Halfway House

Tuesday 18th July 2006

2007-01-22T07:30:00.000-08:00

Why do we write when words are lost
And moments can't be found
To pick up my pen and write
What do i hope to find?

To find the stillness of the soul
And the passing of time
To find the softness of life
And mercy in the mind

Why do we look around?
To think, ponder, and supply.

Is it a natural disease to wonder and to think?

As we question every breath
Every move
And every sound

Do we suffocate ourselves in our own curiosity?

For if it is an illness
Will we fight and overcome curiositys spell
Or choose to live content with blinkerd knowledge

Will we fight and die in war
In search of peace that answers bring

To be a man who lived
And found death
Or a man who lived
And found a new world.

I lie at night
And wait
Cacooned in the vision of greatness
A vivid illustration of all i can achieve
In that moment i believe

Because in my vision and mind
Each cell of my brain
Tells me i can become anything
To a possibility of accomplishing everything

I can lie
To be a hero or a God
A mother or an infant
Eternal even dead
I can create a masterpiece
And paint no end

Because in dreams and the
Stillness of the night
In the subconcious of the mind
The fact of mortality
And the fault of humanity
Does not live.

She leaves my room
After i've promised in echoed whispers not to move
To lie cacooned tightly in the sheets
I'm not allowed to move an inch

As i lie in the stillness
Everything stops
My mind clears
My shadow from the moonlight doesnt creep

But time still moves and ticks.

Life is not how many years you lived
Or how many days you walked the roads

Life is in the moments
When you are concious you are alive

The times and places
That even dreams can not survive

That is to be alive

A life is not something you can imagine
Or by following a great man there

Life is purpose, perspective, potential
That man can not just dream

But when God takes us by the hand
And for at least one moment
We let go of humanity
And everything we 'know'.

Tuesday 29th March 2005

2007-01-22T07:21:00.000-08:00

13:11 - Thinking about the lamanated sheets that i have. And how i can display them? initial thought was to display them in the form of a book, as everything else is. Although had the thought to put them into a frame so that they would become more like a sculpture. The viewer could them look through them, walk around them, becomes more physical.
To extend this idea, perhaps for the final show, i could put the pieces in-between two sheets of glass, and stood at 5ft on two wooden legs.

Thursday 10th March 2005

2007-01-22T07:05:00.000-08:00

15:29 - Organisation, layout, interpretation, meaning, inspiration, quiet, calm, silence, reflection, thought.
Life in thought, strength, beauty.
I rest my case.
Rest my case against what?
15:33 - Hammering, hit hit hit hit hit htithnthithtit htit htit hit bang bang baangn loud, force, power tap tap tap tap tap tap light footsteps as someone walks down the metal steps Hum hum humming of music from portable stereo. Voices from room next door. Door shuts. Tap. Whistling as someone walks from one door to the next. rustling of paper. Brrr of car engine outside. Sliding of doc martins as someone walks across floor. I am asked if i want to go and watch a canvas burn. I decline.
15:37 - I yawn. Eyes water. Scratch my nose with right hand. Chewing gum has lost its taste.
To think is to know
Knowing is thinking
Thought is genius
And that's all nonsense.
16:01 - What do i carry with me all the time? Burdens and things to do. Carry rocks with me where ever i go. In my arms balance them. Bringing burdens from inside out. Make it physical. Is it possible to physically hold them all the time, whilst still doing everything i need to do?
Song playing - Searching for a heart of gold.
22:15 - IT'S A WELL KNOWN FACT THAT PROTONS ARE PURPLE.
AIR IS YELLOW.
Is it wrong to say these things? Would they be classed as a lie? Who is to say that i am wrong. These things can not be seen by the human eye. But then how am i right? - i can't see it. So perhaps there is a chance that i could be. What colour would protons and electrons be.
22:34 - Colour is just colour.

Tuesday 8th March 2005

2007-01-22T06:55:00.000-08:00

12:49 - I went to the white horse at Sutton Bank this morning. I wanted to progress this idea of turning it into a zebra. I went to see if it was too steep or feasible to do, and the size of it. I ended up roughly measuring it in footsteps.
Horizontally from head to tail: 150 footsteps
Vertically from top of body to tail: 16 footsteps
Vertically from top of body to feet: 32 footsteps
Vertically from top of body to bottom: 15 footsteps.
White horse - yea right. I realised just how grey it is. So if i am going to do it with bin liners, will have to use white and black bin liners to make to contrast greater. I will also have to go up again to take more accurate measurments, so that i can have it all prepared to roll out. I don't want to be up there long. To keep the bin liners down, will have to put rocks inside the bin liners, and maybe use a nail gun at tops and bottoms of horse.
Possible to roll bin liners from top, and have someone at the bottom. It's too steep to have someone walking down it.
With more accurate measurments and planning i really feel like this could work. Hopefully in the next too weeks. Need to wait for snow to go, as it was covering the head.

