It’s easy to be gloomy

Especially when we’re in the thick of a recession and it’s looking like things can only get worse. It’s also easy to lose perspective and become so immersed in the financial nonsense that we lose sight of the simple things.

Simple pleasures are completely 100% free and come with an absolute guarantee to make you feel better.

• A walk in a park or along a beach.
• Spending time with your children.
• Turning the TV off.
• Turning the computer off!
• Lying on your back looking up at the stars.
• Lying on your back, looking up a big tree.
• Making something with your hands.

Money is a prison that we have made for ourselves. It or lack of it can only bring you down if you let it. I owe the Church £20. I feel much worse about that than an overdue gas bill – what are the gas people going to do? Kill me?

Solo Exhibition

I have a solo exhibition coming up in January!  Looking forward to it immensely.

There will be some logistical juggling as always because I am going to include a few very large canvases. I have to because they are the context for some of the smaller works.

I am not expecting to sell any work on this outing – it’s not the type of venue where visitors expect to buy – it’s a Museum & Art Gallery.

The Art Gallery is the walls of the Museum – so the artwork will sit among the permanent exhibits.

However, it is a hive of activity so I am expecting to make some contacts and the opportunity to show work should not be taken lightly.

Full details of where & when will be posted closer to the time.  Let’s get Christmas out of the way first!

Ground Zero

Sometimes an event is so everlasting in magnitude and impact that to rebuild is not appropriate.

Sometimes there should be a pause. A permanent stop.

Professional Practise

Artists – Anyone can be a bumbling amateur in the race to the bottom. If you are going to call yourself a ‘professional’ artist then it follows that you should act like one.

You are now a business and everything you do bears your name, your ‘brand’. You are the figurehead. The buck stops with you.

So there are a few basic rules:

• Be punctual
• Be organised
• Be business-like in your approach
• Don’t be precious
• Don’t expect a *free ride

*Free rides – Are for amateurs.

 Businesses spend money to make money. They invest in equipment and materials. They invest time and money preparing quotations which may not result in a job.

You are now a business therefore you will have to invest money in applying for jobs & projects that may or may not result in a commission or exhibition. It is part and parcel of being a ‘professional’ artist.

It’s not free, cheap or easy and it probably won’t make you rich but it’s infinitely more edifying than the bumbling race to the bottom.

Robin Hood’s Back!

Kevin Costner’s back!

Who knew that all this time that he has been awol or ‘resting’ he was actually beavering away on inventions just like Wallace & Gromit!

By ‘eck he’s only gone and invented some thingamajig to separate oil and sea water.

Who knew?

Is he trying to make us forget ‘The Guardian’? Sorry Kev. It’s seared on the consciousness and it burns!

The script writers must be going crazy. Wonder who’ll play Tony Hayward in the film?

China’s Big

It’s official, any day now China will overtake the US at the worlds biggest economy.

So why are we providing them with ring fenced aid?

Is it because we’re soo rich……

Tony Hayward – Hero

Tony Hayward is my unlikely hero of the week. Who else could have stayed in their seat and not got up and punched the US senator who forced him to confirm what day of the week it was (it was Thursday).

His calm under pressure makes him a legend.

How he refrained from pointing out that the item that failed thus causing the oil to spill into the Gulf was built and supplied by Haliburton, a US company.

Oh and also that it has taken US company Exxon 20 years to pay compensation to those affected by the ExxonValdiz spill in Alaska.

Oh yes and what about Bhopal. Thousands died. Where were the US company bosses then and now even? Don’t recall a repeated dragging over hot coals for them.