words/images; images/words

New Park, Old Faces Must Go

They cried out the day she was taken,

Despite the fact only the crows would sit by her and on her.

She was a hundred and one years old, wrapped in snakes, a proper Medusa,

Tendrils hung from her like grotesque, extra limbs, all grit and grease,

Warped and eaten by weather.

She pinned for better, summer days –

Lax by then in her hatred of the world, stony as maybe;

She was husked out like a beaten wasp or an airless sky;

She would sit and face the blast

Cradling herself against anything further,

And pitying the carver who killed herself over her.

Shop

Places in front of me

I enter a door

And drop my coat and remove my shoes

Skulls line the walls

And I search for the toys I want the most

I spot the boat at the bottom of the shelves of other things

And I have a moment just holding it,

Cradling it in the folds of my dress, my waist exposed,

I have no feeling in me other than this.

I go to the fish tank and push the ship out

And I laugh

As the little person in it smiles up at me.

I have been working on this week, and and am working on today, poetry and drawings. I draw and then I write, this really seems to work, the process makes the drawings and the poems fuller. I don't really plan what I am going to draw, I just draw and then the idea of what to write comes, and that in turn develops the images.

Something about the combination of art forms seems to make art a fuller experience; this is how I would like to exhibit and collaborate with other artists. Have just found out that I am going to be part of a working exhibiting space along with other artists in the Temple Cowley area of Oxford in the next couple of weeks ... my plan is to get collect words and poetry fragments from vistors, inviting them to draw them on the wall follwing on from each other, and then I'll respond and add to them visually until there is an end piece connecting audience and artist. I don't know what we'll end up with, but it will be a purely creative experiment in development and creative empowerment. Details to follow...

my feelings about my working practice at the moment ...

observation through a window

More images for a personal odyssey, and poem promised -

Ballerina

In the cold I light up,

Feeling bitter glow and stinging of warmth in the mouth,

Hands shaking slightly in the contrast of outside to in.

My shoulder blades bare lean into rough brick, a moment -

I can feel them grazing slightly as I breath deep

The scent of sweat and cigarette.

I am stretching my legs, just a moment -

But back through the door to the slowness

Of movement, purity and rousing sound,

To saying nothing at all.

work and words

I have been working on a series of pieces inspired by songs this week - the piece at the top was inspired when I listen to 'Rolex' by Wiley; it has in it elements of the sounds visualised, like the squelchy and grinding baseline (red) and the patterns in lines of the drums and stream of battering sounds, with the yellow of the voice pacing through. Below this, on paper, is a straight depiction of 'People Are Strange' by The Doors, a song wich is chilling and beautiful and deeply unerving in a mind-bendingly simulatanous way. The visual idea is inspiring a piece I am working on called 'Falling'... to come.

I know I said I would bring you the finished piece based on The Big Pink song 'Velvet', but talking to a creative friend whoes opinion I respect as much if not more than all others, I have decided the idea - despite having made its way onto canvas, needs a rebirth. Back to blank on this one, back to the draft, lets see what happens.

The last image is a draft paint on paper idea for a piece I want to submit for the Oxford Pride Exhibiton in the Jam Factory in June, the theme being 'Personal Odyssey'; it has given me a strong idea which I think I am going to take straight onto canvas, the colours are right from the draft but the image has gone through a new genesis - watch this space.

Poem and a sketch to follow ...