Monday 7th March 2005

2007-01-22T06:49:00.000-08:00

14:57 - Pen squeeks.
I'm always thinking, always writing, word after word after - as if these words are going to somehow save me.
EMPTINESS IS MEANINGLESS
Does life ever scare you, it scares me. How do you explain the confusion of knowing what to do but never doing it.
15:57 - I'm just so confused about what i want out of my art.
What do i want it to mean, what do i want to do with it. Why am i doing what i am doing? And why am i not doing what i should be doing...ART.
And here we go again - what is art?
How come i am where i am with my ideas. Art flows, it has a start and then it gets rough, once things come into it, it's hard to get them out. You just have to flow with them.

Wednesday 2nd March 2005

2007-01-22T06:40:00.000-08:00

11:38 - What are words? And what are ideas? I continually write words and ideas down. Why? Is it just to prove that i can actually think. We write things down so that we will actually remember them, so is that a certainty that if i don't write something down i will forget it. I don't think i write these things down for me, but for tutors and examiners - a way for them to get inside my mind. Do they even understand these jumbled words when they do read them?
14:04 - By writing our names over and over do we slowly begin to erase it (pavel buchler) erasing our identity by writing it too much. Could we repeat everything we write, speak, movements we make, until it becomes worthless, meaningless. Or would it take a different turn and become more profound. Everyday do exactly the same thing.
Hahahhannahmunzehahanmhannahmunzerhannahmuzerhanmunzerhahnnahannahmunzer
15:18 - Ideas come to use when we are in a subconcious state of mind. In a state of boredom or past thinking. We can then just do something and things can flow and develop in an unexpected way.

Wednesday 23rd February 2005

2005-02-23T01:13:00.000-08:00

01:13 - Our world, life, love
I crave for beauty
I crave for passion
I crave for obbsession
For life after life
Love that never dies
Beauty that never fades.
01:18 - My words are lost my thoughts are found.
01:20 - The breaths of men played a duo with the tick tock of the corner clock.
01:24 - Can love be pure when also bound
With ropes and knots above the ground
I loved a man who tied more knots
Until i was squashed and squashed
in the foss and dirt and mud, where neatless stung
my skin like buzzing bees, constant and pounding
as if i were inside a bloody heart beat.
13:55 - I've just done a painting of a bottle of red poster paint. I look at it now and think that it's wrong. But these days what is right or wrong in art. It's not technically correct, though you can tell what it is. Though at the sane time it's not abstract. Is it how i see the world, does it represent me. Or is it just a doodle of a bottle of paint. How do we determine these things?
15:38 - It's snowing again outside. I made a little poem up on monday when i was walking in the snow. "Beauty beauty all around, snow is falling, heavens found."
14:00 - Chris walks in room with Mark. I watch them. Mark drags a board across the floor, while Chris walks around the corner.
14:02 - I begin to cut up the dead pink rose again.
14:52 - Still here cutting up petals of the rose. It's all i ever seem to do, cutting and sticking. Meaninglesss, repetative repetative activities. snip snip snip.
I'm so lost in my ideas, my art. I'm all over the place, don't know where i am going or where i began. I sit here chewing my gum, repetative, jaw opens and closes.
5 petals left.
Repetative obbsession.
17:29 - Sat on number 1 bus going home. Man sat infront of me. He has just said hello and alright to everyone on the bus - going round everyone individually to make sure we are all sound and have all had a good day. He has a big smile and is singing "Where all on a big red bus going on a summer holiday."
He's polite, talking to everyone, friendly...so why are people trying to ignore him and avoid eye contact.
Why do we always sit on bus in silence. Maybe we should be more like this chap.

