ready made plinth

Some people might think to consider yourself the centre of the universe a little bit arrogant, however i believe it's impossible to truly know what life is like for other people, the best you can do is an educated guess. Don't get me wrong I'm not advocating that you act with disregard toward other peoples feelings or without consideration to your impact upon your surroundings.

However to truly engage with the world and somehow regurgitate these experiences back to the outside world in a visual or written format the artist can only really theoretically take themselves as the starting/central point from which all measurements are made.

workshop bandsaw blades

centre of the universe

'Unicorn' - Rebecca Horn, 1970

Been reading up on Rebecca Horn recently. I'm particulary interested in this piece. The slant the author gives it is in the past when communities/tribes first came together to settle in an area they would place a pole into the ground. This pole would become the centre point for the settlement. Further it would be the vertical axis against the earths horizontal axis from which all measurements would be taken. It can be claimed that for these people the central pole would be the centre of the universe.

The author puts forward the idea that Horn is aware of this as she has the actress walk about with her own pole placed upon her head making her the centre of the universe wherever she goes.

This would make a statement about how the artist uses her own body to measure the universe.After producing the log/belt piece i realised that this principle could also be applied to it. This is the thinking behind my ventures into public spaces wearing my log/belt.

Hopefully those that see it are forced to consider what they see, with any luck they'll be unable to settle on a definition for it, this will allow them to continue to create new possibilities/meanings for it for as long as they can be bothered.

Failing that then at the very least make them smile

doon the toon

log book entry 2056

Rocket Pack

ready made plinths

don't leave home without one

more wentworth

If Atget's images capture the 'adaptable, recyclable city', Wentworth's are a celebration of the pragmatic, of an irrepressible DIY human ingenuity. As one writer has suggested, 'no object exists in the world that cannot be used, reused, disassembled, altered, or adapted once it has served its original purpose...no, even while it serves its original purpose'. The fact is, economising and improvisation are basic human traits...or as Wentworth says: it's about making do, getting by.

Starting to understand why Paul and Shauna were so enthralled by my make shift wood carrying harness.

Richard Wentworth

'Yellow Eight '

Richard Wentworth has played a leading role in New British Sculpture since theend of the 70s. His work, encircling the notion of objects and their use as part of our day-to-day experiences, has altered the traditional definition of sculpture. By transforming and manipulating industrial and/or found objects into works of art, Wentworth subverts their original function and extends our understanding of them by breaking the conventional system of classification. These sculptural arrangements and assisted ready-mades play with the juxtaposition of objects that have nothing to do together as well as with a range of material whose use does not belong to art. The viewer also encounters the unexpected through the artist's photographs that reveal a spontaneous and surprising urban reality.

This post dadaist approach was also present in "Thinking Aloud", the touring exhibition curated by Richard Wentworth, which gathered together disparate uncanny items as well as works of art. Through the criss-crossing of a sort of everyday art, "Thinking Aloud" suggested a 'Cabinet de curiosites' but was also a criticism of western mass-production society.

text taken from the The Lisson Gallery website

more wood than you can shake a big stick at

look i do work....sometimes

how do you get your materials to the studio?

Needed some wood for the aforementioned project, managed to find some quite close to home. Trees that had been felled during the recent storms (seems so long ago now that the sun is here).

Set off early morning with saw in hand focused on collecting some damn fine wood. Managed to liberate some of the felled wood, struggled back home carrying this. The wood was so awkward to carry not to mention heavy i realised i was going to have to construct something to carry it.

From this need comes the makeshift log handbag no fashion conscious student should be seen without this season.

This seemed to be quite a practical solution to my immediate problem of transporting the gathered wood and it is. However I hadn't really considered going on public transport with said apparatus!

I got on the bus quickly surveying the layout for the most suitable seat for both me and my wood. No seat space seemed adequate so i decided upon that bit at the front of buses for shopping bags, got some funny looks from the old ladies on the bus.

However not half as strange as the looks i got both standing in my local town centre waiting for the Glasgow bus and walking from Buchanan bus station up to the GSA!

negotiated project

Decided for this project i really wanted to try something out with wood as i haven;t done any work with it in the past.

On days two and three i went out and collected some wood (branches, felled tree trunks) from kelvingrove and ground beside my folks home. My intention was to split hese vertically and play about with arrangement to try and spark some ideas in response to the material.

Paid Cliff a visit down at the workshops hoping to simply band saw some wood however the machine was out of order but not to worry Cliff had a couple of chainsaws hanging around!

Must admit couldn't wait to get my hands on the chainsaw but alas i must've picked the toughest wood in Scotland the chinsaw simply wasn't up to doing it vertically. Had to resort to cutting into traditional slices. Not really happy with this outcome but i'll try working with the wood as is, no point in simply scrapping it.