On Sunday, the last day of August, I caught the bus to Sacramento and walked around in the breezy sunlight, walking up to midtown, sketching a couple of things as I’ve not done here for a good while now, not since the sketchcrawl in March. Above, powerlines and some buildings and trees (for a change, eh), while below there is an old building I’ve wanted to draw for a while, the one next to the Streets of London pub on J street. Well now I have.
Cor, that was exciting, wasn’t it! I don’t mean Obama’s big speech, or the rain on his parade caused by McCain’s choice of Veep (oh yeah, I hate that word, don’t I) in Sarah “who the..?” Palin, or the rain on the republicans parade caused by hurricane gustav, or the rain on that parade caused by the whole bristol palin non-story. A few days ago I’d have thought bristol palin was an office supply company or something, and as for trig palin, well there’s a name for your “babies, guns’n’jesus” candidate’s son/grandson. Now there seem to be a lot of people in the news dedicating airtime to discussing how they shouldn’t be discussing that story, and before you know it oops, we can’t talk about candidate’s policies, we’re out of time, back later for an interview with the baby’s father…
No, my American friends, my excitement was caused by something which you have undoubtedly no interest in whatsoever: transfer deadline day for the English Premier League. You do things different here, with your drafts and your salary caps, but yesterday in England it was Crazy Season. The deadline to make transfers was midnight September 1st, so clubs and agents were frantically trying to broker deals and outdo each other before midnight, when their expensive striker might juts turn into an expensive pumpkin. I was glued to my computer (midnight there being a comfy four pm here), following the updates on two sites, and was astonished at the mischief suddenly-rolling-in-it Manchester City were causing. I have no doubt that their hilarious bid for Berbatov, gladly accepted by Spurs who were keen to see the Bulgarian fulfill his dream of a move to somewhere in Manchester, helped us get the 30 million we were asking, which United begrudgingly coughed up. Now sulky Berbs has his dream move, and will be with a team that will win things for him, as opposed to one where he actually had to work for his wage packet (oh, except if he was sulking). By the way, sir Alex, four years seems to mean two years these days, so watch out for Real Madrid’s inevitable courting come 2010, and Dimitar’s sudden lifelong dream to play at the Berbateu – I mean, Bernabeu.
There were nails bitten aplenty – would anyone sign Michael Owen? Would Arsenal sign anyone? People texting in claiming to have seen [insert any footballer here] getting out of a taxi outside [insert any football club here]. City were my heroes of the day though, landing the Brazilian Robinho, beating money-bags Chelsea to his signature; he too had talked endlessly about his dream move, but in actually turning the money-grabber’s dream-team down for even more lovely wonga he truly embodies the modern shamelessly greedy money-grabbing bastard footballer of today. Hooray!
I love staying up all night for general elections, watching as each constituency announces their result, watching as the Monster Raving Loony Party honk away at the back; I was reminded of the look on Michael Portillo’s face when he lost Southgate when I though of Chelsea, shortly before midnight, only this time the Monster Raving Loonies actually won the seat, and will apparently soon be trying to win the biggest seat of all, with a flipping hysterical and audacious bid for Cristiano Ronaldo. Oh, please please do it! Just for a laugh. I wish Spurs could get bought by some super-rich Arabs (pretty unlikely though, given Tottenham’s Jewish tradition, Yid Army and all, but you never know – it could be the first step to world peace?).
Bristol who?
Encore, my illustration friday entry this week: “Memories”, this time with colour. Not much colour, but some colour. I posted the black and white version yesterday. It’s an homage, or even an homage of an homage. I forget now.
