Two great exhibitions: Chapman brothers & Grayson Perry

Two of my favourite artists are having an exhibition at the moment!

The first one is an exhibition of work from Grayson Perry. A few years back he made tapestries to describe differences between the classes in the UK and his research was made into a documentary. A documentary about the classes would have been interesting by itself for me not being British, but adding the work of Grayson Perry made it extra cool! I love his work in which he uses old traditional media to express modern things, mainly to describe different people. You can see his work in Manchester Art Gallery till 2nd of February.

The second exhibition is of artwork from the Chapman brothers. They have created some amazing scenes of small figures and they are quite grim!
This exhibition is held in the Serpentine Gallery in London. Bit far away for me, but would otherwise have definitely be planning to go there!

Pretentious art folk

Small adjustment to the art world of a quote from the film Pulp Fiction by the character Marcellus:


This profession is filled to the brim with pretentious motherfuckers. Motherfuckers who thought their ass would determine what is art and what is not. If you mean their subjective opinion leads them to pick boring conceptual crap nobody understands, you're right. If you mean choosing visual pleasing works that will have impact on the years to come, you're wrong.



And yet there are people that don't place themselves above someone else and don't feel the need to lift themselves or an artwork with complicated language. They just pick what they like and I love that! Even if they don't like my work, it is honest and fair.

There are only very few people in the art world that actually have skills in judging art without being caught in a spiral of hyping work to sell or to climb on a higher rank. They can tell the difference between innovative challenging work from random weirdness.


I can't I can only judge what I know. I find it very hard to judge an abstract painting for instance and just fall back by saying whether I like it or not.

Who likes my art?

This has been a question for some years now. I thought it would just be people of similar age and interests, but I was wrong. I have done a few fairs in the last 12 months and I tried to figure out what type my audience is. At least I know that my audience likes different things and doesn't mind my sculptures having a bit of a weird edge. I also know that people that smile or laugh while exploring my work, understand what I am trying to do and like my work.

So far so good, but this is where it stops with my knowledge of my audience. I can't tell by reading someone's age, I seem to have a massive range and can't rule out any age group. I also can't tell by what people wear. There are lots of people that like different and weird stuff, but don't dress like that. When I think about it, this applies to me as well!
What I often hear people saying is that they know someone that would really like my sculptures. Yes, I have noticed that my work ticks a lot of boxes for some people and they just spend quite some time staring at my stall. So my work isn't mainstream or appealing to everybody.

Last weekend I had a stall at a comic book festival in Leeds; Thought Bubble. I thought this crowd would love my Urban Scoundrels for their strong cartoon/comic elements. I even presented them with a speech bubble to explain their characters. Surprisingly, people were less enthusiastic than at other 'normal' fairs. Got it all wrong again.
I also did an experiment, like proper doctors are supposed to do, by analysing the response to my table from people with skull prints on their clothes or accessories. So I counted the amount of people that had a skull somewhere on their clothes and counted the proportion of people that would stop walking and take a look at my table. Even if it was for 5 seconds. Yes, I had about 5 real skulls on the table in plain sight. I counted about 12 and only 2 stopped at my table and they were a couple. The rest just ignored what I had and passed. They did briefly look, but kept walking. So, this trend of skulls in fashion has nothing to do with loving skulls….it is just fashion and no indicator that this person likes skulls.
So again peoples clothes don't tell much about them. Conclusion: don't judge a book by its cover!

Prohibition skull: 'What drives you?'

I recently finished another skull and this time back at decorating real skulls. I got a ewe skull, probably Swaledale breed, and wanted to create something around the theme of individuality and law.

I have often gone about the difficulty in being different, behaving different and thinking different among big groups of people. Generally, big groups want you to act in the same way as the rest of the group. Unless, you gain status. We have things to make sure people behave in a predictable and desirable way, one of those things is the law.
The law can prevent an individual of doing what it wants to do and can go against their individual development or even potential. In this case I used the style and them of the American prohibition era as a symbol for this individualism and law. Off course I could have chosen something different, but as my main goal is to create something cool and visual pleasing, I choose this era that has those cool gangster elements.