Sunday 20th February 2005

2005-02-20T11:37:00.000-08:00

11:37 - 100 million million billion atoms in a ballon. Fall to the floor. Atomic bomb, one atom. One person with purpose can accomplish more than 100 million million billion people without.
Jew runs out of footsteps on the Sabbath (can only walk a certain number of steps in day - literally day of rest). He has to stay in the same place that he ran out of steps. Police come, can't move him - on religious grounds. Stay on road till midnight. Unless a helicopter comes and lifts him away.
White horse into a zebra. Bin liners. Friday 25th February 3am. Reason - the shock and enthusiasm of when the white horse was first created. Re - create this. People notice again. CHRISTO * cause people to look differently at their surroundings.
zebra
giraffe
donkey
dog
rhino
hippo

Thursday 17th February 2005

2005-02-17T20:28:00.000-08:00

20:28 - Art needs to cause a reaction. If knowone ever saw my work, would i still do it? On Kawara - became lifestyle. Does art only fullfill it's own need.
I want to be a painter.
But that doesnt flow out of me. What does, are jumbled words.
Ideas are empty if there is no vision to fullfill them.
20:33 - Am i passionate enough to be an artist, because today i am filled with doubt.

Wednesday 16th February 2005

2005-02-16T16:23:00.000-08:00

16:23 - I had an idea earlier on today. I was walking around town about miday. I wonder what it was.
I am sat at my desk tapping my right foot and eating a pink lady apple. Sound of someone rolling out celotape.
16:26: - I look around room. Splatted paint, ripped paper, piles of sheets and card. Everyones got so much work. My desk seems to have looked like this for months and i think its starting to look worse. A lot of repetition in everyones work, everyone has a very unique style.
16:30 - Just finished eating apple, picking bits out of teeth with left hand. I have a nutri grain bar and a quarter of a bottle of evian water left to eat and drink. I'm being really healty today, why?
16:32 - I'm sat making notes and trying to improve my personal statment.
17:12 - CD playing - scratched. Jumping about, repetition, I jump up, run over, press stop. Silence.

Wednesday 9th February 2005

2005-02-09T12:00:00.000-08:00

Miday 12:00 - I've stopped waiting for magic or lightening to come. I've just got to get on with it. I have my work spread across the table ready to be handled, moulded and made sense of.

Tuesday 1st February 2005

2005-02-01T16:09:00.000-08:00

16:09 - Thinking about conversation i had yesterday. Knowledge is like stamp collecting, it's all for show, delicatly placed and displayed. Whilst intellegance is quiet, humble, surprising.

