A brand New Moleskine

The title page of the new book, I think that the theme is the connection between birth and creativity: a somewhat obvious one! The stuff inside my head eats it's way out one way or another. A process of externalising my inner thought process.

My favourite part of using Moleskine, brand new pages. I managed to buy a couple of new books from Ebay for around £8 a pop, a great improvement on the Waterstones / Smith's £14 plus.

the final pages of Moleskine March 2011- June 2011

moleskine pages

This is obviously a work in progress!

I have been really lazy with this particular Moleskine and I have gone way over my usual 8 week span. But I am trying to secure a reasonably priced supplier as my moleskine habit is getting out of control and is costing me a lot of money. I can't believe that WH Smiths and Waterstones have the nerve to charge almost £15 when Amazon can offer them for £8 including postage. It really pays to shop around! If anyone can better the Amazon price I'd love to hear about it.

Moleskine pages

A perfect afternoon of EBay and sex according to one of the Kardashian sisters: the new arbiters of taste, And the architects of our desires. They tell us what we should want and we dumbly oblige.

Etching plates

 All the text is in reverse as these are the actual plates.

While clearing out my studio I came across a pile of zinc plates, some I printed, and some only proof-printed. I actually prefer the etched plates to the prints taken from them. They vary in size from post card size upwards. I was surprised how well they looked scanned, so I'll share them here.

moleskine new pages

I am so lucky I had a somewhat shitty childhood! What on earth would I have to thrash out in my artwork if not for my family's epic dysfunction. I have dealt with my feelings of helplessness and lack of control before. And I continue to relive my fantasies of revenge and wonder how I managed to avoid growing into a psycho killer!

I was looking at a book recently with photographs of east European prostitutes well past their prime. I couldn't stop thinking about the dreams and ambitions they must have had as young people and how life often shits on you so badly but you still carry on, and try and convince yourself that you were better off than some.

Browsing through the files of Ancestry.com (using their amazing 2 week free trial subscription), I started thinking about all the people with whom I had a blood connection, but whom I would never know. I was surprised at how much details can be gleaned, such as their jobs and how they died. It is eerie knowing that their blood runs through my veins. After ploughing through generations of grinding poverty, I found a line of aristocrats and slave owners. a great way to spend an rainy afternoon.

Pages from my current Moleskine sketchbook

Childhood insecurities...AGAIN! will I ever get beyond them? At this stage I doubt it. The feeling of being slightly out of step with one's peers. Being out of the loop and pretending not to care. All my peers seemed to my eyes to be so self assured, composed as if they'd received the life manual: read it, digested it and put it into action. I was missing something!

I think I am the bull in this image. the bullfighter is my show-off tormentor. I am the purple victor!