As it was around the Day of the Dead, I used a paint style, although not too obvious, Mexicans often use for celebrating the Mexican Day of the Dead or Dias de los Muertos.
To make it all visual more cool, I reshaped the front of the skull a bit into the front of a car around that time and because in the 50's the started to use cars from that era to create Hot Rods, I decided to paint flames on it. OK, in this case one could argue I used the symbol of a Hot Rod to further emphasise the individualism, but no, this is a coincidence.
One of the cooler elements of that time is that gangster would often 'hang' on the side of the car with their Tommy guns ready for action, or to escape quickly. I wanted to create the same effect by letting this skeleton gangster hang out of the eye socket with his Tommy gun. The skeleton referring to the Day of the Dead.

So the title is: 'What drives you'? Mainly referring to the car and the individualism of the viewer and asking them the question, but also for them wondering what is holding them back.

So here it is:

Autumn and Winter art

I think I subconsciously getting into a winter mode. I recently wanted to make some new decorated skulls, partly in time to show around The Day of the Dead celebrations, but I think also because it feels like the right time of the year to work with 'death'. So I already finished 3 skulls and I am working on another real sheep skull with horns, probably a Swaledale breed ewe.

But I am also tempted to do some street work as well. For me that fits with the time of the year because I like grim corners for it. Either nature taking over urban objects, which is often in abandoned places or grim corners in general. But Christmas will be taking a lot of my time till January, so I think the effect of this mode of thinking will be next year. It gives me time to think about what to do. I have already got some ideas and will try to make them simple so I that I am able to show them before the new year. Fingers crossed!

Day of the Dead - Dia de los Muertos

It is that time of the year again where the days are getting darker, wetter and colder and we are getting near Halloween AND the Day of the Dead or Dia de los Muertos. If you know my art, you can imagine that those days have a strong connection with my work, but not just because I decorated real animal skulls or use bones. I have a stronger connection with Dia de los Muertos than Halloween, because I love the vibrant colours and the general style of the celebrations.

I have been wanting to make one or two skulls in this style again for a year. I made two skulls inspired by the traditional Sugar Skulls, but wanted to make some again this year. You may have come across some the vibrant colours and detailed drawings on this blog or my Facebook fanpage:

So I have been used those drawings (left) on a real Fallow Deer skull (right), but I wanted to have a base that looked more like a human skull to get closer to the Sugar Skull feeling and decided to make one of my own. I didn't want to make a realistic human skull, because those are everywhere and I could just have bought a skull replica from Ebay. No, I wanted the skull to be different, manlike and in an urban cartoon style. So I sculpted a master which I cloned and painted. 

Some Sugar Skull art have the coolest elements added to the skull, making the skull feeling like a globe on which all kinds of stuff is happening. So I set about making one with the above type of paint style and one painted more traditionally, but with added elements on the skull:

Title: Flame

Title: Transition Crushed

This one has butterflies on the skull made from plastic from found drinking bottles. Two butterflies are crushed by two piles of money handled by the skeleton.

Christmas fairs

This week I received the first batch of Christmas cards and I will be showing them in Wilmslow next weekend! Hopefully they are better than the ones I had last year, which were last minute things and weren't linked enough with Christmas.

I am also making key rings and the first prototypes are finished. The definite versions will have proper rings attached:

Christmas is coming

Huh? Yes, Christmas is coming, the sun has turned its back and the rain has returned. Still it is September, but if I want to have enough sculptures for Christmas I have to start now. But I am not so sure I want to make the same sculptures as last year, it would be a bit repetitive, so I decided to first do another attempt in making Christmas cards and this time finding a style that I like and would appeal to enough viewers to buy. Last year I had cards that weren't directly visible as being Christmas cards.

The above was the 'Ghost of Christmas Future' card with an Easter chick left for dead in the streets of Manchester.

A few weeks ago I was testing a new paint style for some new decorated skulls and ended up with this:

After making a skull with that, I decided to use the same style to create Christmas cards:

....... then I started thinking, but what if this fails too? So, I still need to get back and figure out what small sculptures to make for Christmas. Christmas themed or not, that is the question. 