Memory is a funny thing. Whole academic programs are set up around the very idea of memory, its uses, its effects on future actions, plus lots of other stuff I don’t quite know (or have forgotten). In the days before literacy, memory was of vital importance, to keep laws, to pass on traditions, plus lots of other things I can’t remember. Our incredible capacity for memory became less well exercised once things began to be written down – we trusted paper for permanence, rather than agreed ideas on what really happened or what the rules really were. We also began, everntaully, to equate language with what is written rather than what is spoken – a huge mistake if you ask me. But anyway back to memory. Do you remember, in the days before we all had cellphones, that you used to remember most of your friends’ phone numbers? You had to, in case you needed to call them. But now you just press their name in your nokia. Memory capacity unexercised. I don’t even remember my own cellphone number now. I don’t have to. So what’s the rest of my brain doing when it’s not being used remembering things like that? I forget.
As for what happened in our lives… it’s funny how quickly things whisper away from your thoughts. People, places, ideas; yet, if we have a small token from them, doesn’t matter how small or insignificant, we have a greater chance of retaining that memory. Photos are one thing, drawings are another. Each of these things above have some sort of meaning to me. I’d be happy to explain.
Illustration Friday this week is “Memories”; this is my entry.
I took my inspiration for this composition from the phenomenal Andrea Joseph. Well, her and the homage to her by France Belleville. I’ve wanted for a while to do a detailed piece of “bits” for a while but hadn’t blocked out the mental space for it – wow, it takes some concentrated concentration! – and, actually it’s not finished. I’ll be adding colour later (I just need a rest!). I drew it so that it would be coloured.
Those are just some of my memories. Oh, except one, a partially hidden photo of my grandad (who i never knew) with my dad as a boy (you only see his hair). Once the picture is complete I’ll add notes. They span several countries. Two of the objects are actual ‘memory’.
Do you remember Take Hart (and it’s later incarnation, Hart-beat)? Tony Hart was the art guy for a generation; famously named after three body-parts, he could do near anything with corrugated cardboard and poster paint (just as his caretaker Mr Bennett could always be trusted to get his foot stuck in a bucket), though most of us watched it for Morph, the little brown plasticine guy who could phase through tables but nothing else, and of course The Gallery. “Now it’s time for the Gallery.” For those Americans who don’t know, this was where the work of Britain’s young artist boys and girls was displayed to a backdrop of lift music and unpredictable camera-movements. Kids up and down the land who had submitted their work would sit anxiously, hoping their drawing of their cat would bring them a moment of fame. Kids who drew all the time. Kids like me. But not me.
I never submitted anything to the Gallery, because they had one infamous proviso: you will never get it back. “Pictures cannot be returned,” he warned us. So I did not send Tony Hart any of my drawings, preferring to wait until the internet age to start a sketchblog, and forego the music. I wonder what they did with all those drawings? Do they still exist? Does Tony Hart keep them locked in some underground storage facility? One day, they’ll surface; he or his ancestors will go through them and find an original Tracey Emin aged 7 (“this is everyone I ever ate crisps with”) or one by the 8 and three quarters year old Damien Hirst with his earthworm suspended in pritt-stick glue. And they’ll be worth millions.
Oh, the drawing? Sorry, yes it’s Hart Hall, UC Davis, and has nothing to do with the art-loving Tony at all. Drew and painted it today at lunchtime while escaping slowly moving shadows.
Illustration Friday this week is “routine”…this is my entry.
Now, before you say, “do what?”, I’m playing a game here I used to play when i did interactive theatre. This image, ok, it’s an image of Tel looking out of my window in Belgium, about eight or so years ago. Add the word ‘routine’ and you start to write the story in your head around it.
This may have been the night after this night here. But it was probably after a different night.
But that windowsill! Man, I spent so many days and nights sat on that, looking out of my thirteenth floor window, across the Square Hiernaux (I nicknamed it the Vicious Circle because of the quite crazy Belgian driving), to Ville Deux, to the Stade Mambourg (where England beat Germany in Euro 2000), and to the terrils, the large slag heaps that dot the landscape of the forsaken pays noir.
