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!

moleskine pages

Most of us dislike change, yet we crave it at the same time. We console ourselves that change will always be for the better even when we have no proof of that. When all else fails and our lives don't live up to our youthful expectations we comfort ourselves with the thoughts of a perfect afterlife. Hope is really the one thing that keeps humanity going, it triumphs over reality and makes us get up after every knock. Or are we just stupid?

This follows on on the theme of hope. The postman carries surprises, possibilities, not just bills and final demands.

Looking through a family photo album recently I was struck by how many of it's inhabitants are now ghosts. Every one of us is surrounded by an entourage of ghosts each with it's own little gravitational pull.

Moleskine pages..again!

We are all children in someways,  innocent and ignorant of what lies outside our field of vision.

No matter how old we are, we are still prey to hurtful comments and exclusion. Life is a school playground where we negotiate our alliances and pretend not to care when things go against us.

Does anyone remember Playschool? Every day we'd get to see through a different shaped window. I remember the thrill of anticipation as if it were yesterday.

More Moleskine pages anyone?

Sketches of people on the street, in queues, walking around etc. The one exposing her tits is a 'retired' street walker that was resorting to flashing her only asset for loose change.

The pain of infertility, the loneliness and feeling of redundancy and uselessness. Among other stuff like complicated relationships and ensuing power plays. Human relationships are strange and hard to fathom.