Oh yeah, this is a sample of what I made for 2012:

Fictional fossils

I have been making fictional fossils for some time now. It all started when I wanted to make my imagination around the GoGo bird real. I decided that things become real by making them look real but also by fixing them in time and history. Especially in history far before I was born. So the first GoGo fossil arrived some time back:

I made a couple of them and got occupied with other stuff until the beginning of this year when I decided that this concept was to good to leave and started making bigger fictional fossils, like the Wile E Coyote fossil:

Off course Wile E Coyote isn't my own imagination, but that of someone else. So this is very much a pop art sculpture in a very unusual way. It doesn't look like a Lichtenstein or Warhol by far, so it is a very new way of using popular culture.

My GoGo bird isn't part of popular culture .....yet, although it is a crossover between the extinct Dodo and Roadrunner. In my last big fossil my GoGo bird reappeared, but I wanted to do something different and decided to add another bit to the story. So the GoGo was developed by Dr. Freakinstyle to make the Dodo run faster and preventing it to become extinct. But off course even the Roadrunner had predators like Wile E Coyote chasing it and so must have the GoGo. I decided to create a scene in which both appeared and in the same time show a new creature as a fossil without having it as a sculpture 'in flesh'. Normally I translate, which is an interesting process, the fictional character into a anatomically correct fossil. This isn't easy and sometimes pushes you to create something slightly unrealistic or even a bit inconsistent. So this was what I cam up with: 

In it you see that the predator, which is a cyclops, drags a GoGo bird with him. This however doesn't mean the predator is very successful, it is just a frozen moment in time. And then I read the newspaper a week ago and found this article in which two rivals where together in a battle when they both died and got fossilised: 

I'll post in in a bigger size on my Facebook fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/Dr.Freakinstyle

I just love fossils and enjoy the skills to make them!

Artist?

I sometimes look back where I came from, because I have come from far to arrive where I am today. That is being an artist. I am still not comfortable with defining myself like that. I never REALLY decided to become one. I just wanted to make cool sculptures and work part time and see what happened.

But I come from far as in, not from the UK and not from an art background in every sense. So I needed to get used to a different language and culture, although the last thing was probably the easiest. I also needed to learn EVERYTHING there is to learn about art.

So a couple of years down the road and I get the feeling people take me serious when it comes to making art and I can say again that I have pretty much learned a new profession AGAIN! Yes, I have done that a couple of times before. This gives me the feeling I can almost do anything without any experience, that I can take on the world with a lot of skills and the most important one being' to be able to adapt and learn, learn, learn...
Yet, the more I seem to get confident in everything, the less chance I seem to have of actually getting a job. So I am know pushed in doing this full time. I still can't believe that people won't hire me. It sounds a bit arrogant, but I would be a better than average employee and it frustrates me to see people 'working' and actually doing a crap job.

I have had a lot of practice saying; 'I am an artist and I make sculptures'. I guess not having a job, there is no doubt that this would be the way to describe me. Describe me? Huh? Yes, it seems that whatever you do, it is THE thing to ask to get to know somebody, but I think in my case they would mis something, because I am just as much a sport enthusiast. Ok, it now feels a bit strange to say 'I am an athlete'.

Ok ok ok, I am an artist.....

Painter William Ralph Turner

I feel I have a couple of connections with this painter; William Ralph Turner. No, he is not the Turner that most people of you know. He is the William Turner that lived in the same era and place as L.S. Lowry. They knew each other and often painted similar subjects. He recently died and I am glad he got the recognition he deserves, although he was already more than 80 years old.

Here is a link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/william-turner-painter-who-emerged-from-lowrys-shadow-when-he-was-in-his-eighties-8708172.html

Why I feel this connection? Well, he is a self taught artist. His teacher actually advised him not to go to art school, because of lack of talent. I am self taught as well.
Just like him, I live and started my art in the North West of the UK. Also, just like him I like cycling.