Monday 31st January 2005

2005-01-31T11:02:00.000-08:00

11:02 - i consider chance. Marcel Duchamp. Idea of dropping a meter length of string and seeing how it lands. I begin marking out lengths on wall above desk. 10cm, 20cm, 30cm, 40cm, 50cm, 60cm, 70cm, 80cm, 90cm, 100cm. I will cut lengths of string at the same measurments and consider idea of chance. Each will be different.
11:58 - Sit down to lunch. Thoughts - Nothing.
11:59 - I turn on seat to look out of two thin narrow windows stood side by side. A girl in a black top walks down path holding paper, a read car drives past. Nothing. I look up to the sky from the green grass blowing in the wind. he clouds look like a blanket covering the world. Are we trapped beneath.
12:02 - I get tuna on my lip. I take out the last tuna sandwhich, the thin plastic bag is left on the table, it looks light and like its floating, it's shadow is drawn on the white paper below it. I look inside, nothing. Creases of the plastic. I pick up the bag, scrunch it up in my left hand, bubbles of air in it come between my fingers. I squeeze the air out. Why do i do that?
Okay
So here's a question
Is dropping pieces of string from various heights classed as art.
Seems stupid to me, pointless, pathetic, a thin line on a piece of paper. So why am i doing it? I'm spending a full day doing something that i don't even believe is art. Maybe this is why artists are stupid.
12:13 - I open a bag of crisps. It crinckles as i open it. I'm going to stop writing now. I've forgotten why i am doing this. Forgotten forgotten forgotten forgotten forgotten forgotten forgotten forget.
Why is there no colour in my work?
12:17 - Silver, Black, Turquoise, Red. Recording colours of cars as they drive past window. Count seconds between cars. Green. 16 seconds. White. 18 seconds. Silver. 37. White. 86. Purple. 45. Metalic blue. 9. White and black. 10. Metalic blue. 10. Silver. 4. Blue. 34. Purple. 13. Silver. 12. Red.
12:29 - Finished now. maybe again tomorrow. Make into a series. 14:33 - Drop 100
17:59 - Sat in Borders. Music playing - well some foreign lady singing something...foreign. I don't like it. I have a hot choclate infront of me, my mobile, a half eaten orange choclate bar, a wooden stick and two scrunched up tissues. A little try angle card tells me the 'coffee story'. Where is the inspiration? The ideas, new thoughts. A girl sits on a laptop behind me, i wonder what she's writing. Maybe she's got it. I look again and she's looking blankly into space...maybe not then. A young man sat to my left is holding a book, he hasn't turned the page since i've been here. Is he really reading it? He has head phones in, maybe he's just acting. Everyone's sat to their own table, working; reading trashy magazines; newspapers. Two chinese students studying. He's woken up now, was asleep last time i looked over. A man has his food delicatly and precisly laid on a tray, he's neat as he rips the package and begins to eat politly. An elderly man sits infront, he reads the newspaper - story "China Syndrome". Newspaper is about 5cm away from his eyes, glasses on his head, why doesnt he just wear his glasses?
So new thought.
I look down to a room full of books. So many words, ideas, knowledge, do you think every single one has been read? If people can write hundreds of pages on something, then why can't i write one idea that fills just a line. Maybe if i just sit here and write words and words and words then something will come out.
18:12 - 13 minutes later and nothing. I look at an old clock it has no handles. It should tick tick tick, and yet it's still and silent. A clock without time.
Air, atoms, atomic numbers. Maybe atoms are clocks ticking away, why are they ticking....is there a reason why i said that? Why is there time. why do we need time. I wonder, does it control us? Our lives are so organised by it. I wonder what would happen if i got rid of time, clocks, scheduels, would i still exist in this 'organised' world, or would i be like a clock with no handles.
Look
at
me asking so many questions to a blank piece of paper. What answers can you give me. What answers can you give me? Maybe questions should be asked and answers never taught.
Do you trap thoughts into words. I wonder what form we think, i never think about how i think. I just think. Is it in words, or images, or just pure nonsense. Are we ever taught how to think? Is it through our langauge. Do other people think as i think.
Does art have to be amazing. New. I always thought it did. Something that makes you just gawp at it, and make you think about nothing else but that experience alone. I consider the work i am presently doing (about atoms) to be boring, a waste of time, unsatisfing
But
Yet i continue to do it. Because in a sense i like it, the repetition the small changes and the clearness and boldness of it.
Is this sort of art powerful enough to effect people and to change people's thoughts. Would it effect me, or would i walk past it or turn the page. Maybe i'm just thinking about it too much. Should an artist
think about their work after the process of it's creation, or is it just the creation that i should be thinking about. After the process of creation the art is out of my hands and into the viewers. I can not send an answer book with every piece of art that i create...well i wouldn't want to.
So creation, creation...what am i creating?
I see a small piece of the minster through a gap in the top of the window, is it my responsibility to be creating something as grand as that, something that will stand for years and be kept for the whole world to witness it's greatness. Do i want my work to be kept or do i want to put a sell by date on it. Like my air, i don't want it to be kept for years and years, but to take off the lids and let the air go. There is a beauty in the destruction of letting go of things. And maybe thats more powerful than having tubes of air contained for years...maybe it's not?
I want people to remember me for my ideas. I think we are too protective over our art. Mona Lisa is kept in a glass box on a wall, surrounding is a rope. Where is the experience? I want to touch my art, to feel physically involved with it. Touch, feel, small the paint, the movement of the brush by the artist. I'm interupted by taping and banging and the pouring of coco beans.
18:43 - I look around, a new set of people.