You may have wondered what has happened to Mystic Pete this new football year. Well, my sources tell me he is taking some time off from his uncanny prognosticising to spend more time in the garden, predicting rain and such forth (which may explain the drought we’ve had). He did mumble something about Rafael Benitez being the first managerial sacking, but even that was half-hearted. (Oh, I just noticed “arsenal to win shit” in the message above, it means “arsenal to win shit”, not “arsenal to win shit“. This being a message from Mystic Pete hopefully means arsenal will win shit. But that’s Opti-Mystic Pete, and he’s not in the building).
For those unfamiliar with Mystic Pete, he’s the guy who predicted France would win Euro 2008.
So, Joe Biden to run with Obama. Ok, getting the ‘grey’ vote. Possibly that shady Romney to run with McCain. Predictably, predictably, the words “Obama bin Biden” have started being tossed about the blogosphere by, well, fecking eejits (to use the technical term), most of whom seem to appear on the wordpress dashboard (why is it always republican supporting blogs and arsenal supporting blogs that appear on that dashboard?). Blogs that say stuff like, “ooh, it is a bit spooky, I’m definitely voting McCain now”. And I have to fight the urge to leave comments on those blogs. I really want to say, “GET OVER IT, you ignorant twats”, but really what’s the point? It’s just sad.
Also on this subject, a new word (new to me) has been flying around like a mosquito waiting to be swatted down: ‘veep’. Veep, and its derivative, ‘Veepstakes’. Veep. It sounds like a deodorant. Veep, keeps you dry for up to twelve hours. Or something you clean your bog with. Veep. Ok, new word, I’ll probably never use it, but there it is. Veep.
I finished the world-saving sketchbook project back in June, and mailed it off last month in a purple envelope (from paperchase, if you’re wondering), and tomorrow (Fri Aug 22) it will be exhibited with, well not quite 499 others (not all those sent out were finished), but quite a lot of others. The project is run by the arthouse co-op in Atlanta, Georgia (not that Georgia, the other one), and the event will be kicking off at around 7pm eastern time (or 4pm here on the West Coast; that’s midnight to you in London).
And it will be streamed live online at http://www.arthousecoop.com/live/. So Londoners, tune in when you get in from the pub (ok, watch it from the still-open pub on your iPhone, but make sure it doesn’t get nicked by any hoodies or anything), and keep your eyes peeled, maybe you will catch a brief brief glimpse of my little one. Sketchbook, that is.
I have been looking around the information superhighway lately (remember when it was called that?) to see who else has done this project, and compiled the following admittedly short list of fellow world-savers. Didn’t actually find many, so I was pretty pleased to discover two others based in Davis. Most interesting to see all have interpreted the project uniquely; I think I might be the only one however to advocate using a spider-killing aerosol as a means of saving the world, but each to their own I guess…
Karen Blados (Cleveland, OH)
Blue Bicicletta (Davis, CA)
Pica (Davis, CA)
Planetmithi (Bristol, UK)
This Chicken (Oxford, UK)
Joseph Tomlinson (WA)
JT (Cleveland, OH)
Craig (Cleveland, OH)
Woman of Color (Atlanta, GA)
Kirihargie (Portland, OR)
Metrochic (Scottsdale, AZ)
Needless to say, if you too have done this project and have put the pictures somewhere the world you have saved can see them, then I’d like to add your sketchbook to this list . Hope the show goes well; I hear there may even be a book.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arthousecoop/
http://arthousecoop.blogspot.com/2008/07/mail-time.html
Luke has this great toy (given to him by my cousin) full of lights and shapes and buttons and songs, all in French, and he absolutely LOVES it. “Ainsi font, font, font, les petites marionettes,” it sings as you turn it on. We’re trying to expose him to French early on (we also have a CD of French nursery rhymes and sounds for babies his age), so hopefully one day he’ll be able to teach us what we have long forgotten. I look forward to us one day taking him to the south of France, to where I met his mommy. And we’ll eat poulet-frites. (Funny enough I got a postcard from Menton today).