I just hope I get the recognition earlier than him, but he did get it while still breathing and making art and eventually see his work being sold for 5-figure sums! That would be amazing to experience!

How I view death

This seems to be an odd topic for having some spells of glorious weather and Autumn and Winter feeling far away...as in Dias de los Muertos and Halloween. So why now? Well, I have been thinking a lot about death, but only related to my art, because I am planning some new skull sculptures. I thinking of making a very weird and whacky sculpture out of a skull and that sometimes make me think wether people get it or find it disrespectful for the animal. So I need to explain myself.

I have done a couple of exhibitions and fairs and often people are surprised about the weird and whacky way I use bones and skulls. Material that once was part of a living animal and its soul. A lot of people are surprised for probably two reasons:

1. Thinking it might be a bit dirty or disgusting to use a bone and touch it. Is it clean?

2. To make something completely disconnected to death and the suffering of the animal, almost as if it didn't exist, almost as if this is just another ordinary countryside source of material to use in art.

I now understand that. I understand the first reason pretty well, but I have been driven more by curiosity than fear. I use gloves, clean them and often only pick them up when all flesh is gone.

The second reason gives me a lot to think about. I understand rationally why people might think that, but when I started making sculptures out of bones and skulls, I was completely unaware of that. I think For me it feels like a similar way of dealing with the dead like the Mexicans do during the celebrations of The Day of the Dead.

You can mourn in darkness, but for not having known the animal, I don't have an honest connection and so can't mourn. In that case I can only remember and for remembering I like to think about positive things and I think humour and colour is the way to remember positivity. 

This style also gives me the tools to build a bridge to people that normally disconnect from the bones and death because of its horrible and disgusting outcome. 

So every time you see my work, I hope you don't think it is disrespectful, it is my way to show the beauty of nature and how much I respect it. 

New Urban scoundrel characters

I have been busy making more, so called, Urban Scoundrels. I now like to present to you two characters of which I have now finished a couple of clones of:

The Traffic Cone Terrorist:

This is an urban hermit crab that likes to traffic cones to serve as a home and mess with traffic control to cause havoc.

Vinnie 'The Drill' Molini:

He is the preferred hitman for underground areas. He is a bit of a rough character and you won't see him using a silencer!

I will soon have the first Money Moth finished and I am working on an urban meat eating plant adaptation. All the characters that I am able to finish, will be on show during the Summer Arts Market in Liverpool this weekend (27th and 28th of July).

Urban Scoundrels

Besides creating some big sculptures like these two:

I have also been busy setting up 3 different 'lines' of small sculptures, these are:
- Small fossils
- Celebrities made from bone and clay, like the Christmas characters I made last year
- Urban Scoundrels

The last type of sculpture I started with and these will be limited edition casts, painted by hand and big chance they all will have a different paint style. The Urban Scoundrels are small sculptures based on wild life that has adjusted to urban life. The characters I am now developing are:
- Pablo Escobike, a slug
- The Golf Ball Snatcher, a bird
- Squatter, a bird
- no name yet, a moth
- Vinnie Molini, a mol

Two characters are more or less finished:
Pablo Escobike: The slow and under influence, council worker that has the responsibility to draw the lines for the British cycle paths. It goes slow, random and intermitted. Pretty pointless, but Pablo is having fun because he is addicted to white paint and seriously needs to go to a rehab!

The Golf Ball Snatcher: a very unamused character that likes to mess with someones game. His character is best described as the Joker from the Batman films.

Stay tuned when more of these characters pop out of the mould!

Art statements - part 3?

I recently saw a degree show of a group of students and saw some nice work in there, but what stood out the most, at least for me, were the art statements. They stood out in a negative way, because I can't imagine that people around the age of 21 have come up with overly complicated words and sentences that mean nothing. At that point I am very tempted to grab one of those students and ask; 'Did this bullshit come naturally or are you taught to write likes this?' But that would be even rude to say for a Dutch person and I have no clue how to give this feedback to British people. Somehow I get this feeling, I don't know because I 'just' ignore established forms of learning, they are being taught to do this. If so, I very very strongly disagree with this policy!

