Groups, herds, communities

Yes, I have been thinking about these a lot lately. They came up when thinking about the credit crunch and everything around it. We people love to follow others, like sheep, also in the abyss.
I, quite often, find myself outside the group by surprise and makes me wondering why. When I try to convince others of different ideas, you have to fight against group culture, habits and thoughts. Doing this takes a lot of energy.

I have noticed in particular that groups can have their own ways of make things sensible and simple ways of defending their truth, resulting in ‘begging the question’, which is a circle of arguments that will defend each other’s existence. This can become really frustrating, just like being normal and sane in a mental institution. They keep saying you’re insane, because you are behaving different from what they expect. They expect insane behavior; therefore your sane behavior becomes insane.

You will notice similar things when you are new to a group. You have more distance between you and their ideas, which make you have a clearer view. But to work with that group you have to adapt to their culture and try to understand them.

The question for myself, as being relatively new to the art world, where does ‘getting to know’ stop and art innovation begins?

Exhibitions

Yes, I have been busy on this yesterday. One exhibition started in Kendal in the Dickie Doodle live music bar. The only bar I have seen that has actual display cabinets, amazing! Further, been busy with delivering two sculptures for The arts festival of Liverpool; Threshold 2012. This is specifically a festival from the 10th till the 12th of February with music performance arts, visual arts etc. My work will be shown for about a month around this weekend in two venues: Eggspace and the Camp and Furnace.

I hope I have some time the coming months to do more experimenting but I am afraid not. The little time I will have between work is to little, so I'll try some small experiments on small bones or clones of older work. Stay tuned!

The story

Still trying to figure this out. It is hard to make a sculpture with all my desired features in it:
- natural found objects
- Cartoon character
- Consumer symbol
- symbol for people always following other people
- Prefered decorative style; Delft blue ceramic paintstyle
Ok, I do use sheep bones and sheep ..... are sheep, therefor covering the last criterium and the first. Cartoon character is also possible in this, but becomes harder. Only I find that the consuming part fades. I have now made a new abstract skull covered in a mosaic made from thrown away plastic bottles. So no natural object. I feel I am getting close, but the next question is, can I come up with a format that I can repeat and still have enough flexibility to innovate?

And how can I add my own story to it? From Finance to sculptor in bad economic times and always busy with plants and outdoor activities. ....I am thinking out loud!