to secure the 'necessary means of life', however, many workers have forgotten the simple humble beginnings of the trade-off they partake in - they see money as the reward, as a separate commodity, entirely unbound from their 'life activity'. They therefore spend their money (most indignantly in the voice of the great I am) tyrannically, dumbly, lavishly, indolently, furiously.. It is not their hours spent spinning, weaving, boring, typing, building, shovelling, clicking that the modern worker hands to the cashier -- to them it is simply money; they have lost the connection.<br />
<br />
The modern wage-worker who spends his cash so fleetingly and can, on consideration, admit so, can also then (- once he has re-established the connection of his life-activity (labour) and the wage he trades it for -) see that he works beyond his needs. That the <b>money he spends away on nothing</b> is actually <b>hours he's spent typing, building, shovelling etc for nothing</b>. If he were not to burden himself with waste - several pairs of trainers, the latest gadgets, expensive sandwiches that still only fill a hole - he would not need to exchange so much of his 'life activity' for wage.<br />
<br />
--<br />
Any who, the above is a bit of a characterisation, so to fully divulge that character I'm thinking people roughly my age (young adults) with somewhat disposable income still (if not the ideal of a disposable income) . It's not an assassination of a particular kind of person; I can sometimes be this way myself, it is an assassination of a indolent way of being.<br />
<br />
Mulling over the other benefits you get from work with my mum, she pointed out job satisfaction, the joy of a job well done. This is true, however, it turned me on to something I believe is heady-prevalent in our society; just a landscape of socieatical nihilism. What I mean by this is simple;<br />
<br />
With capitalism as the driving force, every nook and every smear that causes a crease in expenditure is ironed over once-twice; 'how can we squeeze this to make more money?' 'Where can we trim the fat?' (Not forgetting as Marx above suggests, that your wage-labour is simply another commodity much like the tools you use or the computer you type at) it is all about maximising profit<br />
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One example of this is McDonald's. McDonald's is a restaurant. It is (I know, I know). However you don't see a head-chef waltzing about the open back kitchen tasting the onion rings. There are no head chefs or suet chefs . Rather than hire skilled workers at a higher price, what McDonald's has very cleverly done is hire unskilled workers; rather than having the head chef, you give every pawn his one job. You! Flip the burgers. You! Toast the buns. You! Slam the cheese. As they are unskilled workers, they are employed on minimum wage, and easy to replace. This is the theory of the factory process line. Of course you can delve deeper, (like a Buddhist, exploring the interconnectedness of the whole world) where do they import there beef from? Is it slaughtered here or abroad? How many people are involved in that process, that back in the day, would have all been performed on a farm, before a dinner plate. The capitalist world often seems nonsensical & illogical, however remember, the logic lies in profit, regardless of the route to it.<br />
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So, with this happening to all areas of all employment (look into your line of work, do you see it?) we have moved ever graciously away from the big boss. Back in the day, your boss was visible, he was probably the bloke who owned the biggest house in town, or bought everyone a round once in a while. At work, you would probably pass him and maybe coyly say hello, or at the least know which door his office was behind.<br />
Now however, the king (the big boss) has distanced himself greatly from the pawn. In between himself and them, he's put all the pieces, many knights many rooks, even bosses and bosses on top. The pawn now stands 50 lines ahead of the king.<br />
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To the pawn (the common, modern wage-worker) the king is invisible. He is just some man with a lotta money someplace distant, perhaps abroad, or perhaps part of a board, some uptown twat in London.<br />
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So, returning then to job satisfaction, my point is this; for my generation, many of us had our first job experiences working for some big corporate chain like this - McDonald's, tescoes, HMV, sainsburys etc etc. we were bathed in it. and its a fool who doubts the power of formative experience in moulding lasting opinion.<br />
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My question to the lasting-practice of this king-pawn conundrum - how much empathy can be expected of the pawn when his master sits so far away? For these big corporations, they can thank their lucky stars that compassion within communities has grown colder and colder in the last 70 years - where we now instinctively imagine a tanned man with a beard to be a terrorist, or consider in equal measure, whether the man holding the child that's not his own is either a good-Samaritan or a pedophile.<br />
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If the world were a little warmer, perhaps dominos pizza workers wouldn't care - and infact be rather happy - that the fresh, untouched, still warm pizza they had to bin because of legislation was now in the hands of someone who would have otherwise not eaten tonight. Or perhaps people working in supermarkets will 'give away' stock by merely turning a blind eye to his fellow man as he leaves without paying. Who does the working class feel empathy for more? One another? or the fatcat miles away. If we keep getting poorer and those corporations keep on swelling, perhaps we'll see a tilting of the balance..<br />
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Any who, that's that, socieatical nihilism, on your street corners, in your nearest tescoes.Thomas Howard Gamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05409118009001471431noreply@blogger.com3