You often see words as: explore, discuss, conversation. Words that are actually meaningless in art. So you are exploring a theme? Pfff, have now idea how that looks like and I don't care. I care about what you have discovered, not how you hopped on a boat to sail the vast oceans of complicated words. They often use these words to avoid being precise, direct and clear. You often see that they are exploring A, B, C while 'having a conversation with 1,2,3 and being influenced by X, Y, Z, creating a matrix of almost endless options. If that is what your work is about, then you haven't decided yet what your work is about and if this is a statement for a finished piece of art, than you failed to reach your goal and are now covering it up by extending the meaning of it so it will always hit something. They basically try to hit the moon with a Gatling Gun.

One of the reasons why you have an art statement in my opinion is to add to the work. 1. Sometimes to explain, but that shouldn't be too much otherwise you haven't done your job as an artist properly. 2. To add to the message you are expressing.
Any way, you are communicating to an audience and it is pointless to try and do that if; 1. People stop reading halfway through the first sentence, 2. Read it all, but understand nothing. If this is the case, then you are not communicating, you are just sending or better, trying to show of. I have said it before, it seems that for a lot of artists and apparently people that teach them, the art statement is to try to show how intelligent the artist is by using language that makes the viewer feel less intelligent than the artist. Oh, and sometimes the statements are a bit long as if they couldn't decide which was the key message and then decided to add them all and confuse their audience.

These statements have the opposite effect on me, it makes me think the artist is less intelligent, because it is a lot harder to write a statement everybody can understand and still manage to excite people to look at your work more after they have read it. I know I haven't mastered it. I write in understandable English, but so far only managed to describe what I made and why I made it.

If you want to get the feeling of what kind of art statements I am talking about, check this link and press the 'generate bollocks' button. So every time you read something like that, you have a pretty good chance that the artist is a bit insecure about his or her work.

Focus

A couple of weeks ago I set up my solo exhibition 'Urban Infusions' in Grizedale visitor centre cafe in The Lake District and also attended Strummercamp artshow. I also collected my work at Goburrito in Lancaster and The Lass 'O Gowrie in Manchester. All within 2 weeks I touched all the my artwork at had to do some selecting. I am also looking at attending new events and that makes you think about which works to bring to new events and realised I have a lot of different things:

Standing, not hanging:

- Medium sized sculptures with bright colours and without bones; GoGo, Cungo, Hom Rottey, Robit and Eyespresso.

- Medium sized sculptures with bright colours and with bones; This Transformer below, but also The Fellracer, Monkey Business and Mr. Clean.

- Small bone based sculptures, sculptures like the Christmas characters or the ones I use in my street photos

- Small stone based sculptures around fossils or fossils created on them. 

- Big fossils of fictional characters; Finished only one so far of the big ones, will finish a big one soon this week!

Hanging:

- Skull based sculptures in various styles

- Paintings

- 2D sculptures; The Wile E Coyote road kill piece and Incorporated (below)

- Fridge magnets

- Started to do badges, no photos yet

So for new events I like to make new things, but feel I have so many already and quite a few I haven't fully explored before I go to another new form. Yes, I feel I need to focus on a few to get better at them and make my work more recognisable. The question is; What type of work do I need to focus on? This is so hard, because I love every single one of them. Got a bit tired with the casting en making the sculptures without bones, but I am fully motivated to work on them again, mainly because I have got a bit more freedom to add character to them. 

I don't want to make new types of art for now, so what did you enjoyed the most? I have set up a poll on Facebook and would appreciate giving your opinion and click on one or two types that you think I should make more of.

Off course I have de freedom to do something different, but I am an artist it is part of my DNA. However, it doesn't mean I am ignoring you. I recently discovered I do use peoples advice more than I thought I would, so you will have more influence then you would see at first glance.

Thanks!

The buzz after a great fair!

Last weekend I was at Strummercamp, which is small Punk rock festival and I had a really good time there! Mainly because of the response of people to my work I had on display there and a bit for the general atmosphere and great weather!