Sunday 30th January 2005

2005-01-30T18:53:00.000-08:00

18:53 - Ideas ideas ideas ideas ideas ideas ideas ideas ideas ideas ideas ideas ideas ideas ideas ideas ideasideas ideas ideas ideas. What are ideas? Are they just a series of letters strung together. i......d....e......a.......where do they take place. Within the mind - does it happen within a person or does it happen externally? Between our eyes and an object. But are all ideas about things, they are not all about what we see, but what we hear, so many different senses. touch
hear
see
smell
taste
Ideas relate to each and everyone of these senses, linked or individual. Are ideas knowledge. "i blink" I sit here with my head in my left hand starring at these jumbled words. Is it all nonsense...ideas...where do the best ideas come from. and what makes a good idea good...the idea within itself...is it good in its own right? Or does someone have to say its good - a certificate of greatness. Are ideas origional...they all seem to have been thought before, so why do we think, if thought is simply....repeated throughout generations.
19:04 - Sat at my living room table, sat back in the wooden chair, arms stretched out to reach the keys, tap tap tap tap tap, Dad sits next to me on his laptop, click click click on the laptop. Doorbell rings and Dad gets up to answer it, from silence and peace suddenly comotion, the door left open and a draft enters in, my feet are cold, so i lift them up. Three women sit around me and talk about the death of a man called Stan. Who is Stan? And yet does it matter who he is. a man died, maybe there there is silence, peace without interuption. Laughter, from death to joy, from death to loud life. A map in the spaces between these letters, some letters missed, tops of "e's"are faded. s this irresponsible or is this beauty. This flow of words i tap out of my fingers, is it pure, is it art. I constantly wonder what art is, does it help people, it's not like being a doctor who saves lives and improves the lives of others. Is art selfish. I am exclusive and silent when i am involved in it. I only create what i feel like craeting, is there rhyme or reason in it, is there point in every action or idea. I feel i need to be constantly reassesing my involvment in art, why am i involved in it, and what am i going to gain from it? There again...another selfsih thought. What it should be is what can i give to others through my art. What can i make people think, how can i use it to inspire?
is air emptiness, nothingness, or is it a solid we can not see, touch , taste or smell. "i tap my fingers against the side of the typewriter *against the side of the black rough typewriter. Ben comes in and says he's cooking sausages, i smell them. Mum reads a quote about time, "If your life is too busy to fit in a brisk walk, then your life is a mess." Silence, everyone stops talking. The phone rings, constant bring bring bring. The constant tapping i create seems forgotten as it sinks into the silence, i stopped...a pause

Thursday 27th January 2005

2005-01-27T11:18:00.000-08:00

11:18 - Touching bags of water. I touch it move water about, squeeze it and yet my fingers still arent wet.
How can i feel it's tempreture, coldness, and then such a thin layer of plastic prevent me from getting wet. What is rain? Is it just millions and billion sof atoms falling on me? Thursday 27th January 2005 Thursday 27th January 2005 Thursday 27th January 2005. Repeat Repetition. Document ideas document ideas everyday and if no ideas, document that.
Talk to Chris
reloquies - lock of hair, fingernails, hair - place strands of hair next to each other so that you have from black to blond. Collection of how things are essentially the same, but collect them from different people and sources, they have slightly different variations.
Sit in room for one hour at the same time every day, sit and type. Write what is happening in room. Time 10:36, 10:34 ect. (Like a-level work)
-send test tubes
-send postcards
13:48 - Talking to Jim Marcel Duchamp series of work "measured stopages"
Drop string, draw around it. Take string to print room, emboise paper. Cover string with paint. Drop.
Tony Cragg - In gallary, see big rocks, but when you get closer realise that they are made from thousands of dice. Re - asses work when we realise what it is made from or the process of creation.
Antony Gormley - Bodies in the Baltic. Made from aluminum and mesh, vibrate and move as you walk through. Room full of them, squeeze past.

Piero Manzoni "Poo in a can". Marcel Duchamp 75cl of Parijan air. Villon. Vuillon

2005-01-26T23:19:00.000-08:00

"Thoughts, Ideas, Emotions

Each a different fish

Are swimming freely in my head

And i

The fisherman

Throw out my net

In hope of catching something

What rotten luck i'm having."

Wednesday 26th January 2005

2005-01-26T22:09:00.000-08:00

10:09 - I sit down at my desk. I look around my desk and then to my left out the window, i'm quietly looking for inspiration, thoughts, things to do. I look at the objects on my desk. I look at some dry paint on a piece of cardboard, the colours are bold. My obsession kicks in. I begin to pick the glue off the card. In my lack of inspiration i begin to cut the paint into little pieces, as small as i can make them. (I believe that a true artist should be able to make anything art, even little dry flakes of paint. So i go about the whole day doing this, until 16:13. All the day thinking that lightening would flash. But it was a calm day, the sun was out, a calm breeze but nothing more. And so the day ends, and i place the small pieces of paint into the container of air sat infront of me. It hardley fills it, and i'm astonished that i actually spent the whole day doing it. But i was focused and the belif that something magical would happen made me continue.