I have the impression that the people who came there are more than average interested in what I make and might be more open for alternative things. Might, might....it makes sense that they are! Again, my work didn't appeal to a certain age group. Like always, I got a lot of attention from children, but also from everybody else. It is really nice to here positive comments on my work and seeing people smiling or being genuinely surprised!

I always leave a fair like that with an energy boost to create more based on the feedback I got, but I don't want to make a lot of new things, because I haven't explored some areas enough. For example, the fossil making, fridge magnet sculptures, road kill based sculptures etc. So I decided to focus on these ...... and soon realised I didn't have enough material to work on either one of them. It is a slow process to get bones and with my back injury it isn't easy to source big stones for the fossils.

So today I couldn't resist the urge and started something new. Well, it is also a bit old, because for these new sculptures I am going back to the sculptures I used to make two years ago:

 Cungo

 GoGo

 Hom Rottey

Robit

The danger is that the whole idea is crap. Normally, when I get a 'good' idea I leave it for a while, like a month, and check back later. If that idea still feels good after a month or longer, it probably is good. But  now that I have no part time job to keep me occupied, I have time and I don't like doing nothing, so I immediately started. 

It will be a few small fictional urban animal characters. The first one will be a bird and I am thinking of adding a very small story or description to them. To be continued.....

New work: Switchback Jack

I have finally finished the commission from The Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal! Yeah! It is a mountain biker made from plaster, bones and bike parts.

I got this commission to give myself time to make art I normally wouldn't make. In my case it was making something big. The nice thing of commissions in general is that it throws up boundaries which I have to overcome and normally I learn valuable things from it. I often use these experiences in other artworks. So it has been the same with this sculpture.

The main experience is how to work with plaster. Plaster is a strong and stiff material, but breaks easily if it moves. I think I'll use it more often to fill bigger volumes in new work.
I have also used a new texture on the sculpture; the mountain biker has dead leaves as a finish layer and I am already busy with a sculpture in which I have used the same thing.

It all took a lot of time and I think half of it was thinking and staring at it to make it strong enough while retaining the visual effects. I wanted to have the shapes and the mechanical character of the bones in 'Steady Eddy'...

....and the movement of 'Flow Joe'

The more I progressed with the sculpture, the more limited I got in flexibility in the choice of bones and bike parts and ended up asking 5 different bike shops if they had a old handlebar and to drive an hour to the only place where I knew there would be leg bones of the right size. I made the head from a skull that came from Grizedale forest.

This and many other sculptures can be seen from now in Grizedale forest cafe in the Lake District. Here is a link to the exhibition information: http://www.breweryarts.co.uk/art/current-exhibitions/exhibitions-at-grizedale-forest/

Job adverts are depressing!

As an artist earning money can be difficult and for the last few years I have managed to get work on a flexible basis. Now that I had to move to a different city, I had to look for a new job where I live now. I thought it would be easier to find a job here in Manchester, but so far it has be surprisingly difficult. I thought I have loads of different experience that would make it relatively easy, relatively that is. No, I didn't even got invited for an interview for jobs of which I thought I ticked all the boxes and I am now wondering why.
Could it be that I am AGAIN battling the same prejudice as a jobseeker as I am battling as an artist? As an artist I have a strong feeling that there are a bunch of pretentious curators out there that are lacking self confidence and therefor don't dare to select non-art-background artists for their exhibitions. Could also be pure jealousy that I manage to make good stuff without going through the system for 3 or 4 years. Then again, once I have found a curator that doesn't select artists on that bases, my background is actually an interesting asset.

With jobs it is the same and different. Again, my background consisting of several very different, but solid, jobs in which I have done well. I am now wondering if the diversity on my CV confuses potential employers. But to be honest, if you have any knowledge you would see I have a wide range of skills and serious about what I do.
I have applied for very basic jobs in administration and wasn't even invited. If they would read my CV well, they could see that I can actually create an administration and not just maintaining it! They could also tell that I am not this pain-in-the-arse-smart-guy that will question everything; my CV also contains basic jobs in which I have done well.
Knowing I can do loads of jobs, I read these adverts for basic jobs where it sometimes seems they are looking for a CEO or Superman. I wonder how people would respond in an interview to a question like this: 'Do you have a passion for administration'? Passion? Passion? There might be a few autistic people out there that would describe it as a passion, but don't you mean 'like'? 'Do you thrive in a target driven environment?' You mean scoring points by harassing people on the phone? No thanks.
If I get a job I am not passionate about, but like and if the job has targets, I'll probably do well anyway. I am a hard working individual and my base mentality towards work is better than average. Did I say I am self confident? Seems to be clear that I am also quite independent..... Anyway, this is the crap I daily read when looking for a job:

Customer Service Door Executive

This is an exciting opportunity with a company going from strength to strength. We make recession busting products and are leader in our field. We are now looking for a Door Mat to compliment our dynamic team of professional Door Mats!

Role:

We are looking for strong driven independent talents with a passion for receiving the interesting bottom side of someones else’s footwear. This is a hospitality role and therefor you need to have proven track record in customer service, preferable in the same field. You also need to have a minimum of 3 years experience in a similar role. You should also be able to maximize sales opportunities and increase brand awareness.

Skills:

-       - You must be fluent in Door Mattery and English

-       - Able to do draw attention to yourself so our customers don’t bring in dirt in our marvelous clean state of the art shops

-      -  Excellent communication skills

-      -  Outstanding presentation skills

-      -  Be able to express the word ‘Welcome’ like no other

-       - Be able to clean all types of footwear

Do you thrive on targets? Do you have a strong mentality towards customer service? Do you have a passion for laying on your back 24/7 getting covered in other peoples crap? Does this sound like you? Then we might be looking for you!

A typical Freakinstyle holiday

So I have been away on a holiday avoiding all the regular things I do; no Sculpting, cleaning bones, cycling, rock climbing, watching films, Facebook, phone, Twitter, Email etc. Sadly, I had to skip running too because of a back injury. One big part of my daily routine is missing: finding stuff to use in sculptures or finding stuff in general.

Somehow how my mind is always set to find things that are out of place and therefor finding cool things. I have always done that and as a child I didn’t really know what to do with it. Now that I do I can actually use them so they become more than just a things that take up space. I do have a rule to prevent hoarding: If I haven’t got a great idea for it within 6 months it goes in the bin. That way I keep a clear view of what I have and learn which things work better for me in a creative way.

So what did I find?

Lots of shells as you can see, just like any other tourist spending time on the beach, but nice to know that locals were a bit surprised about the amount of good ones I found. This is 1/3 of the shells I found. Now that I have the feeling broken shells would work better for my sculptures, they probably end up as decoration in the bathroom, because I don't like to broke things that are nice.

I also found a toy soldier, old oil lamp, lots of tiles, a skull of a small bird and a vertebra that I can’t place.

The oil lamp I'll probably use as a oil lamp or to put a candle in, the tiles I broke in small pieces to create a mosaic at some point. The skull and vertebra I'll probably use in the more normal freakinstyle way.

BUT the best thing I found was just 100m away from where people are enjoying their beach holiday…

.....a Dolphin! I think it is an adult Common Dolphin.

When I was wondering around, I spotted the vertebrae sticking out of the sand and from 15m I saw it was a section of vertebrae from a Dolphin. I have found one before in the UK, nu skull unfortunately. 

Off course I immediately started digging! I soon found the tail and discovered it was completely entangled in a piece of a fishnet. This happens a lot; Dolphins getting caught up in fishnets and the fishermen cut them out of the net and throw them overboard as pointless collateral damage.

Till that point I didn’t expect to find any more than the spine, but when I found the first neck bone I knew I had to dig more around and hit the jackpot! Well, for me at least. I found the skull, but without under jaw or teeth. The teeth are very small and imagine they drop out easily. There was still flesh on the skull and reburied it in a safer location.

Discovering something like this would be exciting even before I was a sculptor! I still don’t know what to do with it, but it makes a nice holiday story!